Both Ends of the Spectrum: 'Anastasia'

By David Eng

Being my second article, this one will focus on some sort of cartoon. For this week specifically however, I will be focusing on the movie Anastasia. The film was created and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman who are both famous for their work in Disney. The film was not made under the jurisdiction of Disney, but under Fox Animation Studios which only lasted for six years. The movie Anastasia is loosely based on the Russian massacre of Anastasia Nikolaevna's family and Anastasia's rumored survival. The film also was also noted for its soundtrack and is to this day the most grossing film for Bluth and Goldman.

One of the oddities of the film is the strange point of inspiration. I understand many animated movies love to get their central plot from dark tales. Many examples being The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Cinderella and many more, but the difference is that the story of Anastasia actually happened. The history of this massacre is extremely dark and had to be changed drastically to make it fit for a movie for children. Essentially, they changed a historical and political event into a fairy tale and that rubbed some people the wrong way. I call this an oddity because this would not bother some people and many people would not know about the history that this was based on without reading it elsewhere. This would bother some people because it changes something that is supposed to be serious into something light-hearted.

            The animation of this movie along with the voice actors are truly standout. There are many moments in the film where the animation is stupendous, but to contrast this, there are also moments where the quality of animation falters. The movie does that weird technique of mixing 2D cartoon like animation with 3D rendered models. These 3D rendered models stick out like sore thumbs and the movie would have been better off without them. Luckily, the 2D animation is spectacular enough to make up for this flaw. The voice actors in the movie are mostly extremely good. They seem to know exactly the atmosphere of every scene and seem naturally able to slip themselves in their characters. Unfortunately, the best voice actors are the two comic reliefs. Three of the characters in the film were also nominated for Annie Awards based on their voice acting, one of them even won.

            Probably the strongest point of the film is the soundtrack which is indisputably very admirable. Two songs which stick out the most are Journey to the Past and Once Upon a December. These two songs specifically are well crafted, fit the movie nicely while also holding merit on their own right. The soundtrack was created by David Newman and he did truly a fantastic job. Nothing more to say as the soundtrack is good enough that saying any more would just be redundant.

            One of the gripes that I have with the film is its basic story. It is a bit too coincidental in its telling. Other animated film of the time have some rhyme or reason to extravagant events happening, but this one has too many blocks falling just into the right places. The story makes up for this flaw with its characters however which are, while somewhat unoriginal, are very lovable. The dialogue is written with comedy in between the lines which demonstrates an understanding of not having a story be dominated by its humor. No character is outwardly unlikable either, even the comic relief is serious when needed and does not interrupt the story. While the story consists of too much luck for my taste, the characters allow for some forgiveness of this.

            Overall, the movie is not one of my favorite animated children films. The story is not engaging enough and a lot of the strength in the movie come from the technical aspects of the movie rather than the story. The music, animation, and voice acting are the most prominent points of the film, while the story and plot play second fiddle. The most salient aspect of the story itself are the characters and their design by far. On a personal rating, I would give this movie a 6.5/10, however I do believe my opinion is quite biased. The film probably deserves somewhere along the lines of an 8.5/10. My biases lie within my fatigue of children's movies with these sort of tropes, within the first twenty minutes of the movie, one basically understands what will transpire. Some people have no problem with this in children's movies, but I do and is why I give it a lower rating than it deserves.