When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)

[MNM041]

Considering that he primarily plays Eastern European characters, primarily villains, any chance of getting Peter Stormare as the "Yuri" in Warpath?

Let's move this over to the speculation thread.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks again to @ajm8888 for this strange little twist. More in the Yuri story coming later.

Why do I have the suspicion a non-Disney studio is going to be "inspired" by Yuri's story in a few years and produce a film about an arms dealer who chooses to use their vast business network to track down and murder a rival responsible for the near-fatal shootings of their kids at an amusement park?

Warpath: starring your choice of Nicholas Cage, Liam Neeson, Peirce Brosnan, or Glenn Close, coming to a theatre near you! [explosion noises]

A very interesting idea. Feel free to discuss in the Guest Thread of Ideas PMs.

In general, while I of course LOVE the enthusiasm and feedback and continued support from all of you, I'm seeing a lot of off-topic conversations creeping back in, including arguments and sidebars and discussions about movies from way in the past or in the TL's "future", all of which belong in the Speculation & Commentary thread. Two pages were burned that probably didn't need to be. Here, to specifically call it all out, is a set of rules; please follow them as I'd really like to get through at least 1999 before I have to start a new thread.

Rules on Posting in the Main TL Thread:

What's appropriate for this Main TL thread:

• Questions/comments about the latest post, or one from the last few days (I know some of you are playing catch-up).
• Feedback (positive, critical) or questions directly about what's been posted are always appreciated and they help me shape the TL going forward and correct any errurz
• Specific reactions the world would have to the events/media posted recently ("Wow, that event would really galvanize rural voters to...")

What's better for another thread (Commentary, PM, Guest, etc...):

• Speculation about what's to come or about how an unrelated film/show turned out ("How will Show from 2012 turn out iTTL?" What happened to Unrelated Show?")
• Questions/comments about something posted last month or years ago ("I really liked what happened with Movie from 1983 ")
• Sidebar discussions (they post, you reply, they reply to you, you reply back to them, etc.); these really burn through pages quick
• Planning for a guest post
• General questions about an unrelated show/actor/etc. ("what happened to Joe Schmuckatelli from Driving Me Crazy?")
• A cool picture you made or found appropriate to the TL

What's never wanted or appropriate anywhere:

• Arguments (politics, personal, etc.) or insults or flame bait/trolling
• Discussions of other media not related to the TL ("Hey, did you see that show last night about...?")

So please follow this and I won't have to ask you to delete your posts. Thanks again, I really do appreciate the support.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

I am a father, you may not think of me as a good father but I dearly love my kids and despite my occupation, I have done my utmost to keep them safe, so I think I am a good father.

I think children would work better than kids, to me at least kids seem more like a western world, particularly American, term. Also both kids and children are used interchangeably when either one or the other should have been used throughout.

To keep my kids safe, I have purchased things that must never come to the arms market, to the black market bizarre, all so the horrors of unimaginable weapons are not unleashed by fools.

Is this the right word here or did they mean bazaar?

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Stallion of the Cimarron
Post from Animation, Stories, and Us Net-log, by Rodrick Zarrel, September 29th, 2012

A Guest Post by @Nerdman3000

It’s fair to say that in the mid-90’s, Hollywood Animation was going through some rather difficult times. Despite doing very well at the box office with Retriever and Heart and Soul, both being successes and both even managing to beat Disney at the box office, it was undeniable to everyone at the animation studio that the departure of Don Bluth and the ousting of Michael Eisner and the looming threat of Jeffrey Katzenberg axing the studio had cast a shadow over everything. From 1994 to 1996, many of the animators and directors at Hollywood Animation were left to despair and wonder what their future held.

In the case of the studio’s 1997 release, Spirit of the West, that uncertainty and despair would have a negative impact on the troubled early making of the film. No more was this apparent than with the scandalous actions of the infamous “Sabotage 35” (which I go into further detail in my post from last week on the scandal, which you can read here), whose actions only further worsened the dark cloud which had begun to hang over the studio.

1997's Spirit of the West, which is an early version of our timeline’s Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. (source: Pinterest)

Yet even in the darkest clouds a light can eventually shine through and part the dark clouds. For Hollywood Animation, this light first began to trickle in with the merger between ABC and Universal, as despite some initial worries from the studio’s animators that their protector from Katzenberg, CEO Thomas Murphy, might lose his position in the merger shakeup, time would reveal that he would be keeping his position as CEO of the combined company. This gave the animators some hope of top cover even as Katzenberg replaces departing Universal Studios President and CEO Sidney Sheinberg. Furthermore, the protection provided by Murphy would be even stronger, due to the departing Sheinberg, who loved animation and believed in the potential of Hollywood Animation, which he saw as being capable of growing into a successful cornerstone for Universe, successfully managing to convince Murphy around towards this belief and way of thinking.

That potential belief would be rewarded seemingly when Heart and Soul released in late 1996 to massive critical and financial success, while also becoming the studio’s second animation film in a row to beat Disney at the box office. It’s fair to say that there couldn’t have been any better news for Hollywood Animation, as the threat of Jeffrey Katzenberg axing the studio had been seemingly silenced in the wake of the success of Heart and Soul. With the film making $346 million worldwide at the box office and giving the studio millions more in merchandising, it was undeniable that the best-case scenario and expectations for the animators working at Hollywood Animation had not only happened, but had been exceeded.

Sidney Sheinberg, former President and CEO of Universal, with friend Steven Spielberg, whom he helped to discover. Sheinberg notably had a lot of faith in the potential of Hollywood Animation, especially as he believed that Universal was lagging behind in the animation game. He would manage to convince incoming Universal CEO Thomas Murphy of the potential of animation for the studio's future. (source: The New York Times)

Though there had been an initial brief panic in-between Heart and Soul’s first weekend at the box office and its massive surge in its second weekend, once it became clear that the film was a hit and their futures were now safe, morale at the animation studio quickly and vastly improved. Nowhere was this clearer than with the artists working on Spirit of the West, which, according to one artist working on the film, saw its best work put forward in the ten months between the November 1996 release of Heart and Soul and the September 1997 release of Spirit of the West.

In the case of Jeffery Katzenberg though, it was clear he would be finally forced to give in and acknowledge that he couldn’t just get rid of the animation studio. Simply put, Retriever’s previous success had not been a fluke, and the animation studio was seemingly very much profitable, a fact which Murphy made very clear to Katzenberg. To Murphy, it was time for Katzenberg to end his grudge, and he would go as far as to openly say this as he voiced his approval of Heart and Soul’s success, while also openly expressing his confidence that the studio would continue to be prosper under Katzenberg.

Katzenberg, of course, understood the subtle message Murphy had given him: Katzenberg’s future potential ambitious rise would be now tied to the continued success of Hollywood Animation. Had he tried to continue to sabotage the animation studio, he would be going down with them.

With the hint given to him in mind, Katzenberg began to finally play ball and fully commit to working with Marjore Cohn as the studio’s full attention turned to Spirit of the West. The previously aloof Katzenberg now suddenly began to demand bi-weekly meetings with Cohn on the status of the studio’s upcoming film state (where he displayed a particular obsessive interest in the progress of the upcoming Spirit of the West), as well as go on a hiring spree and form a third animation team, as well as green light four new animation projects for the future in late December 1996.

These projects would all be a continuation of Katzenberg’s dualling film release strategy for which Katzenberg had decided to double down on, with City of Gold (based on an idea suggested by new Animation VP David Stainton, another ex-Disney animator who had joined Universal) to release in late 1999 against Disney’s upcoming City of the Sun, while 2000 would see the release of both Atlantis: The Lost Empire, intended to go up against Disney’s rumored 2000 release Journey to the Center of the Earth, and John Carter and the Princess of Mars, which, owing to the fact that both were created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, would go up against Columbia’s upcoming Tarzan film. The final of the four newly greenlit Katzenberg films would be The Canterbury Tales, which owing to its connection to the Chanticleer tale, would release in 2001 against Eisner/Bluth and Columbia’s upcoming Ruler of the Roost.

The new logo for Universal Animation Studios (Image by @Nerdman3000).

Finally, Katzenberg in late December 1996 would also move ahead with doing something he had reportedly wanted to do for years, but hadn’t yet done since he hadn’t been sure if he was going to axe the studio, that being to completely rename Hollywood Animation/DiC itself. Now, while the studio had initially adopted the Universal-Hollywood Animation Studios name following the merger, Katzenberg wanted to go one step further and completely remove the Hollywood part of the name entirely, making it just Universal Animation Studios, also completely removing any and all trace (and forbidding all mention) of the DiC acronym. If you believe rumors, the reason for this change is due to a combination of a desire to purge the last trace of Michael Eisner from the studio and due to the fact that Katzenberg had long since become paranoid and suspected that the continued use of the old DiC acronym was something that had been specifically chosen by Eisner as a dig and insult against him (“The DiC Head”), and so he wanted a completely new fresh name for the studio that would let go of its past[1].

Yet to those who dug a little deeper, it became clear that the reasons for Katzenberg’s newfound attitude toward the animation studio and willingness to work with Cohn and the animators was not simply rooted in simple greed, acceptance that he had lost, or ambition, though those factors certainly played a role. Especially the newfound factor that Katzenberg’s continued rise was now more closely tied to UAS. But if one dug deeper, it became clear, especially to those who knew him, that Katzenberg’s newfound attitude, especially in regards to the progress of Spirit of the West, was especially rooted in one primal thing: fear of the possibility of Michael Eisner getting the last laugh over him.

The film, simply put, was Katzenberg’s baby, and with the massive success of Heart and Soul, Katzenberg was now faced with the prospect that the film Eisner had green lit over Katzenberg’s “little horse film” would end up being the more successful of the two, a thought which no doubt plagued Katzenberg’s dreams.

Now did those fears become reality? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute, but I've talked enough backstory, so let's actually move ahead and actually talk about the film itself.

From a story perspective, the film is not too complicated. In rather simple terms, it is the story set in the backdrop of the 19th century American West of the friendship between a Lakota Native American named Little Creek, voiced by half-Lakota actor Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon, and a Kiger Mustang colt horse named Spirit, voiced by the younger Phoenix brother Joaquin, in what would be one of his first major voice acting roles[2].

Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon and Joaquin Phoenix, who star alongside Michael Rooker and Christina Hendricks. (Source: Pinterest. Combined into one image by @Nerdman3000)

During the course of the film, we follow Spirit, a horse who has been born wild and free, but finds himself captured by a US Calvary division lead by the villainous Colonel Esra Michaels, who is voiced by Michael Rooker[3]. The arrogant and sadistic Michaels becomes determined to tame Spirit, but fails. When Spirit manages to escape captivity along with a similarly imprisoned Little Creek, the two find themselves on the run from a perusing Colonel Michaels and his Calvary. Along their journey, the two form a strong bond and friendship even as Spirit himself finds love with Little Creek's mare, Rain, voiced by Christina Hendricks[4].

Like I said, story-wise, the film is not too complicated, though if you’re looking for a straight 1 to 1 adaptation of the novel, you’re not entirely going to get that[5]. If you’re unaware or have never read the original novel by John Fusco, the film technically has a different villain from the book.

See, while the antagonist of both the film and the novel is a US Calvary officer, in the novel he is simply referred to as the Colonel, and he is clearly intended to in fact be George Armstrong Custer, in both looks and in terms of personality. The film however, due to Katzenberg reportedly wanting to use the opportunity to attack Michael Eisner, instead sort of splits the Colonel character between Colonel Michaels and his lieutenant, the Calvary Sargent. Colonel Michaels, who largely replaces the Colonel from the book as the film’s villain, is meant to clearly be a sort of dig at Eisner, not only in looks but in personality: a vainglorious man who surrounds himself with yes-men and toadies. His lieutenant meanwhile, though having a smaller role, is instead the one who resembles Custer and is the one who comes to respect Spirit and Little Creeks bravery and choses to let them go (in the novel it is the Colonel who survives and does so)[6].

Now personally I don’t mind the change at all, partially because I honestly love Colonel Michaels and think he’s actually a pretty fantastic villain, but as you can probably imagine, a number of fans of the novel weren’t so happy with it. I personally think they’re whining over nothing, but what can you do?

Anyways, the film’s story is not really where its real strength lies in my person opinion. No, if you had to ask me, where the film really shines is in its story, but in its memorable subtle humor which was largely attributed to its new directors Bibo Bergeron and Tim Johnson (seriously, there are so many great jokes scattered throughout that I completely missed as a kid that got me laughing my ass off when I went back to watch the film for this post)[7], fantastic musical score by Hans Zimmer, great songs by Garth Brooks and Phil Collins[8], as well as its rather cinematic and gorgeous artwork. On that last point, I can honestly say that for a film that basically had to mostly be redone a whole year into production, it is quite undeniable that the film is quite beautiful and visually impressive (the final escape scene and the train crash sequences are notably worthy of praise). Much of that quality can likely be attributed to not only to Katzenberg's frequent input toward the artists working on the film and the huge burst of moral the artists were feeling when making the film, but whatever the reasons for how it happened, it's undeniable that it is some fantastic work worthy of praise.

Overall, the film's story, score, music, visuals, and even excellent subtle humor all no doubt playing a role in helping the film do so well among critics when it released in late 1997. In fact, perhaps to Katzenberg’s delight and appreciation, the film would even do slightly better from a critical standpoint than Heart and Soul did a year prior. Yet for all it’s critical success and critical win over Heart and Soul, its box office returns would be a much different story.

Spirt, Rain, and Little Creek, the main characters of the film Spirit of the West. (Source: cornel1801.com)

Though financially successful, the film would make far, far less than Heart and Soul did a year prior, ultimately making only $187 million at the box office, nowhere even close to the massive $346 million box office that Heart and Soul had obtained. Perhaps worse, the film would see the end of the winning streak the studio had been having over Disney, as unlike Retriever and Heart and Soul, Spirit of the West failed to beat Disney at the box office when Disney’s Kindred Spirits ended up making more than a $100 million more than Spirit of the West did. Though it seems clear that Katzenberg hoped that the similarity in names might lead to customer confusion that would mostly benefit his feature over Disney’s, it was clear his gambit failed, leading instead to an embarrassing loss for Katzenberg.

Though the film did have some home video success and even managed to spawn a few straight-to-video sequels and go on to become a favorite for a generation of horse-obsessed girls, it would nonetheless lose to Disney the following year at the Oscars for Best Animated Feature. The Oscar loss, when combined with the failure to beat Eisner's final contribution, seemed to cement to Katzenberg the fact that while the film had made money and been critically well received, it was not a giant hit or the runaway success he had been desperately hoping for. In truth, to Jeffery Katzenberg, there can be no doubt that he ultimately considered the film a defeat and a embarrassing humiliation. While the knowledge that Spirit of the West went on to be the more critically well received of the two certainly might have smoothed some of the bitter feels that Katzenberg was no doubt feeling, the massive failure of the film to beat Heart and Soul financially or in popularity was one which no doubt greatly stung and haunted Katzenberg. To him, it suggested that Eisner might have in fact have been right to favor Heart and Soul over Katzenberg’s own “little horse film”, something which Eisner was rumored to have even mocked Katzenberg over[9].

Certainly, it cannot be denied that after the failure of the film to beat Heart and Soul at the box office, that Katzenberg’s attention toward Universal Animation significantly lessened. Though he did not go as far as he did before the release of Heart and Soul when he at times outright seemed to try to pretend the studio didn’t exist, Katzenberg no longer demanded bi-weekly meetings from Cohn, seemingly content to do monthly or even bi-monthly meetings with her on the studio’s status, and signing off whatever Cohn presented before him. It seemed clear to many at the animation studio that Katzenberg had decided to simply wash his hands of the studio and let Cohn and the animators at Universal Animation do whatever the hell they wanted as long as they didn’t screw up in a way that could negatively impact his current ambitions. He wouldn't ignore them or try to sabotage them as he did before the release of Heart and Soul, and would even contribute to its future every now and then, but for right now, as far as Jeffrey Katzenberg was concerned, Universal Animation was to be considered lowest of his list in terms of priority for his attention.

The irony of this is that in a way, Katzenberg's newfound indifference to Universal Animation have gifted them a rather large amount of newfound independence. For Cohn and the animators, they now suddenly found themselves having more complete creative control than any other animation studio in the world at the time. This of course led to the question of what effect would that newfound independence have as the studio’s eyes turned to their next animated film, East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

---

[1] Sorry, while I did consider calling it Universal Dreamworks, as humorous as it would have been, it would probably have been too forced.

[2] In our timeline, Joaquin Phoenix's only major voice role was as Kenai in Disney's 2003 film Brother Bear. In this timeline, with his older brother alive and therefore him at this point being overshadowed, Joaquin ends up finding himself getting a fair number of voice acting jobs and getting quite experienced at it. While he primarily still sticks to live action work, you'll probably be seeing him show up in the future as a voice actor.

