shittymoviedetails
As a Disney's animated film, Anastasia(1997) is... ... oh wait it isn't..... .... oh wait it is.
Discussion
Anastasia, the first Disney Princess to canonically die in a hail of gunfire
Can't win em all, right?
Joking aside, it is really unfortunate what happened to the real Anastasia - she WAS only a child and she and her siblings didn’t deserve to die for being related to Czar Nicolas
Yeah, it is sad, but they were part of royal family, it was necessary to execute them all to prevent the reactionary forces from having a figure they can rally around.
It did work, the reactionaries never were too united
Bro what are you actually justifying killing children
She wasn't quite a child (she was 16) but she didn't deserve it and it really is tragic.
The first… but not the last. Rise up comrades! /j
So far…
Rasputin's song was and still is a banger.
Christopher Lloyd fucking killed it.
But Once Upon a December is the best song that came out of this movie. Gives me fucking goosebumps
Anastasia was my aunt’s (my mom’s baby sister) favorite movie. She even named her dog Pooka after it. She was a pilot and died in a plane crash when she was 20. I was only two when she died, and while I don’t have any memories of her; whenever I watch Anastasia I end up bawling at Once Upon a December. I couldn’t be more biased, but it’s such a beautiful haunting song.
Faaaaaaar awaaaaay Looooooong agoooooo
TIL Anastasia took place in the same setting as Star Wars
Thanks to Disney, it now legally can be!
Honestly, it would only need a few very minor changes to fit into the Star Wars universe. Make Rasputin like a male night sister or something (IDK if night brothers are a thing) and Anastasia force sensitive, and it takes place on the planet Ruskidia or something
Rasputin, the Nightbrother
Glooooowiiiiing dim as an eeeemmmmber
I do love how communism was caused by an undead evil wizard in this movie.
That’s likely how most Americans think Communism starts.
OK maybe not Rasputin, buy you can't prove Marx wasn't a wizard.
I mean just look at Marx's beard. Non-wizards do not have that beards that big and bushy
like you wouldn't follow Lenin if he started doing magic and shit.
MUST. CRUSH. CAPITALISM! Grrrrr....
No, that’s socialism. Communism is caused by evil undead professors
Um ACKSHUALLY, that was Jim Cummings. He stepped in for Christopher Lloyd to sing in this movie AND took over for Jeremy Irons midway through Be Prepared in Lion King.
That guy is amazing. He did his Jeremy Irons impression in an interview and I could swear he was Jeremy Irons
Definitely! The two best ever Disney Villain songs aren't Disney - there in the Dark of the Night from Anastasia, and Raphael's Final Act from Baldur's Gate 3.
(Also I think Jim Cummings was Rasputin's singing voice IIRC, but you can tell that it's done well when there's no obvious disconnect between speaking and singing voices).
Hellfire most definitely was Disney, though
Dear god Hellfire is absolutely the number one Disney song. But many of the songs mentioned in this thread are also peak (although perhaps not Disney originally).
Nah, there's tons of great villain songs. Be Prepared. Poor Unfortunate Souls.
Every time the dude from princess in the frog opens his mouth with that beautiful bass.
Jim Cummings also did the last bit of ‘Be Prepared’ after Jeremy Irons hurt his vocal cords yelling “you won’t get a sniff without me!”
LIVES, ALL MORTAL LIVES, EXPIRE
SOULS, GO TO THEIR DOOM, IN FLAMES, FOREEEEEVEERMOOORE!
HELL, HELL, HELL HAS ITS LAWS
In the dark of the night, I was tossing and turning!
Actually the singing voice for Rasputin was Jim Cummings
Winnie the Pooh?
Correct
When doesn't he?
Song and movie both underrated as hell I only found out about it because of the Jonathan Young cover which is hard af
Christopher Lloyd didn't sing the song
I know. Jim Cummings did but Lloyd was still great as Rasputin.
It was the best of the Disney-style ripoffs of the time (way better than WB's abysmal Quest for Camelot and the like). I remember it not being a massive hit at the box office but then stayed in the top 10 VHS sales for like a year, it was a home release monster.
