Fantasia 2000 (2000)

Simply A Masterpiece

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I wasn't impressed with this iteration of a classic film. I felt like the music wasn't as well in-time with animations.

From Uncle Walt's own admittance, "Fantasia" was the kind of one-hit wonder that could only be elaborated, improved but never duplicated, I don't even think it could be improved. It wasn't a kind of something, but one of a kind. There can't be another "Fantasia" as much as there can't be another Mona Lisa or Eiffel Tower. I guess that Walt Disney meant the "concept" of "Fantasia" rather than the finished result. After all, there couldn't make a second "Bambi" but they could make "The Lion King".So the concept can be duplicated indeed and for as long as animation is here to entertain children and adult, the temptation to combine music and drawings in a harmony of sounds, shapes and colors would be too great not to yield to it. I myself do a lot of editing and I can relate to the satisfaction in combining movements with music, I can relate to the struggle to find the right musical piece to match visual footage or the opposite. "Fantasia" plays in another league of course, but this is the common denominator between the professional wizards and the computer's sorcerer's apprentices, we use music as an imagination tool and animation as a choreography. Any work combining both is a potential "Fantasia" segment. Inimitable maybe, but inevitable indeed.But ever since its iconic predecessor, the sequel of "Fantasia" had been delayed for years and years. It was a dream from Walt Disney to make it a series, a franchise but the relative failure at the box-office put an end to this dreams. There would be no "Fantasia" sequel but the Disney Studios still provided between 1941 and 1950, two animated musical based on the same structure: "Melody Time" and "Make my Music". These films were made on the cusp of the first Golden Age and the Renaissance with "Cinderella" and were not lacking charm of their own. "Blame it on the Samba", "The Flight of the Bumblebee", "Casey at the Bat" and "Peter and the Wolf" were among the few shorts that emerged above the overall forgettable quality of these movies, at a time where Disney was looking for a second breath of creativity. It is said that it was the success of home video release of "Fantasia" in the early 90's that convinced Roy E. Disney to make the sequel, it was the project of the decade, taking years and years within the 90's to collect and reassemble all the vignettes, initially, three clips from "Fantasia" were supposed to be kept but at the end, only "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" made it."Fantasia 2000" tries to capture the same magic of the Creation of the World sequence with a ballet of flying whales, the abstract opening with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a reminiscent of Toccata E Fogue in D Minor from Johann Sebastian Bach and you can tell the Pink Flamingoes is a cute nod to the ballet of hippos and alligators, and it's the part I enjoyed the most, short, funny and whimsical.And the film doesn't always keep itself under the first one's shadow, it features an interesting sketchy version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" paying a tribute to veteran caricaturist Harry Hirschfield and a second short involving a beloved Disney figure, a reconstitution of the Noah Ark episode with Donald Duck. But as visually energetic and beautiful as these shorts look, there's something that seems to fall flat ever since it starts, whether it's the knowledge that most of it is computer imagery or because it just takes itself too seriously for its own good. I mean, flying whales or animals entering the ark, wasn't that a bit too pompous? The 'Donald' part was like a rehash on the Lion King's opening and didn't have much to offer. The "Blame it on the Samba" segment in "Melody Music" was a better use of the iconic duck, instead of Edgar's "Pump and Circumstances".And it is indeed "pompous in the circumstances", while not a disappointment, the film leaves a lot to be desired and doesn't 't succeed in capturing the magic of the first. It is also spoiled by the introductions from various celebrities (Steve Martin, Quincy Jones, Elizabeth Landsbury, Bette Midler) giving it the odd flavor of a TV ceremony rather or one of these "Once Upon a Time" documentaries rather than a legitimate theatrical feature film. The film even misses the opportunity of a great finale and ends in a very anticlimactic and rushed fashion with ending credits popping up right after the end of the last clip. If you're going to play it like a show, the least you can do is to say us goodbye and wishing we've enjoyed it. It must have looked great in these IMAX theaters but the format was kind of cheap given the spectacular entertainment it was supposed to be.It is very ironic that the sequel of "Fantasia", as intended so, was released, in 1999 at the end of Disney Renaissance with "Tarzan" and before the sorry trend of sequels to previous classics. I still don't know if we should consider "Fantasia 2000" as the worst movie of the Disney Renaissance or the best sequel made in that trend, but it wouldn't make the Top 10, not even Top 20 of the best Disney experiences on screen, it certainly looks great and some parts are magnificent-looking, but overall, the quality is very uneven.

Every time I watch this movie, I wind up Googling "Fantasia 3" just to see if there is any chance we are gonna get another of these...so far, we aren't. It's a shame, as this doesn't just stand-up against the inventive and gorgeous original, but it improves upon it by simply being imminently more watchable. Stand outs: "Rhapsody in Blue" – funny, buoyant, ultra-cool, and one of the best representations of responsibility vs. passion; "Donald's Ark" – most essentially Disney, cartoony, bright, and poignant.

For the first time in years, Disney finally managed to create a new masterpiece in traditional animation. For me Fantasia/2000, is one of the greatest animated films of all time. It brings such talent and magnificence to screen with its lavish animation and segments. This will be reviewed by each segment.Symphony No. 5 in C minor-I. Allegro con brio by Ludwig van BeethovenThe first Fantasia 2000 segment starts off to the musical note of Beethoven's Symphony No.5 with some abstract shapes and colours which take the shape of butterflies trying to escape a multitude of bats in spectacular splashes of light. This segment's surrealism gives the film a grand opening and makes it an accomplished segment because the musical number fills in very well with this segment and gives it a different and unknown kind of animation for viewers to see which is surreal art. Surreal art is one of my favourite kinds of art and I was very pleased to see it in brilliant form.Pines of Rome by Ottorino RespighiFor the second segment of Fantasia 2000, The Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi was chosen to be played along with the animated story of a group of whales who are able to fly due to a supernova occurring in the water they live in. They are then able to fly into the clouds to another nesting grounds of water. This segment is a grand spectacle of Computer animation as well as traditional animation. The Computer animation which is used in the whales is brilliant because for a time like 1999, this was groundbreaking technology and it is wonderful to see it in animation because it gives animators inspiration to go to new grounds of animation. This segment is my favourite because it has grand tune towards it and the story of it is brilliantly put forward to this animated tale of magnificence. Rhapsody in Blue by George GershwinThe third segment of Fantasia 2000 takes us to the streets of New York during the Great Depression. The musical number is the famous Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin which gives the segment a jazzy and tuneful theme upon itself. This segment's animation was inspired by the animation of Al Hirschfeld whose animated productions have delighted audiences around the world and certainly when it was used here. This segment remains a complete success because it is terrific at relating the perils of the Great Depression with children as well as adults and if anyone could relate trauma and perils in a colourful and charming way then they would become great tellers of harsh times. The whole layout of this segment is brilliant and it deserves a standing ovation. I did not think it was one the best segments but it was not a bad one.Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major-I. Allegro by Dmitri ShostakovichOur fourth segment is based upon the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Story of the Steadfast Tin Soldier. This segment is drawn upon traditional animation in classic fairy tale fashion of music and art. I don't have much to say about this particular segment apart from that I thought the music went very well with this tale of animation and I think that is what remains is that the animation is very similar to animated films like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King and that makes it very well known to modern audiences and children. The musical number which comes from Dimitri Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2, creates a connection with this fairy tale in the sense that it becomes almost as similar as the segment itself making it perfect for the task.The Carnival of the Animals, Finale by Camille Saint-SaënsThe fifth act of the film takes place among a bunch of flamingos who go by their boring routines until another flamingo comes along with a yo-yo to ruin it all for them in comical fashion. This brilliantly built along to the musical tune of Camille Saint Saens' The Carnival of the Animals. Although this segment is short, it does provide a lot of fun for different types of audiences and is created to be very funny as well as being brilliantly constructed to provide a great new segment.Pomp and Circumstance – Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4 by Edward ElgarTo start our final two acts, we have Donald Duck appearing in a story based on Noah's Ark with Donald as Noah's First Mate. This is combined with Sir Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches to create grand march between the animation and the music. It successfully attains that goal by making traditional animation fun to watch as we see Donald Duck messing about with the animals while also being reunited with his wife towards the end after believing that she might have died when the flood came. If there was ever going to be a third Fantasia, I believe this one would be chosen as it contains Donald Duck in an unforgettable cartoon.Firebird Suite – 1919 Version by Igor StravinskyOur final piece is taken from Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. The animated story is that of a woodland sprite who is accompanied by a deer to bring happiness toward the forest they live in by having the sprite make everything shiny and wonderful until we come to a nearby volcano where inside a Firebird lives. As we might expect the sprite gets destroyed by the Firebird but is resurrected by her companion to remake what happened earlier but this the sprite manages to spread grass and trees and shiny stuff around the volcano and the forest surrounding it. It manages to gives us one final grand animated tale which combines macabre and fantasy in one huge spectacle of light and destruction.I listed it as the fifth best film of 1999.