Why Disney's ROBIN HOOD is a Bad, Bad, Movie: A Dialogue (2 Viewers)

[Brian Kidd]

Also, Disney no longer has a restoration division. Sad, but true. They got rid of everyone several years ago. Scott MacQueen stayed on for a while, but didn't really have a division to head anymore. When he left, that was that. They farm out any restoration that is now done. BEDKNOBS got done because it was a personal project of MacQueen. If you enjoy it, it's him you should thank.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"how much of it was shown on TV in the program you mentioned?"

Just a few seconds. Nutsy and Trigger were looking on sternly and furtively at a figure in shadows. The figure steps into the light and it is King Richard, looking mighty pissed off. That was it. Aired on "The Disney Family Album", and I'm pretty sure it was the episode devoted to Ken Anderson.

 

[MatthewA]

Brian,

What little respect I had for Eisner is gone. No wonder certain DVDs use substandard prints, they have no one to restore them or clean them in-house!

 

[GeorgePaul]

I just HAVE to repost this...because it is SO unbelievably funny:



I could never picture Anthony Daniels with a Southern accent or Murray Hamilton dancing under a low pole, but that's what makes that post even more surreally funny. Seriously, Ernest...that's one of the most gut-busting things I've ever read on the 'net.

Robin Hood always was, to me, an enjoyable film to watch when home and sick--as I always would in school--so I regard the film more like the Winnie the Pooh shorts and don't take it seriously as a full-length animated release. Still, it's amazing the hack jobs Disney has released successfully since its founder's death.

Personally, I hope Robin Hood is NOT fully restored, for as revelatory as the restored Bedknobs and Broomsticks footage was, Disney Character Voices just don't seem to come that close to the originals.

With all due respect to Jeff Bennett, Corey Burton et. al., watching restored versions or continuations of classic Disney films with new voices has become like reading Walt Kelly's "Pogo" or some other comic strip today whose creator has passed on long ago. The pictures seem to come from the original artist, but the spirit and soul of the work is just not quite the same.

That's why we really need to celebrate those original actors who come back to re-voice a restored role (ala Peter O' Toole in Lawrence of Arabia) or supply the voices in new projects when they are otherwise retired.

Give it up for John Fiedler, for instance, who at nearly 80 years of age is the only actor to give voice to his character (Piglet) in all the different animated versions of Winnie-the-Pooh from Walt Disney, from "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" all the way through to "Piglet's Big Movie."

As for Robin Hood as we know it today, all I can say is, Oodelally, oodellaly, GOLLY, what a film!

 

[MatthewA]

With B&B the original voice tracks were lost or had corroded so there was no choice unless you are fond of long silent stretches.

Well it may not be a great film, and but it's no animated "Ishtar" either, IMO. It was still better than what Saturday Morning TV could do at the time. But what I was suggesting with the ending was merely speculative.

 

[Shawn_McD]

Why is Empire of the Sun a masterpiece?

 

[Patrick McCart]

[Fade-out right after Kane destroy's Susan's room and picks up the snowglobe.]

William Alland (in the shadows): You know, my friend, good ol' Charlie thought he'd never get his Rosebud back.

[Show an elderly man being wheeled into a warehouse]

Alland: Ooh! Looks like someone is finally getting to see his sled again!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist after reading Ernest's post)

 

[MarcusUdeh]

Ernest, what is taking so long for your Bambi and its Homoerotic overtones thread?

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Why is Empire of the Sun a masterpiece?"

I think that issue is probably addressed in the thread indicated in my signature.

 

[JoSAN]

.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"I certainly didn't expect or want to see a showdown between the returning King Richard and Prince John."

Nor do I -- I want to see Robin defeating the Sherriff and forcing the surrender of the cowardly Prince John. That would have been nice.

Then the King returns. Isn't this usually how the story goes, more or less, with minor variations over the years? Disney's version is unique, with Robin and Co. running away instead of sticking around to finish the job.