Sadly, Titan AE was a studio killing experiment. I wish that, Emperor's New Groove, and Disney's Atlantis didn't flop at the box office since they were doing something different than the usual song and dance animated movies, but sadly, didn't strike a chord with people the way something like Shrek did.
Also, that slap she gives Dmitri is VICIOUS in the animation loool
Titan AE was one of my favorite movies growing up, I still watch it every couple years
It’s a combination of 3DCG movies being the next hot thing, traditional animation becoming very expensive, and the fact that those animators were unionized while the new 3D artists were not, and therefore could be abused with lower pay.
I think it’s been pretty well established at this point that if an animated sci-fi film takes places mostly or entirely off-Earth (as in, not in a modern earth-bound location) people won’t show up
I love titan ae 😭
Prince of Egypt though
Anastasia was ahead of it’s time. Compared to all the Disney princesses at that time Anya had much more agency and personality. She even gives the current Disney lineup princesses a run for their money. As she holds up as a compelling character, her relationship with her love interest has a fun evolving arc and the film showcased her being an active participant in her own adventures. Disney ls lucky to be able to add this movie to their collection.
But fans of animation have been given the short straw. Disney may very well own Anastasia now but we already know full-well they’re not gonna make anything like it. Now that Fox is a Disney subsidiary, we can certainly look forward to more generic animated features and even more IP exploitation.
Live action Anastasia incoming.
Damn you Monkey's Paw!
Fun Fact: Carrie Fisher herself helped doctor the script. She created the "Journey To The Past" scene, and helped improve the romantic chemistry between Anya and Dimitri, to make it more akin to the chemistry between Leia and Han Solo from Star Wars.
Although some of the animation is…rough, there’s some insane good stills and sequences as well. The still of St Petersburg we see when Anya first gets there is genuinely beautiful
I loved this movie growing up but always felt it needed about 30 extra minutes to wrap it up. Felt like the last 15 minutes just force rush everything but I agree, if we count this as Disney and Anastasia as Disney princess then she takes the pedestal in my eyes for compelling and well written character.
Sidenote I wish Disney would also purchase Quest for Camelot which is another hidden gem of a movie.
Anastasia is also weirdly pro-czar which sucks
To be fair, all the princess stories are pro-monarchy/pro-absolutism. 😂
Yeah. Show me a Disney princess not pro-monarchy?
I guess Merida?
Pocahontas is very egalitarian, but obviously an outlier given the real-world basis. Tiana isn't pro-monarchy, but to be fair her setting is in modern America rather than traditional Disney Kingdom.
Moana and Merida are the only strong contenders here.
Except those princess strories don't base themselves on real people and events and don't turn one of the most tragic and divisive episodes in a country's history into a wacky fairytale with demons and talking animals
Pocahontas has entered the chat
Mulan has entered the chat
But do we definitely know that Fa Mulan was a real person? We know that Pocahantas was.
yeah but others aren't based on actual monarchy
I honestly think that's just how all animated adaptations of Anastasia turn out. It's a weird "story" to animate for children in the first place anyway.
It was the heartwarming story of a princess who lived in a faraway land and who got executed alongside her family.
Ya know, for kids!
I know what you mean, but not being pro Czar Nicholas would have made them look wierdly Pro-Bolshevik...
(Careful, Dwight Eisenhowers ghost is behind you)
they barely even mention the Bolsheviks. they just make Rasputin the villain instead.
Just as a side note, the Musical theater adaptation of Anastasia removed Rasputin AND magic and has the Commie secret police search for her instead. Shame that they also nixed Rasputin's villain song in the process
why can't we just have a princess movie where the monarchy is explicitly stated to be bad? we've literally got the new snow white touting enlightened philosopher kings when everyone knows actual hereditary royalty is never going to care about peasants.
And? Tsar Nicholas was literally the primary reason for the mass publication of the protocols.
not only that, he pretty much ordered for them to be written.
But "protocols" were just popular among antisemites, them never being published would not somehow prevent the holocaust
The productors didn't think the world wasn't ready for a singing and dancing Felix Dzerzhinsky.
It’s weird in general that it romanticizes them.
