favorite "fantasia" sequence

Did anyone see the iMax Fantasia 2000? It's better, basically, although everything is better in iMax. It's all new sequences apart from their leaving in of The Sorceror's Apprentice. Some of the new bits are totally good. There is a great bit that uses Stravinsky's The Firebird (particularly striking if you don't know the piece that well, as it has a great jump-out-of-your-skin moment), but best of all is Donald Duck helping Noah load the ark to Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance. It has the classic Donald Duck being surprised while bathing joke, but the best bit is when Donald is herding animals onto the ark two by two and then sees these two real non-anthropomorphic ducks who look quizzically at him while he does the same back to them.

I think that is the problem with the original Fantasia, there's no Donald in it.

I like the abstract bits very much, but I hate the whole strawinsky and dinosaurs sequence.

RONG

I like the part where the butterflies all turn into shapes and fly at you through the screen with rainbows while the third movement of Chopin's Funeral March gets louder and louder until the shells of the dancing turtles stop spinning.

The animation doesn't seem to affect my take on the segments. In other words, the segments I like are because I really like the music used therein. Hence, I like "Firebird," "Rite of Spring" and "Pines of Rome" better than "Night on Bald Mountain" and "Pomp and Circumstance."

The exception is probably "Dance of the Hippos," which is an awesome bit of animation.

Am I the only one who thinks that more than a little bit of the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" sequence from "2001" was inspired by Fantasia?

Fantasia is to a Donald Duck short as a Mozart symphony is to a Daphne & Celeste single. For those who might construe this otherwise, I'll clarify: it is long, boring, pretentious twaddle.

i'm sympathetic to martin's argument except that "sorcerer's apprentice" is almost as good as any donald duck short ever (not quite as good as "der fuehrer's face"), and "dance of the hours" is zippy and fun. the "rite of spring" might be a travesty of the original but it's a brilliant tour-de-force and surely the best screen depiction of dinosaurs ever. i like all the weird "this is how instruments are played" bits too, and the wacky bach thing.

that said, the beethoven segment justifies every complaint anyone's ever made about disney's cultural vulgarity, and the tschaikovski bit is boring. i don't like "bald mountain" or "ave maria" much either.

(plus, mozart is about the LEAST pretentious classical composer ever, wtf!)

yeah, mozart as long, boring, or pretentious simply does not compute

I can't believe there is so much hate for Fantasia. I watched it last night and realized it made a strange double feature with Tree of Life -- both have long silent evolution/dinosaur sequences, are strange and kinda quasi spiritual.

Favorite part is either the waveform sounds (esp the drums! yow!) and bald mountain. I officially love Fantasia and fuiud.

I mean dang, this was 1940?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZbMOq_Ge8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ca_edg6RE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_EDBM1tOEo

i can't believe i haven't seen this in the 38 years i've been alive.

When I was younger it made me feel queasy because I wanted Mickey to stop before he got in trouble but he never did

this is 100% young me and it makes me sad just remembering because for me I think I can get a read on why I'd be worried about Mickey getting in trouble

Man, that is so sad/tender.

Going to blather some more about this:
I also saw a parallel with ToL in the portrait of childhood. For me, childhood was not blowing up frogs, it was listening to music and watching animated dinosaurs evolve (and fight) and mushrooms dance and all of the fun abstract stuff that Fantasia is. When I saw the sugarplum fairy sequence it reminded me of how much I loved to dance as a kid. Still do, but I need to do it more.

It was also depressing to think that in 1940 (and 40 yrs later in 1980) it was ok to show kids cartoon boobies and Satan and evolution, but I can't see this being released today. This movie is older than my parents! That's old! Also, I'm old.

What do parents in 2011 think of Fantasia?

Fascinating how Deems Taylor introduces the Beethoven sequence by saying something like "Beethoven was inspired by the countryside of the land where he was raised, his homeland" or something equally vague, determinedly not identifying the country by name. Not wanting to say anything nice about Germany in 1940.

I like the abstract/Bach segment and those poor dying dinosaurs best. And yeah, Mickey.

love fantasia. saw it for the first time in 1977 at age 10, in its original form and on the big screen, count myself lucky. love almost everything in it, but especially "the sorceror's apprentice" and "night on bald mountain". hippos, pegasi, dancing mushrooms, dinosaurs, what's not to like?

Did anyone see the iMax Fantasia 2000? It's better, basically, although everything is better in iMax.

this is mindblowingly wrong and stupid

this movie is completely awesome, I think the only misstep honestly is the alligators/hippos which is overly silly

what's not to like?

google "fantasia sunflower"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPKpFNm3QMM

google "fantasia sunflower"

well, yeah, there's that. remember my folks wanting to have a "serious talk" about sunflower and the chinese mushrooms afterwards.

not inclined to condemn the film for the inclusion of such stuff, though it is offensive. would rather see people take the good for what it is without denying the bad. feel the same about the censorship of old warner brothers cartoons.

Fantasia/2000 does have some great sequences in it.

i prefer 'allegro non troppo.'