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It is a sad commentary that the sequel to Don Bluth's excellent movie The Secret of NIMH was such an abysmal failure. It is generally considered to be one of animation's very worst sequels (one of the worst ever made). While it was produced and released by the same company which currently owns the rights to the first NIMH movie, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Don Bluth and his company were not involved in the making of it in any way (and it shows). And that is a common theme in all the great movies which Bluth's production company made - great movies such as An American Tail, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and The Land Before Time. Of course, sometimes the sequels to Bluth's other animated movies worked out a little better.


Let's have a look at just why this movie, The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue, is the terrible failure that it is. This is not going to be another of the scathing, often profanity-laden condemnations of the type often seen floating around the internet (especially in the kinds of video reviews one sees on YouTube, for example). I will present this in as rational a way as possible. And I hope to get some responses! This will be broken down into a few separate sub-topics. I'll try to keep it as short and simple as possible, and will break it down into two posts (if that's alright with the mods).


This is a bit long. Take your time and you'll get through it.


To start, and I will probably be risking the ire and ridicule of hardcore The Secret of NIMH fans but, while I am with almost all fans of this movie (and the original book by Robert C. O'Brien, upon which the first movie was based) with regard to this movie on almost all their issues--being a fan myself, I will admit that I actually DIDN'T dislike the way the main protagonist, Timothy Brisby, was presented in this movie. The three voice actors playing the character, at various ages, weren't annoying (to me at least), and I actually rather like the fact that the young kid playing Timothy early in the movie can't sing like some professional. It gives him a real boyish quality. If there's going to be the very irritating musical numbers going on during a movie, I would rather have that in a child actor than some highly-trained kid rattling off perfect songs. Plus, I just think the three actors didn't do the character any injustice in the way they portrayed him. (This is pretty much the only real sympathy I have reserved for this movie though. Lol).


Okay...let's break this down into sub-topics. There are spoilers below, but I imagine that, given this particular movie, you won't be too upset to read up a little about the movie here, and may just be satisfied with that alone instead of suffering through the movie itself.


CONTINUITY
This is an important concept in any series...be it a television series (even one which spins off of another, or off of a movie), or a movie series. Or even in literature. Any good literary or script writer knows and respects the importance of being consistent with story continuity. You don't break it for any reason. For example...if a key element of a character's personality is that he loves apples, and it is something which defines the character, a writer of a sequel cannot, all of a sudden, break continuity by writing the character as having a love of oranges as the defining aspect of the character, and especially when it takes the place of that love of apples. Are we following? I hope so!


But that is precisely what went wrong throughout The Secret of NIMH 2...continual and bizarre violations of continuity. As if nothing that Don Bluth established in the first NIMH movie, or which Robert C. O"Brien had established in the book, meant anything, and could be tossed aside at a whim. Which is doubly upsetting considering how, for the most part (except in isolated cases noted below, which are FAR less troublesome than the silliness wrought in this sequel), Don Bluth and his team worked so hard to respect continuity with O'Brien's original book. So what are the continuity violations in The Secret of NIMH 2?

• In the prologue (the introduction sequence), which is a flashback to events seen in the first movie, the narrator attributes a quote to the Great Owl which that character never said, either in the first movie or in the original book ("The wisest of creatures, the Great Owl, once said 'Jonathan Brisby was the bravest of them all'.").
  
  
• Also in the prologue, the narrator then refers to the character of Nicodemus as a "prophet", and attributes a prophecy to him which also was never said by the character, either in the first movie or the original book ("The prophet Nicodemus predicted that NIMH will again thrust its evil on the rats, and that a son of Jonathan Brisby will be chosen to save them." Nicodemus is never described, either in the first movie or the original book, as a "prophet". But that same prophecy is then referenced, separately (and at different points in the movie) by two other key characters from the NIMH movies: Auntie Shrew and Mr. Ages. Neither of whom could ever have heard Nicodemus deliver this so-called prophecy, since it never existed in the established continuity of the NIMH story.
  