[3] Basically picture a more serious, taller, and non-comedic Lord Farquaad, but as a 19th century US Calvary officer. Or well, Michael Eisner as a 19th Century US Calvary officer, because other than the fact they are both meant as a dig against Eisner, Colonel Michaels and Lord Farquaad are nothing alike.

[4] Unlike our timeline’s film, the horses actually do talk, though only to each other, as human characters can’t understand them. So while Spirit still narrates, he now also has actual dialogue with Rain.

[5] Story-wise, the movie is mostly identical to our timeline’s movie and the novel with the only major story changes being the previously mentioned change to the personality and appearance of Colonel Michaels (who is simply known as The Colonel in the novel/our timeline’s film and is rather pointily described and implied to be George Armstrong Custer), the horses actually talking (mainly to each other as the humans can’t understand them though), and the decision to change the ending of the film.

[6] Rather than Colonel Michaels humbly accepting defeat after he is amazed by Spirit’s bold jump across the gorge, in this timeline’s film, he actually tries to leap across the gorge after Spirit and Little Creek, but fails to make the landing and falls to his death. It is the Calvary Sergeant serving under Colonel Michaels who instead accepts defeat and leaves Spirit/Little Creek be.

[7] Compared to the serious tone found in the original novel, our timeline’s film, and the early reels of this timeline’s film before the Sabotage 35 situation occurred, which forced the animators to go back to the drawing board, the final film ends up having a lot of subtle humor added into it. Think a sort of toned-down version of the hidden and subtle humor from our timeline’s Shrek, minus all the pop culture references. While not as rampant as in Shrek, there end up being a number of that jokes thrown in older audience members find themselves frequently chuckling to even as they go right over their kids’ heads.

[8] In our timeline’s film, Garth Brooks was originally at one point supposed to write and make songs for the film, but the deal fell through. For this timeline’s film, not only are Universal Animation able to hire him, but they also are able to get Phil Collins.

[9] A humorous rumor exists in this timeline that after the release of Spirit of the West and its failure to beat Heart and Soul or even Disney’s competing film at the box office, that Eisner randomly called up Katzenberg one afternoon, where he proceeded to only say three words to Katzenberg before abruptly hanging up, words which caused Katzenberg to reportedly have the mother of all tantrum and rants. Those three words, if the rumor is true, were, “Told you so.”

Katzenberg has never confirmed it, though Eisner would be known to simply smirk and say “No comment” whenever he is asked about it.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Stallion of the Cimarron
Post from Animation, Stories, and Us Net-log, by Rodrick Zarrel, September 29th, 2012

A Guest Post by @Nerdman3000

It’s fair to say that in the mid-90’s, Hollywood Animation was going through some rather difficult times. Despite doing very well at the box office with Retriever and Heart and Soul, both being successes and both even managing to beat Disney at the box office, it was undeniable to everyone at the animation studio that the departure of Don Bluth and the ousting of Michael Eisner and the looming threat of Jeffrey Katzenberg axing the studio had cast a shadow over everything. From 1994 to 1996, many of the animators and directors at Hollywood Animation were left to despair and wonder what their future held.

In the case of the studio’s 1997 release, Spirit of the West, that uncertainty and despair would have a negative impact on the troubled early making of the film. No more was this apparent than with the scandalous actions of the infamous “Sabotage 35” (which I go into further detail in my post from last week on the scandal, which you can read here), whose actions only further worsened the dark cloud which had begun to hang over the studio.

1997's Spirit of the West, which is an early version of our timeline’s Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. (source: Pinterest)

Yet even in the darkest clouds a light can eventually shine through and part the dark clouds. For Hollywood Animation, this light first began to trickle in with the merger between ABC and Universal, as despite some initial worries from the studio’s animators that their protector from Katzenberg, CEO Thomas Murphy, might lose his position in the merger shakeup, time would reveal that he would be keeping his position as CEO of the combined company. This gave the animators some hope of top cover even as Katzenberg replaces departing Universal Studios President and CEO Sidney Sheinberg. Furthermore, the protection provided by Murphy would be even stronger, due to the departing Sheinberg, who loved animation and believed in the potential of Hollywood Animation, which he saw as being capable of growing into a successful cornerstone for Universe, successfully managing to convince Murphy around towards this belief and way of thinking.

That potential belief would be rewarded seemingly when Heart and Soul released in late 1996 to massive critical and financial success, while also becoming the studio’s second animation film in a row to beat Disney at the box office. It’s fair to say that there couldn’t have been any better news for Hollywood Animation, as the threat of Jeffrey Katzenberg axing the studio had been seemingly silenced in the wake of the success of Heart and Soul. With the film making $346 million worldwide at the box office and giving the studio millions more in merchandising, it was undeniable that the best-case scenario and expectations for the animators working at Hollywood Animation had not only happened, but had been exceeded.

Sidney Sheinberg, former President and CEO of Universal, with friend Steven Spielberg, whom he helped to discover. Sheinberg notably had a lot of faith in the potential of Hollywood Animation, especially as he believed that Universal was lagging behind in the animation game. He would manage to convince incoming Universal CEO Thomas Murphy of the potential of animation for the studio's future. (source: The New York Times)

Though there had been an initial brief panic in-between Heart and Soul’s first weekend at the box office and its massive surge in its second weekend, once it became clear that the film was a hit and their futures were now safe, morale at the animation studio quickly and vastly improved. Nowhere was this clearer than with the artists working on Spirit of the West, which, according to one artist working on the film, saw its best work put forward in the ten months between the November 1996 release of Heart and Soul and the September 1997 release of Spirit of the West.

In the case of Jeffery Katzenberg though, it was clear he would be finally forced to give in and acknowledge that he couldn’t just get rid of the animation studio. Simply put, Retriever’s previous success had not been a fluke, and the animation studio was seemingly very much profitable, a fact which Murphy made very clear to Katzenberg. To Murphy, it was time for Katzenberg to end his grudge, and he would go as far as to openly say this as he voiced his approval of Heart and Soul’s success, while also openly expressing his confidence that the studio would continue to be prosper under Katzenberg.

Katzenberg, of course, understood the subtle message Murphy had given him: Katzenberg’s future potential ambitious rise would be now tied to the continued success of Hollywood Animation. Had he tried to continue to sabotage the animation studio, he would be going down with them.

With the hint given to him in mind, Katzenberg began to finally play ball and fully commit to working with Marjore Cohn as the studio’s full attention turned to Spirit of the West. The previously aloof Katzenberg now suddenly began to demand bi-weekly meetings with Cohn on the status of the studio’s upcoming film state (where he displayed a particular obsessive interest in the progress of the upcoming Spirit of the West), as well as go on a hiring spree and form a third animation team, as well as green light four new animation projects for the future in late December 1996.

These projects would all be a continuation of Katzenberg’s dualling film release strategy for which Katzenberg had decided to double down on, with City of Gold (based on an idea suggested by new Animation VP David Stainton, another ex-Disney animator who had joined Universal) to release in late 1999 against Disney’s upcoming City of the Sun, while 2000 would see the release of both Atlantis: The Lost Empire, intended to go up against Disney’s rumored 2000 release Journey to the Center of the Earth, and John Carter and the Princess of Mars, which, owing to the fact that both were created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, would go up against Columbia’s upcoming Tarzan film. The final of the four newly greenlit Katzenberg films would be The Canterbury Tales, which owing to its connection to the Chanticleer tale, would release in 2001 against Eisner/Bluth and Columbia’s upcoming Ruler of the Roost.

The new logo for Universal Animation Studios (Image by @Nerdman3000).

Finally, Katzenberg in late December 1996 would also move ahead with doing something he had reportedly wanted to do for years, but hadn’t yet done since he hadn’t been sure if he was going to axe the studio, that being to completely rename Hollywood Animation/DiC itself. Now, while the studio had initially adopted the Universal-Hollywood Animation Studios name following the merger, Katzenberg wanted to go one step further and completely remove the Hollywood part of the name entirely, making it just Universal Animation Studios, also completely removing any and all trace (and forbidding all mention) of the DiC acronym. If you believe rumors, the reason for this change is due to a combination of a desire to purge the last trace of Michael Eisner from the studio and due to the fact that Katzenberg had long since become paranoid and suspected that the continued use of the old DiC acronym was something that had been specifically chosen by Eisner as a dig and insult against him (“The DiC Head”), and so he wanted a completely new fresh name for the studio that would let go of its past[1].

Yet to those who dug a little deeper, it became clear that the reasons for Katzenberg’s newfound attitude toward the animation studio and willingness to work with Cohn and the animators was not simply rooted in simple greed, acceptance that he had lost, or ambition, though those factors certainly played a role. Especially the newfound factor that Katzenberg’s continued rise was now more closely tied to UAS. But if one dug deeper, it became clear, especially to those who knew him, that Katzenberg’s newfound attitude, especially in regards to the progress of Spirit of the West, was especially rooted in one primal thing: fear of the possibility of Michael Eisner getting the last laugh over him.

The film, simply put, was Katzenberg’s baby, and with the massive success of Heart and Soul, Katzenberg was now faced with the prospect that the film Eisner had green lit over Katzenberg’s “little horse film” would end up being the more successful of the two, a thought which no doubt plagued Katzenberg’s dreams.

Now did those fears become reality? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute, but I've talked enough backstory, so let's actually move ahead and actually talk about the film itself.

From a story perspective, the film is not too complicated. In rather simple terms, it is the story set in the backdrop of the 19th century American West of the friendship between a Lakota Native American named Little Creek, voiced by half-Lakota actor Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon, and a Kiger Mustang colt horse named Spirit, voiced by the younger Phoenix brother Joaquin, in what would be one of his first major voice acting roles[2].

Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon and Joaquin Phoenix, who star alongside Michael Rooker and Christina Hendricks. (Source: Pinterest. Combined into one image by @Nerdman3000)

During the course of the film, we follow Spirit, a horse who has been born wild and free, but finds himself captured by a US Calvary division lead by the villainous Colonel Esra Michaels, who is voiced by Michael Rooker[3]. The arrogant and sadistic Michaels becomes determined to tame Spirit, but fails. When Spirit manages to escape captivity along with a similarly imprisoned Little Creek, the two find themselves on the run from a perusing Colonel Michaels and his Calvary. Along their journey, the two form a strong bond and friendship even as Spirit himself finds love with Little Creek's mare, Rain, voiced by Christina Hendricks[4].

Like I said, story-wise, the film is not too complicated, though if you’re looking for a straight 1 to 1 adaptation of the novel, you’re not entirely going to get that[5]. If you’re unaware or have never read the original novel by John Fusco, the film technically has a different villain from the book.

See, while the antagonist of both the film and the novel is a US Calvary officer, in the novel he is simply referred to as the Colonel, and he is clearly intended to in fact be George Armstrong Custer, in both looks and in terms of personality. The film however, due to Katzenberg reportedly wanting to use the opportunity to attack Michael Eisner, instead sort of splits the Colonel character between Colonel Michaels and his lieutenant, the Calvary Sargent. Colonel Michaels, who largely replaces the Colonel from the book as the film’s villain, is meant to clearly be a sort of dig at Eisner, not only in looks but in personality: a vainglorious man who surrounds himself with yes-men and toadies. His lieutenant meanwhile, though having a smaller role, is instead the one who resembles Custer and is the one who comes to respect Spirit and Little Creeks bravery and choses to let them go (in the novel it is the Colonel who survives and does so)[6].

Now personally I don’t mind the change at all, partially because I honestly love Colonel Michaels and think he’s actually a pretty fantastic villain, but as you can probably imagine, a number of fans of the novel weren’t so happy with it. I personally think they’re whining over nothing, but what can you do?

Anyways, the film’s story is not really where its real strength lies in my person opinion. No, if you had to ask me, where the film really shines is in its story, but in its memorable subtle humor which was largely attributed to its new directors Bibo Bergeron and Tim Johnson (seriously, there are so many great jokes scattered throughout that I completely missed as a kid that got me laughing my ass off when I went back to watch the film for this post)[7], fantastic musical score by Hans Zimmer, great songs by Garth Brooks and Phil Collins[8], as well as its rather cinematic and gorgeous artwork. On that last point, I can honestly say that for a film that basically had to mostly be redone a whole year into production, it is quite undeniable that the film is quite beautiful and visually impressive (the final escape scene and the train crash sequences are notably worthy of praise). Much of that quality can likely be attributed to not only to Katzenberg's frequent input toward the artists working on the film and the huge burst of moral the artists were feeling when making the film, but whatever the reasons for how it happened, it's undeniable that it is some fantastic work worthy of praise.

Overall, the film's story, score, music, visuals, and even excellent subtle humor all no doubt playing a role in helping the film do so well among critics when it released in late 1997. In fact, perhaps to Katzenberg’s delight and appreciation, the film would even do slightly better from a critical standpoint than Heart and Soul did a year prior. Yet for all it’s critical success and critical win over Heart and Soul, its box office returns would be a much different story.

Spirt, Rain, and Little Creek, the main characters of the film Spirit of the West. (Source: cornel1801.com)

Though financially successful, the film would make far, far less than Heart and Soul did a year prior, ultimately making only $187 million at the box office, nowhere even close to the massive $346 million box office that Heart and Soul had obtained. Perhaps worse, the film would see the end of the winning streak the studio had been having over Disney, as unlike Retriever and Heart and Soul, Spirit of the West failed to beat Disney at the box office when Disney’s Kindred Spirits ended up making more than a $100 million more than Spirit of the West did. Though it seems clear that Katzenberg hoped that the similarity in names might lead to customer confusion that would mostly benefit his feature over Disney’s, it was clear his gambit failed, leading instead to an embarrassing loss for Katzenberg.

Though the film did have some home video success and even managed to spawn a few straight-to-video sequels and go on to become a favorite for a generation of horse-obsessed girls, it would nonetheless lose to Disney the following year at the Oscars for Best Animated Feature. The Oscar loss, when combined with the failure to beat Eisner's final contribution, seemed to cement to Katzenberg the fact that while the film had made money and been critically well received, it was not a giant hit or the runaway success he had been desperately hoping for. In truth, to Jeffery Katzenberg, there can be no doubt that he ultimately considered the film a defeat and a embarrassing humiliation. While the knowledge that Spirit of the West went on to be the more critically well received of the two certainly might have smoothed some of the bitter feels that Katzenberg was no doubt feeling, the massive failure of the film to beat Heart and Soul financially or in popularity was one which no doubt greatly stung and haunted Katzenberg. To him, it suggested that Eisner might have in fact have been right to favor Heart and Soul over Katzenberg’s own “little horse film”, something which Eisner was rumored to have even mocked Katzenberg over[9].

Certainly, it cannot be denied that after the failure of the film to beat Heart and Soul at the box office, that Katzenberg’s attention toward Universal Animation significantly lessened. Though he did not go as far as he did before the release of Heart and Soul when he at times outright seemed to try to pretend the studio didn’t exist, Katzenberg no longer demanded bi-weekly meetings from Cohn, seemingly content to do monthly or even bi-monthly meetings with her on the studio’s status, and signing off whatever Cohn presented before him. It seemed clear to many at the animation studio that Katzenberg had decided to simply wash his hands of the studio and let Cohn and the animators at Universal Animation do whatever the hell they wanted as long as they didn’t screw up in a way that could negatively impact his current ambitions. He wouldn't ignore them or try to sabotage them as he did before the release of Heart and Soul, and would even contribute to its future every now and then, but for right now, as far as Jeffrey Katzenberg was concerned, Universal Animation was to be considered lowest of his list in terms of priority for his attention.

The irony of this is that in a way, Katzenberg's newfound indifference to Universal Animation have gifted them a rather large amount of newfound independence. For Cohn and the animators, they now suddenly found themselves having more complete creative control than any other animation studio in the world at the time. This of course led to the question of what effect would that newfound independence have as the studio’s eyes turned to their next animated film, East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

---

[1] Sorry, while I did consider calling it Universal Dreamworks, as humorous as it would have been, it would probably have been too forced.

[2] In our timeline, Joaquin Phoenix's only major voice role was as Kenai in Disney's 2003 film Brother Bear. In this timeline, with his older brother alive and therefore him at this point being overshadowed, Joaquin ends up finding himself getting a fair number of voice acting jobs and getting quite experienced at it. While he primarily still sticks to live action work, you'll probably be seeing him show up in the future as a voice actor.

[3] Basically picture a more serious, taller, and non-comedic Lord Farquaad, but as a 19th century US Calvary officer. Or well, Michael Eisner as a 19th Century US Calvary officer, because other than the fact they are both meant as a dig against Eisner, Colonel Michaels and Lord Farquaad are nothing alike.

