Disney and Lucas, The Creators of Worlds

It was certainly something when I found out that Lucasfilm would be bought out by The Walt Disney Company this past Halloween, and that the long awaited Episode 7 would hit cinemas as late as 2015. Many were delighted to hear the news, for the idea of new Star Wars films would bring enlightenment and excitement in the coming years, others were infuriated, cringing at the very thought that the galaxy far far away was now in the same family as Muppets, steamboat chugging mice, and merry mouskateers. I, on the other hand, was neither delighted nor infuriated, but plain out surprised. Many questions raced into my head as to why one of my favorite franchises of all time was sold to the company started by the legendary Walter Elias Disney and his brother Roy in the late 1920s. Now, after several weeks of pondering on the matter, and pondering on the fact that Yoda and Mickey Mouse are now pretty much one, I can come to the conclusion that the great Walt Disney and the great George Lucas are similar in many ways, for they both started out very small in a big world and worked their way up, becoming creators of worlds in their own right.



The World of Disney is Walt Disney's creation (duh) and Star Wars is George Lucas' creation, and even if these two geniuses had their share of problems and doubts, they chucked them out the door and succeeded in crossing the finish line, incepting what are inarguably some of the most iconic images in all of pop media. This can be seen throughout their films, from the overpowering magnitude of Fantasia and it's prudent musical scores, to the exciting, head bending nature of the Star Wars saga and the Indiana Jones series. And yes, even in the latest Star Wars trilogy, it clearly shows Lucas' creative vision and passion for the arts, something that is often overlooked and unfairly compared. So lets have a look at the similarities between these two very famous men and see how they got started and eventually became what we know them as today.



Well for one thing, both Lucas and Disney started never wanting to go into the field of storytelling and creating worlds. Disney wanted to go into the army, and at 16, he dropped out of high school to do just that. George Lucas was a high school outcast who was more fascinated by race cars than with video cameras. After a brutal car accident that nearly claimed his life, Lucas decided to go into another field, the field of independent filmmaking, and I use "independent" very highly, for Lucas was a person who hated the systems and rules of the studios and wanted to do his own thing. As for Disney, he was not accepted into the army because he was underage, and he and his friend decided to join Red Cross where Disney drove an ambulance for a few months. After he was done driving an ambulance, it was then that Disney decided to go in the art direction, drawing comics and doodles for a newspaper. Along the way of his long and tedious career, Disney also established many short lived companies before The Walt Disney Company was finally formed, such as Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists, which he formed with Ub Iwerks, who helped him created Mickey Mouse in 1928. He also formed Newman Laugh-O Gram and hired many animators to help him in making short animated cartoons, but the company eventually shut down because of studio profits and bankruptcy. Even Disney's first character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was taken out of his hands, and little did Walt know that it would take his company more than 8 decades to get the character back into Disney's grasp.



As for Lucas, he didn't have very much luck in the beginning either. In the early 1970s, he and Francis Ford Coppola founded the studio American Zoetrope and released THX 1138 in 1971 to little success. After the failure of this film, it was then that Lucas decided to form his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd. and release the smash hit American Graffiti in 1973. But even then, no one believed in Lucas and his filmmaking talent, for he had a very difficult time finding a distributor for Graffiti, eventually having it distributed by Universal. This very same thing carried on into Star Wars, as very few people had fate in Lucas' vision and many thought the film Lucas was creating was a complete mess. You know what, the making of Star Wars WAS a mess. Similar to what Steven Spielberg experienced while filming JAWS, many of the elements on the set of Star Wars were not working or nonexistent. Lucas constantly fell behind schedule, it rained a lot in the Tunisian desert where the Tatooine scenes were filmed, many of the film's props malfunctioned, and there were several electrical breakdowns. And several people who worked with Lucas on the film became angered, either quitting or having somebody else take their place. Even Lucas himself became angered and at times, felt like flushing the film down the toilet and forgetting about the thing all together. Lucas became so upset and stressed over the film that he was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with high blood pressure and exhaustion. Yes, Lucas had a truck full of miseries while filming Star Wars, and he himself, just like a good majority of people around that time, felt like the film was going to blow the big one and become a dismal disappointment. Of course we all know what came of Star Wars in the end, but the film was no easy task to complete.



