#38 Fantasia 2000

Walt Disney had always intended Fantasia to be more than just a singular film. It was supposed to be an evolving project, consistently rereleased with new segments that married music to animation. While this vision never came to fruition, the idea of creating a new Fantasia lingered on in the minds at Disney. Sixty years after the original, the follow-up materialized, and Fantasia 2000 was released at the dawn of the new millennium.

If there are criticisms to be made of Fantasia 2000, one of the first is of the framing segments. In the original, Deems Taylor provided consistent introduction and commentary for each piece; here, the segments are introduced by a revolving cast of celebrities. While Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones fit the program just fine (both possessing a level of dignity and class befitting of the relatively highbrow tone of Fantasia), there's also turns from Steve Martin, Bette Midler, and Penn and Teller. Their presence unfortunately detracts from the enchantment and spectacle of the animated segments, breaking up the flow and tying the film a bit too much to the time of its release, depriving it of the timeless quality of the original.

The animated segments themselves are all enjoyable, the best of them clearly illustrating how far the animation medium evolved over sixty years. Respighi's "Pines of Rome" soundtracks a vision of blue whales that starts off a bit too cute (with a baby whale more than a bit reminiscent of Dumbo) but ends in a pod of whales ascending into the sky as the music reaches fever pitch, creating an incredible sense of scale and grandeur. "Rhapsody in Blue" is the clear standout, drawn in the style of illustrator Al Hirschfeld and possessing a sense of character and nonstop kinetic energy that ranks it among the very best of Disney's shorts. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a straight telling of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, though without Anderson's characteristically depressing ending. "The Carnival of the Animals" gives us a flamingo with a yo-yo breaking from the routine of the other flamingos; it's amusing enough, but so brief that it scarcely has time to leave an impression. "Pomp and Circumstance" is used to tell the story of Noah's Ark, with Donald and Daisy Duck along for the ride; Elgar's dignified piece fits quite aptly with the throngs of animals marching along. Finally, "Firebird Suite" closes with some of the film's most stunning imagery and animation, presenting an enormous Firebird and a life-giving Sprite as primal forces of destruction and creation.

Though not the revolutionary experiment that Fantasia was, Fantasia 2000 nonetheless earns its place as an underappreciated entry in Disney's canon. It's a bit regrettable that it still wasn't able to turn Fantasia into the annual or semi-annual venture that Walt Disney envisioned, even if only to serve as a showcase for top-tier animated shorts, a format that has become largely ignored by the mainstream over time. As it is, Fantasia 2000 and Fantasia will always stand as a view of the most imaginative and beautiful shorts from two eras of animation history.

#37 Tarzan

After ten years and ten films that defined an era in animation history, the Disney Renaissance came to an end in 1999 with Tarzan, Disney's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp icon. As with other Disney adaptations, the film redefined its subject for a new generation, giving us a Tarzan that ranks on par with the Beast as a masterstroke of character design. Bearing little resemblance to the Hollywood hunks that played the character in B-pictures dating back to 1918, this Tarzan is leaner, wilder, and more feral, possessing an air of innocence and intensity in equal measure. What truly sells Tarzan is his animation, as he runs and swings through the jungle with an animalistic elegance, moving like a man who really did learn how to walk from gorillas.

As a whole, the denizens of the jungle are moderately enjoyable without being overly memorable. Lest we forget this film was released in the nineties, we've got Rosie O'Donnell as Terk and Wayne Knight as Tantor, both of whom are used chiefly for somewhat distracting comic relief, although their friendship with Tarzan at least feels sincere. Glenn Close's performance as Tarzan's adoptive mother, Kala, provides the emotional anchor for the film; she rescues Tarzan as a baby and provides him with stability throughout his life, first as an outsider child in the gorilla family, then as an adult confronted with other humans, knowledge of the outside world, and the question of whether he belongs among ape or man. On the human side, Minnie Driver gives an interpretation of Jane that's charmingly awkward, yet progressive; she's a naturalist who comes to Africa to study the gorillas, and not simply here to function as Tarzan's jungle bride. The film's villain, Clayton, meanwhile, is a sinister take on the Great White Hunter archetype, revealing the greed and savagery below the suave exterior of a man who views the natural world as his to claim for his own.

Musically, Tarzan's songs are mostly non-diegetic (not sung by characters within the film) and handled by no less a person than Phil Collins. While Collins is no Elton John, his distinctive vocal timbre fits surprisingly well here, with all of his songs punctuating and enhancing the story and none of them feeling dated (although "Son of Man" is a bit too Collins for its own good, instrumentally at least). "Two Worlds" opens the film while laying down the central theme, "Strangers Like Me" captures the yearning and sense of wonder as Tarzan learns of the human world for the first time, and "You'll Be In My Heart," while admittedly a bit sappy out of context, earns its place in the canon of big, sweeping Disney ballads.

As the twentieth century ended and the twenty-first began, increased competition from studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks as well as changes within Disney as a company would result in an output that was diverse, risky, occasionally ambitious, and wildly inconsistent. For much of the next ten years, Disney would be heading back to the wilderness.