I feel like there is a reason why kid’s fairy tale movies are usually about “once upon a time” characters, not events that happened in living memory. So many landmines to navigate
Ya. Additionally, once upon a time stories typically start with a moral or lesson and the story weaves a tale around it. You only need to create what needs to exist in service to the story. To your point, trying to find morals within the stories of reality is complicated.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Kid’s movies usually don’t have blurry lines about who is what
Yes, but some of the animation flaws drive me nuts. Like halfway through the movie they decide to give her long hair because it's more elegant and beautiful and not scrappy anymore. There were a few others, but that one stood out to me the most.
I think her whole princess treatment at the end was meh and a missed opportunity. She didn't care about being a princess. She just wanted her family. So why not show her being uncomfortable with that life? And also, her running off with Dimitri didn't make any sense. She spent the whole movie looking for her grandma and then she just peaces out with her boyfriend?
They also made a musical which is even better in my opinion, but more grounded.
Ra Ra Rasputin
Dude got the milo thatch haircut that everyone had in the late 90s
Fun fact: Don Bluth is probably the only person to have made a pro-Tsar animated movie, (Anastasia) and an anti-Tsar animated movie (An American Tail).
Banger movie
So when is the live action remake scheduled?
the live action remake? Oh it already happened, the film producers time traveled back to 1917
It kinda already has one with the stage musical
So did The Lion King, but that didn't stop Disney from making one.
That’s a 3D remake not a live action
The plot has some similar points with the '56 ingrid Bergman film, also by 20th century fox
Me as a kid: "This movie kicks butt!"
Rewatching as an adult: "Wow, this really wallpapers over Tsar Nicholas II being a racist antisemitic authoritarian elitist chickenhawk warmongering imbecile doesn't it?"
I mean despite being an objectively creepy guy, the fact remains that Rasputin vocally opposed Nicholas' ultimately fatal decision to charge into WW1.
The Musical is even worse in that regard.
I mean tbh he didn't enter WW1 because he was a warmonger, but because he needeed to due to signed deals.
WW1 was started by Austrians and Germans
Based on the films setting, it's never getting a live action adaptation which is a good thing
Played a little fast and loose with the facts
Pocohontas says sup
JUST AROUND THE RIVERBEEEENDDDD
Smallpox
It’s smallpox around the river bend.
KELSEY GRAMMER
I still find it wild that the animated movie is about a princess who manages to escape being shot to death alongside her family by soldiers.
Pretty on par for a Don Bluth movie. All Dogs Go To Heaven starts with them getting the main character getting killed in essentially a mob hit. In the same movie, a girl is held hostage for her ability to talk to animals (and therefore help them win bets for animal racing).
Creepy Romanov propaganda.
The real rightfully tsar is the miraculously surviving tsarevitch Dmitry of Uglich ofc 😤
at least we got a banger of a villain song. villains always get better music, and in this case the villain is actually worth rooting for in every way.
It's weird how if you look at all the characters close enough, this guy is actually the most normal looking.
Didn't Disney do a theatrical re-release of The Little Mermaid at the same time this came out to try to undermine its box office?
Okay this one's pretty funny
Same with Little Longnose. When I was kid I though it was a Disney animated film but apparently it's not.
Schrödinger Disney Princess film
How very pantomime
Why are stairs so important that they got included into the poster ???
Asking the real questions
Like the ol' joke goes, "Hey! Anastasia isn't a cheap Disney knockoff! It's a very expensive Disney Knockoff!"
STOP TELLING ME TO FUCKING WAIT
I have a one of a kind signed artwork with Anastasia, Charlie, Ann Marie and little foot who were all done by the same illustrator. It's a prized possession in this house. This is a shitty detail because I just wanted to brag
This is a shitty movie detail
Hold on, this isn’t another shitty Cinderella sequel?
I hate that I can recite every song and line from this movie. Sometimes siblings are the worst.
Once upon a December is an amazing song
What a weird concept to make a Disney Film about. Did they mention the part where the Bolsheviks rounded up the family up in the royal palace basement and shot them all in the face?
On a side note, am I the only one who thinks Anastasia has the dumbest look on you face on this poster?
Pretty insane that a czarist propaganda film came out in 1997, but I guess America was still on an anti-communist victory lap after the dissolution of the USSR.
Kelsey Grammar was quite funny in this.
Fox which will be owned by Disney who will then be owned by pornhub.