[4] Unlike our timeline’s film, the horses actually do talk, though only to each other, as human characters can’t understand them. So while Spirit still narrates, he now also has actual dialogue with Rain.

[5] Story-wise, the movie is mostly identical to our timeline’s movie and the novel with the only major story changes being the previously mentioned change to the personality and appearance of Colonel Michaels (who is simply known as The Colonel in the novel/our timeline’s film and is rather pointily described and implied to be George Armstrong Custer), the horses actually talking (mainly to each other as the humans can’t understand them though), and the decision to change the ending of the film.

[6] Rather than Colonel Michaels humbly accepting defeat after he is amazed by Spirit’s bold jump across the gorge, in this timeline’s film, he actually tries to leap across the gorge after Spirit and Little Creek, but fails to make the landing and falls to his death. It is the Calvary Sergeant serving under Colonel Michaels who instead accepts defeat and leaves Spirit/Little Creek be.

[7] Compared to the serious tone found in the original novel, our timeline’s film, and the early reels of this timeline’s film before the Sabotage 35 situation occurred, which forced the animators to go back to the drawing board, the final film ends up having a lot of subtle humor added into it. Think a sort of toned-down version of the hidden and subtle humor from our timeline’s Shrek, minus all the pop culture references. While not as rampant as in Shrek, there end up being a number of that jokes thrown in older audience members find themselves frequently chuckling to even as they go right over their kids’ heads.

[8] In our timeline’s film, Garth Brooks was originally at one point supposed to write and make songs for the film, but the deal fell through. For this timeline’s film, not only are Universal Animation able to hire him, but they also are able to get Phil Collins.

[9] A humorous rumor exists in this timeline that after the release of Spirit of the West and its failure to beat Heart and Soul or even Disney’s competing film at the box office, that Eisner randomly called up Katzenberg one afternoon, where he proceeded to only say three words to Katzenberg before abruptly hanging up, words which caused Katzenberg to reportedly have the mother of all tantrum and rants. Those three words, if the rumor is true, were, “Told you so.”

Katzenberg has never confirmed it, though Eisner would be known to simply smirk and say “No comment” whenever he is asked about it.

Welp, another great animation post!

I wonder how ABC/Universal/Saban's KBC block is holding up?

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

The Katz/Eisner snipefest never fails to deliver. Wonder where Not!Dreamworks goes from here?

... against Disney’s upcoming City of the Sun, while 2000 would see the release of both Atlantis: The Lost Empire, intended to go up against Disney’s rumored 2000 release Journey to the Center of the Earth, and John Carter and the Princess of Mars, which, owing to the fact that both were created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, would go up against Columbia’s upcoming Tarzan film...

Waitaminute - we're actually going ahead with those? (reaches for tablet) - guess I know what I'm doing next week.

Happy to see TTL is still getting an Atlantis and Tarzan. Also, really hoping Phil Collins does at least one of those.

 

[Shiny_Agumon]

Katzenberg, of course, understood the subtle message Murphy had given him: Katzenberg’s future potential ambitious rise would be now tied to the continued success of Hollywood Animation. Had he tried to continue to sabotage the animation studio, he would be going down with them.

Well guess this is karmic punishment for trying to destroy the studio out of spite.

These projects would all be a continuation of Katzenberg’s dualling film release strategy for which Katzenberg had decided to double down on, with City of Gold (based on an idea suggested by new Animation VP David Stainton, another ex-Disney animator who had joined Universal) to release in late 1999 against Disney’s upcoming City of the Sun, while 2000 would see the release of both Atlantis: The Lost Empire, intended to go up against Disney’s rumored 2000 release Journey to the Center of the Earth, and John Carter and the Princess of Mars, which, owing to the fact that both were created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, would go up against Columbia’s upcoming Tarzan film. The final of the four newly greenlit Katzenberg films would be The Canterbury Tales, which owing to its connection to the Chanticleer tale, would release in 2001 against Eisner/Bluth and Columbia’s upcoming Ruler of the Roost.

This is a Goldmine of future releases.

Let's see City of Gold is obviously OTLs Eldorado, I guess with much the same story and tone, City of the Sun sounds like it's going to be TTLs Empire of the Sun played completely straight. If so then an interesting duel this will be when a comedic tale about to Imposter Gods meets a gorgeous Musical about the Incan Empire.

I wonder how close this Atlantis will be to the Disney version? The title sounds so similar that I'm wondering if there are more ex Disney people involved here. Journey to the Center of the Earth will be fun, wonder how much it will take inspiration from the Valencia ride and vise versa, John Carter on the other hand will be a harder sell, especially since I doubt Jim will gloss over John's past as a Confederate Colonel or the orientalism of the genre. Ted Turner will be pissed.

Tarzan from Columbia will be interesting too, wonder how much of the unfortunate implications will survive in this adaptation. Can't say much about the Canterbury tales but they sound nice. Also I'm very excited to see Ruler of the Roost. I loved the OTL film despite its flaws so I'm curious how a more faithful adaptation without studio interference will look like.

Finally, Katzenberg in late December 1996 would also move ahead with doing something he had reportedly wanted to do for years, but hadn’t yet done since he hadn’t been sure if he was going to axe the studio, that being to completely rename Hollywood Animation/DiC itself. Now, while the studio had initially adopted the Universal-Hollywood Animation Studios name following the merger, Katzenberg wanted to go one step further and completely remove the Hollywood part of the name entirely, making it just Universal Animation Studios, also completely removing any and all trace (and forbidding all mention) of the DiC acronym.

If you believe rumors, the reason for this change is due to a combination of a desire to purge the last trace of Michael Eisner from the studio and due to the fact that Katzenberg had long since become paranoid and suspected that the continued use of the old DiC acronym was something that had been specifically chosen by Eisner as a dig and insult against him (“The DiC Head”), and so he wanted a completely new fresh name for the studio that would let go of its past[1].

Well I certainly hope this will allow them to have somewhat of a fresh start. I hope all animosity will be swept away soon.

Hollywood Animation is dead, long live Universal Animation studios!

The new logo for Universal Animation Studios (Image by @Nerdman3000).

Also fantastic logo!

During the course of the film, we follow Spirit, a horse who has been born wild and free, but finds himself captured by a US Calvary division lead by the villainous Colonel Esra Michaels, who is voiced by Michael Rooker[3]. The arrogant and sadistic Michaels becomes determined to tame Spirit, but fails. When Spirit manages to escape captivity along with a similarly imprisoned Little Creek, the two find themselves on the run from a perusing Colonel Michaels and his Calvary. Along their journey, the two form a strong bond and friendship even as Spirit himself finds love with Little Creek's mare, Rain, voiced by Christina Hendricks[4].

Well seems like the core story is maintained. Which I'm pretty happy about.

See, while the antagonist of both the film and the novel is a US Calvary officer, in the novel he is simply referred to as the Colonel, and he is clearly intended to in fact be George Armstrong Custer, in both looks and in terms of personality. The film however, due to Katzenberg reportedly wanting to use the opportunity to attack Michael Eisner, instead sort of splits the Colonel character between Colonel Michaels and his lieutenant, the Calvary Sargent. Colonel Michaels, who largely replaces the Colonel from the book as the film’s villain, is meant to clearly be a sort of dig at Eisner, not only in looks but in personality: a vainglorious man who surrounds himself with yes-men and toadies. His lieutenant meanwhile, though having a smaller role, is instead the one who resembles Custer and is the one who comes to respect Spirit and Little Creeks bravery and choses to let them go (in the novel it is the Colonel who survives and does so)[6]

Katzenberg just can't help himself can he?
First Retriever now this even more explicit parody of Eisner as the vain pompous villain, I hope it doesn't become a habit.

Well at least he didn't make the Lieutenant look like himself while showing him as the clever, but underappreciated sidekick and punching bag of the Colonel. Although given his reputation inside the studio and his general paranoia towards someone taking revenge against him I guess this makes sense.

Anyways, the film’s story is not really where its real strength lies in my person opinion. No, if you had to ask me, where the film really shines is in its story, but in its memorable subtle humor which was largely attributed to its new directors Bibo Bergeron and Tim Johnson (seriously, there are so many great jokes scattered throughout that I completely missed as a kid that got me laughing my ass off when I went back to watch the film for this post)[7], fantastic musical score by Hans Zimmer,

I wonder how hard they go with those jokes, like how raunchy are we talking about?

great songs by Garth Brooks and Phil Collins[8],

No Bryan Adams, but Phil Collins isn't bad either. Will he sing the international versions of his songs too like for OTLs Tarzan or will the songs stay in English?

Though the film did have some home video success and even managed to spawn a few straight-to-video sequels and go on to become a favorite for a generation of horse-obsessed girls, it would nonetheless lose to Disney the following year at the Oscars for Best Animated Feature. The Oscar loss, when combined with the failure to beat Eisner's final contribution, seemed to cement to Katzenberg the fact that while the film had made money and been critically well received, it was not a giant hit or the runaway success he had been desperately hoping for. In truth, to Jeffery Katzenberg, there can be no doubt that he ultimately considered the film a defeat and a embarrassing humiliation.

An Embarrassing Humiliation? Mr. Katzenberg don't be so dramatic! This sounds like a good run to me. Also I hope the Direct to Video Sequels will be at least palpable in TTL. We avoided the Disney Direct to Video Plague but what about the newly christened Universal Animation? Will they milk those ips dry?

The irony of this is that in a way, Katzenberg's newfound indifference to Universal Animation have gifted them a rather large amount of newfound independence. For Cohn and the animators, they now suddenly found themselves having more complete creative control than any other animation studio in the world at the time. This of course led to the question of what effect would that newfound independence have as the studio’s eyes turned to their next animated film, East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

Well I guess you could call this a happy end? I'm certainly curious what movies we'll see from Universal in the coming years. Also an adaptation East of the Sun West to the Moon sounds great! Maybe it will duel with Bluths Beauty and the Beast?

[2] In our timeline, Joaquin Phoenix's only major voice role was as Kenai in Disney's 2003 film Brother Bear. In this timeline, with his older brother alive and therefore him at this point being overshadowed, Joaquin ends up finding himself getting a fair number of voice acting jobs and getting quite experienced at it. While he primarily still sticks to live action work, you'll probably be seeing him show up in the future as a voice actor

Can't wait, he will be great and I guess he can make a career out of shemping for his brother on video game tie ins and low budget animated sequels like how Jim Hanks does for his brother.

Great chapter @Nerdman3000

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 18: Kindred Spirits all Along
From the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little

My wife Suzanne and I come from different worlds. I’m a country boy from Lower Alabama. She’s an LA woman through and through. I’m imaginative and cynical. She’s fun loving and loves to dance. And every day I’m inevitably feeling like I’m torn between the woman that I love and the world of life and color that she and my kids represent and the job that I love, hidden away in the dark offices and sound stages to which it always takes me.

So, is Kindred Spirits a wee bit autobiographical? What do you think?

And yea, it took some Understanding between my family and me to make that movie happen. With the modest success of Anansi Boys, I suddenly found another opportunity to direct a feature animated film, this time directing the “big” winter piece. The catch? I had to move to Florida.

Now, I was alright with that. Kissimmee ain’t that far from Sweet Home Alabama where my family still lives, but it was still far enough away that I didn’t have to be swamped in the family drama. My wife and kids (my son Antoine was about to turn three) were less happy, since Mo had friends and my wife had her own social circle and any change was scary for Antoine. And to be honest, Central Florida doesn’t exactly hold the cosmopolitan charm and mystique of Hollywood. Even by Florida standards it’s pretty wack. Still, it was a hard offer to turn down, particularly since it came with a promotion and pay raise and a nice house on Lake Buena Vista as a perk.

And to be honest, just not getting hassled by the cops every time I walked down the street in Anaheim would be a plus, even as I knew not to drive through certain counties in Florida, particularly with Suzanne beside me.

Well, I talked them into it, at least for a while, and we were there in early 1996 ready to launch a new animated feature with the Disney Animation East group, who up until this point had been mostly doing TV stuff. In fact, I’d worked closely with them on TaleSpin, where they did a lot of the inbetweener work and had already been spinning up a team there to manage the animation for Boudreaux’s Kitchen, which was finally seeing airplay as a TV series on Toon Town after over a decade since that first Short. With me already spending much of my time setting up the teams there, making the move made intuitive sense from a production standpoint, even if it was hard on the family.

And it all started when I put my proverbial ring on a skeletal hand, specifically the one on the Skeleton Crew Productions logo. As I mentioned last time, I’d worked with them, Henry Selick in particular, to make Anansi Boys happen. And it was the success of that feature that got me the gig directing Kindred Spirits alongside Rick Heinrichs with Tim Burton as executive producer. Rick would be there to keep things square and I’d take lead, particularly artistically.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It all began back when I was in post-production on Anansi Boys, sitting around the breakroom table in the restored Victorian Manor that was the Skeleton Crew HQ, one of the last of the old Victorian LA manors of the type that had once intrigued a young Charles Addams.

Scratch that…it really all began back on the production of A Nightmare Before Christmas when Joe Ranft told Tim Burton about an old Russian-Jewish legend called “The Finger” about a man practicing his vows and putting his wedding ring on what he thinks is an old root, but is in fact the finger of a dead woman who now tells the man that they are married. Spooky stuff and right up Tim’s alley[1].

But the truly scary and horrifying thing is the true story behind it. Back in the 19th Century, Antisemitism was rife in Eastern Europe and roving gangs would attack Jewish bridal processions, murder the bride-to-be in an attempt to prevent the “next generation” of Jews, and bury the corpse, still in her wedding dress, in a shallow grave in the woods. Presumably erosion would reveal ghastly scenes on occasion, perhaps a reaching, decomposing hand.

Tim had been kicking the idea around for a long time, possibly with a Victorian English setting, but he had so many irons in the fire. And that brings us to Anansi Boys and where I come in. Tim flat out offered me a job with the Skeleton Crew after Anansi Boys, but I really wanted to stay with Feature Animation. I told him that I wanted to do an animated feature, perhaps the first Black Princess for Disney…and no, the damned Lion doesn’t count. Mo had grown up with Disney Princesses, but none of them looked like her. Jasmine was the closest I guess, and that’s all good, but the last thing that Mo needed was another spoiled, materialistic Diva to emulate!

Tim casually mentioned “The Finger”. Jorgen Klubien in 3D had also been kicking around ideas for a New Orleans Ghost Story that, Tim told me, I was being considered to direct. Tim, Neil, and I came to realize that “The Finger” idea was perfect, simply reframed for New Orleans rather than Victorian England, Vodou Mamans instead of Rabbis, and Klansmen instead of roving Russian lynch mobs. It would be a tale of love, magic, ghosts, and justice.

Kindred Spirits was born.

Or as Tim put it, “We gave Terrell ‘The Finger’ and told him to go to Florida.”

+

with a soupcon of

= Kindred Spirits!

Neil Gaiman and I worked on the story and screenplay, and Henry joined us on the storyboards, as did 3D’s Jorgen Klubien, who had some fuzzy ideas in his head involving a New Orleans Ghost Story[2]. While still fuzzy, he had a good eye for the feel of N’awlins and became a principal concept artist and animator and compositing lead.

The ultimate story would involve a young man hoping to propose to a young woman sometime amid the Jazz Age in New Orleans (our soundtrack was going to wail!). He’d get nervous, head out into the swamps off of Congo Square, and practice his vows with a convenient “root” that is actually a desiccated hand, and suddenly he’s engaged to a dead woman!

Tim had this envisioned as another of his creepy stop-mo things, but I insisted on pushing for the Animated Canon. We’d do things hybrid: hand-sketched and digitally inked & painted with some CG objects and backgrounds and effects. It would be Tim’s first Animated Canon feature since Mort, but now done as a “collaboration” with the Skeleton Crew. That, of course, got me working with Skeleton Crew animator Kathy Zielinski, who became my co-director. We hit it off immediately; professionally, mind you, but it still led Suzanne to raise an eyebrow after some late-night animation sessions.

The color pallet would be one of contrasts. Tim might have made the Living World the dark and morose place and the Land of the Dead the colorful one, but I intended to show N’awlins in all of its bright and garish glory in bright reds, yellows, purples, greens, and oranges with the occasional darkness and coldness while the Underworld would be a cold blue and grey pallet with occasional splashes of color. Sort of that Yin and Yang like Andreas was doing over on his Chinese feature.

Early Concept Art by Jorgen Klubien featuring a Br’er Rabbit cameo (actually from our timeline’s “The Spirit of New Orleans: A Pixar Ghost Story”, Image source Jorgenklubien.com)

We’d mostly be set in Jazz Age New Orleans, the realm of Satchmo and Basin Street, or at least it’s PG cousin. Vodou would feature heavily, but be done right. No “voodoo doll” bullshit. Our hero would wear a Gris Gris along with his cross. Maman LeBeaux would be a forthright if eccentric helper. Even The Baron would be his usual boisterous self rather than a flat villain.