  
• The character Auntie Shrew refers to Timothy as her "nephew", something she never did in the first movie or the original book (never referring to any of the Brisby/Frisby children in a familial way). "Auntie" was a name of affectionate familiarity given to the character for the sake of the first movie, and was never used in the original book either.
  
  
• The Thorn Valley colony, established by the rats after they left the rosebush (at the end of the first movie and the original book) has all the appearance of a well-established human village, with all the typical trappings, and VERY visible from the air. And the rats seen in the village are wearing even more human-styled clothing than they did in the first movie (something they never did in the original book). However, in the original book, the character Nicodemus points out the differences between the rats and humans, and how the rats of NIMH would not be able to live the way humans do, in human style. And that, when the colony at Thorn Valley was to be established, that it would still be hidden from view even despite how far away from any human habitations and activity it would be.
  
  
• The characters Justin and Brutus, two of the key rats from the first movie and the original book, take a party of rats, and a slightly older Timothy, on an excursion to raid the garbage of a human habitation, looking for cast-off things. This flies in the face of what was established in both the first movie and the original book, as stated not only by Nicodemus, but also by Justin. That the purpose establishing the colony at Thorn Valley was so that the rats could live without stealing from humans, and develop complete independence.
  
  
• During the course of the movie, Timothy meets up with another intelligent mouse, a young girl mouse named Jenny, and learns that she is the daughter of two of the original mice from NIMH, and that they've survived that incident in the air shaft mentioned in the first movie, and covered in more detail in the original book. However, in The Secret of NIMH 2, the mice are referred to repeatedly as "The Lost Six". In the first movie, however, the number of mice that were part of NIMH's scientific experiments were eleven, and NINE of them were supposedly "swept down dark air shafts to their deaths", as Nicodemus put it in the first movie (though, in the original book, their fate is not firmly established). So what happened to the other three?
  
  
• NIMH and the scientists are presented as a place of terrible evil. And yet, even though Nicodemus, in the first movie, says that animals were brought to NIMH, "put in cages" and "put through the most unspeakable tortures...to satisfy some scientific curiosity", in the original book Nicodemus tells Mrs. Frisby that the rats were not mishandled (there is no mention of other animals in the book except, eventually, the mice) and that, in fact, they were treated "well enough", and that some of the researchers even showed sympathy for them.

(continued in the next post...)

(continuing from the previous post...)



CHARACTERS
There are several characters in The Secret of NIMH 2 which appeared in the first movie. Some, like Mrs. Brisby, Auntie Shrew, Cynthia and Teresa are only seen very briefly (disappointing that we don't see Mrs. Brisby more). However, we see more of Martin, Justin, Brutus, Mr. Ages, Jeremy and, of course, Timothy. Timothy, who got the least time in the first movie, and only one line in the closing scene, is now the protagonist. And we see him going through training at Thorn Valley, under tutelage of Justin and Mr. Ages, in preparation to fulfill his destiny and "the prophecy". However...

• Most of these characters are presented very poorly in this movie, and are shadows of what they were in the first one. There are only two actors who reprise their roles for the sequel: Arthur Malet as Mr. Ages, and Dom DeLuise as Jeremy. However, while DeLuise does eventually find his footing (after a very sluggish start), Arthur Malet never does (it's worth noting that this was Malet's very last acting job).
  
  
• Mr. Ages has lost all of the crusty, suspicious and temperamental nature which made him so endearing in the first movie. In the sequel, he's just a bore.
  
  
• Jeremy has lost the clumsy, naive, whacky personality which made him so endearing and funny in the first movie (which was mostly thanks to Dom DeLuise's talent and freedom to give input into the design of the character when he was working with Don Bluth). In the sequel, Jeremy is horribly misused by the writers and director, and ends up delivering several predictable and very unfunny punchlines, and sounding nothing like he does in the first movie. Plus, he's drawn and animated horribly.
  
