The Signalled End of Traditional Animation.
When big-budget animated space blockbuster Treasure Planet debuted in 2002, it was hoped the film would herald a new age of traditional animation for the Disney studio. After its spectacular failure at the box office, the polar opposite occurred and the Disney executive team could no longer deny the inevitable end of traditional animated feature films had finally arrived. Audiences had moved on, and, sadly, it was time for Disney to follow suit.
As such, then-CEO Michael Eisner made the difficult decision to cease development on any further traditional animated projects that weren’t already in the works. Over six decades after Walt Disney created the first feature-length animated film, the studio who defined the very art form of hand-drawn animation was putting it to bed. Despite the outcries of chairman Roy E. Disney, who valued the legacy of his uncle’s work more than anyone at the studio, Eisner’s mind was firmly set.
With only two projects currently in production, Eisner determined these would be the final two traditional animated films from the studio, with Disney now switching focus to computer animation in a desperate bid to beat Pixar at the very game it invented with Toy Story in 1995. One of those films in development was the adorable animal flick Brother Bear, while the other was a western-themed project that had been stuck in development hell for close to five years.
After completing work on Pocahontas, director Mike Gabriel pitched a supernatural western concept (yes, a supernatural western concept) to then-Feature Animation president Peter Schneider, who, for some unknown reason, loved the idea. Under the working title Sweating Bullets, the film would tell the story of a timid cowboy who visits a ghost town and confronts an undead cattle owner named Slim and his herd of ghost cows. After Gabriel spent over a year reworking the story treatment, including changing the film to a coming-of-age tale centred on a shy bull named Bullets, Schneider felt the project simply wasn’t coming together.
In an attempt to salvage the languishing production, Schneider enlisted story artists Michael LaBash, Sam Levine, Mark Kennedy, Robert Lence, and Shirley Pierce to develop a new storyline from Gabriel’s initial pitch. LaBash suggested adding three female cow protagonists to the film and the team of writers reworked the narrative to centre on the farm animals’ attempts to save their beloved farm from foreclosure. By 2000, Schneider was still unhappy with the film’s progress and removed Gabriel from the project.
The project was then assigned to animator/director Will Finn, who had recently returned to Disney after defecting in the late 1990s to join Jeffrey Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation, where he co-directed their animated flop The Road to El Dorado. In his time with Disney, Finn had worked on films like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, giving him a keen sense of the Disney production process and the studio’s animators.
As such, Finn was confident he could steer the beleaguered production in the right direction and agreed to co-write and co-direct the film with screenwriter John Sanford. Utilising storyboard workshop meetings with key members of the production team, Finn and Sanford reworked the film for the umpteenth time.
THE STORY
Maggie is the only cow left on the Dixon Ranch after Alameda Slim (a wanted cattle rustler capable of stealing 5,000 cattle in a single night) stole all the rest of Mr. Dixon's cattle. Dixon sells Maggie to Pearl Gesner, a kind, ageing woman who runs a small farm called Patch of Heaven. The local Sheriff arrives to tell Pearl that her bank is cracking down on debtors. Pearl has three days to pay the bank $750, or her farm will be sold to the highest bidder. Hearing this, Maggie convinces the other cows on the farm (Grace, a happy-go-lucky character, and Mrs. Caloway, who has had leadership go to her head) to go to town to attempt winning prize money at a fair. While the cows are in town, a bounty hunter named Rico (whom Buck, the Sheriff's horse, idolises) drops a criminal off and collects the reward. Stating he needs a replacement horse to go after Alameda Slim while his own horse rests, he takes Buck. When Maggie find out that the reward for capturing Slim is exactly $750, she convinces the other cows to try to capture him to save Patch of Heaven.
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In the casting of the three cow protagonists, Finn and Sanford sought actors who could perfectly encapsulate the unique character traits of each bovine. Maggie was written as a brash and boisterous character, which led them to television star, and Trump supporter, Roseanne Barr, whose entire persona matched that of Maggie’s. For the role of Grace, the filmmakers approached Jennifer Tilly, who felt like the perfect choice for the ditzy and somewhat vain character who consistently sings off-key. And for the matriarch role of strait laced and uppity Mrs. Calloway, the team offered the role to Dame Judi Dench, who genuinely stunned the filmmakers by agreeing to the role. It’s a decision that still confounds the mind these days.
For the role of Alameda Slim, the filmmakers turned to Randy Quaid, who they knew could bring the outlandish character to life. Veteran Disney animator Dale Baer was assigned the task of animating Slim and spent hours watching Quaid in the recording studio for inspiration in Slim’s character designs. Quaid often physically acted scenes out while he was reading his lines, utilising wild gestures and expressions to essentially transform into the character. Baer used video recordings of Quaid’s lively recording sessions as reference for much of his animation work, particularly during Slim’s yodelling musical performance “Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo.”
MY VERDICT
This is, without question, one of the two worst films in animated Disney history. It was rare to find Disney crafting an animated movie exclusively targeted at children, but Home on the Range is nothing more than a 76-minute distraction for little ones, and even then, it’s hard to say if it will actually succeed at doing so. Unless you have some insane urge to hear Judi Dench voicing a cow, or to hear Randy Quaid yodelling, or to simply turn your brain off for 90 odd minutes, there are very few good reasons to see this film. Though admittedly, one of those reasons is an occasionally very good playlist of songs, including the aforementioned yodelling song which, while very strange in the same way that the Pink Elephants from Dumbo are strange, is still a very catchy song with some brilliant animation. And also, a few scenes with Judi Dench’s character (Jesus Christ, Judi, thank you, but why??). Aside from that, though, this film is a mess that even six writers could never clean up.
Is Home on the Range a Disney Classic? No.
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