FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

the audience applauded

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The animation and character design is actually pretty good. The story is also somewhat okay. But, the problem is that this movie has a save the rain forest message that interferes with the story. It's not nearly as bad as a Captain Planet episode in that regard, but considering this is a movie, it takes up much of the story. I will say that it is worth a watch. In fact, I had to watch it in my high school Geography class. But there lies the problem, this movie wants to be a PSA or Educational movie, but has fairies, talking animals, and an evil monster villain. It treats humans as the devil. Also, most of what would be a okay story is taken up by obvious save the rain forest propaganda. The propaganda just feels like filler, too. It's not educational, and technically doesn't even count as a PSA.

Ferngully is a great movie for kids. First of all the story is great for children and will keep them really entertained. Kids like the characters and the story. Of course the story obviously is not super engrossing for adults but who cares? It is a kids movie and they are almost never also meant to be entertaining for adults too so by that score this movie is better than most kids movies.Most important this movie has a good message about the environment and caring about the environment and kids really seem to respond to it because it is presented in this movie in an entertaining way that they will like.

Children will watch just about anything if it's animated. Stop them from watching this one. It is full of so much bad science and outright falsehoods that you owe it to your progeny to protect their little minds.Not since "Captain Planet" has there been such a blatant effort to use cartoons to brainwash your little ones. The little bit of information that has any truth behind it is exaggerated so far that anyone who paid attention in 6th grade Science class knows it to be wrong.It's a rather cute story, and that is the problem. It is NOT okay to be wrong as long as you're cute. And it is NOT okay to lie to your children for a good cause.

A corporation is logging the Australian Ferngully rainforest - and the fairies don't like it! So... conserving rainforests is not to preserve the complex ecosystem and therefore the delicate balance of life on Earth itself. No - it's so FAIRIES will have a place to live.The film is dedicated to: "Our Children and Our Children's' Children."FERNGULLY: THE LAST RAINFOREST follows sexy, half-naked, winged, tramp sprite Chrysta (voiced by Samantha Mathis), as she discovers humans in the forest, doing something unthinkable - wearing clothes. And cutting down trees. We are led to believe the humans are killing trees for no reason, but - without advocating senseless destruction - logging is done for a number of reasons, none of which is specifically so that fairies go homeless.That is the first un-brained message that our children and our children's' children can get confused over in this animated film. (Note that the industrial society that performs the logging is providing jobs and domestic product, which feed and clothe the very same children's' children this movie is preaching to.) Chrysta's magic old witch friend (voice of Grace Zabriskie) once entrapped an evil spirit called Hexus (Tim Curry) in one of the trees. The logging people unwittingly free Hexus by cutting down his imprisoning tree. (I really shouldn't go into the nonsense behind a metaphysical prison being breached by physical means.) Hexus then possesses the big logging machine, so it can be anthropomorphized into a snarling beast. And working for that beast, the representatives of humanity - two bucktoothed layabouts who drive the logger and a big blond American idiot, Zak (Jonathan Ward), with arms more muscle-bound than his brain even, whose menial job is to spraypaint the trees scheduled for the axe.And the headlines read: BIG BLOND American IDIOT SHRUNK TO FAIRY SIZE. (Although film is made by Australian production companies, and although Zak's license says he lives in Byron Bay, Australia, Zak's accent, demeanor and provincial arrogance dub him unmistakably American.) Through a magic spell, Zak becomes as tiny as Chrysta and shares his ignorant human perspectives with the forest sprites, who teach him how to become more forest and less technology. Which is kinda futile, because Zak in no way represents humanity OR corporate interests - I shudder to think that this blond bell-end supposedly speaks for ME. Or anyone with more brain than brawn.Zak infuriates Chrysta's fairy boyfriend (Christian Slater) by trying to get naked with her, then makes us question how he could harbor those desires when he starts singing nature songs like a fairy, as he is gradually propagandized into a tree hugger. Very noble an' all, but even though he helps grind the Bad Machine to a stop, having his eyes opened to the ways of the woods won't stop deforestation. He is a bottom-rung day-laborer. He has no say in the corporation sending another Bad Machine to replace the one he wrecked. He'll be fired and the logging will continue unabated.Robin Williams voices Batty, a bat who escaped an experimental lab (forever burdened with an antenna stuck in his ear), who helps the fairies with his usual flap-yapping Williams shtick.And then the worst crime of all - magic. Final scenes of FERNGULLY show a denuded forest being regrown in minutes through the fairy witch's magic - which undermines the movie's entire message. If our children's' children see a rainforest grown from nothing in minutes, how are they ever going to appreciate it as something precious and rare and hard to regenerate? If a rainforest can be grown instantaneously through Magic, well, why the hell NOT tear it down for homes for the homeless and creating jobs for the economy and then re-grow another one like in the movie?And the headlines read: FAIRIES MAGICALLY REGROW FOREST IN MINUTES. LOGGING CORP REJOICES - MORE TREES INSTANTANEOUSLY! MORE JOBS! MORE LOGGING! Moral: As long as magic fairies are so militant about keeping their homes, we'll always have rainforests.