The same can be said for Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and pretty much all of the Golden Age Disney animated flicks in general. As any long time animator will tell you, producing animation is no walk to the ice cream parlor. Just a few seconds of an animated film can take over 100 drawings to produce, and the fact that Disney and his crew were able to produce Snow White at such a planned rate is just remarkable. The fact that they were able to produce an hour and a half long animated film with all of it's colorful, rotoscoped, flawless glory is fantastic to think about, but the film, like Star Wars, was no easy peanut to turn into butter. In fact, at one point during the film's production, the film went over budget, and in order to get the rest of the money to complete the film, Disney had to show a rough cut of the film to bankers at the Bank of America. And even then, most people didn't have fate in Disney's vision as many of the film's producers, particularly the animators, became frustrated and felt like they were being overworked. Animator Ward Kimbell, one of Disney's "Nine Old Men", animated an extravagant soup eating scene involving the seven dwarves and Snow White only to have it cut from the final product. Kimbell became so angry that he was about to leave Disney's company, that is until Disney rewarded him by assigning him to work on Jiminy Cricket for Disney's next film, Pinocchio. And even if Disney's films like Snow White and Pinocchio became superb hits at the box office, the company was several million dollars in debt. Many of Disney's animators felt like they were being worked hard and paid little, and in 1941, many of Disney's animators went on strike, several of them departing the company all together. Most notable animators who left the company were Bill Melendez and Frank Tashlin, who went to work on Looney Tunes at Leon Schlesinger Productions.



Yes, it seemed that, despite there successes and triumphs, Lucas and Disney had their share of troubles and treacheries. Both of them became insanely rich, yet they owed a lot of money for the highly expensive movies they were making. Eventually, everything worked out for them in the end, but it would leave some scars that would never fully heal. Disney had several family issues while he was making his movies and Lucas got a divorce from his wife Marcia in the mid 1980s. Both of them would suffer from depressive states where they felt like throwing in the towel and giving up on everything they worked so hard to accomplish, but one thing is set in the stone as clear as day. Both Disney and Lucas were "wizard" at entrepreneurship. You can't deny that both Disney and Lucas pioneered new filmmaking techniques and brought forward new innovations and customs to the filmmaking industry. Lucas' special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, has given us both practical and computer animated special effects, blending them into films very well and giving a sense of realism to the whole "magical fantasy" element. Disney's "imagineers" helped bring animatronics and unique mechanisms to the movie dinner table and also helped bring a sense of magical quality to Walt Disney World when it opened in 1971. Disney's Multiplane camera also brought great special effects to many of Disney's animated films, giving a sense of 3-D nature and depth to many of the animated films' environments. And I'd be foolish not to mention that Pixar was developed at Lucasfilm and spun a web of it's own, eventually being bought out by The Walt Disney Company in 2004. Of course I don't need to go into much detail with that, for Pixar has produced some of Disney's most successful classics like Toy Story and Up.



But I remember growing up watching Disney films on VHS cassette tapes back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Right before the films started, there would be this weird sound and a logo that said THX. It spooked me for many years until the Internet boomed and I finally researched on what this whole THX thing was all out. THX, standing for Tomlinson Holman eXperiment (as well as a homage to THX 1138), is a sound technology that was developed at Lucasfilm in 1983 to help enhance the sound  and picture quality of Lucas' Star Wars Original Trilogy capper, Return of the Jedi. Since then, the technology has been used to restore a lot of older films, such as the first two Star Wars films, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, and of course, a majority of Disney's animated classics. Even Mickey's A Christmas Carol has been restored through the THX process. And it's also interesting to point out that THX is also used in video game consoles, car radios, home theaters, and even computer speakers. Yes, it all goes back to Lucasfilm and Disney some way or another, and when it comes to Jim Henson and his Muppets, they are also connected in one form or another. Of course Jim Henson oversaw the creation of Stewart Freeborn's Yoda for 1980's The Empire Strikes Back and he and Lucas teamed up for 1986's Labyrinth, but you may recall that Disney in fact owns the mainstream Muppet characters (not including the Sesame Street Muppets) and have distributed many of the Muppets' movies throughout the years, such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, and last November's blockbuster, simply titled The Muppets. The point is that Jim Henson has worked with both Lucas and Disney at some point, and some of his legacy is clearly shown throughout some of Disney and Lucas' motion pictures.



And of course, Walt Disney World has Star Wars Weekends each year, displaying Star Wars fandom mixed in with that charming "Disneyness". I find it odd, yet awesome at the same time, that there are action figures combining both the Disney icons with the Star Wars icons (Big Bad Pete as Boba Fett) and that there is a ride at Disney World called Star Tours, featuring Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens as the voice of the captain robot Rex. In my book, it just goes to show how much Star Wars is for the kiddies as it is for the adults. That parallels Disney perfectly, for even if most Disney films are for children, the adults can chime in and enjoy the wonder and the excitement as well. I like to think that  George Lucas is a child at heart just like Walt Disney was a child at heart, doing it all for the children of the world so they can be captivated and blown into another dimension. That is something I wish to bring forward in my career as a storyteller, as I am at the moment coming up with a unique, diverse universe that is suitable for both youngsters and grown ups. Just think about it, Disney has Jaq and Gus, Lucas has R2 and 3P0. Disney has the Reluctant Dragon, Lucas has Jar Jar Binks (a character that has been ridiculed to no end). Disney has the Wicked Crone from Snow White, Lucas has the Emperor. Just by saying their names, I'm thinking up similarities between all of these characters. And Winifred the Witch from Hocus Pocus can shoot lightning from her hands just like the Emperor. I'd surely like to see Bette Midler go up against Ian McDiarmid any day.



