{"id":78749,"date":"2023-03-31T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T07:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=78749"},"modified":"2023-03-31T10:11:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T17:11:04","slug":"royal-treatment-the-25th-anniversary-of-anastasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/royal-treatment-the-25th-anniversary-of-anastasia\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Treatment: Looking Back at \u201cAnastasia\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Don Bluth remembered when a \u201cwake-up call\u201d came for animation. “It happened around An American Tail<\/em>, and that woke up the sleeping giant,\u201d said Bluth in a 1997 interview. \u201c[Disney] made Mermaid<\/em> and Beauty and the Beast<\/em>, and suddenly they got very interested in their competition, which made them try even harder. In that effort, they did something that put a sparkle on the water.”<\/p>\n

Part of that \u201csparkle\u201d did come from Disney\u2019s hits, propelling animation into a renaissance throughout the 1990s. But part of that also came from Bluth\u2019s hit films, such as the aforementioned An American Tail<\/em> in 1986 and 1988\u2019s The Land Before Time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>By 1997, the animation renaissance was raging, and other studios began throwing their hats into the ring. One of them was Twentieth Century Fox, which opened an animation studio in Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n

Fox brought Bluth into their new studio, along with his long-term creative partner, Gary Goldman. For the new studio\u2019s first feature, they chose Anastasia<\/em>, a story based on real-life incidents and rumors (which had been made as a live-action film in 1956 by Fox), set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution: a government overthrown, a family torn apart, and a country in turmoil.<\/p>\n

“If you put aside most of the preconceptions and start taking it apart, we saw that there was a lot of stuff that covers the same ground as fairy tales, most especially in terms of abandonment and fear of abandonment and how we deal with that,\u201d said Anastasia\u2019s producer Maureen Donley in 1997. \u201cIt’s something that’s innate to the human condition that no soul on this planet escapes.”<\/p>\n\"\"\n

The film centers on young Princess Anastasia, who was living a charmed and royal life with her family in the Czar’s palace in Russia until the evil Rasputin places a curse on the family, which triggers the Russian Revolution. As her family escapes an angry mob storming the palace, Anastasia is separated from them.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, Anastasia (Anya), now an orphan with no memory of her heritage, is sent out into the harsh world, where rumors abound in St. Petersburg that the lost Princess might still be alive. This is good news to all except Rasputin, who, assisted by his sidekick, Bartok, the albino bat, sets out to find the princess.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Anya meets Dimitri, the one-time servant boy to the royal family, now grown up as a cocky con artist (they don’t recognize one another). Dimitri sees a way to capitalize on the rumor that Princess Anastasia might still be alive. Along with his sidekick, Vladimir, Dimitri convinces Anya that she could be the missing Princess, and they all go to Paris to claim her lost heritage.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Anastasia<\/em> boasted an impressive cast of recognizable voices, including Meg Ryan as Anastasia, John Cusack as Dimitri, Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir, Angela Lansbury as grandmother Marie, Christopher Lloyd as the villainous Rasputin, Bernadette Peters as the sunny, optimist Sophie, and Hank Azaria as the comical sidekick, Bartok.<\/p>\n

“When his first readings came back, personally, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work,\u201d remembered co-director Goldman in 1997 of Azaria\u2019s performance. \u201cIt was so dry it sounded like he was reading the line instead of acting the line. Then, when we laid it down next to Christopher Lloyd’s [dialogue], we knew that it was funny. You have one manic character set off against this other who is low-key and laid back. It turned out to be perfect.”<\/p>\n

Goldman also added, “Bartok is Don’s personal addition to the film. He kept thinking, \u2018If we’re going to have animated characters, let’s come up with something different and unique.\u2019”<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Anastasia<\/em> also included an impressive musical score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Broadway veterans who also brought E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime<\/em> to the stage. Anastasia<\/em> would also later inspire a Broadway musical adaptation that would debut in 2017.<\/p>\n

The film Anastasia came together with a look and style that was reminiscent of Hollywood\u2019s classic big-screen, big-budget musicals. “Since this is an epic story,” said Bluth. “We chose to do it in Cinemascope, and we chose to hide the graphics slightly, so it became more of a realistic look. It was more like getting involved in a live-action motion picture or a play, where you forget the craft and just get involved with the story. Our paramount goal was to get the audience to feel certain things deeply.”<\/p>\n

This big-screen storytelling allowed for some impressive set pieces in Anastasia<\/em>, such as one involving a runaway train and another centering on a storm at sea, which both involve remarkable animation and kinetic energy.<\/p>\n

Opening on November 21, 1997, Anastasia found success at the box office and with critics. Some, however, were quick to note that the movie leaned heavily into the Disney animated musical paradigm. One of these was Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly, who wrote: \u201cAnastasia<\/em> has the Disney house style down cold: the musical numbers that sound like mid-\u201860s Broadway, the gorgeous stately\/psychedelic backgrounds, the funky beasties nattering on the sidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Anastasia also found inspiration in Disney\u2019s marketing at the time, and Fox treated the film like an event when it was released that holiday season. It even had a budget that exceeded the previous year\u2019s Independence Day<\/em>. Commercials and promotions were inescapable, as were fast food \u201ctie-ins,\u201d toys, a float in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and a soundtrack that cracked the Billboard 50 with the single \u201cAt the Beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all of this mirroring of Disney, it\u2019s ironic that Anastasia<\/em> would eventually become part of Disney when the company purchased 20th Century Fox in 2019.<\/p>\n

Fox Animation Studios\u2019 follow-up to Anastasia<\/em>, 2000\u2019s science-fiction film Titan, A.E.<\/em> (also directed by Bluth and Goldman), was a box-office disappointment, and Fox Animation Studios sadly closed ten days after that film\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

Anastasia<\/em> would prove to be not only Fox\u2019s first in-house animated production, but also their most successful animated feature at the time. Looking Back at Anastasia<\/em> it’s an impressive example of the artistry, energy, and creativity found at so many studios during the animation renaissance of the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Bluth touched upon this when discussing Anastasia<\/em> just before the film\u2019s release. “After making seven animated pictures, the thing I know is that you can never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “With Anastasia<\/em>, that one thing was the predictable. It was filled with serendipity, and the discoveries along the path of making this film were things I would have never imagined.” Bluth found one of these surprises in the film’s setting. “Anastasia, not knowing she’s the Princess yet, makes a journey into Paris, which was a city just being born and awakening to new things, ” said Bluth, adding, “So much was going on, which contrasted to the fact that Russia was a world dying and Paris was a world coming to life. All of these little nuances and currents began to surface, which gave something to us beyond just telling the plot points of the story; it’s describing the world in an era gone by and finding what is there in that era that we can learn from.”<\/p>\n