I’m back, and with a touch of nostalgia

All right. That hiatus lasted longer than I thought it would. I took it originally to give myself more time to search for a job, but even now, four months later, I’m still looking. Even so, I finished an internship and so have more free time on my hands. As such, I will try to update this blog from time to time.

Don’t expect the weekly Mouseandhat posts to come back, at least not right away. I had some fun with that gimmick, but over time, I found it to be more of a constraint than a gateway to creativity. I’m not sure if any of you noticed, but it got to the point where pretty much the only posts I was making were Mouseandhat posts. Plus, the ideas hat was getting empty, and most of the best ideas were already used. I will try to throw in a Mouseandhat post every now and then – possibly when I don’t have anything else to write about – but they will be few and far between. If any of you readers (presuming there are more than one of you out there) want to see the feature come back, the best thing you can do is send me some great ideas for things to write about.

That said, I thought I’d do a good, ol’-fashioned rundown. This being Friday, a day I always considered to be a good day to write about movies, it will be a rundown of films I enjoyed as a child and a look at whether the seeming wonder of each one deserves such nostalgic praise. Hope you enjoy this retrospective look.

Twice Upon a Time (1983)

Nostalgia rating: 4 out of 5 fig-men of imagination

Let’s kick it off with an obscure one, shall we? “Twice Upon a Time” is a lovely children’s movie from the 1980s that employed an animation style similar to that of “South Park” – characters and scenery were composed of plastic shapes cut out and moved around on a light table. It stars a duo of unlikely heroes: the mute bumbler in muted colors, Mum, and Ralph, the all-purpose animal. They are joined by aspiring actress Flora Fauna and aspiring superhero Rod Rescueman in a quest to stop the sinister Synonamess Botch from stopping the production of dreams and flooding the world with nightmares.

Sounds like a great story, right?

What makes “Twice Upon a Time” such a gem, aside from the peculiar cast of characters, is the wit and humor that permeates each scene. It resorts to plenty of slapstick humor, especially when Ralph and Mum take center stage, but there is also a good dose of mature and, at times, even adult comedy sprinkled throughout the movie. In fact, at least two different versions of the film exist, with one missing certain lines and scenes that would have pushed it beyond its PG rating.

“Twice Upon a Time” was George Lucas’ first animated feature film. It’s a wonder it was never released in DVD format, and the VHS is difficult to find (though a low-quality video upload can be found here). The music is totally ’80s, and some of the pacing might feel slow for modern viewers, but the film still has a place in my heart.

The Flight of Dragons (1982)

Nostalgia rating: 2 out of 5 incantations of Newton’s laws of motion

I’ll be the first to admit it: I had a bit of an obsession with dragons when I was little. Plus, I was (am?) kind of a nerd.

“The Flight of Dragons”, a film by the same company that produced “The Hobbit”, “The Last Unicorn” and the animated show “ThunderCats”, tells the story of a scientist, Peter Dickenson, who is called into a realm of magic to stop an evil wizard. In this realm, magic is dying. The evil wizard plans to enslave humanity to force people to turn away from science, which is draining magic of its power and influence.

So what happens? Peter, voiced by John Ritter, attempts to explain the peculiarities of magic within the context of logic. Even after he is transferred into the body of a dragon, he seeks to understand his ability to breath fire and fly through the lens of biology and physics. Ultimately, in this dragon form, he confronts the evil wizard in a harrowing showdown, accompanied by a group of characters straight out of a round of Dungeons & Dragons. He nullifies the wizard’s magic and defeats him by shouting scientific principles at him.

To recap: This is a fantasy movie, with dragons and wizards, in which a nerd uses his nerdiness to save the day. Isn’t that fantastic?

It’s easy to see how this movie would not likely be well-received by today’s youth. The animation is old. It’s not that “cool” – rather, it’s a big ol’ bag of nerd. Even so, it is the sort of film that people who saw it as children might remember fondly and look up clips from on YouTube. I know I did.

Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984)

Nostalgia rating: 5 out of 5 dream-eating pigs

Back in the day, the Sci Fi Channel (now SyFy for some reason) used to show anime films on the weekend. As a result, I got a glimpse of great Japanese movies like “Akira” and “Roujin Z”. I remember watching “Beautiful Dreamer” one night, sitting in front of the TV with my family and enjoying a bowl of peanut butter cup ice cream. At the time, anime was something fairly new to me, and the zaniness of the characters and story appealed to me.

“Beautiful Dreamer” is part of a manga and anime series centered around the adventures of a boy named Ataru and the tigerprint-loving, horned alien Lum who fancies herself Ataru’s wife – but the whole backstory surrounding that situation is not crucial to the plot. Rather, the story finds Ataru, Lum and their classmates trapped in a seemingly infinite loop of high school festivals, a process of rebuilding and re-celebrating that repeats again and again, yet nobody seems to notice. Instead, it is as if they are drawn to the school by some unseen power, and only by accident does anyone discover that something isn’t quite right here.

When the characters catch on to the peculiarity of their goings-on, they try to break out of the monotony and search for an answer to the bizarre events around them. As they do so, even more bizarre (and hilarious) things start happening, until they find themselves all alone in a wasteland of a town. As the mystery and chaos escalate, though, the characters get closer to the truth: They are living inside a dream. But who is the dreamer?

After years of not being able to remember the name of this film, I found it not too long ago and had a chance to watch it again. It was just as wonderful as I remembered it, if not more so. I did notice some elements that my childhood self did not notice, though. For instance, as the dream starts crashing in on itself toward the end, the protagonist passes through what is essentially a harem fantasy, complete with brief nudity. Whether this scene was edited out of the Sci Fi Channel’s airing or whether I simply repressed it in my memory is irrelevant as it did not really detract from the experience as a whole. Whatever the case, I remember “Beautiful Dreamer” fondly, and even thinking about it makes me want to find a copy and watch it again.