Both Lucas and Disney have had many victories throughout their interesting, yet inspiring careers, but they have also had their share of criticisms. Most pop media websites nowadays have talked terrible things about Lucas' latest Star Wars trilogy, complaining about Jar Jar, Hayden Christensen, microscopic organisms in the blood, too much CGI, and Yoda fighting with a lightsaber. Yes, the "prequels" have been torn apart several times throughout the web, most notable in RedLetterMedia's documentaries, but it may shock some of you to know that several of Disney's films weren't well received upon their release. Bambi was loathed by many critics who claimed it to be too realistic and grim for a kid's film and even the great Fantasia with it's epic, classical glory, received mixed reception, some critics believing it to be a huge departure from Disney's signature style, a huge departure for the worse. Today, these films hold classic status. I have no doubt that somewhere down the line, maybe after the newer trilogy is released that expands the Star Wars universe even further, that the Star Wars prequels will be hailed as the classic epic stories they really are. Often, I have run into people who are unfairly comparing them to the original films and making them seem like they were just made to make money and sell action figures. That's not true in the slightest. It is true that movies promote merchandise and merchandise promotes the movies, but no big budget movie in Hollywood is made with the clear intent to sell toys. The toys come later, after the movie is completed and ready for release. Kids will see the toys on the shelf of a store and it will motivate them to see the movie or vice versa (kids might see the movie and want an action figure or stuffed animal of their favorite character). Neither Lucas nor Disney made their movies with the intention of making a wazoo of play things. Do you know what Lucas had to promote Star Wars at San Diego Comic-Con a year before Star Wars' release? A bunch of t-shirts and hats! The figurines didn't come until much later.



This also goes for Disney. All Disney had to promote his material was some magazines, wind up toys made of metal and paper dolls. It's much different nowadays. You can go into a store and find just about anything with Mickey Mouse on it, just like you can find just about anything with a Star Wars character on it. See the similarities between Disney and Lucas. They had very little to promote their movies in the beginning, now they have everything under the sun to help in making their movies hits. It's all smooth once you think about it, and whether or not it's a ball cap or a soap dish, it will surely get anybody into the Star Wars or Disney spirit.



When Disney was designing Epcot, the Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow, he said that it will never be finished, for it will always be expanding, progressing, and getting much bigger than when it originally started. Doesn't that sound familiar. Lucas once said that films were never completed, only abandoned, and it can clearly be seen in his Special Editions of the original Star Wars films. Lucas made the Special Editions with the clear intent to expand upon his already established universe, making it bigger and in many ways more vivid and exhilarating. In it's own obvious way, Star Wars is a lot like Epcot, always getting bigger and progressing, and this couldn't be made more evident than with Disney's latest purchase of Lucasfilm and their intention of making more films to further the galactic adventures after Return of the Jedi. With Walt Disney tempering with his well rounded universe and coming up with new ideas to make it bolder and wider, isn't that what Lucas was doing with Star Wars, or what Disney will do with Star Wars in the future. There is not doubt that Disney will make Star Wars much more rich and bold and make the story we all know and love better than it ever was before.



All you people out there that are fearful of Disney making the next Star Wars film with Donald Duck as the main character and making the Genie from Aladdin cameo as Ben Kenobi, fear not. Disney will respect George Lucas' vision and never do something like that without George Lucas' permission first. There is no doubt in my mind that they will take this new trilogy seriously and make George Lucas proud in every sense of the word. And many people like myself feel that George Lucas' retirement is well deserved. He's had quite a career if you ask me.



The whole entire point I'm trying to make with this article is that, in many countless ways, Disney and Lucas have been linked together even before Disney bought Lucasfilm. They were two men working in an area bigger than themselves and they eventually became powerful creators of the most imaginative worlds OUR world has ever seen. They had their pickles, as all people do, but they ultimately worked around them and came through in the grand scheme of things, and today we hail them as some of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century. Over the years, Disney and Lucas have become further linked as both their companies would work together on several occasions, and now, Lucas and Disney's works are now siblings, along with the works of Marvel and Jim Henson. And if there is one thing these two men have taught me, it's to go for the most impossible of impossible things, they are not so impossible after all. A green man once said, Do or do not. There is no try. Another green man said When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. Anything can happen, and in my eyes, Lucas and Disney have gone to the end of Earth and back again to prove it.

