The other day I finally sat down and watched the Fleischer feature length adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels. It’s very much a film of its time; the 1930s.I found it a not altogether enjoyable film unfortunately. Oh sure, there is some marvelous animation to be had, but it was not terribly hard to see why the film has been largely confined to the history books despite its place in cultural history as the second full-length animated feature film ever made. Here’s what banished Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels to history
The Plot
Although based off Jonathon Swift’s satire of contemporary culture, the film only seems to bear superficial resemblance to the famous tome. Instead of Gullvier being central to the story or even being the narrator, he is instead a character. He is neither the focus of the film, nor does he play as big a role as you would imagine. Indeed, he doesn’t start to play an active role in proceedings until almost halfway through; a tad suspicious for a film with his name in the title.
Besides this, the plot meanders and falls foul of typical Fleischer traits such as over-long scenes and a focus on machinery. Compared to a film of today, it comes off as more of a set piece showing off the wonders of animation. This is sadly a genre of animated films that doesn’t excite modern audiences who have been engrossed in animation since birth.
The Feud(s)
The Fleischer Brothers had a rather significant falling out sometime after the film was released but of more imperative concern was the fact that the Fleischer Studio, having moved from New York to Miami was short-staffed. Consequently animators from New York and California were thrown together with art students from Miami. The result was near chaos with rival factions favouring their own work over others. It’s tough for any business to succeed under such circumstances and it’s highly likely that the quality of the film suffered as a result.
The Studio’s Demise
While the Fleischer’s ultimately lost control of the studio to Paramount, such events have played a role in how the film has fared over the decades. The fact that the original creator was no longer responsible for it meant that was somewhat mistreated by its owner Paramount. Ultimately its copyright notice wasn’t renewed and the film entered the public domain.
To add insult to injury, the failure of the Fleicher’s follow-up film, Mr. Bug Goes to Town meant that there wasn’t any features to continue the legacy. With the Fleischer name ripped from the studio’s projects, any brand recognition was lost on the general public.
The Competition
Needless to say, the competition from Burbank had already set the bar sky high with Snow White and Seven Dwarfs and was about to raise it again with Pinocchio. Besides the superior quality, Walt was constantly and relentlessly cranking out hit content in shorts and was marketing his products for all they were worth. The end result was that the dominance of the Disney brand combined with its longevity has meant that the name ‘Fleischer’ barely registers in the mind of Joe Public.
It struck me there just last week that we’ve seen two major princess movies from the Disney umbrella in the last few years, although despite claims that we’ll see no more, one is already well under way. So I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the two already released to see just how different, or similar they are. The two in question are of course Merida from Pixar’s Brave and Rapunzel from Walt Disney’s Tangled.
For starters, they’re both teenagers. Yes, every adults favourite people to hate and for good reason. Teenagers tend to be obnoxious, whiny, annoying, conniving, rude, clumsy and above all, rebellious. Both Rapunzel and Merida imbue all these qualities ans more in their respective films. Merida directly disobeys her mother as does Rapunzel.
Both seem to have issues with issues with the life that is set out for them. Merida as a wife to an eejit and Rapunzel as an everlasting source of life for Mother Goethal. Neither is satisfied and both disobey the requisite adult. However, that is where the similarity ends, as Merida dashes off into the woods, her mother is fully aware that she has left. Rapunzel, in contrast, sneakily knows that her mother is gone and is more than willing to head off without her knowledge. Rapunzel is clearly the fuller character in this case.
Both characters coincidentally have wild hair, but whereas Rapunzel’s is a plot device, Merida’s is more of a set piece that is played up multiple times throughout the film. It’s fair to say that while Rapunzel’s hair adds to her character, Merida’s can’t help but distract the viewer, as was the case when it was highlighted in just about every single review of the film.
Both princesses are strong female characters 9the kind we all know and love) but Merida is undoubtedly the lesser of the two. The reasons here are complicated, but the long and winding gestation and execution of Brave are probably the root cause. In Tangled, Rapunzel’s character evolves throughout the film. She has to learn to trust Flynn Rider Eugene Fitzherbet (a good ol’ Irish surname there) and only by going through her experiences does she learn the truth about her past.
Merida on the other hand is very much presented as is. Yes, she does learn a lesson in the course of the film, but that doesn’t change her character. She’s still fundamentally the same person at the beginning as she is at the end. We learn (comparatively) little about her. A rather disappointing state of affairs given the wonderful setup we’re given (ancient Scotland and all that).
The princesses approach to love is also drastically different. Rapunzel is more than happy to comply with the established Disney norms; Merida, not so much. It should be noted that neither approach is right or wrong but in Tangled, love is clearly meant to imply marriage whereas in Brave, marriage does not necessarily imply love; an important distinction but one that tends to go against the formula for princess movies.
Overall, both are likeable character that despite their teenage label have mass appeal beyond the kids. It’s curious how different the two characters are despite Pixar’s attempt to make Brave a different kind of film. In the end though, we should be grateful that both films give the characters enough room for them to come into their own.
The Vegtoons Kickstarter project is one that aims to create an animated show around the idea of vegetarianism, not necessarily to convert carnivores. Described thus:
The show explores a variety of issues, concerns and assumptions surrounding the vegetarian lifestyle — ranging from the foods that vegetarians eat, to health and ethics, to relationships with family and loved ones. Each episode has a specific theme and therefore can be enjoyed on its own; however, the larger trajectory of the story unfolds over the entire series.
It’s a project that certainly looks promising from a number of angles, not least of which is the fact that it’s not aimed at kids but rather people in general. This is one to keep an eye on. Check out the teaser below or head on over to the Kickstarter page to watch the full pitch video.
The other day, I decided to get the Adventure Time Season 1 DVD. Yeah, I know what I said, but lacking suitable alternatives meant that I’m left with little choice. In the course of browsing to purchase it, I was struck by Amazon’s misguided pricing policy when it comes to cartoons. See the screenshot below:
See something kinda funny there? Yup, why buy the digital version for more than it cost for the physical discs! That simply can’t make any sense, can it? I mean for one, DVDs have to be made, shipped to Amazon, stored and then shipped to me. The digital copy gets uploaded to their servers once and then gets streamed/downloaded as necessary. The worst part about that? I’m paying half the delivery cost; the bandwidth!
Now someone is apt to say that with the digital copy, I can watch it on multiple devices and in multiple locations but of course DVDs are easy to rip and once they are, they are just as portable, if not more so due to the DRM on Amazon’s digital files.
So I was curious, my interest was decidedly piqued; were other cartoon series’ priced similarly or was this just a naked attempt to cash in on Adventure Times success? Let’s have a look-see.
Here’s a few of the better deals:
And here’s a few of the more egregious ones:
It should be noted that The Hub has no series’ on DVD in their entirety yet and the Disney Channel is sticking firmly with DVD for now. I also left out some shows like Avatar: the Last Airbender and Rocko’s Modern Life because they are available on Netflix and Amazon’s own streaming service for free.
So who’s losing out here? Is it Amazon because they’re selling less digital versions? Hardly, you can be sure those digital sales are almost 100% profit for them. Do studios lose? Again, not likely. They make a profit on the DVDs at those prices so you can be sure they make a profit once they cut out the manufacturing and distribution and whack up the price.
So if they don’t lose, then who does?
Us consumers obviously! And sadly, they way things are going, those DVD sets will start to go away and you can be sure that those digital prices are not going to budge one bit.
Via The Laughing Squid is this short film by Kadavre Exquis that is a wonderful homage to all the retro aspects to old films, TV and music. If it wasn’t so new, you’d swear it was old. What is Dead May Never Die is certainly one of my favourites.