"A lot of really famous stories have climaxes that are more important but go unseen by the audience. Most Shakespearean battles naturally take place off-stage."

Shakespeare used an almost cinematic device of cutting to the central moments *inside* the battles, such as the battles in Henry IV Part I and Henry V and Richard III. "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" We may not be seein the giant armies, but we are seeing drama within the battles. For things that could not be accomplished on stage, such as a character "split from knave to chops" in Macbeth, that information is related to us, because there was no other way to do it. You couldn't very well split an actor open with a broadsword on stage every night. they fight, the action is moved off stage, later an actor appears with a bloody sowrd in one hand and Macbeth's head in the other. Depending on how it is stage, the revelation of the head can be just as shocking as seeing Macbeth decapitated before our eyes.

Robin Hood denies us any scenes actually dramtizing the Hero defeating the Villain, and I think I know why. Robin Hood is played mainly for laughs throughout. For the film to get suddenly dramatic would violate the soft-pedaled atmosphere of the film up to that date. There have been incalculable articles and essays written about Disney's heroes and heroines never get their hands dirty, and how almost without fail, it is the villain who kills or defeats himself. The Beast doesn't kill Gaston, Gaston slips and falls after comitting a dishonorable act. Clayton chases Tarzan into the trees, falls, and is strangled by tree vines. A subway car oblierates the power-mad Sykes in Oliver and Co. The hyenas kill Scar, not Simba. Mulan doesn't defeat Shan Yu, she disarms him, and then Shan-Yu is hit with a giant Acme rocket. Hook tries to stab Peter Pan in the back, falls into the sea, and is attacked by the crocodile. And so on, and so forth.

There are exceptions to this -- Bernard pushes MacLeach into a crocodile infested stream, Prince Phillip kills Maleficent, Milo transmutes Roarke into a Gem -thing (don't ask me to explain the ending of Atlantis), Taran pushes the Horned King into the suction of the Black Cauldron, etc.

But by and large, its the villains who do themselves in. Perhaps in this paradigm, Robin Hood was too active a character, hence the restoration of Justice was left to the King, whose scene was cut perhaps because it was too boring or anti-climactic after the castle fire.

 

[Grant H]

Wow, I never thought I'd see the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark trashed in this thread!

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Oh, and as far as the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark goes... I think the movie would have been better had it not had the Deus Ex Machina ending tacked on. Just opening the ark and finding it to be just a innocuous relic, despite everyone's supersititions or beliefs on the matter, would have had more of a point to it."

Point? Do James Bond movies have a point? You wanted Raiders of the Lost Ark to have deep meaning? It's an adventure movie -- its only real palpable theme is that people need to have respect for history.

"But then, the movie is supposed to be like a cheesy 1930s serial, so it required an unbelievable ending. I just happen to think it doesn't suit the tone of the rest of the movie."

? The whole movie is full of booby traps and deadly forces and people treading where they ought not go.

"It's a surprise, that's for sure, but that doesn't make it automatically good. I would have liked to see how Indy and Marion would have gotten out of it had the ark only contained a handful of dust."

It did only contain a handful of dust. They offended God by messing with it, God blasted them into pools of Jelly. Indy and Marion showed respect by closing their eyes - as Indy was warned to do in a scene cut from the film.

"You never do see how they get home but then that's all pedantic stuff anyway I suppose."

That giant Pillar of Fire probably alerted every boat within 50 miles.

 

[RichP]

Yet you're somehow holding Robin Hood -- a cartoon -- to a higher standard?

You probably spent more time on your treatise than Disney did actually making the film!

FWIW, I loved Robin Hood as a kid and I still do. The ending, or lack thereof, never bothered me then and it doesn't bother me now.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Yet you're somehow holding Robin Hood -- a cartoon -- to a higher standard?"

