The Rescuers Down Under
Aug. 18th, 2020 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI loooooved The Rescuers when I was a child - both the original movie and this sequel, The Rescuers Down Under - so it was rather startling to rewatch them both and realize how very little I remembered from either movie. In The Rescuers Down Under, the only part that really stuck with me is the bit where our human hero, an Australian boy played by an American who occasionally attempts an indifferent Australian accent, leaps off a waterfall to ride on the back of a magnificent golden eagle.
(I was quite disappointed in later life to realize that there is in fact a bird called a golden eagle and it is not even slightly big enough for a child to ride, and also doesn’t flash gold in the sunshine. What a cheat!)
But I had entirely forgotten pretty much everything else, including:
The poacher, a classic Disney villain with an entire underground lair full of sad Australian animals in cages.
The doctor & nurse mice who take it upon themselves to put Wilbur the Albatross’s back into alignment after he crash lands. They are terrifying. What are they doing in this movie? Who at Disney thought “A spot of medical torture would liven this up”?
Jake the kangaroo rat ranger! Actually, the wikipedia page describes him as a “hopping mouse,” so I guess “kangaroo rat” is something the pet store made up when I went on a field trip to a pet store in preschool. I had forgotten Jake in the interval, but his existence came flooding back to me when we watched the film. He’s fun! He hops! He is the only character in an entire film set in Australia who consistently has an Australian accent!
Bernard and Bianca get engaged at the end??? I’m not sure if I thought that they had already gotten married after the first film, or contrariwise if I thought they were going to be platonic rescuing buddies forever and ever, but either way this was unexpected!
This movie is also unusual because it’s the first (and for a long time the only) Disney sequel that had a theatrical release instead of going direct to video. It’s an interesting contrast to Pixar, which released Toy Story in 1995 and then leapt more or less instantly into sequelville with Toy Story 2 in 1999.
(I was quite disappointed in later life to realize that there is in fact a bird called a golden eagle and it is not even slightly big enough for a child to ride, and also doesn’t flash gold in the sunshine. What a cheat!)
But I had entirely forgotten pretty much everything else, including:
The poacher, a classic Disney villain with an entire underground lair full of sad Australian animals in cages.
The doctor & nurse mice who take it upon themselves to put Wilbur the Albatross’s back into alignment after he crash lands. They are terrifying. What are they doing in this movie? Who at Disney thought “A spot of medical torture would liven this up”?
Jake the kangaroo rat ranger! Actually, the wikipedia page describes him as a “hopping mouse,” so I guess “kangaroo rat” is something the pet store made up when I went on a field trip to a pet store in preschool. I had forgotten Jake in the interval, but his existence came flooding back to me when we watched the film. He’s fun! He hops! He is the only character in an entire film set in Australia who consistently has an Australian accent!
Bernard and Bianca get engaged at the end??? I’m not sure if I thought that they had already gotten married after the first film, or contrariwise if I thought they were going to be platonic rescuing buddies forever and ever, but either way this was unexpected!
This movie is also unusual because it’s the first (and for a long time the only) Disney sequel that had a theatrical release instead of going direct to video. It’s an interesting contrast to Pixar, which released Toy Story in 1995 and then leapt more or less instantly into sequelville with Toy Story 2 in 1999.
