14. The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
he Rescuers Down Under (also known as The Rescuers 2: Australia’s Most Wanted or Bernard and Bianca in Australia) is a 1990 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on November 16, 1990. Set in the Australian Outback, the film features the voices of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor in her final film role, and John Candy. The film centers on Bernard and Bianca travelling to Australia to save a boy named Cody from a bloodthirsty poacher in pursuit of an endangered bird of prey.
The 29th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, the film is the sequel to the 1977 animated film The Rescuers, which was based on the novels of Margery Sharp. This film was the second released during the Disney Renaissance (1989–1999) era, which had begun the year prior with The Little Mermaid, but was a major under-performer at the box-office compared to Mermaid and the other films of the Disney Renaissance era.
The Rescuers Down Under was the first animated theatrical film sequel produced by Disney; along with Fantasia 2000, and Winnie the Pooh, it is one of the few sequels that are part of the Disney animated features canon.
This one is certainly the most interesting of the classic Disney animated features mostly because of a number of things. One, this is the first animated sequel produced by Disney and when you think of a Disney animated movie to make a sequel for, The Rescuers isn’t really the first movie you think of when you think of a continuing story that would be good for multiple movies but here you go.
For another, it’s weird that after such the success of The Little Mermaid that this would be the next movie to come out.
Also, this is the first movie Disney used its CAPS program, CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) was a computer-based production system used for digital ink and paint and compositing, allowing for more efficient and sophisticated post-production of the Disney animated films and making the traditional practice of hand-painting cels obsolete. The animators’ drawings and the background paintings were scanned into computer systems instead, where the animation drawings are inked and painted by digital artists, and later combined with the scanned backgrounds in software that allows for camera positioning, camera movements, multiplane effects, and other techniques. The film also uses CGI elements throughout such as the field of flowers in the opening sequence, McLeach’s truck, and perspective shots of Wilbur flying above Sydney Opera House and New York City. The CAPS project was the first of Disney’s collaborations with computer graphics company Pixar, which would eventually become a feature animation production studio making computer-generated animated films for Disney before being bought outright in 2006. As a result, The Rescuers Down Under was the first animated film for which the entire final film elements were assembled and completed within a digital environment, as well as the first fully digital feature film. However, the film’s marketing approach did not call attention to the use of the CAPS process.
So, what happened? Why is this movie so overlooked by the general public for? Well, there’s a couple of reasons.
One, the movie was a huge underperformer only making around $3.5 million in its’ opening weekend during the usually profitable Thanksgiving holiday season. But for Disney to not make that much after the success of Little Mermaid, that just seems out of the ordinary.
Two, it didn’t help that Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then head of the animation studios, pulled the advertising for the film quickly after its’ release.
Third, nobody could’ve predicted the even bigger success of Home Alone, which opened on the exact same weekend as Rescuers did.
So unfortunately, the movie failed to find an audience the first time around. And it’s a shame because not only was the movie not a bad movie but it was a pretty damn good movie. Honestly, I like it a whole lot better than the first Rescuers movie.
For one thing, the animation really does look fantastic, this new animation concept they’ve adapted really does work and a lot of the scenes that use the CAPS process really do hold up very well with time.
The voice work is great, it’s always nice to have Bob Newhart & Eva Gabor as Bernard and Miss Bianca but you also have John Candy as Wilbur and of course, George C. Scott as the villain and if you want to talk about an underrated Disney villain, it’s McLeach because unlike many of the other Disney villains who can be tricked so easily, a good majority of the film, the dude actually is one of the smarter villains Disney has put out because the main kid, Cody, thinks he can outwit him but McLeach is always one step ahead of him especially in the beginning of the movie.
And overall, the way the story plays out, it’s not afraid to go for some of the darker elements so that both kids and adults can enjoy the film.
What’s also unfortunate is that this came out in 1990, the same year Ducktales: The Movie – Treasure Of The Lost Lamp, another extremely underrated Disney animated film, came out. So, you have two of Disney’s stronger animated movies released in the same year and yet, nobody remembers them.
The Rescuers Down Under is definitely a movie that needs to get more attention than it already has because it’s not only one of Disney’s stronger animated movies but it’s an even better movie than the first Rescuers movie was. Check it out and you will not be disappointed.
13. Up (2009)
Up is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Pete Docter, the film centers on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and an earnest young “Wilderness Explorer” (a fictional youth group similar to the Boy Scouts) named Russell (Jordan Nagai). By tying thousands of balloons to his home, 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his dream to see the wilds of South America and complete a promise made to his late wife, Ellie. The film was co-directed by Bob Peterson, with music composed by Michael Giacchino.
Docter began working on the story in 2004, which was based on fantasies of escaping from life when it becomes too irritating. He and eleven other Pixar artists spent three days in Venezuela gathering research and inspiration. The designs of the characters were caricatured and stylized considerably, and animators were challenged with creating realistic cloth. The floating house is attached by a varying number between 10,000 and 20,000 balloons in the film’s sequences. Up was Pixar’s first film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D.
Up was released on May 29, 2009, and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film to do so. The film became a great financial success, accumulating over $735 million in its theatrical release. Up received universal acclaim, with most reviewers commending the humor and heart of the film. Edward Asner was praised for his portrayal of Carl, and a montage of Carl and his wife Ellie aging together was widely lauded. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, making it the second animated film in history to receive such a nomination, following Beauty and the Beast (1991).
Not going to say a lot because this is another movie where I have to ask, what is there to be said that hasn’t been said? It’s such a beautiful movie and it ties with Wall-E as my favorite Pixar movie. Up really is an Up-lifting story.
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