AFI Movies: #58 Fantasia
I swear this movie somehow had less dialogue than the Chaplin films I've watched.
If you missed my first post where I explain what this is and how I’m scoring things, here you go.
I don’t think any corporation has been more a part of my life than the Walt Disney Company. As a kid, we had a stable rotation of Disney movies on VHS that would get us through the rainy winter days, and our family vacations were almost always trips to Disneyland. As an adult, I have had a little bit harder time staying up to date with everything they are putting out, but I have spent some of my hard earned money to go check out other Disney parks in Florida and France. Sure, Disney has its problems, and I’ll be one of the first to point them out, but for the most part, I’m a fan. Disneyland is still one of my absolute favorite places on Earth, even if my trips there are less frequent and more expensive now.
I say all this because I have some beef to settle with the Mouse and friends. A very stupid and expensive thing I’ve been doing as I’ve been watching and writing these reviews, is that I have been buying a physical copy of every movie. Sure, some of them are a little harder to find, or haven’t been updated since the DVD version, but usually that hasn’t bothered me because that means it is cheaper to buy. For 42 movies, I was able to get my hands on some type of physical copy that I could put in my player and watch. Then, it was time for me to buy Fantasia. This should have been an easy one. Disney is an insanely large company that still makes and produces films, and releases them in all forms. They also, for my fellow 90s kids, have what they call the “Disney Vault” which is their way of making it a big deal when one of their older films gets a new, physical release. Well, the last time Fantasia, my next film in the AFI 100, was released as a physical edition was on a 2 movie special edition DVD, which wouldn’t bother me except for it being three times what I’ve paid for any other movie I’ve bought so far.
I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life, and spent money I’ll never get back on things dumber than this, but I could not, in principle, spend what they were asking for on a DVD. So instead, I revived my Disney+ subscription, and will probably forget to cancel it before I end up giving the Disney Company more money than I would have if I would have just bought the DVD.
Sigh.
Now that I’ve aired that out, I guess I can talk about the movie:
Entertainment Value- 1.5/2
This is not the first time where I’ve had to stretch what “entertaining” means, but this might be my biggest stretch yet. For anyone unfamiliar with what Fantasia is, it is basically a series of animations that were drawn to match with various pieces of classical music. In other words, there is no overarching plot, no characters that spend more than fifteen minutes or so on screen, and some parts don’t have any plot at all. On top of that, the only dialogue is from the live action portions between each short, where the upcoming short is introduced. That being said, I’d say that Fantasia is at least visually entertaining, and anyone who appreciates animation will enjoy seeing this at least once.
Correctness- 0/2
I had to do some investigation for this one. Since I watched the movie on Disney+, there was a content warning about offensive content in the film. Curious as to what I should be prepared for, I did some online searching and most of the information I found was about a chunk that was edited out in the 1960s that removed a racially insensitive caricature from one of the shorts. However, some others pointed to a completely different short that was left in the film, but ultimately got a “eh” from me. Like I usually do with this category, though, I’d rather err on the side of caution and just give it a zero.
Influence- 2/2
Not only is Mickey’s sorcerer hat from this film one of the most prevalent pieces of Disney iconography, but there is also a really awesome show done at Disneyland called Fantasmic! That is inspired by the movie, so I’ll give it full credit for that.
“Rewatchability”- 1/2
Speaking of Sorcerer Mickey, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” short in Fantasia might be the only part of this movie I ever put on again, but it’s iconic and memorable and from this movie so I guess we can give it a little credit.
Technical Score- 2/2
There is only one person in all of human history that had the proper amount of crazy and influence to make something like a full length animated film where the majority of the sound is classical music compositions. His name was Walt Disney. It really is a beautiful piece of art.
Overall- 6.5/10
This isn’t anywhere near my favorite Disney movie, but apparently it served a role in saving Mickey Mouse’s popularity, so for that, I give it my respect.
You can stream Fantasia on Disney+
Hasta luego,
Josh
Up Next: #57 The Third Man (stream on tubi)