And if that description sounds a bit heavy for a kid’s movie then you would be right. It is heavy. It’s also fun, unashamed and features Burt Reynolds. Oh, and did I mention that, among others, this film helped spark the Disney Renaissance?
Bluth and a number of his colleagues had splintered from Disney after production of “The Fox and the Hound” in order to make their own mark on the industry. In their minds, animated story-telling was becoming lazy and too reliant upon technological advancements (e.g. computer-generated graphics). They hoped to breathe new life into a genre that was then widely regarded with amused disdain by the wider community.
Using older, time-tested techniques like back-lighted mattes, rotoscoping and multiplanar photography, films like “ADGTH” or “The Land Before Time” have this added depth; a sort of melancholic glow where details sort of float across the screen. There is arguably little that is comparable in eloquence to this sort of Old Guard style in the pre-digital world.
And time has proven that Bluth was right. If Pixar and Studio Ghibli are any sort of indication, “ADGTH” was one of the first kid movies that showed us you didn’t have to sacrifice thematic honesty for ticket sales. True, Bluth’s films might be a little more blunt about ideas regarding death and violence. But I mean really, where does it say you can’t kill Bambi’s mom?
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