Happily Never After: The (Unexpected) Uphill Swing

Why did they suddenly decide to get good?

The legacy of corporate cynicism baked into the legacy of Disney’s direct to video animated sequels has been an indefensible black mark on the company’s quality control record that won’t be forgotten even as the world has moved far beyond the era in which they were rolled out.

I think that the true testament to how much damage the lazier entries of these films cost however lies not in how painful subjugation is to them but in how many opportunities were genuinely missed.

The occasionally odd pleasant surprise has reared its head before but there’s something almost tragically sobering to come across not one but two decent films back to back after deep diving into almost self explanatory crap with all of the elegance of ripping off a bandage to stop prolonging the pain.

These movies are far from the quality of their respective prequels but the noticeable effort that they’ve put into legitimate sincerity is so damn refreshing that they may as well have been produced by Walt Disney himself from beyond the grave.

I mentioned previously that “The Fox and the Hound” was probably one of my personal favorite entries in the Animated Cannon. For those wondering what my favorite film is, look no further than “Bambi.” The life of the young and future Great Prince of the Forest was one of Walt’s favorite features to work on and to this day I still adore every minute of it.

The movie’s ability to communicate a relatable childhood and adult life from start to finish while keeping dialogue to an absolute minimum and framing the destruction that man can bring as not a force of malevolence to be combated but merely a force of nature that must be dealt with upon arrival is a masterpiece of xenofiction that is elegantly paced, poignant, and still a glorious study of animation period.

It’s probably one of my favorite films of all time and I still watch it every year and find something new out of it.

With this in mind, I dreaded the inevitable revisit of “Bambi 2.” My memories of these films have been becoming far more cohesive and recalling catching them in passing on lazy post high school afternoons as Toon Disney played in the background as I surfed the net or occasionally worked on homework has put me in panics of the god awful features that have come to pass that I must force myself through for a job that clearly doesn’t appreciate the effort that I put into it.

To my pleasant surprise however, I walked away from the midquel to one of my favorite films of all time pleasantly surprised.

Following Bambi’s life after the iconic loss of his mother and before his adult years, the film depicts him adjusting to life living with his emotionally distant and stoic father and while the film is substantially more dialogue heavy, it’s also infectiously sincere about its depiction of childhood through the lens of a small animal community.

Everything from Bambi’s efforts to adjust to his new living situation with a parent that he admires but doesn’t understand him, to his adventures with Thumper and Flower getting into trouble and dealing with consequences all feel like endeavors based on some corollary to childhood social experiences.

Everybody’s dealt with their own Ronno, that one big shot kid that shared your stature but felt the need to talk himself up to put you down for no discernible reason, the very nature of dealing with the loss of a parent as an adjustment that can be rough but isn’t the end of the world is something that should probably be far more prevalent in media than it’s usually depicted, and while the film never comes close to the same poignancy of Bambi losing his mother, I’d say that the image of him frozen in fear of a hunter’s spotlight and accompanying hunting dogs as a literal “deer in headlights” symbolic of reliving the post traumatic stress that took his beloved mother away is so striking that it’s pretty damn brilliant in its own way.

And best of all, it avoids the Disney Dad syndrome by making the struggles of his father completely relatable, especially in the face of tradition and real life animal gender roles, and voiced by Patrick Stewart, because nobody wants to question Captain Picard.

Bambi 2 is far from perfect, a few notches below great, and may not even be the best movie put out by Disney Toon Studios but it probably has the most artistry put into it and for that I can’t praise it highly enough, especially after what I’ve been sitting through for the past 2 years.

Another of the rare survivors from the experimental Dark Age of Disney in the early 2000s, It’s occasionally hard to tell if “Lilo and Stitch” is a bold family film about the struggles and prevailing strength behind family bonds wrapped up in a science fiction movie or a science fiction movie that accidentally shines light on the damages that well meaning welfare institutions can inflict upon good strong families. In any case, it’s a great movie with some of the most charming character work of that any of Disney’s animators have put forth.

“Stitch Has a Glitch” is unfortunately a major step down in the writing department, following the titular alien genetic experiment suffering some sort of mysterious melt down as he helps his best friend prepare for a hula competition.

The film is sequelitis to the max, looking for any justification manageable to retread the original film’s greatest hits; the philosophy of Elvis Pressley, Nani’s boyfriend David is the greatest boyfriend ever, Nani herself continues to be the harried anchor of the nontraditional familial unit of the household, etc.

What thought may have been lacking in the film’s conception however, was obviously relegated in major doses to execution.

The themes of sticking by family through thick and thin are more resonant than ever and Stitch remains a masterpiece of animation in and of himself. I don’t even want to fathom how much time and effort went into capturing every minute detail of his erratic yet subtly communicative body language but it could carry the film as a silent feature alone.

It’s a story that doesn’t quite have much to tell and may even start to wear out its welcome a tad bit too soon but it gets by on carrying itself with charm and thusly feeling like one of the most lively settings every crafted by its studio, which mostly falls in line with the solid feature that it dares to follow up on.

A nice reprieve overall before closing the book on this Dark Age of Disney next week once and for all.