Disney Fantasia Favo(u)rite

I love watching the Fantasia discs - my personal favo(u)rite piece being the whale sequence in Respighi's Pines of Rome on the Fantasia 2000 disc Is anyone else a fan on Fantasia and what is your favo(u)rite scene ?

All the best - Andrew

 

"Night On Bald Mountain"/"Ave Maria" from the end of the original film. I prefer it on the laserdisc edition. Picture quality isn't as good, but I like that the film ends with silence as the credits run. Most of the sequences in both films are very good to excellent, though 2000 suffers from comparison to the first, as the limitations of 1930/40 animation give it a nice, vintage quality today; it looks, some of it, so precious and unique(which it was).

ED

 

Same here "Dance Of The Hours" probably second best.

 

"Night on Bald Mountain" scared the pants off me when I first saw it as a child, but I loved it then and still do. (I was a weird kid -- I liked being scared. )

I wasn't sold on Fantasia 2000 when I first saw it, but it's grown on me since, especially after I got the Fantasia Anthology DVD box. (Speaking of that: Hey Ed, I think I finally finished viewing all the extras!)

Other favorites from both films in order of appearance:

Nutcracker Suite - Fantastic animation. The music was a childhood favorite.

Pastorale Symphony - Maybe a little too cute sometimes, but an amazing visualization of the music. The little bloopers bug me though, and the cropped shots on the DVD are ugly as s**t.

Dance of the Hours - Campy and funny as hell.

Rhapsody in Blue - Great translation of Hirschfield's style into animation. Amazingly moving.

Carnival of the Animals - One of the greatest short sequences in history. And a one-animator show, too.

 

Exactly what Ed said. I still have the CLD/LD. That scene is great, also love the Mickey scene. 1st time ever where Mickey was drawn in a cartoon with pupils.

 

I also agree with Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria. What a moving experience!
Dance of the Hours is impossible to resist.
And it's an obvious choice but the Sorcerers Apprentice piece is just about perfect and never gets old.
The whole Nutcracker sequence is brilliant but the Sugar Plumb Fairies with the little mushrooms is adorable, if perhaps a bit un-PC.

I LOVE it when Mickey shakes hands with Stokie!

I was immensely impressed with Fantasia 2000, saw it in the IMAX presentation.
The Carnival of the Animals bit is hilarious and wonderfully energetic.
By far my favorite of all was the Gershwin section. Wonderful design and each character's personality is so well rendered.
I liked the Pines of Rome sequence more than I expected. The new age stuff usually bothers me but it was a visual stunner.

The DVD has the bonus feature "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom", one of my favorite Disney shorts of all time.

Dan C

 

The revoicing bugs the purist in me too, but I can understand why they made the choice to redo the whole thing rather than just dub the parts with missing audio tracks, which would have been a lot more jarring. Still, I think they could have put in more effort to get an actor who sounds more like Deems Taylor and who can speak with exactly the same intonation. Difficult, but not at all impossible.

 

I too prefer the Deems Taylor narration. My CAV box doesn't look as good as the DVD, but the tradeoff is worth it.

My favorite sequence is probably The Nutcracker Suite. Very beautiful animation, and it fits the music perfectly IMO.

I really like all the movie, truth to tell. Hard to choose a favorite.

I'm also a big admirer of the Gershwin sequence from Fantasia 2000. The rest of the show was fine, but a little disappointing. Just a bit low on magic for me.