  
• Auntie Shrew gains a whole new voice actor for this sequel, actress Doris Roberts (who is fine enough doing live action, but has no real talent for animation voice work). This character, too, loses all the spice which made her a fan favorite from the first movie. She's got no crustiness, she's not the nosy, suspicious, opinionated, interfering, barb-quipping busybody she was in the first movie. And, in the sequel, she talks about Nicodemus like he's some messianic figure. Totally out of character for someone who considered the rats, in the first movie, "hairy barbarians" and "hoodlums" (to say the least)...and who fears them when they finally do put in an appearance at the Brisby home (it's worth noting too that, in the original book, the shrew actually holds the rats at bay, away from the Frisby home, even biting one of them. It takes Mrs. Frisby to convince her that the rats aren't trying to steal her home out from under her).
  
  
• Mrs. Brisby appears twice in this movie...once in the beginning, and once at the end. And this is the same with a now overweight Cynthia and with Teresa. Mrs. Brisby at least has a few lines to deliver. However, Cynthia and Teresa are left to little more than insipid giggling (with a throwaway line or two). The one thing I DO like about Mrs. Brisby in this is that she's showing her age. Her hair is graying, and she's wearing glasses (bifocals, I think). This follows the original book's (and first movie's) nod to the fact that, being a wild field mouse, unaltered by the shots that her husband received, which changed his DNA and slowed his aging process significantly...which all of his children inherited...she would age much faster than the rest of her family. I guess they had to get SOMETHING more or less right. lol
  
  
• Justin is, like the others, just a shadow of what he was in the first movie. And, for all the point of trying to teach Timothy to live up to his father's legacy, and be a hero-in-training, Justin keeps on pushing Timothy into the sidelines and the unimportant duties, telling him that he's not ready to be a hero. So how is this supposed to inspire the young mouse?
  
  
• Then there's Martin. Martin, Timothy's older brother, has a key part in this movie...as a bad guy. What?? Yep...a bad guy. He starts off just being embittered that his younger brother is chosen to be the Thorn Valley trainee who will follow in Jonathan Brisby's footsteps. But, after the opening scenes of the movie, the next we see of him is when he's become strangely altered by the evil scientists of NIMH, and become an insane evil villain who has secretly gained control of NIMH out from under those evil human scientists, and is forming an evil army of altered animals to march on and take over the Thorn Valley colony. Eeyeah. He tries to off his younger brother after failing to convince him to join in the evil plot, and then tries to take Timothy's new girlfriend Jenny as his "queen". And after all of the events unfold, and the movie comes to an end, we see him suddenly restored to his old self, and no longer insane and evil. Whaaaaat??
  
  
• The NIMH scientists are presented as bumbling evil idiots. Including a Dr. Valentine (in the first movie, no names were given for the scientists. In the original book, the chief NIMH researcher was "Dr. Schultz". He had two young assistant researchers, named "George" and "Julie"). But even in the first movie, where NIMH is described, by Nicodemus, as a place where "unspeakable tortures" for satisfying "some scientific curiosity" were conducted, the NIMH laboratory is shown in a serious, rather than comical, light. We only ever see the interior, but it looks like a real laboratory. In the sequel, it's reimagined as some darkened, evil castle-like lair, emanating a cruel green light from some windows, and hidden behind a wrought iron fence buried in the depths of several high-rise buildings.
  
  
• Considering the high-priced voice talent hired for this sequel (no less than Monty Python's Eric Idle, Dom DeLuise, Arthur Malet, Phillip Glasser, Harvey Korman, Ralph Macchio, William H. Macy, Peter MacNicol and Doris Roberts), it's surprising that the only actors who seem to show any real interest in portraying their roles with any degree of energy and enthusiasm are the three fellows who play Timothy at different ages (Andrew Ducote, Alex Strange and Ralph Macchio), Hynden Walch as Jenny McBride (Timothy's young love interest) and, MAYBE to a lesser extent, Phillip Van Dyke as a young Martin in the opening scenes of the movie.