But the real star would be Vieux Carré, New Orleans itself. The streets, the food, the music, the culture, the fun, and the filth…all of its Funky Eminence by all definitions of the word “funky”. I took all of the main animators there for a week and we drank Sazerac cocktails, listened to jazz, and immersed ourselves in the sights, sounds, and smells (fresh, fair, and foul) of the Big Easy. I took them to see real Vodou ceremonies and talk to real Vodou Mamans and Papas. We hooked in Winton Marsalis to do the music and we’d more or less follow the Formula, but with a kick.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Concept Art (Image source Nora Silvia at Pinterest)

The plot that we came up with was simple. Self-raised orphan Achilles Bonaventure (Will Smith) is an up-and-coming Jazz musician making his way on the streets of NOLA, whom we introduce playing with his Crewe (“Spirit’s Gonna’ Get You”). He has been courting the beautiful and vivacious Céline Honoré (Cindy Herron), the daughter of a famous Creole restaurateur and coffee shop owner, to whom he is totally smitten. His bandmates encourage him to “put a ring on that hand, before you lose it!”, but he’s hesitant (“Hey, brother, I’m a hard man to tie down!”), as the symbolic ghost of his assumed rejection by his parents (whom he never met) haunts him and makes him subconsciously terrified of rejection and afraid to commit to anything or anyone, which is hurting both his relationships and his career (we see him hesitate to sign a record deal for fear of losing his “freedom”).

So urged by his friends and bandmates (Jazzy Jeff, Winton Marsalis, and all) he dances across the city with his loyal street mutt Gerónimo (Frank Welker, of course) singing “The Streets will Sing” with what was his mother’s ring to finally propose to Céline (“An angel like her don’t come along every day, now do they, Gerónimo?”).

Originally, we had Achilles as a rather shy and passive character, but needless to say once you get Will Smith on board, he became more active and a bit of a suave and slippery player always just a bit on the hustle, even as his inner lack of confidence sabotages him. His ad libs took over more than one scene, and we had to keep him from slipping into anachronistic slang, so that meant having Winton teach him how to talk “N’awlins back in the day”.

Meanwhile across town, Céline is singing her own more overwhelmed minor-key lyrics to “The Streets will Sing” as she struggles to manage a downtown restaurant in the face of an angry lunch crowd and taunting by rival chef Francois D’Aigre (Rene Auberjonois), who clearly disapproves of her running a restaurant and thinks little of her Creole cooking compared to his “superior” traditional French cuisine. Céline is an uptight woman haunted by the figurative ghost of her mother, Regina Honoré, who was a proud woman and honorary “New Orleans Queen” who claimed descendance from French Royalty. Céline’s living maternal figure, her head chef Maman LeBeaux (Eartha Kitt at her hammy best), doesn’t exactly approve of this directionless and shifty ne’er do well Achilles with his “loud modern music”. She thinks that he’s after Céline’s money. Using her gumbo as a metaphor, she warns Céline that “the wrong ingredient at the wrong time, or the produce picked too soon or too late, will spoil the meal, my dear!” She’s also shown to be actually talking to the literal ghost of Regina (Phylicia Rashad), assuring her that she’ll “make sure the girl makes the right decisions”.

We kept the animation very fluid and dynamic throughout, but particularly here in the activity of the daylight streets. We used some pan-and-track technology to allow for “camera tricks” to give everything that dynamic “Spielberg” feel of long oners and subjective camera work, plus a bit of Scorsese light and framing. Henry and I studied the camera work of Spielberg and others precisely for that reason and made heavy use of the new Virtual Camera tech that the Softworks had come up with, which we repurposed for DATA-drawn 2D.

But I digress. Céline is also being courted by a rich and arrogant man named Jean Font le Roy (John Goodman), a debonaire man of Old Wealth (with a memorable blue stone on the end of his cane with a golden filigreed cross embedded in it) who flatters her at every turn. Font le Roy is a vain and pompous man attended by an effete sycophantic and smarmy manservant named LeFou (John Waters), and he approaches Céline just as she’s finally relaxing after the lunch rush. Font le Roy sings a proposal-ish song that’s as much about finance as love (“Mind our Manors”), but Céline acts aloof.

So Céline slips away from Font le Roy, and meets up with Achilles in Congo Square, whom she’s obviously happy to see. They share a moment, with Achilles obviously struggling and slipping on his words in a charmingly vulnerable way, but his attempts to set up a proposal keep faltering, in part because he can’t get himself to just say what he means as he keeps trying to act suave and slick. Finally, Céline is fed up with his bumbling and a few misinterpreted words and gestures and heads back to the kitchen “to prepare for dinner”.

And as Achilles, after getting “the icy mitt”, is getting ready to slip away, first he’s confronted by Font le Roy, LeFou by his side. Font le Roy’s cane is revealed to be a sword-cane as the blade is placed by his throat. “Your kind need stay where they belong, boy,” he says, threateningly.

“Hey, now, easy on the threads, pops!”

“And that means away from Miss Céline. My boy LeFou here is goin’ to be keeping a real close eye on you, mind.”

Then, just as Achilles is slipping away from Font le Roy, Maman LeBeaux confronts him in a jump-scare. “There is a ghost haunting you!” she says. “No haunted man can earn the hand of fair Céline!! Get your affairs straight, child, or be gone from this threshold!”

As Achilles hastily slips away through the crowd trying to maintain his composure, the ghost of Regina then appears to tell Maman LeBeaux “I don’t want that aimless drifter anywhere near my daughter! She needs to marry Font le Roy. He has the name and the wealth to keep the restaurant going and to keep our legacy alive.”

“That would be the practical choice, yes,” says Maman Lebeaux with just a hint of irony. “And you certainly raised a practical daughter.”

Eartha Kitt was just amazing here. Spooky, aggressive, loud, in your face. We even played with some villainy tropes with her, just to keep that mystery and menace about her. Was she a friend or a foe? Keep watching, folks!

Céline sings to the stars (Image source Animation World Network)

And the truth is that their suspicions of Achilles are well-founded, because he is a bit directionless, living always in the moment, but really in need of focus. Fleeing from Maman LeBeaux with Gerónimo, making his opinions known, Achilles flees across Congo Square and into the swamps. Céline, meanwhile, retreats to her room and balcony. She and Achilles now duet, separated, as she sings from her balcony and he sings from the swamps (“Underneath the Stars”). Both lament the complexities of their lives and how that pulls them apart.

And as the song ends, Achilles, nervous and practicing his proposals (“I gotta’ do this one right, Gerónimo!”), comes across the “root”. He practices again, slipping the ring onto the “root” and inadvertently awakens the long-dead Marie LaVieux (Maxine Jones), who now announces herself as his bride-to-be. Achilles, terrified, holds out the crucifix around his neck (“step back, dead gal!”), but she simply grabs it and says, sadly, “oh, how beautiful! I had one a lot like it once.”

Now Achilles is pulled down into the Underworld, or “Downstairs”, a dark, blue, and jazzy place of corpses and cadavers and Dutch Angles He’s nervous, but trying to maintain his composure and charm (“Hey, lookin’ great, gal, I like what you did with what’s left of your hair! Dang, talk about a…yah! Hey! Nice, um, chest hole!”) as Marie introduces him to everyone, in particular The Baron (Willard White), who is the ruler of this place. Achilles is welcomed by the cadaverous inhabitants in song (“Raise your Spirits”) with various Disney and Muppets alumni, including Wayne Brady, providing supporting voicework. Achilles is even reunited with his childhood dog Napoleon, now a skeleton, whom he introduces to Gerónimo with the obligatory butt-sniffing scene.

The Downstairs (Image source PBS)

For the Downstairs, we did our best to make the whole thing feel less like a crypt than a Basement Blues Club. Dark, smokey, intimate, and lively. A land of life in death, even as the humor was pretty gallows by nature. Achilles slowly realizes that he can actually kind of dig it there.

But this still is a land tinged with sorrow. And Achilles soon learns the hard truth behind Marie’s death, played out in shadows on the wall behind her as she speaks: the year was 1820, not long after Louisiana was absorbed into the US. “Back then we the Louisiana Creoles were wealthy and influential,” she said. “We were free. We owned businesses. We owned land. But not everyone in our new country liked that. In my carriage, in my wedding gown, on the way to my marriage, an angry crowd gathered. I was dragged away, my dowry plundered, my life taken from me, and my body buried in the bayous. But now,” she adds, with a gleam in her dead eyes, “I have you.”

As Marie heads off with her bridesmaids to prepare for the ceremony, Achilles is torn. His heart aches for Marie’s suffering. But while the dead celebrate the impending nuptials, Achilles honestly just wants back “Upstairs” (“Miss Marie is nice and all, Gerónimo, but my life and my love is up there, you dig?” He sees Gerónimo has a bone, “borrowed” from a hopping skeleton. “Yeah, of course you dig, you’re a dog!”).

He is also approached by one of the bridesmaids-to-be, a once-beautiful-when-alive young woman whom we’d seen paying a lot of attention to the ring earlier. She tries to talk to him (“I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”) but he assumes that she is hitting on him (“Yea, alright, no offense, doll, but one dead girlfriend is enough, thank you!”).

So, thoroughly creeped out, despite his sympathy for Marie, he wants Upstairs and so he tricks Marie by claiming that he wants to introduce her to his family, which we know that he has never met. So Marie takes him before a suspicious Baron, who seems to know more than he lets on, and grants them passage back Upstairs. But before they leave, The Baron warns Achilles that “a silver thread” connects him and Marie, tying both to either the Upstairs or the Downstairs, and should he betray his vows to her or “break the thread”, “the results will not be pretty”. The Baron then points to the empty husks of the Zombies, bodies left “without an angel within”.

Back Upstairs, Achilles, a veil-covered Marie holding his hand despite his nerves, walks in the fog-shrouded night to Congo Square, then tells her that she can’t walk the streets “half dead”, but that if she waits here, he’ll bring back his parents to meet her. As he holds her hands, though, LeFou sees them and takes a picture with his camera. “Caught in the act!” says LeFou, and runs off into a foggy alley.

Achilles now heads to find Céline and profess his love, hoping that he can marry her quickly to get out of the impending marriage with Marie. But as he approaches her townhouse, he is accosted by Maman LeBeaux. She waves her hands over him with some sparkly magic, making the silver thread appear briefly. “Cursed! Hexed! A silver thread holds you to the lands below!” she says, accusingly. She then adds in a softer voice, “This won’t do at all!” She gives him a Gris Gris charm to protect him and grabs him and drags him into her basement, where a group of Vodou practitioners are dancing and singing (“The Big Crossroads”). Achilles and Maman LeBeaux join them in the expository song, where he exposits what happened to her. “Ahhh…” she says after performing a series of arcane (but authentic) rituals, “You are bound by the Baron. I can sever the silver thread, but the fair Marie will be torn from her angel within. I cannot conscionably do so.” She hands him a pair of old scissors. “Use this to cut the thread if you must,” she warns, “But let it be known that Marie’s fate is in your hands.”

He grabs the scissors, tempted to cut the line, but he can’t, knowing the fate he’d leave her to. “I brought her into this mess,” he says. “I owe her a better way out.” He puts down the scissors.

“Ah, a good man after all,” says Maman LeBeaux. “Then Marie will need to willingly give back the ring. Only then will the thread be broken without consequence!”

Making big promises to “find a way to do them all right” Achilles goes to Céline, confesses his love and his plans to propose earlier that day “like I shoulda’ done right from the start”, and tells her that there is “a slight complication” and asks if she’ll come with him to “straighten this all out”. But as he professes his love to her and is about to kiss her to seal his love, the silver thread stops him. Then he looks over to see a betrayed heartbroken Marie, face shrouded by the wedding veil, who has followed him seen the whole thing. She runs off. He tries to tell Céline that he’ll be right back as he runs off her (“Marie, wait!”).

Font le Roy then slinks out of the fog, mentioning how “typical” it is for a “musician” to be two-timing and hands her the photo that LeFou took. He tells her that she deserves “an honest man” like him. A tear in her eye, recalling her death bed promise to her mother to keep her legacy alive, she agrees to his proposal. The ghost of Regina, watching, smiles approvingly.

“Then why waste time?” he says. “Let’s head to St. Louis Cathedral right now!”

Meanwhile, Marie, now irate at Achilles’s “betrayal”, demands that he go back Downstairs with her and complete the wedding. When he refuses, she says, “Then we will be wed right here!” and calls forth The Baron, who soon appears in a purple cyclone with all of the legion dead, who march towards a terrified Achilles.

Meanwhile, as Céline changes into a fancy gown, Maman LeBeaux is trying to talk her out of the hastily-considered marriage, even as the ghost of Regina, whom Céline can’t see or hear (“Who are you talking to, Maman LeBeaux?”), is yelling at her not to interfere. Storming off to St. Louis Cathedral and ignoring Maman LeBeaux, who is in turn ignoring Regina, Céline is met by Font le Roy, who complements her in a rather smarmy way. LeBeaux gives up and runs to find Achilles.

The Baron (Image source Fanpop at Pinterest)

Achilles, meanwhile, confronted by the Baron and the various angry dead and thoroughly terrified even as he tries to hide this fact, finally builds up the nerve to tell Marie the whole truth. How the proposal was an accident. How he loves Céline. She starts to cry, and realizes that she can’t ask him to give up his life and love. But The Baron is adamant. “A sacred promise was made.”

“Oh, stick the promise, you old bag of bones!” says Maman LeBeaux, arriving on the scene. She confronts The Baron, whom she has clearly known for a long time, and convinces them all that “a good woman is about to wed a bad man,” and thus they all march and dance like a Jazz Funeral across the streets to the Cathedral to stop the wedding, The Baron leading the song “We’re Marchin’ In”.

And we did have fun animating that section, with all the ironic mix of dirge and revelry, second-line joie de vivre with first-line morbidity.

Naturally just as Font le Roy and Céline are about to exchange vows (Jim Cummings as the short, droning priest), the doors swing open and in walks Achilles, demanding to stop the marriage. Everyone in the pews shriek as the dead walk in behind him. The priest sighs and strides confidently up to The Baron, as if about to confront him. “Baron! Baron! Hey Baron, how’s life on the other side?”

“Can’t complain. Loved that eulogy for Old Lady Angeline last Saturday. She appreciates your kindness.”

Suddenly, an old woman in the third row looks at an old corpse. “Henri?”

“My dear Annette!”

“Father?”

“Aunt Agnes?”

Etc.

The “zombie invasion” soon becomes a reunion of lost loved ones.

Even Céline now sees and recognizes the ghost of her mother Regina.

Achilles, meanwhile, professes his love and proposes to Céline on the spot. “I can’t offer much but love, but that love is real, and eternal!”

And Marie backs him up, telling the whole story. “It is you he wished to wed. And this belongs to you,” she says, removing the ring and placing in Céline’s hand. Achilles takes the ring and slips it on her finger and the silver line detaches from Marie and joins Achilles with Céline, before vanishing.

But Font le Roy bellows, “No! She’s my bride! And I love her dearly! And…” he’s interrupted as Maman LeBeaux blows powder in his face. “And I…I will have her wealth…I…err...mean I will have her money…” He shrieks, “What is happening?”

Ad Regina gasps in shock and anger, Maman Lebeaux holds up a small pouch and smiles. “Truth dust.”

“Ok,” adds LeFou, “So he’s gone and gambled away all his inheritance an’ he needs her money now! Why else would he marry someone like her? But it’s ok because his is an old important family, so he’s more important!”

“You’re not helping, LeFou!” says Font le Roy.

Enraged, Céline throws the bouquet in his face and tells Achilles that she will marry him.

(Image source BC Anime at Deviant Art)

But the fun part is always animating the big final fight scene, which in this case is a cramped, intimate fight blasphemously inside a cathedral. Font le Roy, enraged, draws his cane sword and attacks Achilles for “ruining everything”, Achilles defending himself with a candelabra. We had fun with the swashbuckling tropes partnered to Will’s one-liners (“Hey, now, St. Ignatius deserves better than that!”).

The dead go to intervene, but The Baron stops them. “This is a matter for the living.”

“Well, I’m living!” says Céline, but is intercepted by LeFou, who blocks her path. She kicks him someplace painful just below camera, but by this point Font le Roy has Achilles against the altar and is about to thrust home, when Marie notices the blue stone on the sword-cane’s pommel, and most critically the cross therein.

“My cross! You!” she screams confronting a terrified Font le Roy. “You, or your forefather! I recognize those eyes! That was my cross! Your forefather and his mob murdered me and stole it, it and all of the other treasures for my wedding! That wealth you gambled away was my family’s wealth!”

