If there were a Holy Trinity of Anvilicious children's animation of the early '90s, it would consist of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue... and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.FernGully, or to go by its full title, FernGully: The Last Rainforest, is a 1992 animated feature from 20th Century Fox, and is based on the children's book of the same title, written by Diana Young. It takes place in an Australian rainforest (though, strangely, none of the humans have an Australian accent). Within is the titular Magical Land, "FernGully", which is inhabited by a wide variety of Fairy Creatures. They are led by the wise Magi Lune, who is currently teaching her young protege, Crysta, the secrets of the forest. Here, Fairies believe that humans are extinct, having been last seen fleeing an attack by the spirit of destruction, Hexxus. But venturing outside FernGully, Crysta accidentally discovers a human logging operation. After meeting an insane fruit bat named Batty Koda (voiced by Robin Williams), and accidentally shrinking one of the humans, Zak, down to her size, Crysta has to face the accidentally released Hexxus (voiced by Tim Curry), who lives off pollution and threatens to destroy the forest.FernGully did mediocre business at the box office, at least in comparison to that otheranimated film featuring Robin Williams that was released in 1992.Like most other animated films of this time period that had any kind of success, FernGully spawned one very cheap direct-to-video sequel. That and the fact that it includes a song entitled "We're Having Funner Than TheFunnest Fun" tells you everything you'd ever need to know about it...
This film contains examples of:
All Animation Is Disney: Tends to fall victim to it quite a bit. Yeah, it does look that good.
Wang also worked on other films like TRON, Pound Puppies: Legend of Big Paw and the second Care Bears movie; Hanho on Starchaser: Legend of Orion and When the Wind Blows, as well as Ink & Paint and camera for a tech demo by Kroyer
, and Luk Film was the oldest out of all of them (albeit mostly in the colorization business), Saerom had not yet worked on a movie, and then-unknown outside of The Ren & Stimpy ShowRough Draft Studios was only about a year old at the time of the film's release, so it was definitely a challenge for both of them. Several other firms like Dutch company A. Film and American-based Available Light Productions (Responsible for effects and animation for films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Flight of the Navigator) helped out.
The film hints, ironically, that he is in fact a nature spirit of some kind (the introduction heavily implies that he was released from an erupting volcano).
Hexxus was the spirit of destruction. Most films like this have a balance with Hexxus representing the death and decay to balance growth and life represented by the fairies.
Artistic License - Biology: Ignoring that trees don't have a nervous system and can't feel pain, the bark is made of dead cells. Zak carving on it would be no more painful than trimming your fingernails.
Batty's size is rather inconsistent. Is he a fruit bat? Why is he only a little bit bigger than the fairies/Zak, who is seen to be small enough to be dwarfed by a Tape Walkman? Flying Foxes are the largest bats in the world. With wingspans up to six feet wide.
Actually if you consider all of the experiments he went through, it's safe to say his motor skills aren't that great. Plus, if he was the size of a regular fruit bat it would make a fair bit of sense to why he crashes a lot, the rain forest is rather crowded with obstacles and would require fair bit of focus especially to a injured/mentally unwell flying animal. Crashing into things is actually a popular way for fruit bats to come to a stop.
Big Eater: Zak's coworker Tony (and it was Lampshaded). One scene shows him devouring an entire slice of cake in one bite. Another example is the singing goanna.
Bittersweet Ending: Zak has to leave the fairies and go back to his own people. He and Crysta never see each other again if his non-appearance in the sequel is any indication.
Body Horror: Hexxus gets a tree grown out of him. Twice. Considering the roots burst out of his chest and fuse him into the trunk, it's got to hurt.
Broken Aesop: The ludicrously Anvilicious Aesop is "take care of the environment". Unfortunately, the ending sort of implies it's more "Don't worry about the environment; the fairies have got it covered".
Averted. This is the exact reason Zak goes back to the human world, saying "Guys, things have gotta change".
Cross-Cultural Handshake: In this case, Zak ends up introducing Crysta and Pip to shaking hands as a greeting; just seeing him extend his arm towards them, they do the same without even attempting to grasp his hand or arm back.
Crowd Song/That Reminds Me of a Song scene: If you'd like to see a bunch of magical beings dance to "Land of a Thousand Dances" for no reason at all, have we got a movie for you!
Did Not Do the Research: The logging industry is not the biggest threat to the rainforests and the vast majority of the deforestation threat is not concentrated in Australia.
Disney Acid Sequence: Arguably the whole movie. Only The Three Caballeros used a more vivid palette.
Disney Death: Batty, after he was hit by the headlight while flying. He was later woken up by Zak after being found lying on the ground.
Later, Crysta seems like she may not have made it after flying directly into Hexxus' mouth. She is later found unharmed after Hexxus is imprisoned once again.
Batty: Nobody cares about me. Zak: I do, Bat-Man! Batty: You sure? Zak: I'm positive. Batty: Only fools are positive. Zak: Are you sure? Batty: I'm positive!... I fell for it!I should have known!
DVD Commentary: The tales of the filmmaker's time in Australia are arguably more entertaining than the movie itself.
Batty:(after the antenna on his head was shorted out by Zak) "Price check on prune juice, Bob! Price check on prune juice!"
Evil Brit: Tim Curry in the first film. Also, in the sequel, the only people in the entirety of Australia with an Australian accent is the evil poachers.
Evil Laugh: Hexxus loves to do this. It gets creepy when starts to sound demonic and distorted towards the end of "Toxic Love".
Evil Tastes Good: Just listen to Hexxus in the "Toxic Love" number.
Fanservice: Crysta's outfit, if you're into that. Or Pip's, for that matter.
Fantastic Racism: Batty hates humans in both movies, without exception. Really hates them - he'd like to see them dead and sees them as monsters without feelings. Admittedly he has a damn good reason...
During the same scene, just before the silhouette of the falcon is seen through the canopy, it can be very briefly seen flying behind Crysta.
Genre Savvy: Batty. Especially "I fell for it! I should have known!"
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Almost. Some of "Toxic Love" was cut out for its none-too-subtle sexual undertones, as well as some of "Batty Rap" for its traumatizing imagery of animal testing. The official soundtrack was uncensored, however. And then there's still that singing goanna... let's just say that someone on the writing staff really, really liked the idea of the main character being eaten alive...
Not too subtle? The lyrics include the word "horny" — and it's not the "having or feeling like horns" definition either (though that original definition isn't used much — and this isTim Curry we're talking about).
What's odd is that in the scene of Hexxus sucking the oil from the machine when he first comes to life, the censors found nothing objectionable about him describing the oil he was consuming as "mother's milk" (to be fair, the "mother's milk" line was almost cut, but either the censors forgot or the writers fought to keep it, in exchange for having "Toxic Love"'s more sexual lyrics removed).
There's a different moment that may or may not be this trope: When Crysta tells Zak "I want to learn magic like yours" (a line which in itself sounds vaguely like... something else), he leads her to a flower, they both crawl beneath the petals... and it turns out that Zak's only showing her a lit match.
Humans Are Cthulhu: Apparently all they do is create pain and pollution and destruction. But they're not all bad, because they also have boom boxes!
Humongous Mecha: The Leveler. It's a bulldozer, a tank, a tractor, and an automated factory all in one. It has two huge arms with giant claws for hands, chainsaws on its "elbows", and a "mouth" with backwards-facing "teeth" that pull unfortunate trees inside it, all topped off with a control room that looks like a single wide cyclopes-like eye. Basically, take Gigan and turn him into a vehicle.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pips. He's a tough, badass fairy that hangs out with a group of biker fairies that very openly expresses his dislike of Zak multiple times, but he's mostly concerned about Crysta's safety and the survival of Ferngully. Near the end of the movie, he ends up saving Zak from falling to his death and helps him get inside the Leveller.
Sadly, he is the main protagonist in the sequel, in which he comes across as just a shallow Jerkass.
Large Ham: Hexxus. Tim Curry was enjoying himself immensely. Batty Koda also gets some hammy moments because... hell, it's Robin freakin' Williams. The man is made of ham.
Love Triangle: Zak/Crysta/Pips, to a certain extent.
Lyrical Dissonance: "Batty Rap." Justified because Batty is, well, pretty much insane from the humans' experiments on him.
Mentor Occupational Hazard: Apparently whatever Magi Lune does requires that she die so her protege can take on her power. Why this is necessary at all is never explained.
Missing Mom: Crysta's mother is never seen nor mentioned.
The Name Is Bond, James Bond: When Batty introduces himself to the fairies, he explains that "they used to call me Batty. Batty Koda." That's a cute name, though!
Well, it's possible he was a bit strange before being captured, "Batty" is a nickname, and his name is simply "Koda."
The Obi-Wan: Magi Lune, though what she does and why Crysta is studying under her isn't really established. Nor is it established why she dies.