GENERAL STUPIDITY
There are some aspects of this sequel which don't fit into the previous two categories. Here are some things which defy reason:

• A caterpillar character (named Cecil) who carries a credit card? Really?
  
  
• Jeremy joined up with the aforementioned Cecil in an on-going scheme to bilk creatures of the forest out of their belongings, and to steal shiny things for both of them (jewelry and such). And both of them having set up shop in the Great Owl's lair? (The Great Owl, fortunately for that character, being nowhere to be seen in the sequel.)
  
  
• Musical numbers. The bane of all that is good and sane in the animation world, in almost all cases. And which are just as bad here as in most other animated movies, and just as pointless and useless. Especially considering that, in great movies such as the first The Secret of NIMH, there is not a single musical number. Any singing is done for the sake of setting up a scene and establishing a mood...NOT to perform some silly song & dance or chorus line (or both).
  
  
• The rats of Thorn Valley, having finally learned about the lost mice from the original escape from NIMH, and that they're still trapped there, maddeningly decide that they should leave the mice to their own fates, and that they will not go and rescue them, for fear of revealing their ever-so "secret" not-really-very-well-hidden colony.
  
  
• Throw-away lines for characters...of supreme stupidity. Such as Jenny saying to Timothy "if we die, I'm going to kill you!" Or this exchange between a still-young Timothy and Mr. Ages:
  
  
  Mr. Ages: "My boy, what have I been trying to teach you all these months?"
  
  Timothy: "Um...that it's okay for guys to wear the same underwear for three days in a row?"
  
  Mr. Ages: (stammering) "Well, that was just between us. Now, what else?"
  
  
  No. Just...no. Not only would Mr. Ages, as portrayed in the first movie, been totally put off by what Timothy said, and reprimanded him for being a foolish and silly child, but he would have stopped the exchange right there and not continued by asking him what else he learned. And need I point out that none of the mice (and most of the other characters) even wear PANTS? What then, therefore, would they need with UNDERWEAR??

Now I think it's possible to see why this movie has achieved the horrid reputation it has. It stands as an egregious insult, not only to Robert C. O'Brien, the author of Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, but also to Don Bluth and his people, who gave us such an excellent and enduring movie as The Secret of NIMH. But it is also a slap in the face to all fans of the book and/or the first movie...and an insult to our intelligence. Which is a terrible shame.

I haven't seen the squeal at all, but I'm sitting here thinking "what were they thinking when they worked on this movie?" It's like they took the first film, placed it in a blender, mixed it to death and then said "ta da!"

Very well-said Mighty. And fairly accurate. lol

This jaw action absolutely terrified me. O_O It looks like Auntie Shrew is suffering from a cramped up jaw, or she just got done eating a jar of peanut butter.

And doubtless suffering from heavy eyelid syndrome too. lol Though again, with the rather bland animation and art (even though the art isn't entirely horrible, sans shading and highlights though it is)...which is utterly amateurish in comparison to Don Bluth's (and his team's), once again--oddly enough, I didn't dislike Timothy...even the way he was animated. Perhaps because they paid more attention to the main character. Oh the animation and art overall could have been TONS better than it was. And Auntie Shrew stands out as a painful example of that.

Oh man, I have been awaiting this... for so long!

JC: You hit the nails right on the head about this movie. It is not only a bad movie overall, but as a sequel to a gorgeous piece of animation by Don Bluth, it is a disgraceful pile of poo.

...However, I will say that... [please don't hate me for this one, okay?] *sigh* it is actually a guilty pleasure for me.

