History Film / YoungSherlockHolmes

A 1985 mystery/adventure film directed by Barry Levinson, produced by Creator/StevenSpielberg and written by ChrisColumbus, and based on the classic characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. An admittedly non-canonical WhatIf story, it depicts a young Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting and solving a mystery together at a boarding school.

A 1985 mystery/adventure film directed by Barry Levinson, produced by Creator/StevenSpielberg and written by ChrisColumbus, it was based on characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The movie depicts a young Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting and solving a mystery together at a boarding school.

It was the first film produced by AmblinEntertainment to receive a PG-13 rating. The film is notable for including the first fully computer-generated character, a knight composed of elements from a stained glass window. The effect was created by Lucasfilm's John Lasseter, who is now chief creative officer at {{Pixar}} Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. The SFX earned the film an AcademyAward nomination, and was beaten by ''{{Cocoon}}''.

* BittersweetEnding: The two heroes win the day, but [[spoiler:Elizabeth dies.]]
* BlowGun: An assassin uses a blowgun to shoot darts tipped with a hallucinogenic drug.

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Rathe]] falls into a frozen river. He survives to become [[spoiler:Moriarty.]]

* TheEyesHaveIt: The scene where the knight in the stained-glass window leaps down to do combat with the poor priest. Notable because it is specifically later revealed, like other deaths in the film, to be caused by a hallucinogenic drug. What the priest saw was in fact all in his mind, but since it made him flee the church and run under the wheels of a moving carriage, he still ended up just as dead.
* {{Flanderization}}: This film does use the Flanderized version of Watson who's overweight and rather clueless, but it's somewhat {{justified|Trope}} by being Watson as a ''schoolboy''. Presumably he's got years (and a stint in the military) yet to grow into the more fit and savvy Watson the original was.
** [[spoiler: And in the end, Watson narrates that this first adventure with Holmes is part of what helped him go from a weak, easily frightened boy to a man]].
* FollowTheLeader
** What does Franchise/HarryPotter have to do with ''Young Sherlock Holmes''? [[http://harryholmes.blogspot.com/ A lot, actually.]]
** From the other end, ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' takes its cues from IndianaJones - so much so that the UK release was called ''Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Doom''.

* SpinoffBabies: A pastiche supposedly telling the early life of Holmes and Watson when they first met as teens -- and apparently before Holmes figured out how to solve crimes by logical deduction.
** Unlike most examples, it's actually quite good.
* TakingTheBullet: [[spoiler:Elizabeth.]]
* TheStinger: The end credits are played over a sleigh going through a snow-covered forest. As the credits end, someone gets out of the sleigh and checks into the hotel. We see him signing in under the name Moriarty. As the camera pans up, Moriarty is revealed to be [[spoiler:Ehtar, the villain, who survived the fall into the river]].

* WhatIf: The movie begins with a disclaimer explaining that it's a "WhatIf" story.
----

** [[spoiler: And in the end, Watson narrates that his first adventure with Holmes is part of what helped him go from a weak, easily frightened boy to a man]].

** What does HarryPotter have to do with ''Young Sherlock Holmes''? [[http://harryholmes.blogspot.com/ A lot, actually.]]

* SdrawkcabAlias: Villain Eh Tar uses the alias of Professor Rathe for his cover job at Brompton Academy. Watson even spells this out towards the end of the film as a "very important clue."

* SequelHook: TheStinger reveals that one of the characters in the film would eventually become Professor Moriarty. Shame that there was no sequel (beyond the books, of course), because the flick wasn't that bad.

* DisneyVillainDeath: Rathe falls into a frozen river. [[spoiler:He survives to become Moriarty.]]

* FollowTheLeader: What does HarryPotter have to do with ''Young Sherlock Holmes''? [[http://harryholmes.blogspot.com/ A lot, actually.]]

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The cultists performing a human sacrifice chant a song which rips off "O Fortuna" from ''Carmen Burana''.

* TheEyesHaveIt: The scene where the knight in the stained-glass window leaps down to do combat with the poor priest. Notable because it is specifically later revealed, like other deaths in the film, to be caused by a hallucinogenic drug. What the priest saw was in fact all in his mind, but since it made him flee the church and run under the wheels of a moving carriage, he still ended up just as dead.

* SherlockScan: A school-aged Watson transfers to a new boarding school and meets Holmes for the first time. Holmes deduces Watson's name, home county, father's occupation, and Watson's love of writing and pastries. He only gets Watson's name wrong (he guesses James instead of John) because he only saw "J. Watson" on Watson's luggage and decided to go with a common name starting with J (John would have been his second guess).

* SdrawkcabName: Villain Eh Tar uses the alias of Professor Rathe for his cover job at Brompton Academy. Watson even spells this out towards the end of the film as a "very important clue."

* {{Flanderization}}: This film does use the Flanderized version of Watson who's overweight and rather clueless, but it's somewhat {{Justified}} by being Watson as a ''schoolboy''. Presumably he's got years (and a stint in the military) yet to grow into the more fit and savvy Watson the original was.

* ForceFeeding: The sequence where John Watson hallucinates that his legs are bound with sausages and that pastries are trying to force him to eat them. On YouTube [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SZrHgS1Dss here.]]

* DisneyVillainDeath: Rathe falls into a frozen river.

* TheJimmyHartVersion: The cultists performing a human sacrifice chant a song which rips off "O Fortuna" from ''Carmen Burana''.

------

A 1985 mystery/adventure film directed by Barry Levinson, produced by StevenSpielberg and written by ChrisColumbus, it was based on characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The movie depicts a young Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting and solving a mystery together at a boarding school.

* DawsonCasting: Nicholas Rowe, who plays Sherlock Holmes, is several years older than most of the other actors playing students. This was probably intentional to give Holmes his necessary height and appearance of superior intellect.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Rathe falls into a frozen river.

* RedEyesTakeWarning: When the gargoyle in the shop starts to animate, its eyes glow red.

* SdrawkcabName: Villain Eh Tar uses the alias of Professor Rathe for his cover job at Brompton Academy. Watson even spells this out towards the end of the film as a "very important clue."

It was the first film produced by AmblinEntertainment to receive a PG-13 rating. The film is notable for including the first fully computer-generated character, a knight composed of elements from a stained glass window. The effect was created by Lucasfilm's John Lasseter, who is now chief creative officer at {{Pixar}} Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios.