The biggest question I had before watching Fantasia 2000 was the most obvious one: is it better than the 1940 original? The answer is easy. Clocking in at 74 minutes, and featuring longer segment introductions plus a reprise of Paul Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from the first film, the new version is actually only about half as long as the 120 minute original. On that element alone, it cannot be considered better. More importantly though, what really comes across as amazing, is how the 1940 Mickey Mouse segment that appears amidst all of the newer, more modern segments, does so with almost seemless ease, even though it is 60 years old. This is a true testament to the quality and resources used at the time it was made. Keep in mind Fantasia came out before Casablanca or Citizen Kane, for that matter.
Let me just say I had an absolute ball watching 2000 though. From an imaginative and narrative standpoint, the film pays wonderful tribute to its source material (classical music, and, as a welcome addition in one number, George Gershwin). For me, by combining animated images with the powerful scope of music, the Fantasia project continuously inspires and excites.
The film opens with a brief splash of Beethoven's Ninth Sympony as paired with geometric shapes. It literally takes off with the next number, Ottorino Respighi's "The Pines of Rome," as a family of whales roams in the water, then flies in the air, and eventually soars to the outer stratosphere. Next was my overall favourite, Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue", which to my delight (as a theatre buff) was based on the legendary Al Hirschfeld's infamous caricatures. The experimental style marks a real departure for Disney, and is superbly realized with sweetly drawn characters and a frantic pace. Dmitri Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2", which I hadn't heard before, is matched to the tale of the Steadfast Tin Soldier. Edward Elgar's graduation march favourite, "Pomp and Circumstance", provides the backdrop here for a Noah's Ark fable starring Donald and Daisy Duck in a surprisingly touching vignette. Igor Stravinsky, a veteran from the first feature, closes the picture with the "Firebird Suite", as a woodland fairy battles a fiery volcano and is reborn again to replenish the countryside with the gentle help of a deer. The symbolism here isn't exactly tough to decipher. There's also a scene along the way of no more than two minutes, where a flamingo plays with a yo-yo. It's painfully clear this number is merely filler.
Fantasia 2000 premiered last year in IMAX theatres. What I wouldn't have given to see it on the big screen. In one of the intro segments, Bette Midler alludes to the number of designs, concepts, and suggestions that never made it to the final cut. Perhaps I will have the chance again, if Disney (wisely) decides to begin work on a third Fantasia. I can only hope I won't have to wait another 60 years for it.