No, really - it is. I enjoy the bat-crazy antics and how terrible it is, only because I can see that if this was tweaked in the right direction [and followed continuity better and had better animation], NIMH 2 could have worked. And right now, you're calling me crazy, I'm sure... but here's what I mean:

First off, I do like Timmy and his relationship with Martin [mainly early on]. He is the runt of the Brisby family, and suddenly he's got all this legacy to live up to all because of a last-minute-but-totally-impossible prophecy that one of Jonathan Brisby's sons will save the Rats of NIMH once more. Note that it never mentioned WHICH son was the "chosen one", but in the first scene after the title, Martin clearly reminds Timmy that he was the one chosen, which we can tell by his tone and expressions [as badly-animated as they are] really grinds his gears. Still, he's willing to help Timmy and encourage him that he can do anything ["Some try, Brisbys do."], though this might just be because he's the big brother looking after his weaker little bro. Shoot, if the movie just focused on the two of them competing in Thorn Valley to be that chosen son to follow in their father's footsteps, that would have been much more of an interesting plot and made a stronger conflict between the two - how would the other brother take defeat and would he still stand by the other brother?

Secondly, I do like Jenny McBride, the heroine. Note how I call her "heroine" because she is. She's the one that seems to do more early on once Timmy meets her, and has more personality IMO than Timmy once he's older. She's determined and spunky, and I like female characters like her. Tim wouldn't have gone after his brother if it wasn't for her willing to defy the Rats imprisoning them in the first place, so there's that. Plus, she totally deserved that statue beside Jonathan, not Tim [though Mrs. Brisby deserved that honor as well - the Rats wouldn't be alive in Thorn Valley without her warning near the climax of the first movie!], if only because she knocked out Evil!Martin during the sequel's weak climax [Let's just admit it - the Rats of NIMH are kinda sexist.].

Thirdly, just... Evil!Martin. OH MY GAWD, I love how insane his initial scene is, and his character is just a sheer delight of WTFery all rolled up in Eric Idle's voice. Sure, it's a complete 180 for Martin's original character, but the fact that he would turn into his brother's enemy makes a whole lot of sense. Think about the fact that only one son could fulfill this destiny of saving the Rats of NIMH, and the obvious one wasn't picked. How would you feel if you weren't chosen for some really important mission or task? Even Martin says that it's not fair, so can you blame him for being so upset that he'd punish the source - the Rats themselves? Oh boy, that's a This is why I really don't like movies that call a character "the chosen one" anymore.

Everything else is just... terrible. I honestly wish that the sequel followed more in the line of the actual book sequel, "Rasco and the Rats of NIMH" by the original author's daughter, though at least the fact Timmy traveled to Thorn Valley was practically spot on in both sequels. The book is more interesting, but I know one major reason why it wasn't used... and it's a major spoiler for the book.

I'm sure someone could probably rewrite the sequel as a fanfiction that works better than the actual sequel movie does, but now that I say that...NIMH 2 does read like a really bad fanfiction, jokes and all. It definitely explains the bad off-character stuff, the awful jokes like the "underwear" thing, the sudden romance between Jenny and Timmy, and the craziness of being out-of-continuity and having a nutball of a villain controlling human scientists like dogs and being addicted to shock treatment.

NIMH 2 is bad, but if it had more care in the story [and art] department, I feel that it could have been a decent sequel somewhat.

- Juuchan17

Deleted.

There have been many reviews on this, Elliot. Professional and amateur. And most of them scathing.

Juuchan - excellent points you raised earlier! I will, after I get a chance to sit down and attend to it, create some detailed responses to what you said. But you made some really great points (some of which I hadn't considered)!

The fact that they were still conducting occasional supply runs never really fazed me because I don't consider it stealing to grab garbage (you can actually find some great stuff in dumpsters if you know which ones to look in).

Other than that, I pretty much agree with your assessment (except for the things Juuchan noted to the contrary).

EDIT: I was thinking today about something sort of related to this, and it occurred to me that Timmy's training would have been much better, and much more interesting, if he had been put on some sort of team with older, more experienced rats who each had a different skill set so that he could learn on the job while conducting various necessary tasks such as security details. It would also have resolved the whole conflicting messages issue - treating him like some kind of Messiah one minute and then telling him, "You always think you know better than everyone else" the next.

I know, right?

This is one reason why I can't stand these "chosen one" plots for movies, any movie. Seriously, the best thing that could have been done for Timmy was for him to live out his life, studying and learning without knowing about that huge burden of being the son to continue his father's heroic destiny. Sure, Martin may not have become the shock-treatment addict and overly hammy villain that he ended up being, but it would have been for the best of the whole series, or at least for this sequel. Heck, maybe Tim wouldn't be acting like he knows better than everyone else if all of Thorn Valley didn't inflate his ego with how awesome he WAS going to be at some unknown point in time when NIMH chose to threaten them again. Last I checked, the Rats were only more intelligent, not psychic [though they say Nicodemus was a prophet... bull crud].

Or, here's another idea: Maybe this one little change in the story would have given him [and us, the audience] an opportunity to learn more about who Jonathan was and how he became so well-revered by all of the rats of NIMH and even one of the enemies of mice, the Great Owl. That would have been an interesting bit of info for the series... and then if they felt like it, the plot of "Timmy being the chosen son" could have kicked in. It would have given him a better chance to develop normally and still train with the knowledge from Justin and Mr. Ages, that's for sure, and it'd probably make the parallels of father and son seem more similar [though I really wish they mentioned the bravery of his mom... She survived the task that sealed her husband's fate, after all... and I'll be repeating myself from my previous response] than how we saw them in the actual sequel [which was... nonexistent, in my opinion].

- Juuchan17

Well I haven't seen the sequel, but reading all this... kinda makes me want to see it. Just for the fun. You know, kinda like watching "Plan 9 from outer space", just because the awfulness makes it actually enjoyable!

What's with the "there was no musical number in the original, so let's add some to the sequel!" rule? Why did it have to be a rule, can't kids appreciate a film without a musical number?! Sometimes I wish the companies would stop thinking that children are stupid and can swallow anything. Proof is, I don't think NIMH 2 was a commercial success...

Adding to the topic, I was afraid to see Jymn Magon (creator of TaleSpin and other famous Disney series like Ducktales), being credited as a writer on this!

Fortunately he replied this on Animation Source :

/talespin ... &nump=1338

Secret of Nimh 2, huh? I was not involved with the plot development or original script. I was brought in at the last minute to do clean-up & punch-up. So I barely remember the project.
JM

Admittedly I'm kind of divided on the musical numbers thing. For example, I liked some of the songs from Lady and the Tramp 2, and some of the Land Before Time sequels (although they did get sillier over time, and without a doubt "If We Hold On Together" will always be the Land Before Time song in my book). On the other hand, you have movies where they just threw them in for the heck of it and completely ruined it, such as The Fox and the Hound 2. As for the music in The Secret of NIMH 2... yeah, I think it falls into the latter category.

Okay, I meant to get back to this, and I am pleased to see this topic getting some activity! So if you all don't mind, I'll throw in my two cents by way of direct quoting and my observations.

All-in-all, this discussion has driven me to give the sequel another chance. Of course, working on NIMH Source has compelled that anyway...as I was the one to add most of the sequel stuff. I really do like certain aspects of the sequel...and most especially the character of Timmy. I thought he was written and acted VERY well. And I liked the relationship with Martin, and how that was written. I even thought the two actors who played Martin (when he was normal) did pretty good...particularly Phillip Van Dyke, who plays him in the beginning of the movie.

