The Great Mouse Detective

[Bill1978]

Just thought I'd provide a link to a little music clip I made for The Great Mouse Detective. I was going to say it was a year ago, but it turns out it was 2 years ago nearly. Wow time flies. I made it as I wanted to make a DVD that featured all the credit songs from Disney Movies, and since GMD didn't have one, I thought why not make one so the DVD can be compete. I apologise for the quality of the images, I sadly had to use clips from YouTube to make them.

[Ben]

In the UK (and elsewhere), we got it as "Basil: The Great Mouse Detective", to give it yet another alternative name.

I'm guessing the original book, "Basil Of Baker Street" was more known than in America, hence the featuring the character's name in the title. Even so, the title on screen when we went to see it was still "The Adventures Of The Great Mouse Detective", so I guess they didn't want the expense of changing prints.

Personally, I could see sequels to Basil, especially since the ending sets up the next adventure, but the one franchise I could never work out why they didn't continue either as a couple more DTVs or even a television show, was The Rescuers, which they even made a proper theatrical sequel to.

Yes, I know that film didn't set the box office alight like the first one did (a very surprising and sizable hit for Disney back in 1977 and the film that trained up a lot of the current artists, hence another reason to return to the characters so that they could show off what they could do with the then-current technology).

I actually love The Rescuers Down Under - it's a solid animated adventure film - and though it wasn't a big hit, it was a big seller on home video and the characters were very franchise ready: with the Rescue Aid Society set up, you needn't even go with Bernard and Bianca since they have a worldwide organization: how sequel friendly is that!?

Or brand it all as "Disney Mice" to take on those darned Princesses. Basil, Bernard, Bianca, Roquefort (to get away from all the names beginning with B) and many more Disney rodents (probably not including Mickey, for other merchandising line reasons)...that could be a seller, right? Right, guys?

Guys?

[droosan]

I think it's because Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers kinda 'stole the thunder' from the concept of more Rescuers sequels.

[EricJ]

Always assumed C&D+MJ were supposed to be IN the Rescue Aid Society, except for any disguised references for rights' sake.
Also, the fact that "Down Under" had been one of the most threadbare flops in the studio's history.
(And however much you may have liked it...it was NOT the movie to follow "Little Mermaid" with.)

As for GMD, it's really seminal to watch Musker & Clements working on what was clearly a Cauldron-transition Ron Miller movie--with cute critters, tugged heartstrings, and no real clue about where to put the songs, except for the notion that a Disney movie "had" to have at least one or two--and still deliver the more dynamic accent on plot, humor and visal movement that we associated with the 90's musicals.
You could tell the Change Was Coming.

[estefan]

Wasn't another reason being that Eva Gabor had passed away?

But, yeah, I find The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers Down Under (and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) to be the most under-appreciated films in the Disney canon. While not on the level of the Pinocchios and Aladdins of the studio, they still prove to be a lot of great animation and story work from the Disney folks.

[Ben]

Wasn't another reason being that Eva Gabor had passed away?

Not that that has ever killed off an animated character before!

[EricJ]

GMD had Black Cauldron as an opening act the year before, public confidence in the end of the Ron Miller era had hit rock bottom, and I remember the astonishment that GMD was...actually a pretty good movie.

It was the reverse for RDU, with the unfortunate timing of trying to do an "old-style" Disney movie the very year after the New style had caught on like gangbusters, and about darn time too.
Although to be fair, the only reason DIsney had revived Bernard & Bianca in the first place is--believe or not--they DIDN'T KNOW how to sequelize any of their movies. Disney in 1988 stack-o'-bibles believed they had no open-ended stories to continue telling except for Rescuers, Mary Poppins and Fantasia, and all three sequels were in production.

[droosan]

No..

The Rescuers Down Under was a 'test-bed' for the Disney/Pixar-developed CAPS paint system.

Although CAPS had already been tested in a couple of scenes in The Little Mermaid, the Rescuers' sequel made an ideal candidate to provide the first feature-length test of the system (since, if it 'failed' .. then, oh well, it was 'only' a sequel project).

