Previous relationship with movie: Well, I kind of thought it blew.
So I watched it: I do not think it blows anymore. First of all I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid and no duh a kid is going to think a movie about shapes dancing along to classical music
blows. Second of all my most recent memory of Fantasia is seeing Fantasia 2000, which best I can remember really did kind of blow. But that is dozens of Watchin' Disneys away. So as I've said, I don't think Fantasia blows anymore, in fact I like it now.I mean this movie just starts out so bizarrely. The title doesn't even come up at the beginning. Just some guy walks up to the screen, and explains that they're going to play some classical music with animated visuals set to it. Like, he just says it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Now I can't claim to know what was going on in 1940, but the DVD is restored so well that it looks like it was shot today, and it's not like the fashions of the classical music scene have changed a lot since 1200 or whatever A.D., so I couldn't help watch this guy explain the concept of Fantasia as though it was made today, and it was almost like a Tim and Eric sketch come to life. So insane. Maybe that's why Fantasia 2000 kind of blew, because they had Penn and Teller do tricks and other comedians come out and crack jokes rather than just say it like it is that they're going to play some classical music with animations and you are going to watch.
And even then they just show the orchestra playing for like six minutes before there's actually any animation, and even then it's just a bunch of lines bouncing around. Frankly the actual animated parts of Fantasia aren't THAT good. They're extremely well-animated no doubt but they're not really all that entertaining to watch. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (the part with the wizard Mickey) is very obviously the best part, there's a reason that's the only part of Fantasia most people care about. However there is by a 20-minute segment where they just spit in Sarah Palin's bespectacled face by animating billions of years of evolution, complete with fish walking on land and dinosaurs non-coexisting with humans, set to classical music and marketed to children. Maybe 1940 was a lot cooler than I give it credit for.
Up next: Dumbo. That one should be soon, no more long waits, I swear.
