Pops Saw a Movie and Watched TV: FANTASIA and BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER

 Here’s a two-part review wherein the only unifying subject matter is animation… and disappointment. 

For some reason, last night I watched Disney’s FANTASIA for the first time in many decades. The 1940 film animates stories to match eight segments of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski (but played in the film by composer Deems Taylor) and performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. My memory of the movie was that is was okay, but it didn’t move me on a deep level. Maybe I was too young, I thought, so I went back last night with a somewhat firmer appreciation of the music used in the movie. 

And I had the same reaction: It’s okay. Honestly, I think my antipathy for Disney is so deeply ingrained that I’m incapable of loving anything that features Mickey Mouse, even in a cameo. But the rest of the segments are just semi-successful to me as well. They mostly have that flat, reined-in feel and/or overabundance of cutesiness that defines Disney animation for me (I confess I fast forwarded past the "Dance of the Hours" ballet. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.). Only Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” (depicting the early history of Earth through the demise of the dinosaurs [erroneously credited to a global warming dustbowl, as the theory of the comet had yet to be discovered]) and Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” (featuring the demon Chernabog summoning evil spirits from the grave) held my interest. 

(Also I should note that Disney+ adds a disclaimer about the offensive racial imagery in the movie, but the version I saw still edits out all of the shots of Sunflower, the stereotyped black “centaurette”, so… maybe they meant the Chinese dancing mushrooms?)

My own personal prejudice aside, FANTASIA, despite its lofty aspirations, still mostly feels… to me, anyway… uninspired. 

Which, ironically, is how I also—surprisingly—feel about Prime Video’s new series, BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER. When it was announced some years back that Bruce Timm (the creative genius behind the iconic BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES and BATMAN BEYOND) was to helm a new cartoon featuring the Darknight Detective, fanboys collectively wept an ocean of joy-tears. There was no way this could be anything but a new classic (much as I loathe that oxymoronic term). News that the show would be a retro throwback to Batman’s Golden Age caused some raised eyebrows, but few people didn’t think Timm and company could pull it off. 

Well… again… it’s okay. But just okay. It took me a solid month to get through the short ten episode season, which speaks volumes as to my gut reaction to the first few viewings. Glacially paced, with a drab sepia-toned palette, the rather blocky animation lacks the dynamism of the previous efforts from Timm’s teams. Story-wise, familiar characters are revamped (the Penguin is gender-swapped, Commissioner and Babs Gordon are black, Harvey Dent is a jerk, Harley Quinn is not Harley Quinn, it’s all over the place), but it mostly feels like change for its own sake; very few of the alterations feel inspired by story so much as a desire on the part of the producers to not be bored by treading familiar ground (which also explains the absence of some iconic villains… the Joker doesn’t appear until a teaser at the very end of the last episode). 

I dunno. I think perhaps the retro setting was a bad idea. Where do you go? Hardcore Batman fans know the history, so there are expectations… that the producers will no doubt try to subvert again, with probably the same middling results. I think it could’ve been far more exciting if they had simply continued Batman’s adventures in present day, utilizing some of the members of the comic book cast that have been introduced or developed since the last series ended in 1995 (and I don’t necessarily mean picking up where that series left off, they could’ve started fresh). Batman is perhaps the most endlessly-adaptable superhero in the history of the genre, he works in all gradients from silly to super-serious. So it’s disappointing that this latest iteration is so… (see above).

Pops Watched TV: LIGHT & MAGIC

 While I’m normally (and naturally) skeptical of documentaries that have corporate ties to their subject matter, I nonetheless watched LIGHT & MAGIC, the six-part docuseries on Disney+ about ILM, and find myself—somewhat surprisingly—giving it a solid recommendation. 

I often bemoan the death of “movie magic,” just referring to the cynical lack of wonder and awe over how special effects are made anymore, with the catch-all of “it’s all digital” being the answer to every “how did they do that?” But while the most inspiring parts of LIGHT & MAGIC are certainly seeing the ragtag physical effects artists of the 1970s figuring out how to do everything that George Lucas demanded of them for STAR WARS (indeed, Lucas comes across as rather dense here, less a brilliant visionary than a stubborn dreamer who, when told, “We can’t do that,” just said, “You’ll figure it out,” and was lucky that they DID), and there’s a really depressing section on some of those guys finding themselves feeling “extinct” when JURASSIC PARK rendered them obsolete, there’s a surprising turnaround at the end (spoiler alert) wherein some brand new techniques (“the Volume”… look it up) have reintegrated traditional filmmaking into the modern era in a way that many would previously have thought was done. 

For those of us who grew up witnessing the transition from practical to digital effects and ever gave a crap about how any of it was done, or if you just like seeing smart geeks doing creative stuff, check this series out. Hell, it even made me go back and re-watch all of the STAR WARS films.

Originally posted on social media, Aug. 19, 2022