Movies - The Rescuers Down Under

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	Movies - The Rescuers Down Under

The Rescuers Down Under is the twenty-ninth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and was released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution on November 16, 1990. This film, which takes place in the Australian Outback, is the sequel of the 1977 film The Rescuers
, based upon the novels of Margery Sharp.

About the film

Characters

The Rescuers Down Under had the familiar characters from the first Rescuers movie, the mice Bernard (Bob Newhart) and Bianca (Eva Gabor). New characters included the albatross Wilbur (John Candy), brother of the albatross played by the late Jim Jordan in the original; Jake the kangaroo mouse (Tristan Rogers); and the movie's villain, an animal poacher, who was called Percival C. McLeach (George C. Scott).

Disney firsts

The Rescuers Down Under is notable for its firsts for Disney. It was the first Disney traditionally-animated movie to completely use the new computerized CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) process. CAPS allowed more efficient and sophisticated post-production of the Disney animated films, and made obsolete the traditional practice of hand-painting cels. As a result, The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film for which all original film elements were completely made within a digital environment. The film was also the first sequel made by Disney for one of its animated films and the only such sequel to be included in the Animated Features Canon.

On its first release, The Rescuers Down Under was preceded by a short subject starring Mickey Mouse in an adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper. (This was only the second new Mickey Mouse short made since the 1950s, the first being Mickey's Christmas Carol
, which was made to accompany the re-release of The Rescuers.)

Box office popularity

The film did poorly in the box office (making only $27 million). Consequently, there were no further sequels. The Disney Studios considered Rescuers Down Under such a failure that they were later discouraged to release following Disney sequels theatrically. Only when they were fully sure that the film would be a success would they release it theatrically, such as The Jungle Book 2
and Return to Never Land
. It is considered to be the only "failure" of the Disney Rennaisance era (1989-1999)

Trivia

The TV show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends had its first four videos released the same year that this movie was.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Rescuers Down Under ]

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