Babbling, Font le Roy thrusts the sword into her chest, where it naturally does nothing except get stuck. “Nice of you to return it,” she says dryly as he backs away.

Regaining his composure, Achilles approaches with the candelabra, ready to strike (“This ends here”). Céline stops him. “Don’t sink to his level.” And instead, he drops the candelabra.

“Can I at least punch his ugly face?”

She smiles, “We can do it together!” and they punch out Font le Roy together.

Maman Lebeaux drags up the priest and says, “Well, I’d hate to waste perfectly good wedding arrangements!”

Regina, smiling warmly, puts her hand on Céline’s shoulder. “With my full blessing!”

“Well,” Achilles says, “I just wish I had family to give me away too, but, um…”

“You have family,” says the young dead woman from before. “Achilles, it is I…your mother. I wish…I wish I could have been there for you, but a fever took me right after you were born. I knew it was you the second I saw my old ring.”

Sort of these two scenes together (Image sources Fanpop on Pinterest and YouTube)

So we have our Big Wedding in the cathedral and the Big Kiss, and then on to a big parade down the dawn streets of Nawlins and the big celebration dinner back at Céline’s restaurant with living and dead partying together, Achille’s band and the Band of the Dead playing “Kindred Spirits” together, bringing us to the close. Well, other than the credits gags!

The animation team in Florida did an outstanding job. The lower cost of living let us save money to put into production rather than overhead and still pay everyone a good wage. I pushed them, but they were happy to be there. We made and make a great team.

We’d debut for Thanksgiving of 1997 and made $242 million against our $72 million budget. Not bad, but not breaking the bank (we did have a wee bit of competition from other studios that year, like Spirit of the West and Flintstones 2, not to mention a little picture called Star Wars Episode I). Critics mostly liked us, though some found it a bit formulaic. We got accused of everything from bias against interracial relationships (*ahem!*) or bias against white people since the villain was white (so was half the damned supporting cast!) and we even got accused of promoting necrophilia! Do they not teach metaphors in school anymore?

We won some Annies, got nominated for Best Original Song (“Kindred Spirits”) and the Best Animated Picture Oscar. We also got a lot of Image awards. The soundtrack won a Grammy and sold Platinum, and even led to a brief spike in popularity for Dixieland Jazz.

But most importantly, I get a lot of fan letters, particularly from folks that look like me and my kids, who are just happy to have a Disney Animated Feature and Disney Princess of their own, and that’s the legacy that means the most to me.

The story, and the story of how it got made and how audiences took it, has a few ups and downs, just like every real relationship does. Suz and Mo and Antoine and I had some ups and downs in Florida for sure. At first Suz in particular hated living on Walt Disney World. She hated the humidity and the “artificiality” and the isolation of life on Disney property. But we grew to find our own place and our own social circles in that new world. Antoine in particular grew up considering Florida “Home”, and developed an obsession with alligators by age five, along with a love for my family’s properly spicy Creole food that Suz and Mo find “a bit too much”.

We’re all from different worlds, but we’re all one family. And if some days feel like a bit of Hell, well, that’s alright, because we’re doing it together. And together is Heaven.

---

[1] This happened pretty much the same way in our timeline and led, eventually, to Corpse Bride in 2005.

[2] Klubien’s more fleshed out idea in our timeline eventually evolved into The Princess and the Frog.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Chapter 18: Kindred Spirits all Along
From the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little

My wife Suzanne and I come from different worlds. I’m a country boy from Lower Alabama. She’s an LA woman through and through. I’m imaginative and cynical. She’s fun loving and loves to dance. And every day I’m inevitably feeling like I’m torn between the woman that I love and the world of life and color that she and my kids represent and the job that I love, hidden away in the dark offices and sound stages to which it always takes me.

So, is Kindred Spirits a wee bit autobiographical? What do you think?

And yea, it took some Understanding between my family and me to make that movie happen. With the modest success of Anansi Boys, I suddenly found another opportunity to direct a feature animated film, this time directing the “big” winter piece. The catch? I had to move to Florida.

Now, I was alright with that. Kissimmee ain’t that far from Sweet Home Alabama where my family still lives, but it was still far enough away that I didn’t have to be swamped in the family drama. My wife and kids (my son Antoine was about to turn three) were less happy, since Mo had friends and my wife had her own social circle and any change was scary for Antoine. And to be honest, Central Florida doesn’t exactly hold the cosmopolitan charm and mystique of Hollywood. Even by Florida standards it’s pretty wack. Still, it was a hard offer to turn down, particularly since it came with a promotion and pay raise and a nice house on Lake Buena Vista as a perk.

And to be honest, just not getting hassled by the cops every time I walked down the street in Anaheim would be a plus, even as I knew not to drive through certain counties in Florida, particularly with Suzanne beside me.

Well, I talked them into it, at least for a while, and we were there in early 1996 ready to launch a new animated feature with the Disney Animation East group, who up until this point had been mostly doing TV stuff. In fact, I’d worked closely with them on TaleSpin, where they did a lot of the inbetweener work and had already been spinning up a team there to manage the animation for Boudreaux’s Kitchen, which was finally seeing airplay as a TV series on Toon Town after over a decade since that first Short. With me already spending much of my time setting up the teams there, making the move made intuitive sense from a production standpoint, even if it was hard on the family.

And it all started when I put my proverbial ring on a skeletal hand, specifically the one on the Skeleton Crew Productions logo. As I mentioned last time, I’d worked with them, Henry Selick in particular, to make Anansi Boys happen. And it was the success of that feature that got me the gig directing Kindred Spirits alongside Rick Heinrichs with Tim Burton as executive producer. Rick would be there to keep things square and I’d take lead, particularly artistically.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It all began back when I was in post-production on Anansi Boys, sitting around the breakroom table in the restored Victorian Manor that was the Skeleton Crew HQ, one of the last of the old Victorian LA manors of the type that had once intrigued a young Charles Addams.

Scratch that…it really all began back on the production of A Nightmare Before Christmas when Joe Ranft told Tim Burton about an old Russian-Jewish legend called “The Finger” about a man practicing his vows and putting his wedding ring on what he thinks is an old root, but is in fact the finger of a dead woman who now tells the man that they are married. Spooky stuff and right up Tim’s alley[1].

But the truly scary and horrifying thing is the true story behind it. Back in the 19th Century, Antisemitism was rife in Eastern Europe and roving gangs would attack Jewish bridal processions, murder the bride-to-be in an attempt to prevent the “next generation” of Jews, and bury the corpse, still in her wedding dress, in a shallow grave in the woods. Presumably erosion would reveal ghastly scenes on occasion, perhaps a reaching, decomposing hand.

Tim had been kicking the idea around for a long time, possibly with a Victorian English setting, but he had so many irons in the fire. And that brings us to Anansi Boys and where I come in. Tim flat out offered me a job with the Skeleton Crew after Anansi Boys, but I really wanted to stay with Feature Animation. I told him that I wanted to do an animated feature, perhaps the first Black Princess for Disney…and no, the damned Lion doesn’t count. Mo had grown up with Disney Princesses, but none of them looked like her. Jasmine was the closest I guess, and that’s all good, but the last thing that Mo needed was another spoiled, materialistic Diva to emulate!

Tim casually mentioned “The Finger”. Jorgen Klubien in 3D had also been kicking around ideas for a New Orleans Ghost Story that, Tim told me, I was being considered to direct. Tim, Neil, and I came to realize that “The Finger” idea was perfect, simply reframed for New Orleans rather than Victorian England, Vodou Mamans instead of Rabbis, and Klansmen instead of roving Russian lynch mobs. It would be a tale of love, magic, ghosts, and justice.

Kindred Spirits was born.

Or as Tim put it, “We gave Terrell ‘The Finger’ and told him to go to Florida.”

+

with a soupcon of

= Kindred Spirits!

Neil Gaiman and I worked on the story and screenplay, and Henry joined us on the storyboards, as did 3D’s Jorgen Klubien, who had some fuzzy ideas in his head involving a New Orleans Ghost Story[2]. While still fuzzy, he had a good eye for the feel of N’awlins and became a principal concept artist and animator and compositing lead.

The ultimate story would involve a young man hoping to propose to a young woman sometime amid the Jazz Age in New Orleans (our soundtrack was going to wail!). He’d get nervous, head out into the swamps off of Congo Square, and practice his vows with a convenient “root” that is actually a desiccated hand, and suddenly he’s engaged to a dead woman!

Tim had this envisioned as another of his creepy stop-mo things, but I insisted on pushing for the Animated Canon. We’d do things hybrid: hand-sketched and digitally inked & painted with some CG objects and backgrounds and effects. It would be Tim’s first Animated Canon feature since Mort, but now done as a “collaboration” with the Skeleton Crew. That, of course, got me working with Skeleton Crew animator Kathy Zielinski, who became my co-director. We hit it off immediately; professionally, mind you, but it still led Suzanne to raise an eyebrow after some late-night animation sessions.

The color pallet would be one of contrasts. Tim might have made the Living World the dark and morose place and the Land of the Dead the colorful one, but I intended to show N’awlins in all of its bright and garish glory in bright reds, yellows, purples, greens, and oranges with the occasional darkness and coldness while the Underworld would be a cold blue and grey pallet with occasional splashes of color. Sort of that Yin and Yang like Andreas was doing over on his Chinese feature.

Early Concept Art by Jorgen Klubien featuring a Br’er Rabbit cameo (actually from our timeline’s “The Spirit of New Orleans: A Pixar Ghost Story”, Image source Jorgenklubien.com)

We’d mostly be set in Jazz Age New Orleans, the realm of Satchmo and Basin Street, or at least it’s PG cousin. Vodou would feature heavily, but be done right. No “voodoo doll” bullshit. Our hero would wear a Gris Gris along with his cross. Maman LeBeaux would be a forthright if eccentric helper. Even The Baron would be his usual boisterous self rather than a flat villain.

But the real star would be Vieux Carré, New Orleans itself. The streets, the food, the music, the culture, the fun, and the filth…all of its Funky Eminence by all definitions of the word “funky”. I took all of the main animators there for a week and we drank Sazerac cocktails, listened to jazz, and immersed ourselves in the sights, sounds, and smells (fresh, fair, and foul) of the Big Easy. I took them to see real Vodou ceremonies and talk to real Vodou Mamans and Papas. We hooked in Winton Marsalis to do the music and we’d more or less follow the Formula, but with a kick.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Concept Art (Image source Nora Silvia at Pinterest)

The plot that we came up with was simple. Self-raised orphan Achilles Bonaventure (Will Smith) is an up-and-coming Jazz musician making his way on the streets of NOLA, whom we introduce playing with his Crewe (“Spirit’s Gonna’ Get You”). He has been courting the beautiful and vivacious Céline Honoré (Cindy Herron), the daughter of a famous Creole restaurateur and coffee shop owner, to whom he is totally smitten. His bandmates encourage him to “put a ring on that hand, before you lose it!”, but he’s hesitant (“Hey, brother, I’m a hard man to tie down!”), as the symbolic ghost of his assumed rejection by his parents (whom he never met) haunts him and makes him subconsciously terrified of rejection and afraid to commit to anything or anyone, which is hurting both his relationships and his career (we see him hesitate to sign a record deal for fear of losing his “freedom”).

So urged by his friends and bandmates (Jazzy Jeff, Winton Marsalis, and all) he dances across the city with his loyal street mutt Gerónimo (Frank Welker, of course) singing “The Streets will Sing” with what was his mother’s ring to finally propose to Céline (“An angel like her don’t come along every day, now do they, Gerónimo?”).

Originally, we had Achilles as a rather shy and passive character, but needless to say once you get Will Smith on board, he became more active and a bit of a suave and slippery player always just a bit on the hustle, even as his inner lack of confidence sabotages him. His ad libs took over more than one scene, and we had to keep him from slipping into anachronistic slang, so that meant having Winton teach him how to talk “N’awlins back in the day”.

Meanwhile across town, Céline is singing her own more overwhelmed minor-key lyrics to “The Streets will Sing” as she struggles to manage a downtown restaurant in the face of an angry lunch crowd and taunting by rival chef Francois D’Aigre (Rene Auberjonois), who clearly disapproves of her running a restaurant and thinks little of her Creole cooking compared to his “superior” traditional French cuisine. Céline is an uptight woman haunted by the figurative ghost of her mother, Regina Honoré, who was a proud woman and honorary “New Orleans Queen” who claimed descendance from French Royalty. Céline’s living maternal figure, her head chef Maman LeBeaux (Eartha Kitt at her hammy best), doesn’t exactly approve of this directionless and shifty ne’er do well Achilles with his “loud modern music”. She thinks that he’s after Céline’s money. Using her gumbo as a metaphor, she warns Céline that “the wrong ingredient at the wrong time, or the produce picked too soon or too late, will spoil the meal, my dear!” She’s also shown to be actually talking to the literal ghost of Regina (Phylicia Rashad), assuring her that she’ll “make sure the girl makes the right decisions”.

We kept the animation very fluid and dynamic throughout, but particularly here in the activity of the daylight streets. We used some pan-and-track technology to allow for “camera tricks” to give everything that dynamic “Spielberg” feel of long oners and subjective camera work, plus a bit of Scorsese light and framing. Henry and I studied the camera work of Spielberg and others precisely for that reason and made heavy use of the new Virtual Camera tech that the Softworks had come up with, which we repurposed for DATA-drawn 2D.

But I digress. Céline is also being courted by a rich and arrogant man named Jean Font le Roy (John Goodman), a debonaire man of Old Wealth (with a memorable blue stone on the end of his cane with a golden filigreed cross embedded in it) who flatters her at every turn. Font le Roy is a vain and pompous man attended by an effete sycophantic and smarmy manservant named LeFou (John Waters), and he approaches Céline just as she’s finally relaxing after the lunch rush. Font le Roy sings a proposal-ish song that’s as much about finance as love (“Mind our Manors”), but Céline acts aloof.

So Céline slips away from Font le Roy, and meets up with Achilles in Congo Square, whom she’s obviously happy to see. They share a moment, with Achilles obviously struggling and slipping on his words in a charmingly vulnerable way, but his attempts to set up a proposal keep faltering, in part because he can’t get himself to just say what he means as he keeps trying to act suave and slick. Finally, Céline is fed up with his bumbling and a few misinterpreted words and gestures and heads back to the kitchen “to prepare for dinner”.

And as Achilles, after getting “the icy mitt”, is getting ready to slip away, first he’s confronted by Font le Roy, LeFou by his side. Font le Roy’s cane is revealed to be a sword-cane as the blade is placed by his throat. “Your kind need stay where they belong, boy,” he says, threateningly.

“Hey, now, easy on the threads, pops!”

“And that means away from Miss Céline. My boy LeFou here is goin’ to be keeping a real close eye on you, mind.”

Then, just as Achilles is slipping away from Font le Roy, Maman LeBeaux confronts him in a jump-scare. “There is a ghost haunting you!” she says. “No haunted man can earn the hand of fair Céline!! Get your affairs straight, child, or be gone from this threshold!”

As Achilles hastily slips away through the crowd trying to maintain his composure, the ghost of Regina then appears to tell Maman LeBeaux “I don’t want that aimless drifter anywhere near my daughter! She needs to marry Font le Roy. He has the name and the wealth to keep the restaurant going and to keep our legacy alive.”

“That would be the practical choice, yes,” says Maman Lebeaux with just a hint of irony. “And you certainly raised a practical daughter.”

Eartha Kitt was just amazing here. Spooky, aggressive, loud, in your face. We even played with some villainy tropes with her, just to keep that mystery and menace about her. Was she a friend or a foe? Keep watching, folks!

Céline sings to the stars (Image source Animation World Network)

And the truth is that their suspicions of Achilles are well-founded, because he is a bit directionless, living always in the moment, but really in need of focus. Fleeing from Maman LeBeaux with Gerónimo, making his opinions known, Achilles flees across Congo Square and into the swamps. Céline, meanwhile, retreats to her room and balcony. She and Achilles now duet, separated, as she sings from her balcony and he sings from the swamps (“Underneath the Stars”). Both lament the complexities of their lives and how that pulls them apart.

And as the song ends, Achilles, nervous and practicing his proposals (“I gotta’ do this one right, Gerónimo!”), comes across the “root”. He practices again, slipping the ring onto the “root” and inadvertently awakens the long-dead Marie LaVieux (Maxine Jones), who now announces herself as his bride-to-be. Achilles, terrified, holds out the crucifix around his neck (“step back, dead gal!”), but she simply grabs it and says, sadly, “oh, how beautiful! I had one a lot like it once.”

