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Forgotten Childhood: Thumbelina

Forgotten Childhood: Thumbelina

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Somehow we always seem to circle back to the king of our sadly forgotten childhoods, Don Bluth. Maybe not so much for boys growing up, DonBluthThumbelinabut for girls this was a widely watched film and I can remember it was always shown on the television anytime it was a school or public holiday. Perhaps because it was cheap to broadcast, but I certainly enjoyed every moment. Thumbelina is definitely one of Bluth’s forgotten gems and, looking back, it is easy to see why.
Thumbelina, the 1994 animated film, was based on Hans Christian Anderson‘s creation of the same name. The film itself was adapted from a screenplay that Bluth had created. Taking a slightly lighter narrative than Bluth’s other films, Thumbelina is very much an innocent love story on the surface with some darker arranged marriage undertones running through. It does not come close, however, to the darker elements of Bluth’s story telling in films like An American Tail, All Dogs Go To Heaven and Anastasia, but focuses more on an ongoing love story. There are attempts to steer the story in a darker direction, with a death and the arranged marriage narrative, but they don’t come off as troubling as they do in the other films.
Attempting to introduce a new princess-type character was always going to be difficult, especially for a film released in the same year as Disney giant The Lion King. Realistically, Thumbelina never stood a chance. Not only would it be facing off against one of the biggest Disney films ever made, but it also ran right into the trouble facing Don Bluth Entertainment. It was produced between 1991 and 1993 and was only completed with the funds raised by filmmaker John Boorman, as Don Bluth Entertainment’s Sullivan Bluth had filed for bankruptcy. It was originally released in cinemas by Warner Bros Family Entertainment after being dropped by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where it would have had a 1993 release following Bluth’s bankruptcy. The rights are now held by 20th Century Fox.
thumbsizeThe film received some mixed reviews and was deemed a film literally only children could enjoy. It didn’t do well at the box office, and didn’t even make back half of its $28 million budget. It even took the Razzie for worst original song with the ballad ‘Marry the Mole’, and went on to be the first animated feature film to be nominated for any Razzie award until The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It continued to be the only animated film to win a Razzie until 2015.
With all the disasters that surrounded it, it’s a wonder that Thumbelina can even be seen today, but you have to wonder: If all had gone ahead as planned and it had been released during the original time frame planned, would it have bombed as badly as it did at the box office? It may not have changed the critics’ opinions, but would it have at least done better, or was it the bankruptcy story that really destroyed its chances? A blackened studio reputation does not exactly look good for a film.

My Full Experience

I say it time and time again that I bow down before the House of Mouse but, god, I loved this film as a child. Saying that, I was not introduced to it until about 1995 or 1996 when it was eventually aired on The Den over Christmas. I loved the songs, the characters and just the whole thing. I was a child; to me, it was a film and that was it. I had no idea about Don Bluth or any of that drama. All I cared about was that I had this wonderful film which my mam ended up taping for me. That could have been exactly the problem with this film; it was a child’s film. Where Bluth usually made films that any age could watch and find something to enjoy, this was definitely made specifically for children.
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The story, in a nutshell, is about a lonely woman who wants nothing more than a child of her own, and plants a seed given to her by a witch. Where the seed was planted, a beautiful flower blossoms and inside is a little girl the size of the woman’s thumb, thus she names her Thumbelina. As time passes, Thumbelina longs for a new type of companionship and to find a love of her own. One night, she meets a fairy prince and is swept off her feet as the two fall in love at first sight. That same night, after the prince leaves her and promises to return the next day, she is kidnapped by toads. Thumbelina is swept away on a perilous journey where she meets all sorts of creatures that want to marry her, but she wants nothing more than to return to her mother’s house and find the fairy prince.
Watching this film now, as an adult, I can see where and why it did badly. Like I said, it is very much a film made for children and children alone. Now, saying that, watching it was a nostalgia bomb which shielded me from a lot of the awful aspects of the film. To me, it’s watching a film that I loved as a child and not wanting to destroy those memories that blinds me to the negatives, but even I had to admit there were a few dodgy aspects to the film. The story itself is actually good, but Don Bluth being who he is, tried to shove a moral point in there like in other films, but it didn’t work. The constant attempt at all these arranged marriages for Thumbelina were forced and unneeded, maybe just the toad and the mole one would have done, but that beetle character was just annoying. The animation was perhaps good at the time, but it didn’t age as well as other films from the same time have.

This film, looking back, could have been so much more than what it is now, but it has on overloaded narrative, annoying persistent characters that add nothing to the tale and shoddy, dated animation. I can see where this film fell hard and why it bombed so badly, but it does hold nostalgic memories for me and that is all that saves it in my mind. Thumbelina, a forgotten childhood perhaps better off forgotten?
Do you remember Thumbelina? Think I am wrong? Let me know in the comments!

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