Fantasia doesn't try and hide what it is. The film starts off by introducing us to the show's Master of Ceremonies, Composer Deems Taylor, the composer for the film, Leopold Stokowski, and an Orchestra (though this isn't the Philadelphia Orchestra that made the actual recordings). Without much of a delay, Taylor introduces the concept of Fantasia and the first segment kicks off with none other than "The Nutcracker Suite," a selection of pieces from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet, "The Nutcracker."
The animation that accompanies this music involves a lot of environmental imagery like dancing mushrooms, fairies on snow flakes, flowers and primarily, the changing of the seasons.
"The Nutcracker Suite" is followed up by the most famous segment from this film, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," featuring Mickey Mouse in his red robes donning his teacher's magical hat as he tries to perform some menial chores and resorts to magic he can't control. Unlike most selections from Fantasia, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" wasn't animation inspired by music. Instead, both music and cartoon were drawn from a poem called "Der Zauberlehrling." The other main difference here is that this is the only music in Fantasia not performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Despite that, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is one of the most well known and recognized segments from this film, making it just as iconic as it's star, Mickey.
The first half of the film concludes with Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" where the animators envisioned the creation of the solar system, Earth and the rise of life on the planet. Afterwards, a brief intermission occurs and Taylor introduces the audience to The Soundtrack. This abstract segment shows a single line on the screen that vibrates and changes with the various sounds of the instruments.
Fantasia then continues with Beethoven's "Symphony No. 6" and is accompanied by images of ancient Greece where unicorns, pegasi, fauns, cupids and centaurs run wild and live out their lives. As the song progresses, Bacchus, the god of wine, appears but his festival is cut short when Zeus decides to have a little fun with his lightning bolts.
This is followed by another memorable segment featuring "Dance of the Hours" by Amilcare Ponchielli. The ballet concerns four groups of dancers, each one representing a different part of the day: morning, noon, evening and night. The segment starts off with a flock of ostriches that give way to dancing hippos and then elephants. When night comes, a group of alligators take the stage and before it is all over, all four groups of dancers will be involved in a chaotic dance until the whole set collapses in on itself.
Fantasia ends with a darker animation that blends Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" with Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria." This very dark animation is much darker than the rest of the film and features ghosts and skeletons rising from the grave and a monstrous demon sitting atop a dark mountain.
After many false-starts and tons of attempts to develop more shorts for future Fantasia movies, a second one finally came out 60 years later, and it was just as visually impressive in 2000 as the original was back in 1940.
Fantasia 2000 starts off with the same intro as the original Fantasia. We hear Taylor's voice over the Chicago Symphony Orchestra once again explaining the purpose of the film and what you can expect. This time, the imagery we see from the start is of abstract winged creatures bursting from the ground and enveloping the sky to Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5." Unlike the previous Fantasia, 2000 isn't hosted by one person; instead each segment is introduced by a different star. The first segment, "Pines of Rome," by Ottorino Respighi, is introduced by Steve Martin and features an amusing animation involving flying humpback whales as they swim through the air.
Quincy Jones introduces the next segment and talks about the music of George Gershwin and combining "Rhaposdy in Blue" with the minimalistic art style of Al Hirschfeld to create a story about the clamor of life in 1930's New York City.
Bette Midler then takes the stage to talk about the many attempts at reviving Fantasia over the years, including a briefly mentioned collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali (more on that later, though). Ultimately, she settles on a segment that made the cut. Dmitri Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2" is combined with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" to create a delightful segment full of action.
James Earl Jones introduces an amusing combination featuring the music of Camille Saint-Saens and a flock of flamingos, one of which enjoys playing with a yo-yo. This carefree animation is played out to the tune of "Carnival of the Animals." After that is a classic treat as the original film's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" gets cleaned up and once again takes center stage.
Mickey isn't the only classic Disney character to be featured in a segment. Donald Duck becomes Noah's first mate as the story of Noah's Ark and The Flood are told told via the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance" by Sir Edward Elgar. This is an interesting combination of music and animation since "Pomp and Circumstance" is usually used for formal ceremonies like graduations. Instead, we are treated to a classic tale with a very powerful musical background. I especially liked the transition between this section of Fantasia 2000 and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" because the Mickey-centric segment once again ends with the mouse's silhouette shaking hands with Stokowski like in the first film, but then having him run up to James Levine and explain that Donald is running a bit late. As Levine stalls the audience, we see Mickey looking for Donald and finding him still in the shower.
Fantasia 2000 concludes with Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" and is introduced by Angela Lansbury. This final segment is follows a magical sprite that inadvertently awakens a fiery spirit that sets her forest ablaze. As the fire dies down, the sprite returns to once again breathe life into the destroyed land.
While these two films are enough to satisfy most Disney fans, especially given the quality of the upscaling and how well they both look and sound in high definition, Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 2-Movie Collection also comes with quite a few high-quality special features.
By far, the biggest extra in this collection is the hour and 20+ minute documentary about both Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. The reason for this documentary is because the two men had collaborated on a short film that never saw the light of day, "Destino." Most of the documentary is about the two men's lives and how they paralleled each other, met and decided to work together. While the film never actually made it past the concept art and storyboard stage back in the day, those pieces were recently dusted off and examined. Included in this Blu-ray is the short film "Destino" as Disney and Dali had intended it to be. It is truly a surrealistic film and enjoyable to anyone who fancies the abstract.
Another good special feature is "The Schultheis Notebook" that describes how the studio's special effects department creator decided to write down in meticulous detail how many of the unusual effects his team pulled off were done. Many of the notes shared in this featurette pertain to Fantasia specifically, but the notebook goes into a lot of detail about pretty much every project the team worked on under Schultheis' guidance. This featurette really helps to show how much the team was able to accomplish before the age of computers.
The Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 2-Movie Collection is perfect for any Disney-phile and while there might not be as many special features in this as more recent Blu-ray releases, it goes for quality over quantity with several solid extras and a pair of wonderfully upscaled feature films.
