"You can...unlock any
door...if you only have...the key!"
Back in the 1970's, American animation was in a terrible
state. Even the once-mighty Disney empire was churning
out such pleasant-yet-forgettable fare as 1970's The
Aristocats and 1973's Robin Hood.
One young animator who chafed under the unimaginative yoke
of Walt's aging "Nine Old Men" was
Don Bluth, who had worked his way up from animator-for-hire
on Robin Hood to co-directing credit on
1977's The Rescuers. In 1979, he had a
very public split with the studio, taking a handful of
equally disgruntled animators with him, including Gary
Goldman and John Pomeroy.
The three men then decided to finance and produce their
own animated feature, one that would return to the lush,
opulent visual style of the great Disney features of the
1930's and 40's like Pinocchio and Bambi instead
of the increasingly cheap, cost-cutting measures of their
post-50's output. They optioned the rights to the award-winning
1971 children's novel Mrs. Frisby And The Rats
Of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (which Disney had
rejected for it's "too dark" storyline), and
quickly went to work, eventually releasing their labor
of love in the summer of 1982 (where, due to poor marketing
and the glut of blockbusters crowding multiplexes at the
time, sadly never found the audience it deserved).
 "A sparkly! You're wearing a sparkly!"
Now
rechristened The Secret Of NIMH, Bluth
and company's film concerned the trials of a timid
field mouse named Mrs. Brisby (voiced with tremulous delicacy
by Elizabeth Hartman), who lives in a hollowed-out cinderblock
in the field of a farmer named Mr. Fitzgibbon with her
four young children. Recently widowed, Mrs. Brisby is doing
her best to raise and protect her family when disaster
strikes: her youngest son, Timothy, has been afflicted
with pneumonia, and must stay in bed or risk accelerating
the disease. To her horror, Mrs Brisby realizes that "Moving
Day" is nearly upon them...the day when Farmer Fitzgibbon's
tractor plows up the field and the animals who live there
throughout the winter must relocate or face certain death
under the plow's merciless blades.
Desperate to find a way to save her son, Mrs. B gathers
up her courage and makes a visit to the feared Great Owl
(given the imposing, death-rattle croak of John Carradine),
who advises her to go to the mysterious colony of rats
who live underneath Farmer Fitzgibbon's rose bush and ask
for assistance. Mrs. B is naturally perplexed, not understanding
how a group of rats could possibly move her entire home
to safety, but, out of options, she descends beneath
the rose bush to discover...ah, but that would be cheating.
 "Did you see that cat out there? All drippin',
and, and wet...with water."
Suffice
it to say, along the way Mrs. B gets some help
along the way from Jeremy (a very funny Dom Deluise),
an endearingly clumsy crow she saves from the farmer's
cat, Dragon, meets the rats, and learns of their unusual
history as well as their past connection with her
late husband, Jonathan, to whom they owe a great debt.
There's an obvious tip of the hat to Tolkien
in some of the more fantastical elements of the story (which
deviate from the novel's more purely scientific bent
to the rats' origins), and the narrative ultimately builds
to a spectacular series of climaxes featuring a swashbuckling
duel and a potent visual representation of Mrs. Brisby's
newfound inner strength that's visually and dramatically
breathtaking. A deus ex machina? You bet, but
why carp? Considering the dangers that Mrs. B has braved
throughout the film, the climax feels completely earned.
 "I've leaned this much...take what you
can, when you
can!"
"Then you've learned nothing!"
NIMH is
a film that only grows richer and more thought provoking
the more one considers it. Underneath the basic storyline
of rescues and narrow escapes percolates a surprisingly
heady dissection of how knowledge of one's place in the
grand scheme of things can affect one's interaction with
the world ("My dear, we can no longer live, as rats.
We know too much"). Despite it's G-rating, NIMH is
also a remarkably dark film, full of eerie, atmospheric
background paintings (Mrs. B's visit to the Great Owl's
tree and her descent into the rats' world beneath
the rose bush are particularly strong passages) and bracingly
adult depictions of cruelty, hopelessness and violence.
Don't let the ghastly cover art and misleading "Family
Fun" label on the DVD cover fool you...NIMH is
something animation buffs of all ages can savor without
feeling condescended to. Newly remastered just in time
for it's 25th anniversary, NIMH is an
engrossing fantasy ripe for rediscovery.
 Disc Presentation
NIMH's "correct" aspect
ratio has long been a controversy amongst it's fans, who
have bemoaned the lack of a widescreen version of the film
on previous VHS, laserdisc and DVD incarnations (this
is the rare film I've owned in all three formats) even
as Bluth has sworn that the film was animated in a full-frame
1:33 ratio from the beginning. Fox's new release of the
film placates both parties by including the film in two
different versions, both included on the first disc of
this two-disc set. You can watch the movie either in it's
1:33 full-screen version or in a freshly-minted 1:85.1
anamorphic widescreen transfer (the first-ever region 1 letterboxed
transfer of the film). The widescreen version does indeed
shave a smidge of picture information off the top and bottom
of the frame and adds little to the sides, so Bluth's claim
of the 1:33 ratio is likely correct.