RDU was deliberately released as a double-feature alongside the Mickey Mouse 'featurette' The Prince and the Pauper -- which had (just as deliberately) been painstakingly rendered by hand in 'olde-fashioned' ink & paint on celluloid wafers.

This double-feature was a controlled experiment to see if audiences could tell the difference between 'hand-painted' and 'computer-colored' cels (or -- at the very least -- whether they would react negatively to the latter).

No one did, and thus Disney's ink & paint department was forever changed from that moment forward.

All of that, of course, was fairly 'hush-hush' at the time.

[droosan]

oops. ddoubble post.

[EricJ]

No..

The Rescuers Down Under was a 'test-bed' for the Disney/Pixar-developed CAPS paint system.

Well, that too--
But the main impetus was for the new Eisner helm--who hadn't had an independently generated hit of their own yet, before Mermaid--to "validate" in the public's mind that they were now the caring (but unquestionable) New head of the Old Company by making some attempt to hands-across-the-water bridge with the Miller days, which had made almost ALL their money on creating loyalty for the Walt-era canon. Eisner and Wells knew that they had to quiet any grumbling peasant loyalty to the old king (which might cause revolt and overthrow), by staging a stunt to make themselves look like the True Successors.
They needed a sequel. To anything.

We had the almost "Fantasia Revisited", we had a few ideas for "Mary Poppins Returns" that would curl your hair (Michael Jackson as Bert??), but Roy was put back in the Animation studios, and he oversaw the Rescuers revisitation.
I mean, sheesh, what else were they going to make a sequel of...Cinderella??

[Ben]

Nah, Eric...you're way off the mark here.

No-one actually thought the original Rescuers hit the mark in terms of what was possible, and the new team desperately wanted to get away from the Xerox process. For many, The Rescuers was their first feature, so it held a soft spot for them. Given the new technology, as Droo said, allowed the Studio to pump a little less money into the project since characters were already designed, etc. The new artists also wanted to show off what they could do with that emerging technology (it's still very impressive today), specifically using established characters.

Believe it or not, but the original The Rescuers was Disney's biggest grosser for many years, so not only did a sequel project draw interest from those that were going to make it, but the top brass saw that there was an audience for a sequel. That was the sole reasoning behind it, nothing more. So it wasn't ever a sequel "to anything". A sequel to The Rescuers had always been mooted since the first was a big hit in '77. It took ten years to get it off the ground, but it was always that film that was destined to be continued for artistic and experimental reasons. That the first was the division's most recent biggest hit and the current generation of artists' first film just sealed the deal.

[Aaron_03]

This movie was one of my favorites growing up. I agree that this is one of Disney's most underrated movies along with Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[estefan]

Just read the DVD review of this and it was a greatly, smartly-written review of what I feel is one of Disney's most under-appreciated flicks. That said, this is something I likely won't upgrade on until the Blu-Ray. No use upgrading from my perfectly acceptable VHS copy for some meager extras.

Also, one small nitpick: Douglas Seale was the voice of the Sultan in Aladdin. Val Bettin wouldn't go on to voice for him until the DTV sequels and television series.

[Ben]

Thanks Estefan (nice catch on Bettin...that's been fixed)!

For those others that want to read my take on Mouse 'Tec, here ya go:
http://animatedviews.com/2010/the-great ... t-edition/



Essentially, as Estefan says, this edition simply isn't worth picking up. The new transfer is "nice", if a bit over saturated, but there's no new extras and actually much less than on the 2002 DVD. As I say in the wrap up of the review:

Disney knows they have a stinker, as evidenced by the less than $20 list price, but it’s not even worth that. Hold out for the eventual Blu-ray, and keep your fingers crossed that Disney’s own detectives can come up with some better supplements to make that disc worth the inevitable wait.

[Randall]

My laserdisc was rotted when i took it out last year to watch with my daughter, and the $9.99 I paid for the new DVD version seemed about right.