Animation Domination: FernGully the Last Rainforest

Crysta (Samantha Mathis), a young fairy is training to be the next magical leader of FernGully.  At one point in time, humans and fairies lived together in peace, but an evil force called Hexxus (Tim Curry) drove the humans away before being imprisoned in a tree by Magi (Grace Zabriskie) the current leader and magical leader of their clan.  While Crysta is exploring an area of the rainforest she comes across Batty (Robin Williams) who had escaped from a lab where humans ran tests on him, giving him a zany, manic personality.  With the hopes of humans returning Crysta ventures deeper into the rainforest and finds a human named Zak (Jonathan Ward), whom she accidentally shrinks to fairy size and doesn’t know how to restore him.  She convinces Zak to go back with her to FernGully where Magi can fix this, believing that the humans are there to do good, but in reality they are cutting down the rainforest and unfortunately, they release Hexxus by cutting down the tree he was imprisoned in.   Hexxus feeds on the exhaust and other pollutants to make himself stronger and convinces the other humans in destroying FernGully.  It is up to Crysta, Zak, Batty and the other fairies to find a way to defeat Hexxus and save their home!

FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a 1992 animated musical fantasy adapted from the FernGully stories by Diana Young.  The film is joint venture between Australia and America and takes place near Mount Warning in Australia. The film was released in theaters on April 10, 1992, and garnered mostly positive reviews and is considered a moderate financial success. The infamous Roger Ebert critic of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and said, that the film was visually “very pleasing”, told a “useful lesson”, “and although the movie is not a masterpiece it’s pleasant to watch for its humor and sweetness” but on the flip side, Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave an unfavorable review stating “an uncertain blend of sanctimonious principles and Saturday-morning cartoon aesthetics”, and “more run-of-the-mill than its subject matter might indicate”. The film used a combination of hand drawn scenes mixed with computer animation cutting the production time in half. There was also a bit of rivalry between Disney and the FernGully production, Robin Williams had already been cast as Batty when he was cast as Genie in the Disney version of Aladdin, and Disney asked Williams to remove himself from the FernGully film.  Williams declined, after that, Disney attempted to interfere with the production of the FernGully movie, in the end both films got made and both were successful.

I did see FernGully in the theater, but not for several months after its initial release and I remember loving it at the time.  The film uses the voice of two of my all-time favorite actors, Robin Williams and Tim Curry, both doing an amazing job doing what they do best.  Williams adds the appropriate manic energy as a lab test animal whose brain has been a bit scrambled by humans. Likewise, Curry exudes he amazing dark charm as the “Big Bad” of the film. FernGully also reunites Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, who voiced the “Beetle Brothers” Stump and Root. The other actors are all appropriately cast and do amazing jobs.  The films theme is blatantly environmental, but the producers tried to keep it from becoming preachy.  There are some who believe the film did not go far enough exploiting this theme and take issues with shifting the blame of destroying the planet from humans to a supernatural being like Hexxus. In addition, the fact that FernGully is saved and does not get destroyed removes the urgent nature of the message the film was trying to impart.  Where I see these points, this is a children’s film that needs to deliver a message but also be entertaining and it needs to leave its audience with hope and hopefully a renewed vigor to save our planet.