Animated films should not get a pass and be forgiven for sins that would be considered outrageous in the live action realm. I've seen a movie that has footage cobbled together from other movies, and has a laughable resolution of the central conflicts. That film is called Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Let me tell you a story that Walt Disney himself liked to tell. Walt was on a train once, coming back to Los Angeles from either Chicago or New York, doesn't matter. One night, while in the dining car, he heard a man discussing the film business and Hollywood -- this man had a brother in the film business, and he was talking about the stories his brother had told him.

"I work in the film business." Walt piped in.

"Oh, really?" the man said, very interested. "What do you do?"

"Well, I make animated cartoons." Walt said.

"Oh." said the man.

Walt later said -- "I might as well have told him 'I sweep the latrines'."

Walt never felt he was making films that deserved such condescension. The prevailing attitude towards animation that it was a medium for children was an attitude he challenged repeatedly throughout his lifetime. His Golden Age animated features, in paricular, were bold statements of ability and the potential of animation.

So yes -- I do hold Disney "cartoons" to a higher standard -- the standards codified by Walt Disney himself and the tradition of excellence in feature animation that he established. Even his threadbare "reconstruction-period" feature animated films of the mid-to-late 40's have more integrity than Robin Hood. Directing animator Milt Kahl - while always a mercurial hot head and a bit of a zealot about his work - was right to be disgusted with the cut-corners and declining standards on display in this film.

I can't speak for what Walt Disney would have thought of Robin Hood, but the attitude that we should go easy on it because it is a mere cartoon -- Walt would have taken strong objection to that, and so do I, and I'm sure others here who have a serious interest in animated film feel the same.

"You probably spent more time on your treatise than Disney did actually making the film!"

If Disney spent 1 hour making the movie, then this would be true.

"FWIW, I loved Robin Hood as a kid and I still do. The ending, or lack thereof, never bothered me then and it doesn't bother me now."

More power to you. Nobody involved with the movie wanted people to dislike it. It has good character work and terrific music. It simply has very poor production values and poor storytelling. There are whole scenes in this movie that roll by without any point whatsoever.

EXT. BUSHES OUTSIDE OF PRINCE JOHN'S CASTLE

Skippy the Rabbit and Maid Marion dash into the bushes, Skippy pretending to be Robin Hood.

MAID MARION
Oh! So this is Sherwood Forest!

SKIPPY
Yeah, I guess so.

MAID MARION
You know what happens next?

SKIPPY
What?

MAID MARION
Well, usually the hero gives his fair lady a kiss.

SKIPPY
A kiss? Oh, that's sissy stuff.

MAID MARION
Well if you won't, then I will.

Maid Marion plants one on Skippy, who looks mighty annoyed.

(pause)

Maid Marion looks around.

MAID MARION
Skippy?

SKIPPY
Yeah?

MAID MARION
What does this have to do with the rest of the movie?

SKIPPY
Beats the @#$% out of me.

 

[Sean Campbell]

Despite it's flaws I still love the movie. Robin himself comes across as a bland character, but Prince John and Sir Hiss are both great to watch. And Maid Marian is quite an adorable vixen - certainly the most attractive Disney female ever IMO. Um... maybe I shouldn't have admitted to that

 

[Haggai]

Agreed with everyone previously on Ernest's post #13. That was a satiric masterpiece. Doesn't work quite as well when a minor character just describes the denoument, does it?


[Fade out after Ilsa tells Rick that he has to think for both of them.]

[stepping out from behind his piano]

SAM: You know, I thought we'd never get rid of that Major Strasser, and I wondered what the hell those letters of transit were all about anyway. But then Rick promised Ilsa he'd leave with her, and then he got Victor arrested, and then he pointed a gun at Captain Renault, and...well, let's see, how did everything get straightened out, exactly?

(sound of prop plane ready to take off)

SAM: Hey, let's get to the airport! Sounds like somebody's telling Ilsa that she's getting on that plane with her husband, and then that same somebody is shooting Major Strasser, and getting away with Louis!