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989, 1992 U.S.)

Nostalgia rating: 3 out of 5 jazama pajamas

Dreams seem to be a common theme in ’80s animated movies, huh?

Of course, such a list would not be complete without “Adventures in Slumberland”. I remember watching this movie back when Cartoon Network showed more than just straight-to-DVD Scooby Doo movies on the weekend – in fact, I also saw “Twice Upon a Time” and “The Flight of the Dragons” as part of their weekend movie program. What happened to those days?

For anyone familiar with the early 20th century comics by Winsor McCay, Little Nemo is a curious young boy who finds himself a royal guest of Morpheus, the king of Slumberland. The king proclaims Nemo to be his sole heir and entrusts him with the key to a door that locks the evil Nightmare Lord beneath the castle. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this situation.

Enter Flip, a cigar-chomping rogue voiced wonderfully by Mickey Rooney, who serves as the devil on Nemo’s little shoulder. Not surprisingly, Flip’s prodding results in Nemo releasing the denizens of Nightmare Land, devastating Slumberland and setting Nemo on a quest to right that which he has wronged.

“Adventures in Slumberland” is one of those films that has a heavy dose of innocence, even as the protagonist struggles to overcome his own flaws and take on responsibility for his actions. There is a sequence early on where Nemo meets the king’s daughter, who regards him haughtily for showing up in his pajamas. He is then whisked into a musical sequence where the finer points of etiquette are shoved in his face. This humorous bit gives way to a scene in which Nemo, the princess and one of her aides enjoy some of the more festive features of Slumberland, much of it pulled right from the pages of its source material (while also ignoring more controversial elements).

I did not find out until much later that the film had run into some difficulties during development. At one point, Hayao Miyazaki was involved in production, and some folks from Studio Ghibli even threw together a pitch animation. That bridge was burned over creative differences, however, and the film took about seven years to reach completion. It wasn’t released in the U.S. until three years later, though a great NES game based on the movie reached America first in 1990. The film wasn’t a huge hit in the U.S. when it first came out in theaters, but it saw great sales when it hit VHS.

Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988)

Nostalgia rating: 1 out of 5 creepy rat people

I almost didn’t want to write about this one. Old-timey comics and cartoons have a place in my heart, as evidenced by my appreciation for Little Nemo. What’s not to like about Felix, the black cat with the magical bag that can do anything?

Thanks to another Cartoon Network movie weekend, I recall catching this one once or twice as a child. Maybe I grew up watching too much TV. Regardless, my memory of it was mostly positive, so when I got the chance to see it again years later, I took it.

Clearly, my childhood self was blind to the movie’s apparent flaws. The animation was choppy at times, and certain parts were clearly scenes that had been duplicated from earlier parts of the movie and replayed, even though they did not match up with the plot or action of the scene. For instance, there are two scenes in which Felix and his companions are escaping, and they both use the same shot of them running toward the audience. The scenes are supposed to take place in different settings and under different context, however, so the second time it is shown, it does not make much sense.

I really have nothing else to say. I know I enjoyed the movie as a child, but whatever respect I had for it was quashed when I watched it with a more mature perspective. Plus, Felix’s high-pitched voice gets annoying real fast.

The Lion King (1994)

Nostalgia rating: 2 out of 5 questionable coincidences

All right, enough with the semi-obscure ’80s movies. Disney’s “The Lion King” was a huge hit when it came out, and for good reason. The story was compelling, the characters were colorful, the voice acting was wonderful – Nathan Lane, Rowan Atkinson, James Earl Jones, Matthew Broderick, Cheech and Whoopi, the list goes on! It was one of the first movies I saw in a theater, and its vividness blew me away.

I could explain the plot of “The Lion King” in detail, but anyone who was born in the mid-’80s is most likely already familiar with it. Simba, a young lion, is tricked by his dastardly uncle Scar into thinking that he killed his father, Mustafa. So, Simba goes into exile, leaving Scar to take over the pride with malevolent intent. During his exile, Simba learns how to relax and have fun, but all that is cast aside when a childhood friend, Nala, finds him and tells him what has happened in his absence.

I have included this movie to demonstrate how, as I have gotten older, I have learned more and more of the sneaky and somewhat underhanded things that a company like Disney has done to generate revenue. Never mind the shoddy, straight-to-video sequels or the recycling of animation from one movie to the next – I am sure other animation studios are just as guilty. No, possibly a greater grievance is the implication that “The Lion King” is derived heavily from “The Jungle Emperor”, a cartoon created by Japan’s version of Walt Disney, Osamu Tezuka, and starring a young lion named Kimba. The similarities are plentiful, though both companies maintain that any such similarities are merely coincidence.

Maybe it is all coincidence. Maybe, because of the setting and the personalities we might associate with certain types of animals, it isn’t that far-fetched that characters and scenes might be eerily similar. Even so, the splendor of the Disney movie has been tarnished slightly by the possibility of plagiarism, however unintentional.

I was half-tempted to throw in a live-action movie to avoid making an all-animation list, but what’s wrong with that? Some great animated films came out in earlier decades, and it seems that such traditional animation is being discarded for the shininess and ease of digital animation, however stale it might appear – but that’s a topic for another day. This post has gotten long enough already. Besides, the only non-animated film of my childhood that comes to mind is “Labyrinth”, mostly for Jennifer Connelly’s slow-aging beauty and David Bowie’s discomforting crotch bulge. I’ll just leave you to stew over that for a bit.

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