The Room of Clocks

I remember when I was a child; there was a room full of clocks

Each hour of the day, the room was overwhelmed with many strange ticks and tocks

And when I entered the room, I couldn’t be found

I was lost with the realm of clocks; they were all odd shaped and round

Some were wooden, some were tall, and some were shaped like a house

Some were in the shape of a cat, whose eyes wondered the room in search of a mouse

And the eminent grandfather clock, who stood so bold and proud

Loomed over me with its numbered face, it was like a shroud

The clocks were lovable, relaxing and happy

To see one today would make one feel a bit sappy

And I to this day adore the antics of clocks

Admiring every single one of their ticks and tocks

Castle of Despar

With rooms full of perils and scares to raise your hair

The Castle of Despair is a place beyond compare

It is deleterious to all who enter it

Why, one tiny footstep could cause the dragons to have a fit

And the knights standing so gallantly and strong

Will dash you with their swords if one little thing goes wrong

The dungeons are full of spiders; the library is full of killer books

The torture chamber is inhabited by skeletons that were once notorious crooks

And if your dare to cross the deadly bridge

It will collapse and send you right down the endless ridge

Yes the Castle of Despair is no place to roam

So your best bet is to stay right at home

For you may run into vicious goblins and bats

And don’t forget the villainous giant rats!

Adventure on Altar

I stepped into the spaceship, not knowing the truth

There was an alien life form aboard with only one tooth

He said he was traveling to a faraway star

A faraway star with a strange named, Altar

Also aboard the vessel were Spock and ET

And a strange little fellow the size of a flea

We traveled for days on the faraway trek

And when we got to Altar, it was a total wreck

It had been ravaged by a tyrannical fire beast

Who was looking for aliens to turn into a feast

So we got out our daggers, our lasers, our blasters

And summoned the long deceased alien masters

The masters used their spells to conjure up a storm

And soon after came a massive swarm

The swarm took out the beast in several strikes

And to finish him off, they threw him onto a bed of spikes

And I thought to myself, this is too much to handle

I wouldn’t be surprised if Altar was invaded by a giant mutant chicken named Randall.

A History of Film Written By Derrick Zurn

            When we go to the movies in this day and age, we are often dazzled by grand picture quality, astounding sound and computer generated special effects that keep us on the tips of our seats until the very end. Some of us even get to catch a flick in groundbreaking 3-D, which adds a tremendous amount of realism to our film experience. But one thing is set in the ground, and that is movies, at the very beginning of their prominence, had none of these factors. They were black and white, grainy, and most importantly, they had no sound which made it difficult at times to interpret what was going on upon the silver screen. Films started out as an experiment to capture certain movements and objects, and over the course of the late 1800s and early 1900s, film makers and inventors crafted new cameras and tested many different filming techniques, which believe it or not, are still being used today in modern cinema. One of these inventors was none other than Thomas Edison, who contributed two devices to the filmmaking world, the Kinetograph and the Kinetoscope, which helped to make filmmaking and capturing more fluent and vibrant.

 The oldest surviving film is a two second clip entitled Roundhay Garden Scene, which dates back all the way to 1888. There is nothing really special about this little film, especially by today’s standards, but it is surely fascinating in its own shell. It’s just a bunch of people walking around in circles, but I would go as far to say that it’s one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. It’s short, but has a lot to say, and it’s so interesting knowing that this film is still in existence. There were films made in the 1910s and 1920s that are no longer on the Earth, but this film, a simple, quick little flick that you could watch thousands and thousands of times again, still remains preserved. It’s so short and so corny, but it packs a punch. If you need a film to watch on a Saturday night, I would highly suggest Roundhay Garden Scene, for you could probably watch it hundreds of times within a single hour.

But anyway, the main reason why I am going on and on about this one special clip is because it proved that films could be made, and if the tenacious filmmakers and experimenters worked hard and kept looking on towards the future with strong heads, they could make some pieces of history, pieces of what would eventually become a phenomenon. The Silent Film Era followed, and many revolutionary motion pictures came along to blow the public out of their shoes. As stated earlier, films of the olden days had no synchronous sound, for no methods of matching sound with film were devised by that point. Live musicians and performers would come in while the film was playing to provide the music and sound effects, and at times, the filmmakers would photograph captions to describe what was going on during some of the scenes. However, the special effects that we all know and love in films were not entirely obsolete in the days of film infancy. Filmmakers found ways to provide transitions and speed up certain scenes to add a bit of tension, and they even made eloquent props and set ups to take us to fantasy lands and areas of imagination and glory. One of the earliest films to utilize high quality special effects was Georges Melies’ A Trip To The Moon from 1902, in which there was an incredible close up of an actor whose face was made to look like the moon, adding a bit of fantasy nobody had ever seen in that time period. You may say that it just looks like they covered the guy’s face in cottage cheese, but I think it looks astonishing, especially for 1902.

