The first of the 1980’s and an attempt at somewhat of a new beginning for Disney, The Fox and the Hound takes somewhat of a different approach, while still containing some familiar Disney touches. The most expensive film Disney had made to date, The Fox and the Hound ups the animation quality and tackles a more serious and mature subject matter than any film Disney had for quite some time. Despite its ambitions, however, The Fox and the Hound is not quite able to live up to these lofty goals, though it clearly has the best of intentions.
The film FINALLY does away with the xerography technique and
as a result, the animation here looks much cleaner, softer and more reminiscent
of the early Disney films. While it doesn’t exactly develop any revolutionary
style, The Fox and the Hound is a very
nice looking film with some good animation; while some of the character designs
are definitely similar to some of the more recent, stylised ones we’ve looked
at, they are a little more rounded and refined and, in my opinion, strike a
nice balance between Disney’s early and later styles. The character animation
is really good, there are no sketchy slip-ups or awkward movements that we have
seen in the last few films, things are really controlled, as well as being
energised, lively and just plain fun; emotion is really effectively expressed
and communicated through the character’s facial expressions and movements,
often without the need of any dialogue and some of the more action-packed sequences
are animated so expertly that they really do become very gripping and intense.
The backgrounds are also great, as always Disney show off just how great they
are at creating natural, pastoral landscapes – woods and forests really are
their speciality. This is the best animation Disney has done in years and,
while The Fox and the Hound doesn’t
exactly forge a visual identity of its own, it does manage to take some of the
best parts of other films in order to create a pleasant, if familiar visual
style.
‘Copper, I don’t think we can be friends anymore, cos hound
dogs are kind of naturally bred to hunt foxes’
‘Oh my God Tod, not all hound dogs stop trying to spread your agenda’
The story is simplistic, but effective, rather than being
centred around an involved plot or even really the titular characters, it is
more focused on its singular theme – prejudice is harmful and pointless and
society should never tell someone who they are or who they’re allowed to
associate with. It’s a simple and obvious moral, one that has been covered time
and again by many other works, from way
back to Romeo and Juliet, but that
doesn’t make it any less powerful. The
film takes a lot from Bambi, from its
setting, to its more mature attitude and the way in which in charts the growth
and life of a young animal (in this case two) and how their environment shapes
them. While The Fox and the Hound is
not as mature or delicate as Bambi
and isn’t able to make its point quite as subtly – there are a couple of times
where it puts the moral of the film a little too clearly on display – it is
usually not too crass and upfront about its message and is generally quite
effective. Though there is some good dialogue, particularly the line ‘Forever
is a long, long time. And time has a way of changing things.’ The film is
generally better at communicating its message without the use of dialogue; some
of the most powerful moments of the film are done just through facial
expressions and body language alone. These include Tod’s crestfallen look after
he discovers he and Copper can no longer be friends and the ending of the film,
where Copper is able to communicate just how much Tod means to him to his
master simply by stepping in front of him and giving him a purposeful, but vulnerable
look. The opening sequence of the movie is also done without any dialogue and
is probably the best part of the whole film – it opens on absolute silence, something
totally new for a Disney film and slowly pans across the dark and quiet forest
before suddenly exploding into sound and movement as we follow Tod’s mother,
rushing across the forest in a desperate attempt to escape a hunter. When Tod’s
mother is finally killed, she is done so in the exact same manner as Bambi’s
mother – she escapes off-screen, but we hear two gunshots and we know she didn’t
make it; while moments like this perhaps take a little too much from Bambi, the film never outright copies it
and always manages to retain its own identity with great sequences such as this
one.