Now Achilles is pulled down into the Underworld, or “Downstairs”, a dark, blue, and jazzy place of corpses and cadavers and Dutch Angles He’s nervous, but trying to maintain his composure and charm (“Hey, lookin’ great, gal, I like what you did with what’s left of your hair! Dang, talk about a…yah! Hey! Nice, um, chest hole!”) as Marie introduces him to everyone, in particular The Baron (Willard White), who is the ruler of this place. Achilles is welcomed by the cadaverous inhabitants in song (“Raise your Spirits”) with various Disney and Muppets alumni, including Wayne Brady, providing supporting voicework. Achilles is even reunited with his childhood dog Napoleon, now a skeleton, whom he introduces to Gerónimo with the obligatory butt-sniffing scene.

The Downstairs (Image source PBS)

For the Downstairs, we did our best to make the whole thing feel less like a crypt than a Basement Blues Club. Dark, smokey, intimate, and lively. A land of life in death, even as the humor was pretty gallows by nature. Achilles slowly realizes that he can actually kind of dig it there.

But this still is a land tinged with sorrow. And Achilles soon learns the hard truth behind Marie’s death, played out in shadows on the wall behind her as she speaks: the year was 1820, not long after Louisiana was absorbed into the US. “Back then we the Louisiana Creoles were wealthy and influential,” she said. “We were free. We owned businesses. We owned land. But not everyone in our new country liked that. In my carriage, in my wedding gown, on the way to my marriage, an angry crowd gathered. I was dragged away, my dowry plundered, my life taken from me, and my body buried in the bayous. But now,” she adds, with a gleam in her dead eyes, “I have you.”

As Marie heads off with her bridesmaids to prepare for the ceremony, Achilles is torn. His heart aches for Marie’s suffering. But while the dead celebrate the impending nuptials, Achilles honestly just wants back “Upstairs” (“Miss Marie is nice and all, Gerónimo, but my life and my love is up there, you dig?” He sees Gerónimo has a bone, “borrowed” from a hopping skeleton. “Yeah, of course you dig, you’re a dog!”).

He is also approached by one of the bridesmaids-to-be, a once-beautiful-when-alive young woman whom we’d seen paying a lot of attention to the ring earlier. She tries to talk to him (“I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”) but he assumes that she is hitting on him (“Yea, alright, no offense, doll, but one dead girlfriend is enough, thank you!”).

So, thoroughly creeped out, despite his sympathy for Marie, he wants Upstairs and so he tricks Marie by claiming that he wants to introduce her to his family, which we know that he has never met. So Marie takes him before a suspicious Baron, who seems to know more than he lets on, and grants them passage back Upstairs. But before they leave, The Baron warns Achilles that “a silver thread” connects him and Marie, tying both to either the Upstairs or the Downstairs, and should he betray his vows to her or “break the thread”, “the results will not be pretty”. The Baron then points to the empty husks of the Zombies, bodies left “without an angel within”.

Back Upstairs, Achilles, a veil-covered Marie holding his hand despite his nerves, walks in the fog-shrouded night to Congo Square, then tells her that she can’t walk the streets “half dead”, but that if she waits here, he’ll bring back his parents to meet her. As he holds her hands, though, LeFou sees them and takes a picture with his camera. “Caught in the act!” says LeFou, and runs off into a foggy alley.

Achilles now heads to find Céline and profess his love, hoping that he can marry her quickly to get out of the impending marriage with Marie. But as he approaches her townhouse, he is accosted by Maman LeBeaux. She waves her hands over him with some sparkly magic, making the silver thread appear briefly. “Cursed! Hexed! A silver thread holds you to the lands below!” she says, accusingly. She then adds in a softer voice, “This won’t do at all!” She gives him a Gris Gris charm to protect him and grabs him and drags him into her basement, where a group of Vodou practitioners are dancing and singing (“The Big Crossroads”). Achilles and Maman LeBeaux join them in the expository song, where he exposits what happened to her. “Ahhh…” she says after performing a series of arcane (but authentic) rituals, “You are bound by the Baron. I can sever the silver thread, but the fair Marie will be torn from her angel within. I cannot conscionably do so.” She hands him a pair of old scissors. “Use this to cut the thread if you must,” she warns, “But let it be known that Marie’s fate is in your hands.”

He grabs the scissors, tempted to cut the line, but he can’t, knowing the fate he’d leave her to. “I brought her into this mess,” he says. “I owe her a better way out.” He puts down the scissors.

“Ah, a good man after all,” says Maman LeBeaux. “Then Marie will need to willingly give back the ring. Only then will the thread be broken without consequence!”

Making big promises to “find a way to do them all right” Achilles goes to Céline, confesses his love and his plans to propose earlier that day “like I shoulda’ done right from the start”, and tells her that there is “a slight complication” and asks if she’ll come with him to “straighten this all out”. But as he professes his love to her and is about to kiss her to seal his love, the silver thread stops him. Then he looks over to see a betrayed heartbroken Marie, face shrouded by the wedding veil, who has followed him seen the whole thing. She runs off. He tries to tell Céline that he’ll be right back as he runs off her (“Marie, wait!”).

Font le Roy then slinks out of the fog, mentioning how “typical” it is for a “musician” to be two-timing and hands her the photo that LeFou took. He tells her that she deserves “an honest man” like him. A tear in her eye, recalling her death bed promise to her mother to keep her legacy alive, she agrees to his proposal. The ghost of Regina, watching, smiles approvingly.

“Then why waste time?” he says. “Let’s head to St. Louis Cathedral right now!”

Meanwhile, Marie, now irate at Achilles’s “betrayal”, demands that he go back Downstairs with her and complete the wedding. When he refuses, she says, “Then we will be wed right here!” and calls forth The Baron, who soon appears in a purple cyclone with all of the legion dead, who march towards a terrified Achilles.

Meanwhile, as Céline changes into a fancy gown, Maman LeBeaux is trying to talk her out of the hastily-considered marriage, even as the ghost of Regina, whom Céline can’t see or hear (“Who are you talking to, Maman LeBeaux?”), is yelling at her not to interfere. Storming off to St. Louis Cathedral and ignoring Maman LeBeaux, who is in turn ignoring Regina, Céline is met by Font le Roy, who complements her in a rather smarmy way. LeBeaux gives up and runs to find Achilles.

The Baron (Image source Fanpop at Pinterest)

Achilles, meanwhile, confronted by the Baron and the various angry dead and thoroughly terrified even as he tries to hide this fact, finally builds up the nerve to tell Marie the whole truth. How the proposal was an accident. How he loves Céline. She starts to cry, and realizes that she can’t ask him to give up his life and love. But The Baron is adamant. “A sacred promise was made.”

“Oh, stick the promise, you old bag of bones!” says Maman LeBeaux, arriving on the scene. She confronts The Baron, whom she has clearly known for a long time, and convinces them all that “a good woman is about to wed a bad man,” and thus they all march and dance like a Jazz Funeral across the streets to the Cathedral to stop the wedding, The Baron leading the song “We’re Marchin’ In”.

And we did have fun animating that section, with all the ironic mix of dirge and revelry, second-line joie de vivre with first-line morbidity.

Naturally just as Font le Roy and Céline are about to exchange vows (Jim Cummings as the short, droning priest), the doors swing open and in walks Achilles, demanding to stop the marriage. Everyone in the pews shriek as the dead walk in behind him. The priest sighs and strides confidently up to The Baron, as if about to confront him. “Baron! Baron! Hey Baron, how’s life on the other side?”

“Can’t complain. Loved that eulogy for Old Lady Angeline last Saturday. She appreciates your kindness.”

Suddenly, an old woman in the third row looks at an old corpse. “Henri?”

“My dear Annette!”

“Father?”

“Aunt Agnes?”

Etc.

The “zombie invasion” soon becomes a reunion of lost loved ones.

Even Céline now sees and recognizes the ghost of her mother Regina.

Achilles, meanwhile, professes his love and proposes to Céline on the spot. “I can’t offer much but love, but that love is real, and eternal!”

And Marie backs him up, telling the whole story. “It is you he wished to wed. And this belongs to you,” she says, removing the ring and placing in Céline’s hand. Achilles takes the ring and slips it on her finger and the silver line detaches from Marie and joins Achilles with Céline, before vanishing.

But Font le Roy bellows, “No! She’s my bride! And I love her dearly! And…” he’s interrupted as Maman LeBeaux blows powder in his face. “And I…I will have her wealth…I…err...mean I will have her money…” He shrieks, “What is happening?”

Ad Regina gasps in shock and anger, Maman Lebeaux holds up a small pouch and smiles. “Truth dust.”

“Ok,” adds LeFou, “So he’s gone and gambled away all his inheritance an’ he needs her money now! Why else would he marry someone like her? But it’s ok because his is an old important family, so he’s more important!”

“You’re not helping, LeFou!” says Font le Roy.

Enraged, Céline throws the bouquet in his face and tells Achilles that she will marry him.

(Image source BC Anime at Deviant Art)

But the fun part is always animating the big final fight scene, which in this case is a cramped, intimate fight blasphemously inside a cathedral. Font le Roy, enraged, draws his cane sword and attacks Achilles for “ruining everything”, Achilles defending himself with a candelabra. We had fun with the swashbuckling tropes partnered to Will’s one-liners (“Hey, now, St. Ignatius deserves better than that!”).

The dead go to intervene, but The Baron stops them. “This is a matter for the living.”

“Well, I’m living!” says Céline, but is intercepted by LeFou, who blocks her path. She kicks him someplace painful just below camera, but by this point Font le Roy has Achilles against the altar and is about to thrust home, when Marie notices the blue stone on the sword-cane’s pommel, and most critically the cross therein.

“My cross! You!” she screams confronting a terrified Font le Roy. “You, or your forefather! I recognize those eyes! That was my cross! Your forefather and his mob murdered me and stole it, it and all of the other treasures for my wedding! That wealth you gambled away was my family’s wealth!”

Babbling, Font le Roy thrusts the sword into her chest, where it naturally does nothing except get stuck. “Nice of you to return it,” she says dryly as he backs away.

Regaining his composure, Achilles approaches with the candelabra, ready to strike (“This ends here”). Céline stops him. “Don’t sink to his level.” And instead, he drops the candelabra.

“Can I at least punch his ugly face?”

She smiles, “We can do it together!” and they punch out Font le Roy together.

Maman Lebeaux drags up the priest and says, “Well, I’d hate to waste perfectly good wedding arrangements!”

Regina, smiling warmly, puts her hand on Céline’s shoulder. “With my full blessing!”

“Well,” Achilles says, “I just wish I had family to give me away too, but, um…”

“You have family,” says the young dead woman from before. “Achilles, it is I…your mother. I wish…I wish I could have been there for you, but a fever took me right after you were born. I knew it was you the second I saw my old ring.”

Sort of these two scenes together (Image sources Fanpop on Pinterest and YouTube)

So we have our Big Wedding in the cathedral and the Big Kiss, and then on to a big parade down the dawn streets of Nawlins and the big celebration dinner back at Céline’s restaurant with living and dead partying together, Achille’s band and the Band of the Dead playing “Kindred Spirits” together, bringing us to the close. Well, other than the credits gags!

The animation team in Florida did an outstanding job. The lower cost of living let us save money to put into production rather than overhead and still pay everyone a good wage. I pushed them, but they were happy to be there. We made and make a great team.

We’d debut for Thanksgiving of 1997 and made $242 million against our $72 million budget. Not bad, but not breaking the bank (we did have a wee bit of competition from other studios that year, like Spirit of the West and Flintstones 2, not to mention a little picture called Star Wars Episode I). Critics mostly liked us, though some found it a bit formulaic. We got accused of everything from bias against interracial relationships (*ahem!*) or bias against white people since the villain was white (so was half the damned supporting cast!) and we even got accused of promoting necrophilia! Do they not teach metaphors in school anymore?

We won some Annies, got nominated for Best Original Song (“Kindred Spirits”) and the Best Animated Picture Oscar. We also got a lot of Image awards. The soundtrack won a Grammy and sold Platinum, and even led to a brief spike in popularity for Dixieland Jazz.

But most importantly, I get a lot of fan letters, particularly from folks that look like me and my kids, who are just happy to have a Disney Animated Feature and Disney Princess of their own, and that’s the legacy that means the most to me.

The story, and the story of how it got made and how audiences took it, has a few ups and downs, just like every real relationship does. Suz and Mo and Antoine and I had some ups and downs in Florida for sure. At first Suz in particular hated living on Walt Disney World. She hated the humidity and the “artificiality” and the isolation of life on Disney property. But we grew to find our own place and our own social circles in that new world. Antoine in particular grew up considering Florida “Home”, and developed an obsession with alligators by age five, along with a love for my family’s properly spicy Creole food that Suz and Mo find “a bit too much”.

We’re all from different worlds, but we’re all one family. And if some days feel like a bit of Hell, well, that’s alright, because we’re doing it together. And together is Heaven.

---

[1] This happened pretty much the same way in our timeline and led, eventually, to Corpse Bride in 2005.

[2] Klubien’s more fleshed out idea in our timeline eventually evolved into The Princess and the Frog.

Another great post knocked right out the ballpark!

I LOVE IT!

 

[Tsar George]

Chapter 18: Kindred Spirits all Along
From the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little

My wife Suzanne and I come from different worlds. I’m a country boy from Lower Alabama. She’s an LA woman through and through. I’m imaginative and cynical. She’s fun loving and loves to dance. And every day I’m inevitably feeling like I’m torn between the woman that I love and the world of life and color that she and my kids represent and the job that I love, hidden away in the dark offices and sound stages to which it always takes me.

So, is Kindred Spirits a wee bit autobiographical? What do you think?

And yea, it took some Understanding between my family and me to make that movie happen. With the modest success of Anansi Boys, I suddenly found another opportunity to direct a feature animated film, this time directing the “big” winter piece. The catch? I had to move to Florida.

Now, I was alright with that. Kissimmee ain’t that far from Sweet Home Alabama where my family still lives, but it was still far enough away that I didn’t have to be swamped in the family drama. My wife and kids (my son Antoine was about to turn three) were less happy, since Mo had friends and my wife had her own social circle and any change was scary for Antoine. And to be honest, Central Florida doesn’t exactly hold the cosmopolitan charm and mystique of Hollywood. Even by Florida standards it’s pretty wack. Still, it was a hard offer to turn down, particularly since it came with a promotion and pay raise and a nice house on Lake Buena Vista as a perk.

And to be honest, just not getting hassled by the cops every time I walked down the street in Anaheim would be a plus, even as I knew not to drive through certain counties in Florida, particularly with Suzanne beside me.

Well, I talked them into it, at least for a while, and we were there in early 1996 ready to launch a new animated feature with the Disney Animation East group, who up until this point had been mostly doing TV stuff. In fact, I’d worked closely with them on TaleSpin, where they did a lot of the inbetweener work and had already been spinning up a team there to manage the animation for Boudreaux’s Kitchen, which was finally seeing airplay as a TV series on Toon Town after over a decade since that first Short. With me already spending much of my time setting up the teams there, making the move made intuitive sense from a production standpoint, even if it was hard on the family.

And it all started when I put my proverbial ring on a skeletal hand, specifically the one on the Skeleton Crew Productions logo. As I mentioned last time, I’d worked with them, Henry Selick in particular, to make Anansi Boys happen. And it was the success of that feature that got me the gig directing Kindred Spirits alongside Rick Heinrichs with Tim Burton as executive producer. Rick would be there to keep things square and I’d take lead, particularly artistically.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It all began back when I was in post-production on Anansi Boys, sitting around the breakroom table in the restored Victorian Manor that was the Skeleton Crew HQ, one of the last of the old Victorian LA manors of the type that had once intrigued a young Charles Addams.

Scratch that…it really all began back on the production of A Nightmare Before Christmas when Joe Ranft told Tim Burton about an old Russian-Jewish legend called “The Finger” about a man practicing his vows and putting his wedding ring on what he thinks is an old root, but is in fact the finger of a dead woman who now tells the man that they are married. Spooky stuff and right up Tim’s alley[1].

But the truly scary and horrifying thing is the true story behind it. Back in the 19th Century, Antisemitism was rife in Eastern Europe and roving gangs would attack Jewish bridal processions, murder the bride-to-be in an attempt to prevent the “next generation” of Jews, and bury the corpse, still in her wedding dress, in a shallow grave in the woods. Presumably erosion would reveal ghastly scenes on occasion, perhaps a reaching, decomposing hand.

Tim had been kicking the idea around for a long time, possibly with a Victorian English setting, but he had so many irons in the fire. And that brings us to Anansi Boys and where I come in. Tim flat out offered me a job with the Skeleton Crew after Anansi Boys, but I really wanted to stay with Feature Animation. I told him that I wanted to do an animated feature, perhaps the first Black Princess for Disney…and no, the damned Lion doesn’t count. Mo had grown up with Disney Princesses, but none of them looked like her. Jasmine was the closest I guess, and that’s all good, but the last thing that Mo needed was another spoiled, materialistic Diva to emulate!