And, in this, we all see that, no matter how harsh fans of the first movie, and the books, can be about the animated sequel, their vitriol is colored by how awesome Bluth's first movie was, and how awesome O'Brien's book was. Granted, the sequel is full of ridiculous contradictions, continuity violations, and strange characters. But it also has its moments where things are at least halfway decent. Most of that is due to the actors themselves...but the writers, we have to admit, didn't do an entirely horrible job. Can't speak as much for the animators...and even the artists (though it can be said that not even all of the background art, and some of the art on the primary characters, is all that bad).

The sequel is treated pretty harshly by most fans. But that treatment is not always entirely deserved. And, if one views the movie a few times, with a fair and balanced eye (and ear), they might find it does have those salvageable moments.

Sorry if this gets a bit wordy or voluminous.





Oh I am in total agreement here. I really think that they did a pretty good job in building up the brotherly relationship between Timmy and Martin, and how much family means to each of them (and, though we don't see it so much in the sequel, how much it means to every member of the Brisby family). The concept of "family" is, as you know, also an important element in O'Brien's book, and it carries through with the two sequels his daughter wrote (especially the first one).

I don't know, however, if it would have been more interesting to have Martin competing with Timmy while training at Thorn Valley (which would have driven a sharp and maybe irreconcilable divide between them eventually), or if it would have been better for them to introduce another competing character...maybe even Jane Conly's "Racso" (the son of Jenner from the first book sequel). THAT might have been interesting, especially given Racso's urban personality, and how much Timmy had to keep after him! And especially since, in Conly's first sequel book Martin has already moved out of the Brisby home and settled in with his own spouse...kind of obviating the chance to take off and train to be a hero for an extended period.



Again, I am in agreement here. The sequel would have been worse had it not had at least one strong female heroine. The sequel is definitely male-dominated otherwise, and I could just imagine the griping people would have done had the writers not introduced this character. Of course, she also serves, quite plainly (though effectively I think...which is another nod we have to give to the writers), as a love interest for Timmy. And Hynden Walch voiced her very well. The artists giving her human female breasts, though? I don't know why animation artists have this fixation with giving animal characters human physical characteristics at THAT level. I really don't. But it was totally unnecessary. Female mice don't have breasts on their chests. And neither Mrs. Brisby nor Auntie Shrew had them in the first movie.



Now here you and I differ. The whole "Evil Martin" concept, to me, is just idiotic. It was a goofy, ridiculous concept. They could have brought Martin into conflict with Timmy without introducing this unrealistic transformation...via abusive shock treatments, mind you. Granted, Eric Idle is a great voice actor (you have to give it to MGM for managing to secure top-billed voice talent...which I am pretty sure didn't come cheap), but this cornball transformation was a horrendous disappointment for me. Almost as unbelievable, and disappointing, as adding magic to the first movie, and stealing from the rats the climactic display of their engineering skills by having some magical amulet being the only thing that can save the Brisby home from disappearing into a muddy sinkhole. And turning a strong, virile character like Nicodemus into a feeble old wizard. Not that I think Bluth and his team handled those things poorly. But they did violate the original story by adding those elements, and it did bother me, having been a fan of the book first. Yes, Bluth and his team handled those altered story elements beautifully...but they were a fundamental violation of the original story's continuity.



I'm already laying the outline for one, while still trying to finish up a long-running effort at a Balto fan fiction. lol



Granted. It has some degree of plausibility, in that it helps introduce the character Jenny, and also to demonstrate Timmy's apparent frustration at not being given the chance to do more, say, than shovel snow or scrub cobblestones (as we see in the scenes leading up to it). But, in the book (as well as it being hinted in the first movie), the idea of the Thorn Valley Plan was for the rats to establish complete independence from humans, and to not have to steal from then...even their refuse. That they had to establish their own productivity and culture, and leave their old ways behind. And what is the old way for a feral rat other than to raid human trash and food stores?



Which would probably work better in literary form than within the context and scope of an animated film, which can't run over a certain time limit. Again, the first sequel book, by O'Brien's daughter (Jane Conly) does touch upon that, more or less.