The pacing of the movie and its general use of time are
unfortunately a little off; while the first half of the movie takes place
during Tod and Copper’s childhood, the development of their friendship feels a
little rushed and thus the severity of their maturity and the impact of their
subsequent rivalry doesn’t feel quite as strong or believable as it should be. There
is also a strangely large amount of time dedicated to a subplot about two birds
chasing a caterpillar, that seems to be there purely for comic relief; the
scenes are harmless and kind of cute, but they do end up feeling a little intrusive
and take up time that could’ve been better used developing Tod and Copper’s
friendship. I suppose this sub-plot does eventually kind of tie into the
greater themes of the movie, as the helpless and frightened caterpillar
eventually becomes a beautiful butterfly that can fly away from its tormentors,
who no longer recognise it as their victim, perhaps representing the film’s central ideas of maturity, change and that nature and society don’t determine who you or your enemies are, but this is probably reading
into things a little too much. Generally, the movie just engages in a few too
many sequences that don’t really feel necessary or, at least, feel less
necessary than the development of Tod and Copper’s friendship; a decent amount
of the last third is dedicated to Tod’s sudden romance with another fox named
Vixey and while these scenes are pretty good, they don’t really tie into the
film’s greater narrative purpose. The opening and ending sequences of the
film are really when things are at their best, the tense chase between Tod’s
mother and the hunter in the beginning is matched by the equally tense chase
between Tod and Vixey and Amos and Copper in the ending; this sequence actually
becomes very dramatic, particularly in the rather brutal fight between Copper
and Tod and the bear, which becomes surprisingly violent for a Disney film and
honestly quite frightening for children. The middle, or rather, the majority of
the film is unfortunately not as good as the beginning or end, but it’s still
good and sets things up for the ending nicely; the central idea of the film is
probably better than the execution of that idea, but it’s still executed well
enough.
The characters are mostly just okay, they are mostly cute
and fun but not really very interesting, young Tod and Copper are great
representations of young kids and perfectly capture that sense of adventure,
curiosity and spontaneity in children; once they become adults, they are still
pretty likeable, but not quite as well characterised. Mickey Rooney’s voice
acting for older Tod is a little over-the-top for me, he just seems to be
trying a little too hard; ordinarily, you’d think Rooney’s more exaggerated
style would be perfect for an animated movie, but for a generally more mature
and serious story like The Fox and the
Hound, it doesn’t quite work. Kurt Russell is a lot better as older Copper
and effectively juggles his energetic optimism and tortured anger, he sounds a
lot more like a real actor than Rooney, who, despite clearly trying hard, comes
off much more like a guy trying to do the voice of a cartoon fox than a guy
just trying to play his part. The side characters are fine, if mostly unmemorable:
Dinky, Boomer and Squeeks are just the goofy comic relief, Big Mama is friendly
and well acted, but a little dull, Widow Tweed is fine but just doesn’t get
much time, there are a couple of other animals that Tod meets in the forest who
don’t do much interesting either, the supporting cast just doesn’t do that much
in this film. Chief is one of the more prominent supporting characters, but
just seems a little too similar to previous characters, particularly the
Sherriff of Nottingham, with whom he shares a voice actor and quite a similar
facial design and personality; the hunter, Amos Slade gets some time to be
interesting too, he’s one of the better ones. Of all the supporting characters,
I found Vixey to be most interesting, though she appears only briefly, she’s
very well animated and acted and is very likeable and sweet. She has this great
sense of personality and attitude and it’s a shame she doesn’t appear until the
last twenty minutes of the movie, as it leaves her as kind of an after-thought
and her romance with Tod just feels very shoehorned in at the last minute, rather
than a natural development; still, she’s very enjoyable in the few scenes she
does appear in.
The birds constantly trying to kill and eat a caterpillar
kinda undermines the whole “nature doesn’t dictate who our enemies are” thing,
huh?
The songs are weird, several of them aren’t even really sung
so much as just spoken by the characters, with the words just happening to
rhyme. A few are sung properly, but are still not traditional musical numbers,
they’re just songs sung over scenes of the characters playing or exploring or
what have you. They all sound pretty much the same as well, none of them are
very good and the lyrics are at times laughably lazy; really quite disappointing,
with many of the more recent Disney films we’ve looked at, particularly ones
such as this and The Rescuers, the
songs aren’t done in a traditional musical format and so just really don’t feel
like they need to be there at all. Why did Disney keep forcing in songs that
they clearly didn’t want to do? Perhaps it was just because they felt that they
had to, because that’s what Disney was known for, but either way they should’ve
stopped because in examples like this, they just do not seem necessary and
ultimately end up hurting the movie and wasting time that could be better spent
on other things.
THAT’S why a bear can rest at ease
Other Thoughts:
- Man people are pretty reckless with the use of firearms in Disney movies
‘Go ahead punk, make my day’
- Oh yeah and look how terrifying Tod looks here
Stupider like a FOX
6.5/10
Next Week: The Black Cauldron!
Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com
Twitter: @JSChilds
joe I believe you talking about this is meetinless
ReplyDeleteand I think tod is scary in that picture not stupid as you think. tod is one if my favorite character so don't be talking trash.