Tim casually mentioned “The Finger”. Jorgen Klubien in 3D had also been kicking around ideas for a New Orleans Ghost Story that, Tim told me, I was being considered to direct. Tim, Neil, and I came to realize that “The Finger” idea was perfect, simply reframed for New Orleans rather than Victorian England, Vodou Mamans instead of Rabbis, and Klansmen instead of roving Russian lynch mobs. It would be a tale of love, magic, ghosts, and justice.

Kindred Spirits was born.

Or as Tim put it, “We gave Terrell ‘The Finger’ and told him to go to Florida.”

+

with a soupcon of

= Kindred Spirits!

Neil Gaiman and I worked on the story and screenplay, and Henry joined us on the storyboards, as did 3D’s Jorgen Klubien, who had some fuzzy ideas in his head involving a New Orleans Ghost Story[2]. While still fuzzy, he had a good eye for the feel of N’awlins and became a principal concept artist and animator and compositing lead.

The ultimate story would involve a young man hoping to propose to a young woman sometime amid the Jazz Age in New Orleans (our soundtrack was going to wail!). He’d get nervous, head out into the swamps off of Congo Square, and practice his vows with a convenient “root” that is actually a desiccated hand, and suddenly he’s engaged to a dead woman!

Tim had this envisioned as another of his creepy stop-mo things, but I insisted on pushing for the Animated Canon. We’d do things hybrid: hand-sketched and digitally inked & painted with some CG objects and backgrounds and effects. It would be Tim’s first Animated Canon feature since Mort, but now done as a “collaboration” with the Skeleton Crew. That, of course, got me working with Skeleton Crew animator Kathy Zielinski, who became my co-director. We hit it off immediately; professionally, mind you, but it still led Suzanne to raise an eyebrow after some late-night animation sessions.

The color pallet would be one of contrasts. Tim might have made the Living World the dark and morose place and the Land of the Dead the colorful one, but I intended to show N’awlins in all of its bright and garish glory in bright reds, yellows, purples, greens, and oranges with the occasional darkness and coldness while the Underworld would be a cold blue and grey pallet with occasional splashes of color. Sort of that Yin and Yang like Andreas was doing over on his Chinese feature.

Early Concept Art by Jorgen Klubien featuring a Br’er Rabbit cameo (actually from our timeline’s “The Spirit of New Orleans: A Pixar Ghost Story”, Image source Jorgenklubien.com)

We’d mostly be set in Jazz Age New Orleans, the realm of Satchmo and Basin Street, or at least it’s PG cousin. Vodou would feature heavily, but be done right. No “voodoo doll” bullshit. Our hero would wear a Gris Gris along with his cross. Maman LeBeaux would be a forthright if eccentric helper. Even The Baron would be his usual boisterous self rather than a flat villain.

But the real star would be Vieux Carré, New Orleans itself. The streets, the food, the music, the culture, the fun, and the filth…all of its Funky Eminence by all definitions of the word “funky”. I took all of the main animators there for a week and we drank Sazerac cocktails, listened to jazz, and immersed ourselves in the sights, sounds, and smells (fresh, fair, and foul) of the Big Easy. I took them to see real Vodou ceremonies and talk to real Vodou Mamans and Papas. We hooked in Winton Marsalis to do the music and we’d more or less follow the Formula, but with a kick.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Concept Art (Image source Nora Silvia at Pinterest)

The plot that we came up with was simple. Self-raised orphan Achilles Bonaventure (Will Smith) is an up-and-coming Jazz musician making his way on the streets of NOLA, whom we introduce playing with his Crewe (“Spirit’s Gonna’ Get You”). He has been courting the beautiful and vivacious Céline Honoré (Cindy Herron), the daughter of a famous Creole restaurateur and coffee shop owner, to whom he is totally smitten. His bandmates encourage him to “put a ring on that hand, before you lose it!”, but he’s hesitant (“Hey, brother, I’m a hard man to tie down!”), as the symbolic ghost of his assumed rejection by his parents (whom he never met) haunts him and makes him subconsciously terrified of rejection and afraid to commit to anything or anyone, which is hurting both his relationships and his career (we see him hesitate to sign a record deal for fear of losing his “freedom”).

So urged by his friends and bandmates (Jazzy Jeff, Winton Marsalis, and all) he dances across the city with his loyal street mutt Gerónimo (Frank Welker, of course) singing “The Streets will Sing” with what was his mother’s ring to finally propose to Céline (“An angel like her don’t come along every day, now do they, Gerónimo?”).

Originally, we had Achilles as a rather shy and passive character, but needless to say once you get Will Smith on board, he became more active and a bit of a suave and slippery player always just a bit on the hustle, even as his inner lack of confidence sabotages him. His ad libs took over more than one scene, and we had to keep him from slipping into anachronistic slang, so that meant having Winton teach him how to talk “N’awlins back in the day”.

Meanwhile across town, Céline is singing her own more overwhelmed minor-key lyrics to “The Streets will Sing” as she struggles to manage a downtown restaurant in the face of an angry lunch crowd and taunting by rival chef Francois D’Aigre (Rene Auberjonois), who clearly disapproves of her running a restaurant and thinks little of her Creole cooking compared to his “superior” traditional French cuisine. Céline is an uptight woman haunted by the figurative ghost of her mother, Regina Honoré, who was a proud woman and honorary “New Orleans Queen” who claimed descendance from French Royalty. Céline’s living maternal figure, her head chef Maman LeBeaux (Eartha Kitt at her hammy best), doesn’t exactly approve of this directionless and shifty ne’er do well Achilles with his “loud modern music”. She thinks that he’s after Céline’s money. Using her gumbo as a metaphor, she warns Céline that “the wrong ingredient at the wrong time, or the produce picked too soon or too late, will spoil the meal, my dear!” She’s also shown to be actually talking to the literal ghost of Regina (Phylicia Rashad), assuring her that she’ll “make sure the girl makes the right decisions”.

We kept the animation very fluid and dynamic throughout, but particularly here in the activity of the daylight streets. We used some pan-and-track technology to allow for “camera tricks” to give everything that dynamic “Spielberg” feel of long oners and subjective camera work, plus a bit of Scorsese light and framing. Henry and I studied the camera work of Spielberg and others precisely for that reason and made heavy use of the new Virtual Camera tech that the Softworks had come up with, which we repurposed for DATA-drawn 2D.

But I digress. Céline is also being courted by a rich and arrogant man named Jean Font le Roy (John Goodman), a debonaire man of Old Wealth (with a memorable blue stone on the end of his cane with a golden filigreed cross embedded in it) who flatters her at every turn. Font le Roy is a vain and pompous man attended by an effete sycophantic and smarmy manservant named LeFou (John Waters), and he approaches Céline just as she’s finally relaxing after the lunch rush. Font le Roy sings a proposal-ish song that’s as much about finance as love (“Mind our Manors”), but Céline acts aloof.

So Céline slips away from Font le Roy, and meets up with Achilles in Congo Square, whom she’s obviously happy to see. They share a moment, with Achilles obviously struggling and slipping on his words in a charmingly vulnerable way, but his attempts to set up a proposal keep faltering, in part because he can’t get himself to just say what he means as he keeps trying to act suave and slick. Finally, Céline is fed up with his bumbling and a few misinterpreted words and gestures and heads back to the kitchen “to prepare for dinner”.

And as Achilles, after getting “the icy mitt”, is getting ready to slip away, first he’s confronted by Font le Roy, LeFou by his side. Font le Roy’s cane is revealed to be a sword-cane as the blade is placed by his throat. “Your kind need stay where they belong, boy,” he says, threateningly.

“Hey, now, easy on the threads, pops!”

“And that means away from Miss Céline. My boy LeFou here is goin’ to be keeping a real close eye on you, mind.”

Then, just as Achilles is slipping away from Font le Roy, Maman LeBeaux confronts him in a jump-scare. “There is a ghost haunting you!” she says. “No haunted man can earn the hand of fair Céline!! Get your affairs straight, child, or be gone from this threshold!”

As Achilles hastily slips away through the crowd trying to maintain his composure, the ghost of Regina then appears to tell Maman LeBeaux “I don’t want that aimless drifter anywhere near my daughter! She needs to marry Font le Roy. He has the name and the wealth to keep the restaurant going and to keep our legacy alive.”

“That would be the practical choice, yes,” says Maman Lebeaux with just a hint of irony. “And you certainly raised a practical daughter.”

Eartha Kitt was just amazing here. Spooky, aggressive, loud, in your face. We even played with some villainy tropes with her, just to keep that mystery and menace about her. Was she a friend or a foe? Keep watching, folks!

Céline sings to the stars (Image source Animation World Network)

And the truth is that their suspicions of Achilles are well-founded, because he is a bit directionless, living always in the moment, but really in need of focus. Fleeing from Maman LeBeaux with Gerónimo, making his opinions known, Achilles flees across Congo Square and into the swamps. Céline, meanwhile, retreats to her room and balcony. She and Achilles now duet, separated, as she sings from her balcony and he sings from the swamps (“Underneath the Stars”). Both lament the complexities of their lives and how that pulls them apart.

And as the song ends, Achilles, nervous and practicing his proposals (“I gotta’ do this one right, Gerónimo!”), comes across the “root”. He practices again, slipping the ring onto the “root” and inadvertently awakens the long-dead Marie LaVieux (Maxine Jones), who now announces herself as his bride-to-be. Achilles, terrified, holds out the crucifix around his neck (“step back, dead gal!”), but she simply grabs it and says, sadly, “oh, how beautiful! I had one a lot like it once.”

Now Achilles is pulled down into the Underworld, or “Downstairs”, a dark, blue, and jazzy place of corpses and cadavers and Dutch Angles He’s nervous, but trying to maintain his composure and charm (“Hey, lookin’ great, gal, I like what you did with what’s left of your hair! Dang, talk about a…yah! Hey! Nice, um, chest hole!”) as Marie introduces him to everyone, in particular The Baron (Willard White), who is the ruler of this place. Achilles is welcomed by the cadaverous inhabitants in song (“Raise your Spirits”) with various Disney and Muppets alumni, including Wayne Brady, providing supporting voicework. Achilles is even reunited with his childhood dog Napoleon, now a skeleton, whom he introduces to Gerónimo with the obligatory butt-sniffing scene.

The Downstairs (Image source PBS)

For the Downstairs, we did our best to make the whole thing feel less like a crypt than a Basement Blues Club. Dark, smokey, intimate, and lively. A land of life in death, even as the humor was pretty gallows by nature. Achilles slowly realizes that he can actually kind of dig it there.

But this still is a land tinged with sorrow. And Achilles soon learns the hard truth behind Marie’s death, played out in shadows on the wall behind her as she speaks: the year was 1820, not long after Louisiana was absorbed into the US. “Back then we the Louisiana Creoles were wealthy and influential,” she said. “We were free. We owned businesses. We owned land. But not everyone in our new country liked that. In my carriage, in my wedding gown, on the way to my marriage, an angry crowd gathered. I was dragged away, my dowry plundered, my life taken from me, and my body buried in the bayous. But now,” she adds, with a gleam in her dead eyes, “I have you.”

As Marie heads off with her bridesmaids to prepare for the ceremony, Achilles is torn. His heart aches for Marie’s suffering. But while the dead celebrate the impending nuptials, Achilles honestly just wants back “Upstairs” (“Miss Marie is nice and all, Gerónimo, but my life and my love is up there, you dig?” He sees Gerónimo has a bone, “borrowed” from a hopping skeleton. “Yeah, of course you dig, you’re a dog!”).

He is also approached by one of the bridesmaids-to-be, a once-beautiful-when-alive young woman whom we’d seen paying a lot of attention to the ring earlier. She tries to talk to him (“I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”) but he assumes that she is hitting on him (“Yea, alright, no offense, doll, but one dead girlfriend is enough, thank you!”).

So, thoroughly creeped out, despite his sympathy for Marie, he wants Upstairs and so he tricks Marie by claiming that he wants to introduce her to his family, which we know that he has never met. So Marie takes him before a suspicious Baron, who seems to know more than he lets on, and grants them passage back Upstairs. But before they leave, The Baron warns Achilles that “a silver thread” connects him and Marie, tying both to either the Upstairs or the Downstairs, and should he betray his vows to her or “break the thread”, “the results will not be pretty”. The Baron then points to the empty husks of the Zombies, bodies left “without an angel within”.

Back Upstairs, Achilles, a veil-covered Marie holding his hand despite his nerves, walks in the fog-shrouded night to Congo Square, then tells her that she can’t walk the streets “half dead”, but that if she waits here, he’ll bring back his parents to meet her. As he holds her hands, though, LeFou sees them and takes a picture with his camera. “Caught in the act!” says LeFou, and runs off into a foggy alley.

Achilles now heads to find Céline and profess his love, hoping that he can marry her quickly to get out of the impending marriage with Marie. But as he approaches her townhouse, he is accosted by Maman LeBeaux. She waves her hands over him with some sparkly magic, making the silver thread appear briefly. “Cursed! Hexed! A silver thread holds you to the lands below!” she says, accusingly. She then adds in a softer voice, “This won’t do at all!” She gives him a Gris Gris charm to protect him and grabs him and drags him into her basement, where a group of Vodou practitioners are dancing and singing (“The Big Crossroads”). Achilles and Maman LeBeaux join them in the expository song, where he exposits what happened to her. “Ahhh…” she says after performing a series of arcane (but authentic) rituals, “You are bound by the Baron. I can sever the silver thread, but the fair Marie will be torn from her angel within. I cannot conscionably do so.” She hands him a pair of old scissors. “Use this to cut the thread if you must,” she warns, “But let it be known that Marie’s fate is in your hands.”

He grabs the scissors, tempted to cut the line, but he can’t, knowing the fate he’d leave her to. “I brought her into this mess,” he says. “I owe her a better way out.” He puts down the scissors.

“Ah, a good man after all,” says Maman LeBeaux. “Then Marie will need to willingly give back the ring. Only then will the thread be broken without consequence!”

Making big promises to “find a way to do them all right” Achilles goes to Céline, confesses his love and his plans to propose earlier that day “like I shoulda’ done right from the start”, and tells her that there is “a slight complication” and asks if she’ll come with him to “straighten this all out”. But as he professes his love to her and is about to kiss her to seal his love, the silver thread stops him. Then he looks over to see a betrayed heartbroken Marie, face shrouded by the wedding veil, who has followed him seen the whole thing. She runs off. He tries to tell Céline that he’ll be right back as he runs off her (“Marie, wait!”).

Font le Roy then slinks out of the fog, mentioning how “typical” it is for a “musician” to be two-timing and hands her the photo that LeFou took. He tells her that she deserves “an honest man” like him. A tear in her eye, recalling her death bed promise to her mother to keep her legacy alive, she agrees to his proposal. The ghost of Regina, watching, smiles approvingly.

“Then why waste time?” he says. “Let’s head to St. Louis Cathedral right now!”

Meanwhile, Marie, now irate at Achilles’s “betrayal”, demands that he go back Downstairs with her and complete the wedding. When he refuses, she says, “Then we will be wed right here!” and calls forth The Baron, who soon appears in a purple cyclone with all of the legion dead, who march towards a terrified Achilles.

Meanwhile, as Céline changes into a fancy gown, Maman LeBeaux is trying to talk her out of the hastily-considered marriage, even as the ghost of Regina, whom Céline can’t see or hear (“Who are you talking to, Maman LeBeaux?”), is yelling at her not to interfere. Storming off to St. Louis Cathedral and ignoring Maman LeBeaux, who is in turn ignoring Regina, Céline is met by Font le Roy, who complements her in a rather smarmy way. LeBeaux gives up and runs to find Achilles.

The Baron (Image source Fanpop at Pinterest)

Achilles, meanwhile, confronted by the Baron and the various angry dead and thoroughly terrified even as he tries to hide this fact, finally builds up the nerve to tell Marie the whole truth. How the proposal was an accident. How he loves Céline. She starts to cry, and realizes that she can’t ask him to give up his life and love. But The Baron is adamant. “A sacred promise was made.”

“Oh, stick the promise, you old bag of bones!” says Maman LeBeaux, arriving on the scene. She confronts The Baron, whom she has clearly known for a long time, and convinces them all that “a good woman is about to wed a bad man,” and thus they all march and dance like a Jazz Funeral across the streets to the Cathedral to stop the wedding, The Baron leading the song “We’re Marchin’ In”.

And we did have fun animating that section, with all the ironic mix of dirge and revelry, second-line joie de vivre with first-line morbidity.