Off Model: As said in Animation Bump above, the first movie was done by a number of animation studios in America, Europe and Asia. For FernGully 2, however, only Wang was kept around, though Stardust Pictures was also used.
Only Sane Man: Batty comes across as this in the sequel.
The Other Darrin: Everyone was recast for the sequel. Bizarrely, only one of the replacement voice actors (Matt K. Miller as Batty) has anyroleswhatsoever outside this film.
The Queen's Latin: Batty gets some in when Zak changes his "channels", probably a Shout Out to Robin Williams' own comedy bit about Romans with English accents.
Batty: Oh Caesar, Emperor of Rome!
Running Gag: Batty Koda's consistent collision with trees (and anything) is a major running gag, and it even continues into the sequel.
Scenery Porn: The very colorful, lush environments are actually based off of what the filmmaker and a group of animators saw during their trip to the Australian rainforests and are arguably the most researched part of the movie. For example, the scene where Zak talks about life in the city seems to exist for the sole purpose of showing off the beautiful glowing mushrooms growing on the trees.
Skyward Scream: The mother kangaroo in the sequel, after her baby is stolen.
"MY BAAAAABBBYYYYYY!"
Soundtrack Dissonance: Or soundtrack flip-floppery, anyway. In the sequel, Batty flips from singing about how they'll most certainly get home if they don't give up hope, to hopelessly informing the other animals that they're all bound for the same fate he suffered before the first movie, and then some.
Space Whale Aesop: "Save the wild places in the world, because that's where the Fairies live." Well, if it works, that's good with me.
In the sequel, the moral is still to save the rainforest, even though we see several times the fairies can do to one their own. The moral of the story to him is "Don't save the rainforest, the fairies have it under control."
"Don't cut down trees or you may unleash an avatar of death that will destroy the world."
This Is Gonna Suck: Batty Koda, during a scene in which Hexxus nearly crushes both him and Zak with debris.
Batty:(watching a headlight falling towards him) Oh, this is gonna hurt...
Too Dumb to Live: The villains of the sequel, who could have easily stopped the truck they were driving and kicked the heroine off of it, but instead elected to murder her by decoupling their trailer with her on it, losing half of their captured animals in the process.
The girl had already released all the animals in that trailer, and the poachers knew it because they had seen the birds flying away in their rear view mirror. Granted, it was still a stupid move.
The Villain Sucks Song: "Batty Rap" by Batty Koda. Okay, not exactly "The Villain Sucks", but "Humans Suck", and Batty consistently views them as being evil.
Wacky Guy: Batty Koda, played by Robin Williams for exactly this reason.
Was It All a Lie?: Zak lied to Crysta that humans can stop the monster (Leveler) that's destroying the trees. She didn't take it well when she learned the truth, that Humans Are Bastards.
This is Truth in Television. Because fruit bats are just so massive, they have a lot of excess inertia when it does come time to stop, resulting in rather hard landings. That said, they probably don't land face-first into the trunk.
Younger than He Looks: According to one of his credit cards, Zak is said to be sixteen years old. However, he looks more like he's in his twenties.
If there were a Holy Trinity of Anvilicious children's animation of the early '90s, it would consist of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue... and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.FernGully, or to go by its full title, FernGully: The Last Rainforest, is a 1992 animated feature from 20th Century Fox, and is based on the children's book of the same title, written by Diana Young. It takes place in an Australian rainforest (though, strangely, none of the humans have an Australian accent). Within is the titular Magical Land, "FernGully", which is inhabited by a wide variety of Fairy Creatures. They are led by the wise Magi Lune, who is currently teaching her young protege, Crysta, the secrets of the forest. Here, Fairies believe that humans are extinct, having been last seen fleeing an attack by the spirit of destruction, Hexxus. But venturing outside FernGully, Crysta accidentally discovers a human logging operation. After meeting an insane fruit bat named Batty Koda (voiced by Robin Williams), and accidentally shrinking one of the humans, Zak, down to her size, Crysta has to face the accidentally released Hexxus (voiced by Tim Curry), who lives off pollution and threatens to destroy the forest.FernGully did mediocre business at the box office, at least in comparison to that other animated film featuring Robin Williams that was released in 1992.Like most other animated films of this time period that had any kind of success, FernGully spawned one very cheap direct-to-video sequel. That and the fact that it includes a song entitled "We're Having Funner Than The Funnest Fun" tells you everything you'd ever need to know about it...
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