Other films would come along throughout the decades to build upon the arising film industry. D.W. Griffith hit the ceiling with his 1915 film The Birth of Nation, and although the film sparked uproar for many Americans, it made a lot of money and proved to be a success all over the country. Some films even went on to earn the very first Academy Awards, like the 1927 film Wings, which depicted aircraft pilots during WWI. But the actor who best symbolizes the silent film era, for me at least is Charlie Chaplin, the comedic genius who brought a trademark fun, ingenuity and spunkiness to the cinemas for the first time. His iconic black hat, moustache, and cane have gone on to make him a world renowned figure, for he has made some of the most proclaimed motion pictures of all time, like The Kid, Modern Times, City Lights, and The Great Dictator. Another famous entity of the silent era was Buster Keaton, a comedic genius who also pulled off some of the craziest stunts and gags the film industry has ever known.

So as you can see, films were at the top of their game even in their early years, but filmmakers still struggled to find a way to incorporate sound into films to make the film more whole. Eventually, the “Vitaphone” system was created, and out came the very first feature film to have synchronized dialogue, The Jazz Singer from 1927. In the film, actor Al Jolson’s character, Jakie Rabinowitz takes part in a sing-a-long with his mother, played by Eugenie Besserer, and the first scene with dialogue straight from the actors’ mouths is born, although the rest of the film was silent like many other films of the time. But the success of The Jazz Singer and its one talking scene spawned the Talkie Era of films, and many other movies came along throughout the coming years, following the same formula and method of adding sound to film, eventually resulting in the demise of the silent film era. Of course films still remained in black and white, but gone was the need to have captions explaining every scene of the film, and gone was the need to have musicians and performers come in and provide the film’s music and sound effects. They could add that all in with the newly founded sound technology, which would prove useful for many years following.

The first colored film is said to be A Visit To The Seaside from 1918 which was made with a technology called Kinemacolor, however, a coloring technology known as Technicolor would emerge into greatness in the coming decades. Many films would be made in Technicolor, and many black and white films would be rereleased using the Technicolor technology. Among the famous flicks released in Technicolor are Gone With The Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Ben-Hur, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is often regarded as the first colored film (probably because of its popularity), but the process was used several times by filmmakers beforehand. However, The Wizard of Oz was certainly one of the first films ever to use the Technicolor technology, and the film’s color is meant to have a symbolic notion to characterize each land Dorothy explores throughout the film.

And the evolution of films doesn’t end there. Even after Dorothy’s house landed on the Wicked Witch of the East and Ben-Hur’s chariot swept through the Jerusalem arena, films continued to shape shift and mold into what we define them as today. Filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick revolutionized special effects with his 1967 sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Steven Spielberg brought us what is often referred to as the first summer blockbuster, Jaws from 1975. But it was the independent filmmaker known as George Lucas that redefined films in general with his little film known as Star Wars, released in 1977, a monumental film that set down the shoes for many other blockbusters to walk in. Star Wars was also the first film ever to feature special effects from Industrial Light and Magic, Lucas’ special effects company that is still in progress today, making the visuals we love to see in series like The Terminator and Transformers. ILM also spawned the animation company known as Pixar, which made the first fully computer animated film, Toy Story, in 1995.

George Lucas and Tomlinson Holman also contributed the THX technology (named after Lucas’ first film, THX 1138) for better sound and picture quality on the movie screen. The first film ever to carry out the THX wonder was Return of the Jedi from 1983, and the technology was also used to restore and refurbish many acclaimed Disney films throughout the mid-1990s. The technology is also used for gaming consoles, car radios, home videos, even computer speakers, and the THX “Deep Note” can be heard briefly before some football games. THX technology would lead to many discoveries in digital picture quality. So, you could say that THX helped create High Definition and Widescreen movie formats we see in current motion pictures.

So as we have explored, movies started out as simple recordings, then they evolved into something bigger than anything we could ever interpret in our skulls. Now, we have the color, we have the effective sound to blow our ears off, and we have the special effects to bring someone’s visions to reality, someone’s dreams in front of the faces of millions. It’s a blast to look and see how films have progressed over the century, and even if some of them are as old as Egyptian pyramids, they still capture an essence and efficiency that can’t be matched, an essence and efficiency that many blockbusters and Hollywood charms would mimic throughout the progression of the film industry. And films are a part of us, a part of our culture and way of life, and aside from giving us unforgettable imagery and some of the most well-known movie quotes to spring from somebody’s lips, movies can teach us a thing or two, a thing or two about life and how to solve some of the most engaging problems we never thought we’d encounter in our travels. That’s why we admire films so much, for they display creativity and what really can soar within the brain of a filmmaker. To quote Steven Spielberg:

“Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.”

