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In Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, none of the characters are performing musical numbers like you'd see in some Broadway (or off-Broadway) musical. The songs they sing, and even the incidental dancing, are integral parts of the stories, and far more natural behavior for either a character or a real person. There is a substantial difference between breaking into song from sheer emotional exuberance, and doing some practiced musical number with a choreographed dance routine. A substantial difference. And if you cannot understand what that difference is even by observing those movies (and the others you mentioned), then nobody will ever be able to educate you on the obvious differences.

Further, you have once again, as in each case before, mischaracterized what I have said about movies with musical numbers in them. I never said I thought they were good (nor have I ever said any worse than that in most cases). I said I have found the musical numbers to be completely and utterly ridiculous and useless, and irrelevant to the actual story. That I hate the musical numbers. That is not the same thing as not considering a movie "good".

Stop twisting or misrepresenting what I say.

The "twisting" was unintentional. Still, it is a rather odd opinion that you have; more than a few people consider that the songs of, for instance, Beauty and the Beast are one of the best things to like there. Though I can understand your point of view (correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather it's: "those movies I cited are still good because they've got other qualities, but they don't need the songs to be good and they'd perhaps even be better without them"), I still don't agree with it.

That is your observation, and your opinion. I acknowledge it without agreeing with it. It is not odd at all...it is simply odd from the point of view of someone who enjoys staged singing and dancing numbers in live-action or animated movies. Just as many other people (I dare say more than otherwise) prefer the movies for their dramatic and comedic qualities as opposed to seeing things that should be confined to the theatrical stage (and, frankly, I prefer dramatic and comedic plays to musicals...which I generally find annoying and distracting).


Your interpretation here is now closer to the mark. However, while you are free to disagree with it, I still disagree with your opposite viewpoint. Nevertheless, it's simply a difference in tastes. On that, I think this particular tangent of the conversation has run its course, and doesn't need to be dragged out any further. So let's just leave it where it is now.

I don't believe Bluth was in charge.

That has long-since been common knowledge. It is an established fact that Don Bluth hasn't been involved in any sequels to his productions, including The Secret of NIMH, Land Before Time and An American Tail, just to name a few.

About the Dr Valentine being "not a real life form" business… I think there had been misunderstanding. What I was saying was that I had the following idea to fix the plothole of the first movie's neutral NIMH being apparently run by an evil mad scientist:

This idea was that Dr Valentine was meant as a subversion of the "Obviously Evil Mad Scientist" cliché - he looks like the guy you think would be the bad guy in a comic or a cartoon, but he's actually benevolent, as well as empathic towards his test subjects, as demonstrated when he pats a young Martin's head in the flashback. He just happens to look weird. Note that the only people from whom we are told that he's evil are the Lost Mice (and Jenny), who are naturally inclined to dislike him, since they're the one being tested on (and that's nothing inconsistent compared to the first movie, where Nicodemus similarly considered the animals to be "tortured").

My second idea, following this one, would have explained why the NIMH laboratory suddenly looked like Dracula's castle. It was that another trope, the Fisher King Land trope (read about here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FisherKing), was into play here: when benevolent-Dr-Valentine was in charge (during the events of the first movie), NIMH looked fine. But when Evil!Martin took over, NIMH turned dark to reflect its new master's personality, in accordance with the trope. It's a slightly unrealistic note compared to the mostly magicless world in which the movies appear to be set, but first, it's not totally unprecedented magically speaking since we have the Stone, and second, at least it is an explanation for the apparent plothole that fixes the continuity.

Oh, and I have a third idea to explain the "dumpster expedition" that seems to be contradicting Nicodemus's philosophy: the fact that Jenner was considered a serious threat by Nicodemus in the first movie suggests that he was not alone. He had allies within the rat community, not quite as ruthless as him, and who never took part in Jenner's evil doing, but who still shared Jenner's opinion that "borrowing" stuff from humans was the right thing to do if they wanted to preserve their society. Especially with Nicodemus gone, the two factions probably had to compromise when they finally arrived to Thorn Valley.
It could something like this: the "pro-Jenner" wanted to keep taking human stuff to Thorn Valley to make life easier. The "pro-Nicodemus" argued that it was wrong to steal, and the "pro-Jenner" (seeing how everybody knew Jenner had turned insane and evil in the end, which probably drew some allies away, making the "pro-Nicodemus" into the majority), probably couldn't totally reject that. But they said: "fine, fine, stealing is evil, but we can pick things in the trash, right ?". Justin, Mr Ages, and generally all those who had the moral clarity required to understand what you have all argued above (about how that wouldn't be right either), tried to explain to the rats all of this, but most of them wouldn't understand the subtle morality at play, and said that the "pro-Jenner" had a fair point. The "pro-Nicodemus" didn't want that, but they didn't want a civil war with the remnant pro-Jenners either, so they let it be for the moment.