Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney back to our Dino-Rama event. Today, we are doing something a bit different as I am looking at The Rite of Spring from Fantasia as the first ever Music Fridays/Classic Shorts Showcase combo. Now interestingly, at the time of the film's release, Igor Stravinsky was the only composer whose music was featured in Fantasia that was still alive at the the time. Though he apparently didn't care for Stokowski's recording because the animators had to cut some pieces. With that out the way, let's begin.
The Plot
To say that there is a plot might not be entirely accurate. It's more of a narrative that just happens to be set to music. Honestly, I think that perhaps the best way to describe this is that it's almost like watching a documentary about dinosaurs minus the narration. Oh, sure, we do see the start of time and the beginning of dinosaurs and we do get some nice shots such as of this rather cute baby triceratops.
And at that point everything seems fine and peaceful but then he shows up.
The tyrannous rex and the mood shifts and it becomes more ominous and dark and actually a bit scary as it shows just how brutal, the age of dinosaurs could be as we get a rather intense fight between the T. Rex and a stegosaurus and while the stegosaurus gives it his all, he is no match for the king of the dinosaurs.
Dang, that's rough. And things only seem to get worse from there as things dry as everything had dried up, there was no food or water for the dinosaurs and that left them vulnerable to attacks as we saw as some were attacked by ceratosaurus and there was nothing that the dinosaurs could do about it. Sometime after this, we see the footprints of the dinosaurs and the fossils indicating that they are now extinct.
After we see this, the moon forms an eclipse with the sun and an earthquake erupts wiping away the bones of the dinosaurs. And everything is quiet once again and all you see is a sea indicating the fossils of the dinosaurs have been lost to time.
It's been awhile since I've watched Fantasia and while it's not of one of my favorite movies, I do enjoy but I always remembered being a bit bored by this segment as a kid and I think that is because it's the longest segment in the film and I would be lying if I didn't say that I felt it dragged a little bit. It's good but you can really feel the length of it. It has a lot of great moments to be sure but I think with it being how long it is, it's not hard to see how it could lose a kid's attention. Sure, the dinosaurs are awesome and do keep kids engaged and maybe this isn't true of every kid but I don't know, I even now could feel its length. But that is at best, a minor criticism.
Music
The Rite of Spring
Like with all the other segments in the movie, this is a great pairing of music with animation. I don't know how they do it but this gorgeous music highlights how beautiful the animation is. And the two go together so well. Honestly, the music brings out the best in the animation and makes it pop all the more. That is not easy feat in the slightest but they pulled it off and rather beautifully. The music even on it's own is very good but in terms of looking at it with the animation, it is astounding in how much it fits like a glove.
My Final Thoughts
While this isn't my favorite segment from Fantasia and I still do maintain that you can feel it's length, it is very good and rather enjoyable. If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favor and check it out. Join me next time as we head to Spoonerville to look at the Goof Troop episode...
Great Egg-Spectations
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