I think the "chosen one" thing was carried too far, though it did provide for some conflict between Timmy and Martin. And for Timmy to have a lofty goal to struggle against (again, as a matter of conflict between he and, say, Justin, Brutus and even Mr. Ages). But the whole "prophecy" thing? Stupid. As to Timmy acting as though he "knows better"? We see that primarily in his 17-year old self.

It's interesting, in the song "I Will Show The World", sung by all three of Timmy's voice actors (Andrew Ducote, Alex Strange and Ralph Macchio) as the character proceeds from 10 years of age, to 13 and then to 17, to see how his personality evolves in just that little sequence. At 10 years of age, newly-arrived in Thorn Valley, Timmy's attitude about his father is "I'll never be you"...the idea that living up to his father's legacy is something he can't see himself doing (all while being a mischievous boy). At 13 years of age, Timmy starts to have a "I never knew you" viewpoint, expressing his frustration at trying to live up to his father's legacy, which is doubtless being constantly put upon him by his tutors and the other rats (all while taking his training with single-minded seriousness). Then, at 17 years of age, his viewpoint has now become "I'll always have you", and "I'll show them that I'm my father's son" and a not-too-subtle view that he will earn the right to equal fame with his father. And when the song is over, and Justin approaches him to recruit him for that foraging mission, Timmy's response demonstrates the still-present frustration he has at being held back, while still being reminded that he has a legacy to live up to. And we see that frustration rise to the surface several more times...once during the foraging mission, and at least a few times during the excursion to NIMH. That's pretty good writing, actually!



Well, as you can see in some of the discussion here, it's actually not all bad, and there are salvageable moments. It's worth at least one viewing! (I don't know how the French dub sounds in terms of acting quality, but this post here, and my first two posts in this topic, describe what I feel are the good and bad acting jobs in the English version.)



I'm not divided at all. Musical numbers in animated movies suck. And are stupid. Especially when you have sequels that have them, where the original movies have none. Some examples: Balto, The Secret of NIMH, even The Fox & The Hound. Although, to be fair, I disagree with you about The Fox & The Hound 2. Since the characters are a stage act doing songs anyway (as corny as that is for dogs to be singing country music), within the overall context of the movie it isn't as bad as, say, Stella's number in Balto 3...or Jenna's song to Balto in that same movie (which was annoying beyond measure). Timmy's song "I Will Show The World", while still a musical number, is far less annoying to me than many other musical numbers I've had to fast-forward through in order to save my sanity. lol And I like that Andrew Ducote, who played the 10-year old Timmy, wasn't an expert singer. It made him more realistic. One thing about Alex Strange (who played Timmy at 13 years of age) is that he was a stage actor at the time...no doubt well-trained in voice and song. And it's much more evident when he comes into that particular number. But not as realistic. Even Ralph Macchio seems to have some developed and professional singing talent. But you can forgive him the professionalism with the character in that he's portraying an older version of Timmy.

As a recreation of the book, I concede that this was a deviation from the book, but I think that in translating a book into a movie some changes are bound to occur. Granted, this was a rather drastic deviation, but as someone who saw the movie before reading the book, I found the movie more compelling.

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You make a fair point, but Rome wasn't built in a day.


I have to admit, that's something I didn't think of.


I'll grant that it's a drawback when the characters actually sing as opposed to the music being background (as seen in The Secret of NIMH), but I think your argument is a little one-sided. Consider some of the songs from Disney classics . I'll also grant that the fact that the characters in The Fox and the Hound 2 was somewhat redeeming, but the music itself and the fact that the overall movie was an atrocious departure from the original movie (as opposed to the Balto sequels, which were at least somewhat reasonable extensions of the original, whereas TFatH2 just grafted something totally foreign right in the middle) seemed to turn that slight positive into a negative. If they had made it a sequel of some kind instead of a midquel, even if all the other things about it had been the same, then everything else, including the music, would have been far more forgivable in my book.