November 16 - The Rescuers Down Under

Photo lifted from imbd.com

On this day, in 1990, Walt Disney Pictures' 29th animated feature, The Rescuers Down Under, opened in theaters. The movie was the second film released during the so called Disney Renaissance, but is rarely seen as being on par with the pictures surrounding it. The Rescuers Down Under is notable for a number of reasons, though. It was the first time a sequel to a Disney animated movie had been produced. It was the first film to be done entirely using the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). This means it was the first completely digital Disney animated feature. Everything was still hand drawn, but it was scanned into a computer to be inked, painted and sequenced. No cameras were used in the production. Down Under was also the first Disney movie since Bambi to promote the environment and advocate for animal rights.

The Rescuers Down Under faced an uphill battle from its conception. America went crazy for movies either set in Australia or featuring Australians after the success of Crocodile Dundee in 1986. Unfortunately, by the time this movie opened, the craze had pretty much disappeared. Couple that with the fact that it premiered the same weekend as Home Alone and it's not hard to see why it had to fight for every dollar of 3.5 million it opened with. The studio was so disappointed, Jeffrey Katzenberg killed all further advertising and let the movie limp along to a 27.9 million dollar finish. The fact that Down Under was also a non-musical (and not just in that characters didn't sing songs but that there were no songs period) didn't help, especially coming after The Little Mermaid.

Photo courtesy of villains.wikia.com

The critical reception wasn't actually too bad. Most reviewers agreed that the story was nothing special but was still an improvement over the original film. They generally liked the production values, especially the action sequences and thought the voice talent was good. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor, in her final film role, reprised their roles. George C. Scott was brought in as the villain McLeach and John Candy replaced the late Jim Jordan as the flying albatross.

The company's disappointment with The Rescuers Down Under, however, has continued in the handling of the film in the home video market. The first release on VHS saw the original film being included in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, but not Down Under. It did make it into the Gold Classic Collection for the DVD release, but by the time Blu-ray came along, Down Under would get tacked on to the same box as its older sibling.  It apparently wasn't worth getting its own packaging. The lasting legacy of this, like it or not, mostly forgotten movie, is that sequels can be economically viable.