Never ask a Romanov what their opinion of Jews is.
This movie unironically slaps
Hot Take: rewatched Anastasia as an adult, it's not very good
Yeah I agree, I recently watched for the first time as an adult and am genuinly confused why people call it underrated. Like, no, it is rated appropriately, it's not very good.
For anyone confused by the title:
•Don Bluth works for Disney from 50s to 70s, leaves due to creative differences.
•Don Bluth goes on to work for Fox Animation in the 90s after his own studio closes.
•Don Bluth creates Anastasia for Fox Animation.
•Fast forward 32 years, Disney buys Fox.
•Disney owns Fox, hence owns Fox Animation, hence Anastasia is technically a Disney movie.
Disney is like kuzdu. All will be Disney.
Original Disney: "Look at who we got over here."
Current Disney: "Look at what we bought over here."
https://preview.redd.it/vkrw50r3yubf1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=042546fb4c4ae00fe8c3cf81bc8f5c52a7a492c5
Lmao, that's an excellent summation of this
original Disney: "Look what we've stolen here"
"Oh you're mad about that... THEN HOW DO YOU THINK I FELT ABOUT OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT?! Hah! Best excuse to justify my twattery!"
I'm terribly sorry. I've always been a creeper.
Aww man!
so we back in the mine
But are you livid?
violetta says i creep like the kudzu vines slowest but surely strangling our dixie
Gilbert?! How long you been sitting there?
This muggy November weather is giving me a case of the horribles.
Demolition Man was right
Glory to Disney! Disney is peace. Peace is Disney.
Who hired elesh norn?
I read that as Kuzco at first
Glory to Glorzo!
Resistance is futile.
It'll be like in Cloud Atlas where movies are just referred to as "the Disneys."
Kudzu is the gloinks of the south.
Dosvedanya clarity!
https://preview.redd.it/9adp8321nubf1.png?width=275&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad51d92bf703cb806b86314a586465bc35b52034
In the dark of the night I was tossing and turning!
OOOH AAAAH OOH
* Don Bluth makes "Titan A.E." for Fox in 2000, it bombs spectacularly, Fox hand drawn animation studio is disbanded, Don Bluth never makes another movie anywhere...
I loved that movie as a child. Now I see it and its MEH but hey child logic
The trailer was so sick, wasn’t it like an Eve 6 song? Anyway 10/10 trailer, 4/10 movie.
it was Higher by Creed
lol thanks. I was a bit off
Really? I haven’t seen it in a while but I think it’s still a solid animated fils
Honestly when teen me only bought movie soundtracks that one was top tier right up there with Shrek and the Digimon movie soundtrack.
I was taking a NAP!
I saw it once described as "peak 2000" which...it really was.
I’d bang the leg alien.
Man is an amazing artist and deserves so much better. If only he'd released his films today when indie animation is easier to spread around
Turns out the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna is a Disney Princess
I mean this was before it was confirmed that her remains were in the same place where the Tzar Nikolai & his family were murdered by firing squad, but in a “what if…” well… yeah.
Well, some sort of weird hodgepodge of the Romanov sisters at least (Anastasia's name and myth, Tatiana's appearence, Olga's personality, Marie's romanticism)
Also in that movie the October revolution is canonically attributed to satanic forces
Sounds like my public school education
Disney eats man, woman inherits the Earth...
One other detail in the story: Disney hastily rereleased The Little Mermaid to sabotage Anastasia. Now they own a property that lacks an audience due in part to their own actions.
Can't be the Little Mermaid, The Little Mermaid was released in 1989, while Anastasia was released in 1997.
Supposedly Bluth left Disney because he wanted to make The Secret of NIMH and was told, “There is only one mouse at Disney.”
It’s funny. I first heard the movie referenced on reddit as a Disney movie alongside someone correcting that comment; pointing out it was fox but stylistically similar to a Disney movie.
A while later I saw it on Disney plus and realized what happened
Do want to make one quick addendum to this:
Don worked at Disney in the late 50s, but left a couple years later to go on a missionary for his church. Came home, finished college, then went back to Disney, which by then was in turmoil due to Walt's death. Works there throughout the 70s, then leaves over creative differences.