Fantasia 2000: A Rhapsody in Film

I've always had mixed feelings about the Wonderful World of Disney. I loved many films of theirs like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Rescuers, and Beauty and The Beast. However, I was angry when they made The Little Mermaid and gave it a happy ending, how Pochantas was so changed so much it didn't resemble the real Pochantas. And let's not get into how they tried to open that park in Virginia and wanted
to buy the Radio City Music Hall. It's the United States of Disney, and we just live in it.

But this is one of those times they get it right, with Fantasia 2000. This one has been seen in IMAX theaters across the country, and now it's out in video and DVD, and it is simply breathtaking to watch.

The introduction by Roy Disney is informative and interesting, saying how Walt Disney wanted to add to Fantasia to keep it fresh and current.

It then goes into this beautiful underwater fantasy that is simply dazzling to watch. There is a reenactment of Hans Christan Andersen's Toy Soldier, which is simply fun and you root for the soldier to get the girl.

But there are three stories that I want to mention here, because they are simply dazzling to look at and beautiful to the eye: The only scene from the original "Fantasia" has Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcer's Apprentice" with Mickey still trying to create magic on his own, but can only manage to make brooms dance, but God, how they do dance. And it still touches my heart when Mickey visits the conductor of the orginal movie, Leopold Stanswolski.

But Mickey isn't the only Disney star to get in the action: Donald Duck does a scene, along with his lady love, Daisy. To the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" it shows animals going on Noah's Ark, and how Daisy and Donald become seperated, and try to find each other again. Even though the ending is kind of easy to guess, I was sitting there,
trying to figure out what was going to happen next to the star crossed lovers.

But by far, my favorite favorite segement of this version is the one that is called "Rhapsody in Blue." Based on Gershwin's famous song, and drawn by the wonderful Al Hirschfield, it shows various New Yorkers going about their day in various shades of blue. All of them are dreaming
about bigger and better things, and in a breathtaking dream scene, it shows the various characters skating at Rockafeller Center, doing whatever their heart desires. I simply watched this scene with my mouth open, stunned by the simple beauty of the scene and how fantastic the drawing matched the music.

So if you have mixed feelings about Disney like I do, or if you want to introduce your children to classical music, you can't go wrong with Fantasia 2000. Just seeing it on DVD makes me glad I invested in the machine, and it makes me think that maybe living in the United States of Disney isn't as bad as I thought.