That said, the new widescreen version doesn't look terribly
cramped, so those with widescreen TV sets may prefer it
to the full-screen version. Still, much thanks to
Fox for being thoughtful enough to offer both versions
to fans and allowing them to make up their own minds. The
transfer, in both versions, has been lovingly scrubbed
free of dust speckles, hairs, print defects and other
schmutz that have plagued previous versions of the film,
and now shines as brightly as Mrs. B's amulet. The gossamer
stands of transparent cobwebs festooning the Great
Owl's lair, the rays of light that emanate from the
words scrawled by an enchanted quill...visual details
that were buried in previous tape and disc editions
of the film now positively glow with a renewed sparkle.
There's still the occasional bit of fading and print irregularities,
but hey, for a film that's 25 years old, it looks
as good as can reasonably be expected. The film's
audio hasn't been changed in any noticeable way, but that's
okay. The basic English stereo 2.0 track (with additional mono
tracks in French and Spanish) isn't wildly elaborate, but
the dialogue comes through nice and clear (although Hartman's
soft-spoken delivery of Mrs. Brisby's lines are sometimes
difficult to make out), and the sound effects mostly stay
out of the way of the gorgeously evocative orchestral/choral
score by Jerry Goldsmith (which was a personal favorite
of the late film scoring legend). After the dismal treatment
of the film in it's previous releases, this new edition
is a bath for the senses. Splendid.
 Disc Extras
The
good news: What is here will please long-time fans of the
film as well as animation buffs looking for a dissection of the nuts-and-bolts
of pre-digital animation techniques. Both versions of the film on
disc one sport an excellent audio commentary by co-directors
Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The two men are still audibly enthusiastic
about their baby, and their track is filled with fascinating anecdotes
about the changes from the novel, the underlying themes of the narrative,
Goldsmith's score, and some amusing production stories (like how,
in the midst of production, they found an injured baby owl outside
their studio, took it in to nurse it back to health and allow the
animators an opportunity to study it's movements, then let it go
a few days later, only to see it land of a rooftop next to another owl,
who then flew away together!). Disc two has the 14:25 featurette "Secrets
Behind The Secret", which has Bluth and Goldman being interviewed
about the film's production interspersed with some rare footage that
Bluth fans will be thrilled with.
 There's
clips from Bluth's half-hour short film Banjo The Woodpile Cat,
which has never been available on DVD (and it's a shame it wasn't included
in it's entirety here), home movie footage of the animators acting out
some physical business for the characters and still-frame shots
of storyboards, model sheets, and members of the distinguished voice
cast "posing" with their animated counterparts, including
Elizabeth Hartman (who, tragically, took her own life in 1987,
although that's not dealt with here) as Mrs. Brisby, Dom Deluise as
Jeremy the crow, Peter Strauss as the heroic rat Justin (he would
later name his son after the character) Paul Shenar (who also played
the Columbian drug lord Sosa in Brian De Palma's Scarface)
as the villainous rat Jenner, Derek Jacobi as the mystical rat leader
Nicodemus, and a very young Wil Wheaton(!) and Shannen Doherty(!!)
as two of Mrs. Brisby's children. Despite it's disappointing brevity,
this is still a fine featurette that's a bit less fluffy than the typical
EPK stuff. Coming off the four-course meal of the commentary, it's more
of a snack than anything else, but a tasty one.
 Now
the bad news...aside from the featurette, the only other extras
on the second disc are a series of five set-top "games" aimed
squarely at the 10-and-under set. Even kids will likely find these simple
multiple-choice challenges to be a bore (not to mention the cheaply-printed
paper insert inside the case featuring even more grossly
simplistic connect-the-dots puzzles and mazes, which resembles nothing
so much as a placemat from a fast food restaurant). Yes, you read
right...the entire contents of the second disc add up to less than fifteen
minutes. Why they couldn't have included the featurette on the
first disc with the film is beyond me. One can't help feel cheated.
Where are the deleted scenes that were initially announced as being
a part of the package? Where's the (horribly-preserved) theatrical
trailer from the original disc? Hell, just a still-frame archive
with more behind-the-scenes stuff like pre-production artwork, storyboards,
and character designs would have been lovely, especially considering
what a beautifully-visualized film this is.
While I never expected a Ridley Scott-style package for this movie, one wonders
why they couldn't have roped other members of the crew or cast for additional
interviews to help flesh out the featurette (one of the assistant animators
on the production was future Batman: The Animated Series co-creator
Bruce W. Timm!), or maybe some of Bluth's other work (like the animated segment
he created for the 1980 film Xanadu). Compared to the packages
put together for Bluth's later 20th Century Fox productions Anastasia and Titan
A.E., NIMH comes across as a sadly missed opportunity.
Yeah, it's the movie that counts, but still...*sigh*
 Bottom Line
NIMH is
a captivating, lavishly-animated fantasy filled with sparkling characterizations,
genuine suspense and thoughtful philosophy, all wrapped up in the tale
of a timid little mouse who finds the strength to save her family from
certain doom. This new DVD edition is a must for the film's well-deserved
cult following, even if one pines away for a more definitive collection
of extra features. It's kind of sad to realize that the sight of completely
hand-rendered animation done without the benefit of computer assistance
has now attained the distinct twinge of nostalgia. For me,
I don't care if there aren't 50,000 individually texture-mapped hairs
on Mrs Brisby's body; Bluth and his team completely bring her and the
world she inhabits to life in an ingratiatingly "old-school" manner
that only has increased with age. Now celebrating its silver anniversary, NIMH is
a wonderful film that will hopefully find the audience
that eluded it in its initial release.
|