A Short Review of Metropolis for the School Newspaper

Metropolis (1927) Movie Review

                                                                           By Derrick Zurn

When the word Metropolis comes to mind, we often think of muscular caped superheroes running from telephone booths or diabolical menaces developing super weapons to take over the world. But would you believe that there was in fact a film released in 1927 to first carry the Metropolis name, many years before the existence of Superman? Well, this old but good sci-fi adventure carries a lot of thrills, chills, and spills, especially for 1927, and to this day remains one of the very many films to shape the science fiction genre into what it is defined as nowadays. So, if you really ponder on the matter, we probably wouldn’t have our Star Trek films, our Star Wars films, or our Back to the Future films if this film didn’t come along to inspire the minds of the filmmakers who have brought those acclaimed movies to the table. Metropolis was ahead of its time, and I mean ahead of its time, for the film is set in the not so distant future in a very different Earth, an Earth split into two different groups of individuals. And even if the film is befuddling by today’s barriers, it’s still a pleasure to watch if you are a sci-fi purist like me, and I would even go as far to say that it is one of the greatest accomplishments ever to be recorded on film. The special effects, the tension and drama, even the facial expressions of the silent movie actors, they all add layers to this masterpiece and make it contemporary. It’s almost like you’re in another dimension, being swept off your feet by visual stunning entities and cheesy looking, high tech machinery and equipment. And when you’re done watching the adventure, and you leave the other dimension, you are overwhelmed by extreme illusion and artistry, illusion and artistry only Fritz Lang, the director of Metropolis could pull off. Lang efforts to make a powerful and effective epic for the silent movie era were nothing more than genius, and proved that imagination dwelling within one’s brain could be put to great use.

What I like most about the film is that the silent, quiet nature really compliments the film’s overall tone and expression. It’s a film with a lot to say even though it’s silent. It’s neither a fast paced film nor a film that will put you to sleep in a matter of minutes; it’s a film that is meant to make you wonder, a film that makes you think quite a bit. What if the world we were living in was an entirely different place? What if the rich got richer and the poor were forced to work to death? What if the characteristics of one human being could be transferred into the cybernetic workings of a robot? It makes you feel puzzled at times, but it’s good puzzling, and it really makes you wonder what will happen next in Metropolis’ futuristic world. The special effects, though primitive, also put the icing on the cake when it comes to making the film seem a whole lot bigger. It’s incredible seeing all the abstract looking skyscrapers and flying vehicles, and I just couldn’t do a review of Fritz Lang’s greatest work without acknowledging the grand jewel of the film, the iconic character that made robots a household name for the first time. Of course I’m talking about the film’s robotic character, Maria, one of the very first robots ever to be depicted in cinema. Before there was the Terminator or Rosie of The Jetsons, we had this gold plated female automaton to get our amazement juices flowing, and the incredible robotic movements and mannerisms of the character really make you think it’s an actual robot rather than a performer in a costume. Of course Maria would go on to become the inspiration for C-3P0 and many other classic robot characters seen throughout the flicks, and along with the mighty ape, King Kong, I would rank Maria high on my list of “Movie Magic” grand mamas.

Of course Metropolis has been remastered several times throughout the years, but I am aware that the film’s original version has been released on DVD somewhere along the road. Personally, I don’t mind what version of the epic story it is, because it’s the same beloved tale many sci-fi buffs have come to love these past 85 years. It’s got the same action and suspense, the same flow and embodiment, and overall, the same grand fantasy feeling only science fiction films could set down on the ground. If you want something entirely different from your average movie genre, or if you want to see the film where sci-fi flicks really took off, Metropolis is your pot of gold to behold, and I can’t tell you how much this film has inspired me in the art of storytelling and liberating my creative visions. It’s a film made in 1927, and it has as many thrills, chills, and spills as any Star Wars or Lord of the Rings installment. Just goes to show how many minutes, hours, weeks, months, even years went into creating this impressive piece of the sci-fi pie, a film that obviously took risks, but ultimately proved victorious in the end. It also has a real devious looking mad scientist character named Rotwang, and who doesn’t love to snicker at devious mad scientist characters, huh?

