Movies - Fantasia 2000

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	Movies - Fantasia 2000

Fantasia 2000 is the thirty-eighth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. The film was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, which premiered on December 17, 1999, and was released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution; first to IMAX theaters on December 31 1999, and later to regular theatres in June 2000. The film uses a similar format to Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia, visualizing classical music compositions with various forms of animation, with live-action introductions. The music is performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, arranged and conducted by James Levine except for 2 pieces arranged by Peter Schickele, and the original Sorcerer's Apprentice segment taken from the original film.

Program

The composers and their works, in the order they are used in the film, are:

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 (abstract patterns resembling butterflies)
Ottorino Respighi - Pines of Rome (frolicking humpback whales in an unusual setting)
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (an episode of New York City 1930s-era scenes drawn in the style of Al Hirschfeld)
Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2: Allegro (a portrayal of the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Steadfast Tin Soldier)
Camille Saint-Saëns - The Carnival of the Animals
: Finale (a flock of flamingos, one with a yo-yo; music arrainged by Peter Schickele)
Paul Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Mickey Mouse, from the original Fantasia, conducted by Leopold Stokowski)
Edward Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance Marches (The story of Noah's Ark, with Donald Duck
as a first mate to Noah; music arranged by Peter Schickele)
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird. The story of a spring sprite and her companion Elk. After a long winter she attempts to restore life to a forest but accidentally awakes the Firebird spirit of a nearby volcano. Angered the Firebird proceeds in destroying the forest and seemingly the sprite. She is restored to life however after the destruction and the forest life is reborn with her. The story is considered an exercise at the theme of Life-death-rebirth deities. This section also exemplifies the use of a digital version of the Multiplane technique.

History

Origins

The plan for the original Fantasia movie was for it to be a kind of permanently running show, periodically adding new episodes while others would be rotated out. However, the film's failure to achieve success at the box office, combined with the loss of the European market due to World War II, meant that the plan went unused. Accordingly, Fantasia 2000 implemented this idea by retaining the sequence with Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer's apprentice, arguably the most popular segment from the original film.

Development for Fantasia 2000 began in 1990, and production began the following year. The music selections were made as a collective decision by Roy E. Disney, James Levine, and members of the production staff. Most were decisions driven by the musical preferences of the team; Roy personally chose the Pines of Rome. Other pieces were discovered long after the story ideas were set, such as the Steadfast Tin Soldier, where the visuals were based on artwork done for the original Fantasia, but the Shostakovitch piece was presented to the team by an animator relatively late into the production schedule.

Rhapsody in Blue was a work already in progress by director Eric Goldberg (lead animator for the Genie in Aladdin
, also inspired by Al Hirschfeld's art), when Disney approached him to complete the piece for the movie. This decision was ideal given the head start on the work and so that the film could include a work from an American composer. Taking on Rhapsody in Blue also allowed Disney to keep the animators assigned to their feature Kingdom of the Sun (later released as The Emperor's New Groove
) busy while Kingdom went through an extensive re-write. Some press articles written after the completion of Groove reversed the roles, saying that Goldberg first approached Disney for Rhapsody for Fantasia 2000 and was initially rejected, and later the producers came back to him as a result of the need find something to do with the animation staff while the Kingdom rewrite was going on.

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Movies - Fantasia 2000

Program

History

Origins

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