If I see that kid pushing those Goddamned Baskin Robins treats one more time I’m going postal. Christ but that is an irritating commercial.
Zette
Are you referring to the post-LITTLE MERMAID animated features?
Lessee…BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was set in 18th century France…ALADDIN was set in. what, 11th century Baghdad?..MULAN was set in 8th century China…HUNCHBACK was set in 16th century Paris…LION KING had animals…POCAHONTAS was set in 17th century North America (but had Europeans and Native Americans)…HERCULES was set in Ancient Greece…
In which of these times/locales would you have seen a mixed family, or even a lusty blend of races and ethnicities living in mutual peace and harmony? Unless you looked REAL hard?
Actually, in Greece, at least, mixed families were moderately common, at least in the areas where traders & travellers were frequently found. The Roman empire often had mixed families, in part because of the practice of settling retired legionares on the barbaricum and marrying them to the local women. Sicily and Spain had the Moors mixing in…
The issues of mixed families in the older world is more about travel than anything else. If you travelled, and settled in at a new location, you had no choice but to have a mixed family, if you were to have one at all. In areas that saw few travellers, no mixed families. In areas where travel was common, ethnicities mixed all the time.
The little kid in the commewcial swurping his ice cweam while telling us all about Spiwit and his fwiends makes me want to weguwgitate.
That is all.
So, uh, CRorex, how you doin’?
No violence? None at all? Are you sure?
What about the two times that I noticed where guns were fired at Spirit and at the Native American who befriends him? What about when the whip is cracked at Spirit and the other horses who are being forced to pull a locomotive cross country? Hell, what about when Spirit kicks the crap out of the blacksmith?
Damn, Caricci, no spoiler warning?
Now that you’ve ruined Spiwit for me, I guess I’m just going to have to see Insomnia instead.
Ukulele Ike,
fair enough.
I can understand you wanting to only compare movies post little mermaid. It’s a dfifierent world and people think differently now.
I was referring to all of their movies though.
however, the three movies that I can think of that take place in current times (return to neverland, lilo and toy story) all have families that are not mixed.
I still stand by the notion that they use the ‘nicest’ stereotypes, though.
I dunno, I just find it irksome. my two cents.
Oh, no problem. I also find Disney VERY irksome.
But throwing in gratuitious racial mixes always makes me think of those old WWII era comic books with the teams of Nazi fighters, one plucked from each Allied country. Jacques the cheese-eating pencil-moustached Frenchman; Algernon the tea-sipping monocled Englishman; Ivan the vodka-swilling fur-hatted Russian; Mack, the Kid From Brooklyn, etc. Seems more like phony-baloney tokenism than anything else.
Not that I had any intention of seeing this movie, but I found it very annoying that they show what is obviously the very last scene of the movie during the trailer. (the two adult horses running into the distance while the Native American character waves to them, or something along those lines) I can’t stand when movies do this! C’mon, I know it’s gonna have a happy ending and all, but why do they have to give me the Cliff’s Notes version of the whole story?
The movie “Enough” comes to mind as well. Or “Double Jeopardy”.
Oh, no, it was ruined long before I posted.
FYI, it’s a Dreamworks, not Disney production.
Actually, I didn’t think that they portayed the Lakota as being uber-perfect. Spirit wasn’t interested in being tamed by either Native Americans or the Cavalry.
I liked that the animals didn’t talk, and there were no sidekicks. I wouldn’t exactly say it was non-violent… Many people are killed by Spirit’s actions in one part. But, like a real animal, he is amoral and doesn’t particularly care. Some may disagree with me, but this was something in the movie’s favor: the horses were not excessively anthropomorphised. The plot was pretty predictable but no more so than several other blockbuster movies out right now [cough]Star Wars Ep. 2[cough]
Oh, no, it was ruined long before I posted.
What happened? The Bishop missed with the Oil of Chrism? The horses refused to renounce Satan?
:d&r:
I think a movie about undead horses would be pretty cool.
For instance, in a better world, Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness (hey, it’s in the opening credits) would have had the budget for all the horses in Bad Ash’s undead army to have been only skeletons.
No singing in Lilo & Stitch?
Hot damn! Now I have to go see it!
Of course, the fact that it’s got a way-cool premise (alien moster is adopted by clueless kid) helps, but the lack of musical interludes is a big plus in my book.
As for mixed ethnicities, I definitely recall seeing distinctively-white and distinctively-Hawaiian/Pacific Islander folks in the trailers for Lilo & Stitch, so it’s probably a bit more heterogenious than the typical Disney flick.
That’s conformation, I beieve 
Rain looked hip-high (hips higher than shoulders), swaybacked and had that roman nose thing going on. I didn’t think Spirit looked too bad.
A 10-year old at my barn commented: “where was the poop?”
Hello Again that is another reason why I liked the movie, they obviously could’ve gotten major mileage out of a poop scene but they didn’t even go there.
Heyla, gentlefolk. Just reading over the hubby’s shoulder and I had to reply to this thread. I earned my degree in Animal Sciences, Equine Management, from Texas A&M University, worked as a breeding manager (okay, no sniggering) for an Arabian horse farm, and currently get dragged out to judge at equine art shows. Therefore…
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Scylla, the horses have fairly good confORmation for animated characters. Not missing any joints or bones that I noticed (and I’m picky!). As a matter of fact, several scenes look to have been animated over the top of real horses.
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If you are going to trot out the word “conformation” and point fingers at certain characteristics, remember what breed you’re talking about. Mustangs tend to be coarser - Roman nosed, thick throatlatches, small tough feet.
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Young mares do tend to be hip-high, and horses that live without modern veterinary care (and some that do) develop swaybacks from fevers or poor nutrition at a young age.
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Having actualy seen the movie voluntarily, I was impressed by the animators’ care in making the horses’ movements natural. The only “fault” was that horses DO NOT have eyebrows, in the human sense, but I’m willing to overlook it.
The horse sounds were quite realistic for the situations they used them in. Stallions, especially feral horses, are quite chatty. -
Hi, Opal!
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The storyline was just that, a storyline. I saw elements of several well-loved Western legends in there, but then I have several thick anthologies of nothing but. No, it wasn’t a Great Work of Movie History, but it was enjoyable. The differing training methods of the cavalry and the Lakota Sioux are well-documented fact (I know a Lakota trainer. He’s awesome!).
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Herds of small children should be carefuly tended in public places and their presence not held against the event that attracts them. No one blames the honey for the flies.
Eponia (aka Mrs Inkblot)
P.S. I videogame, cook (fairly well), don’t mind a bit of gentle inebriation, and love watching bad scifi movies. Ain’t InkBlot lucky?
I see BNB. But anyway, from the 27 Disney full length animated features before Mermaid 18 were animal oriented. Not that the others were bastions of equality. Thinking of the half Black women/half zebra servants to Dionysus in Fantasia. Most of the rest were old European fairy tales.
One could argue that several films after Mermaid implied that mixed families were coming. American Indian/English (even though we know they had no kids). Gypsy/French. And lastly English/Atlantean. Thankfully they’ve stopped using fairy tales and are moving on to other things. Give it time.
Anyway to the OP Spirit does have one of the most annoying ad campaigns recently. But I’ve survived cutsy before.
I’ve decided to save up all my vitriol for the singing cow movie coming out in 2003. It will be bile well spent I think/