March of the Wooden Soldiers Review

I'm not a real big eater on Thanksgiving, but if there is one thing I like to consume each year, it's a fantasy filmed produced by Hal Roach Studios in 1934, a very underrated one at that. This oldie but goodie, starring two of the greatest bumbling idiots of all time, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy has gone down as not only one of my favorite fantasy films, but one of my favorite films as a whole, probably because I watched it as a young boy and instantly became intrigued by it. Don't know what film I am talking about, it's March of the Wooden Soldiers of course, and if you have never seen this film before and want to see it for the first time, you are in for a real treat, and I mean a real vivid, mind captivating treat! And hey, this very well might go down as one of your favorite films as well, for it is surely a wonderful little film to be observed by a pair human eyes! But in order to indulge ourselves deeper into the March of the Wooden Soldiers realm, we must enter our time machine and go back several years to have a look at a little backstory. This film was based upon an operetta composed by Victor Herbert in the early 1900s called Babes in Toyland and like many films that are based upon a book, a musical or another film, it strays far from the original groundwork, however, it carries on a heart and meaning of it's own. This film's plot is very different than that of the original operetta, and several of the original plotpoints that were prominent in the original operetta are either rerendered tremendously or eliminated all together. For example, in the original operetta, the story didn't take place entirely in Toyland, and the characters of Stannie Dumb and Ollie Dee (obviously Laurel and Hardy's characters in the film) were completely absent from the original stage production. However, these major differences do not get in the way of the film's overall glory. In my humble opinion, this is surely one of the greatest motion pictures ever made and it holds up prominently by today's standards. And who can't look at this visually stunning film for its time and think that many film making opportunities opened up because of the hard work and dedication that went into this motion picture. Okay, so that's just my perspective.



Just a few short years before fantasy masterpieces like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and of course, The Wizard of Oz jumped into the spotlight to get maximum praise, this was the fantasy film to watch. Sure there were other great films around that time that mixed in many fantasy elements and wizardry, but if you needed a film that your kids would enjoy just as much as you do, this was a film you would greatly consider taking them to see. And this film still holds up in this day in age for many prudent reasons that I will explain in greater detail. It may be very hard to believe if you are a newcomer to this film but this film was originally released in black and white, for the coloring technology used in later films wasn't quite perfected by that point.Big thanks to the good folks at The Samuel Goldwyn Company for colorizing the film in all of it's simplistic coloring book glory. There is just something about the coloring of March of the Wooden Soldiers. It's very different than the coloring technology used in films like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, but it has an appeal that catches your eye right off the bat, and seeing all the characters and places of Toyland in fully rendered color, it really makes the film even more of an immortal pot of gold.

The characters of this film are what make the film most memorable for me. Laurel and Hardy are pee pants funny playing the doofbrains Stannie Dumb and Ollie Dee, for when you see them on the screen, getting into all kinds of mischief and tomfoolery, you can't help but give a chuckle or two. Throughout the film, Stannie and Ollie get into all types of hilarious trouble. Ollie gets dunked on a ducking stool, Stannie dresses like a female bride (I DON'T LOVE HIM!),Ollie gets an onslaught of sharp darts launched upon him, the two even spill paint upon their miserable toy making boss. And even if this is a fantasy film straying far from the continuity of the mainstream Laurel and Hardy shorts, it still has that trademark Laurel and Hardy goodness most known throughout those early years. The opening credits even have the main Laurel and Hardy theme playing just before the epic Victor Herbert score, and Laurel and Hardy can be seen arguing with one another and contradicting one another just as they do in the mainstream shorts.

The other actors are incredible as well. Felix Knight, who portrays Tom Tom Piper in the film, is kind and gentle, and a gallant hero in his own right, although Stannie and Ollie can be proclaimed the true protagonists of the film. Knight is powerful in his singing voice, and throughout the hour and a half long film, he sings several of Herbert's original songs from the classic operetta. There is really a heart warming and proper flow in Knight's singing voice, and I am aware that he was in a few of the Laurel and Hardy shorts, but his singing ability is at it's most finest in this film, for he delivers some of the best opera singing I have ever heard, further making this film a full on musical trophy. Other stars include Florence Roberts as Mother Peep aka The Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, who desperately needs to pay the mortgage or she looses her shoe dwelling, as well as Charlotte Henry as Little Bo Peep, who is fine in her acting ability, but the character is in short the familiar damsel in distress character seen in many films, even The Wizard of Oz. That's right folks, Dorothy was made to be the damsel in distress character in The Wizard of Oz, as she is captured by vicious flying monkeys and the three male protagonists have to come and rescue her.

But the character that stands out the most to me is Henry Brandon as the tyrannical Silas Barnaby, the main antagonist of the film. Would you believe he was just 21 years old when he portrayed the old man character. But hey, if Joaquin Phoenix could do it, so could Henry Brandon. He is hands down the most terrifying factor out of this motion picture, from the very moment he comes bitterly walking up to the screen in the opening credits to the moment he unleashes chaos upon the streets of Toyland. He is a mad man, and one look into those eyes could have you hiding under your bed with a teddy bear by your side. He's basically the mean old crone that wants to marry the main female character, but he ultimately becomes the emperor of treachery towards the end of the film, and he travels into the depths of hell itself to summon the most terrifying of demons to spread horror and misery upon the innocent and insecure citizens of Toyland.



Okay, so maybe he doesn't go into hell, but he does go into the underground caves of Bogeyland, a slimy and desolate place where the Bogeymen crawl about. Back in 1934, it was pretty hard core to feature such terrifying creatures upon a movie screen, for the Bogeymen were quite ghastly to look at with their long hair, eery eyes and sharp fangs. By today, and I have to admit, they look a little silly and cheesy. They even move and squirm about in a funny way. I rather watch the goblin creatures move about in the 1980s remake of Babes in Toyland. One look at those beastly things and you will know exactly what I am talking about. Anyway, Barnaby unleashes terror on Toyland, as the Bogeyman vandalize and set fire to many of Toyland's buildings. Luckily, Stannie and Ollie have 100 wooden soldiers stored away at the toy workshop, 100 wooden soldiers that are 6 feet high. And with the simple push of a button, the soldiers march about, gathering together and rallying out the front door of the toy making workshop like cadets ready to go out into the battlefield to fight. The wooden soldiers in their marching glory were stop motion animated by Roy Seawright, and what a sight it is to see all the soldiers march out of the factory. It's quite impressive how they were able to combine the stop motion effects with the living actors, but the effect had been done before, several times, in the blockbuster released just a year prior, King Kong, one of my all time favorites.

The stop motion effects in that film are quite superior to the stop motion effects in March of the Wooden Soldiers, but the effects in Wooden Soldiers are quite dazzling to the eye as well, and deliver that great fantasy and imagination that took people off guard back in 1934 and still take people off guard to this very day. Of course when the soldiers enter Toyland, they are actually living people in wooden soldier costumes, however, they sure do know how to kick Bogeyman toosh. They fight Bogeymen in water, Bogeyman inside people's houses, and the scene I will always remember from the all out war is where a wooden soldier wards and Bogeyman off and looses his head in the process. If you have seen the film, you know exactly what I am talking about, how can you not remember something like that! It's so incredibly humorous! Now as I mentioned before, this film combines imagination along with horror and comedy, but this film is a all out fantasy flick. Don't believe me, well, IT'S GOT SANTA CLAUS IN IT! HE LAUGHS A LOT! And if that doesn't make a fantasy film go down in history, then I don't know what does. The fantasy elements of course lie in the overall look and design of Toyland. It's such a whimsical, playful little place to be, and with all those wonderful buildings shaped like books and houses that are reminiscent of doll houses, it brings new meaning to the name Toyland. It's also got some familiar faces from some of our favorite nursery rhymes and fairy tales. You got your Cat and the Fiddle,who was obviously a guy in a cat costume, The Three Little Pigs (Elmer, Willy, and Jiggs), Little Red Riding Hood, Mother Goose, Little Jack Horner, Miss Muffet, and of course, that cute little mouse that was nothing more than a monkey in a Mickey Mouse costume. There is also a baby on a tree top like in the song "Rock A Bye Baby" and cute little transparent gnomes that come out every once in a while in the dreaded Bogeyland. Only Tom Tom Piper's singing could summon them, and oh, how it looked like they were captivated by his singing in the film. It was certainly one of the more cutesy wutesy aspects of the film, for we needed somewhat of a cutesy wutesy aspect before the big battle between the Wooden Soldiers and the Bogeyman.

So as you can tell, I hold this film at high regards, and I knew that I am not the only one on this rock that has such feelings for the film. It is certainly a masterpiece on ever level that I could possibly imagine, and as I explained, it has that great clash of the genres we know and love, like fantasy, horror, comedy, and romance. Every time I watch this film, every Thanksgiving, I become a child all over again, watching this at my old home while the Thanksgiving dinner was being prepared in the kitchen nearby, and as I watch this film year after year, I notice new elements I never got a glimpse of before, I see things I never layed  eyes on before. And for that main reason, this film is cemented on my list of all time greatest films. We all have our favorite films, whether they'd be gangster films or comic book films, but I love any kind of fantasy film the world has to offer, and one of my all time favorite fantasy films, one of my all time favorite films in general is March of the Wooden Soldiers, for it's captivity and innovation will live on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years from now. Whether you watch in color or the vintage black and white, you are in for a real sensational treat. You will not be sorry watching this film one bit, and the kids, your kids if you have any, will love it so much, they will want to watch it relentlessly over and over and over again each day of each week of each month. Whether you watch it at Thanksgiving or Christmas or Arbor Day, you will have...QUITE AN EXPERIENCE with this fun, high flying motion picture landmark, one of the very few fantasy/horror/comedy films of it's kind. Laurel and Hardy, you're the best!