Naturally just as Font le Roy and Céline are about to exchange vows (Jim Cummings as the short, droning priest), the doors swing open and in walks Achilles, demanding to stop the marriage. Everyone in the pews shriek as the dead walk in behind him. The priest sighs and strides confidently up to The Baron, as if about to confront him. “Baron! Baron! Hey Baron, how’s life on the other side?”

“Can’t complain. Loved that eulogy for Old Lady Angeline last Saturday. She appreciates your kindness.”

Suddenly, an old woman in the third row looks at an old corpse. “Henri?”

“My dear Annette!”

“Father?”

“Aunt Agnes?”

Etc.

The “zombie invasion” soon becomes a reunion of lost loved ones.

Even Céline now sees and recognizes the ghost of her mother Regina.

Achilles, meanwhile, professes his love and proposes to Céline on the spot. “I can’t offer much but love, but that love is real, and eternal!”

And Marie backs him up, telling the whole story. “It is you he wished to wed. And this belongs to you,” she says, removing the ring and placing in Céline’s hand. Achilles takes the ring and slips it on her finger and the silver line detaches from Marie and joins Achilles with Céline, before vanishing.

But Font le Roy bellows, “No! She’s my bride! And I love her dearly! And…” he’s interrupted as Maman LeBeaux blows powder in his face. “And I…I will have her wealth…I…err...mean I will have her money…” He shrieks, “What is happening?”

Ad Regina gasps in shock and anger, Maman Lebeaux holds up a small pouch and smiles. “Truth dust.”

“Ok,” adds LeFou, “So he’s gone and gambled away all his inheritance an’ he needs her money now! Why else would he marry someone like her? But it’s ok because his is an old important family, so he’s more important!”

“You’re not helping, LeFou!” says Font le Roy.

Enraged, Céline throws the bouquet in his face and tells Achilles that she will marry him.

(Image source BC Anime at Deviant Art)

But the fun part is always animating the big final fight scene, which in this case is a cramped, intimate fight blasphemously inside a cathedral. Font le Roy, enraged, draws his cane sword and attacks Achilles for “ruining everything”, Achilles defending himself with a candelabra. We had fun with the swashbuckling tropes partnered to Will’s one-liners (“Hey, now, St. Ignatius deserves better than that!”).

The dead go to intervene, but The Baron stops them. “This is a matter for the living.”

“Well, I’m living!” says Céline, but is intercepted by LeFou, who blocks her path. She kicks him someplace painful just below camera, but by this point Font le Roy has Achilles against the altar and is about to thrust home, when Marie notices the blue stone on the sword-cane’s pommel, and most critically the cross therein.

“My cross! You!” she screams confronting a terrified Font le Roy. “You, or your forefather! I recognize those eyes! That was my cross! Your forefather and his mob murdered me and stole it, it and all of the other treasures for my wedding! That wealth you gambled away was my family’s wealth!”

Babbling, Font le Roy thrusts the sword into her chest, where it naturally does nothing except get stuck. “Nice of you to return it,” she says dryly as he backs away.

Regaining his composure, Achilles approaches with the candelabra, ready to strike (“This ends here”). Céline stops him. “Don’t sink to his level.” And instead, he drops the candelabra.

“Can I at least punch his ugly face?”

She smiles, “We can do it together!” and they punch out Font le Roy together.

Maman Lebeaux drags up the priest and says, “Well, I’d hate to waste perfectly good wedding arrangements!”

Regina, smiling warmly, puts her hand on Céline’s shoulder. “With my full blessing!”

“Well,” Achilles says, “I just wish I had family to give me away too, but, um…”

“You have family,” says the young dead woman from before. “Achilles, it is I…your mother. I wish…I wish I could have been there for you, but a fever took me right after you were born. I knew it was you the second I saw my old ring.”

Sort of these two scenes together (Image sources Fanpop on Pinterest and YouTube)

So we have our Big Wedding in the cathedral and the Big Kiss, and then on to a big parade down the dawn streets of Nawlins and the big celebration dinner back at Céline’s restaurant with living and dead partying together, Achille’s band and the Band of the Dead playing “Kindred Spirits” together, bringing us to the close. Well, other than the credits gags!

The animation team in Florida did an outstanding job. The lower cost of living let us save money to put into production rather than overhead and still pay everyone a good wage. I pushed them, but they were happy to be there. We made and make a great team.

We’d debut for Thanksgiving of 1997 and made $242 million against our $72 million budget. Not bad, but not breaking the bank (we did have a wee bit of competition from other studios that year, like Spirit of the West and Flintstones 2, not to mention a little picture called Star Wars Episode I). Critics mostly liked us, though some found it a bit formulaic. We got accused of everything from bias against interracial relationships (*ahem!*) or bias against white people since the villain was white (so was half the damned supporting cast!) and we even got accused of promoting necrophilia! Do they not teach metaphors in school anymore?

We won some Annies, got nominated for Best Original Song (“Kindred Spirits”) and the Best Animated Picture Oscar. We also got a lot of Image awards. The soundtrack won a Grammy and sold Platinum, and even led to a brief spike in popularity for Dixieland Jazz.

But most importantly, I get a lot of fan letters, particularly from folks that look like me and my kids, who are just happy to have a Disney Animated Feature and Disney Princess of their own, and that’s the legacy that means the most to me.

The story, and the story of how it got made and how audiences took it, has a few ups and downs, just like every real relationship does. Suz and Mo and Antoine and I had some ups and downs in Florida for sure. At first Suz in particular hated living on Walt Disney World. She hated the humidity and the “artificiality” and the isolation of life on Disney property. But we grew to find our own place and our own social circles in that new world. Antoine in particular grew up considering Florida “Home”, and developed an obsession with alligators by age five, along with a love for my family’s properly spicy Creole food that Suz and Mo find “a bit too much”.

We’re all from different worlds, but we’re all one family. And if some days feel like a bit of Hell, well, that’s alright, because we’re doing it together. And together is Heaven.

---

[1] This happened pretty much the same way in our timeline and led, eventually, to Corpse Bride in 2005.

[2] Klubien’s more fleshed out idea in our timeline eventually evolved into The Princess and the Frog.

YES!YES! YEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

 

[LelouchOfTheBarBrawl]

bias against white people since the villain was white

AHHHHHHHH-

Seriously though, this looks super fun.

 

[Bbone91]

This seems like a film my folks might’ve been hesitant to let me see without them being in the same room, given the voudou (hope I’m spelling that right) and whole Downstairs thing being Tim Burton-style creepy.

 

[Shiny_Agumon]

Well, I talked them into it, at least for a while, and we were there in early 1996 ready to launch a new animated feature with the Disney Animation East group, who up until this point had been mostly doing TV stuff. In fact, I’d worked closely with them on TaleSpin, where they did a lot of the inbetweener work and had already been spinning up a team there to manage the animation for Boudreaux’s Kitchen, which was finally seeing airplay as a TV series on Toon Town after over a decade since that first Short. With me already spending much of my time setting up the teams there, making the move made intuitive sense from a production standpoint, even if it was hard on the family.

Btw can I just say that I love Terry's story?
From inbetweeners to director of a Disney Classic is not bad even if he had to drag his family from LA to Japan and then Florida to do so.

But the truly scary and horrifying thing is the true story behind it. Back in the 19th Century, Antisemitism was rife in Eastern Europe and roving gangs would attack Jewish bridal processions, murder the bride-to-be in an attempt to prevent the “next generation” of Jews, and bury the corpse, still in her wedding dress, in a shallow grave in the woods. Presumably erosion would reveal ghastly scenes on occasion, perhaps a reaching, decomposing hand.

Tim casually mentioned “The Finger”. Jorgen Klubien in 3D had also been kicking around ideas for a New Orleans Ghost Story that, Tim told me, I was being considered to direct. Tim, Neil, and I came to realize that “The Finger” idea was perfect, simply reframed for New Orleans rather than Victorian England, Vodou Mamans instead of Rabbis, and Klansmen instead of roving Russian lynch mobs. It would be a tale of love, magic, ghosts, and justice.

Omg this is genius.
Taking the tragic origin of the Finger and putting it together with Terry's desire to make the first Black Disney Princess is genius. It's Corpse Bride meets Princess and the Frog!

Tim had this envisioned as another of his creepy stop-mo things, but I insisted on pushing for the Animated Canon. We’d do things hybrid: hand-sketched and digitally inked & painted with some CG objects and backgrounds and effects. It would be Tim’s first Animated Canon feature since Mort, but now done as a “collaboration” with the Skeleton Crew. That, of course, got me working with Skeleton Crew animator Kathy Zielinski, who became my co-director. We hit it off immediately; professionally, mind you, but it still led Suzanne to raise an eyebrow after some late-night animation sessions

I'm surprised they didn't split the two approaches and made the Living World 2D animated and the Land of the Dead and it's characters all Stop Mo. But I guess that would've been too much work for a full feature film.

The plot that we came up with was simple. Self-raised orphan Achilles Bonaventure (Will Smith) is an up-and-coming Jazz musician making his way on the streets of NOLA, whom we introduce playing with his Crewe (“Spirit’s Gonna’ Get You”). He has been courting the beautiful and vivacious Céline Honoré (Cindy Herron), the daughter of a famous Creole restaurateur and coffee shop owner, to whom he is totally smitten. His bandmates encourage him to “put a ring on that hand, before you lose it!”, but he’s hesitant (“Hey, brother, I’m a hard man to tie down!”), as the symbolic ghost of his assumed rejection by his parents (whom he never met) haunts him and makes him subconsciously terrified of rejection and afraid to commit to anything or anyone, which is hurting both his relationships and his career (we see him hesitate to sign a record deal for fear of losing his “freedom”).

Will Smith is really becoming a regular at the Disney Voice Acting Booth, I hope we get to see some of his dramatic chops here too.

I also love how him being a smooth talker and laid back guy is presented as a way to shield himself from getting rejected.

Originally, we had Achilles as a rather shy and passive character, but needless to say once you get Will Smith on board, he became more active and a bit of a suave and slippery player always just a bit on the hustle, even as his inner lack of confidence sabotages him. His ad libs took over more than one scene, and we had to keep him from slipping into anachronistic slang, so that meant having Winton teach him how to talk “N’awlins back in the day”.

I bet he was a bit muffed that he couldn't do a freestyle rap for this. Well maybe his next album will be a bit more jazz oriented?

Meanwhile across town, Céline is singing her own more overwhelmed minor-key lyrics to “The Streets will Sing” as she struggles to manage a downtown restaurant in the face of an angry lunch crowd and taunting by rival chef Francois D’Aigre (Rene Auberjonois), who clearly disapproves of her running a restaurant and thinks little of her Creole cooking compared to his “superior” traditional French cuisine. Céline is an uptight woman haunted by the figurative ghost of her mother, Regina Honoré, who was a proud woman and honorary “New Orleans Queen” who claimed descendance from French Royalty. Céline’s living maternal figure, her head chef Maman LeBeaux (Eartha Kitt at her hammy best), doesn’t exactly approve of this directionless and shifty ne’er do well Achilles with his “loud modern music”. She thinks that he’s after Céline’s money. Using her gumbo as a metaphor, she warns Céline that “the wrong ingredient at the wrong time, or the produce picked too soon or too late, will spoil the meal, my dear!” She’s also shown to be actually talking to the literal ghost of Regina (Phylicia Rashad), assuring her that she’ll “make sure the girl makes the right decisions”

I like the theme of people being both figuratively and actually haunted by the spirits of Loved ones. Celine having both her dead mother and mother figure looming over her to make her do what they believe is the best choice is great juxtaposition with her indecisive boyfriend.
Too much direction vs no direction

Also I hope the low key racist chef gets his comeuppance too.

We kept the animation very fluid and dynamic throughout, but particularly here in the activity of the daylight streets. We used some pan-and-track technology to allow for “camera tricks” to give everything that dynamic “Spielberg” feel of long oners and subjective camera work, plus a bit of Scorsese light and framing. Henry and I studied the camera work of Spielberg and others precisely for that reason and made heavy use of the new Virtual Camera tech that the Softworks had come up with, which we repurposed for DATA-drawn 2D.

Terry is very much still a tech guy lol

But I digress. Céline is also being courted by a rich and arrogant man named Jean Font le Roy (John Goodman), a debonaire man of Old Wealth (with a memorable blue stone on the end of his cane with a golden filigreed cross embedded in it) who flatters her at every turn. Font le Roy is a vain and pompous man attended by an effete sycophantic and smarmy manservant named LeFou (John Waters), and he approaches Céline just as she’s finally relaxing after the lunch rush. Font le Roy sings a proposal-ish song that’s as much about finance as love (“Mind our Manors”), but Céline acts aloof.

Another classic Disney villain. I can almost picture him as a cross between the guy from Home of the Ranch and Gaston. Wide, burly man who wears the finest garments and thinks his the best thing since sliced bread. Also I kinda picture him to be a bit older than Celine to really hammer home the sleazyness.

Also glad we got LaFou, that name just too perfect to remain unused.

And as the song ends, Achilles, nervous and practicing his proposals (“I gotta’ do this one right, Gerónimo!”), comes across the “root”. He practices again, slipping the ring onto the “root” and inadvertently awakens the long-dead Marie LaVieux (Maxine Jones), who now announces herself as his bride-to-be. Achilles, terrified, holds out the crucifix around his neck (“step back, dead gal!”), but she simply grabs it and says, sadly, “oh, how beautiful! I had one a lot like it once.”

Great casting choice for our deuolgist.

Now Achilles is pulled down into the Underworld, or “Downstairs”, a dark, blue, and jazzy place of corpses and cadavers and Dutch Angles He’s nervous, but trying to maintain his composure and charm (“Hey, lookin’ great, gal, I like what you did with what’s left of your hair! Dang, talk about a…yah! Hey! Nice, um, chest hole!”) as Marie introduces him to everyone, in particular The Baron (Willard White), who is the ruler of this place. Achilles is welcomed by the cadaverous inhabitants in song (“Raise your Spirits”) with various Disney and Muppets alumni, including Wayne Brady, providing supporting voicework. Achilles is even reunited with his childhood dog Napoleon, now a skeleton, whom he introduces to Gerónimo with the obligatory butt-sniffing scene.

Love the atmosphere, it's not the eternal dance party we see in the OTL movie but it's not a completely somber place of mourning.

It's like a bar where everyone is laughing but if you look close enough you see their somber looks.

But this still is a land tinged with sorrow. And Achilles soon learns the hard truth behind Marie’s death, played out in shadows on the wall behind her as she speaks: the year was 1820, not long after Louisiana was absorbed into the US. “Back then we the Louisiana Creoles were wealthy and influential,” she said. “We were free. We owned businesses. We owned land. But not everyone in our new country liked that. In my carriage, in my wedding gown, on the way to my marriage, an angry crowd gathered. I was dragged away, my dowry plundered, my life taken from me, and my body buried in the bayous. But now,” she adds, with a gleam in her dead eyes, “I have you.”

Heartbreaking! I wonder what happened to the Groom to be? Dud he ever find out what happened to her?

Achilles now heads to find Céline and profess his love, hoping that he can marry her quickly to get out of the impending marriage with Marie. But as he approaches her townhouse, he is accosted by Maman LeBeaux. She waves her hands over him with some sparkly magic, making the silver thread appear briefly. “Cursed! Hexed! A silver thread holds you to the lands below!” she says, accusingly. She then adds in a softer voice, “This won’t do at all!” She gives him a Gris Gris charm to protect him and grabs him and drags him into her basement, where a group of Vodou practitioners are dancing and singing (“The Big Crossroads”). Achilles and Maman LeBeaux join them in the expository song, where he exposits what happened to her. “Ahhh…” she says after performing a series of arcane (but authentic) rituals, “You are bound by the Baron. I can sever the silver thread, but the fair Marie will be torn from her angel within. I cannot conscionably do so.” She hands him a pair of old scissors. “Use this to cut the thread if you must,” she warns, “But let it be known that Marie’s fate is in your hands.”

Cool, although I wonder how she can hide that from Celine when it's in her own basement.

The “zombie invasion” soon becomes a reunion of lost loved ones.

Aww, that's weird and wholesome, like you want to see in a Tim Burton movie!

“Ok,” adds LeFou, “So he’s gone and gambled away all his inheritance an’ he needs her money now! Why else would he marry someone like her? But it’s ok because his is an old important family, so he’s more important!”

I guess he got a bit of that truth dust on him? Or did he just decide to backstap his slimy boss right now?😅

“My cross! You!” she screams confronting a terrified Font le Roy. “You, or your forefather! I recognize those eyes! That was my cross! Your forefather and his mob murdered me and stole it, it and all of the other treasures for my wedding! That wealth you gambled away was my family’s wealth!”

I was waiting for this. Really satisfying how she gets the last laugh over the people who robbed her of everything.

“Can I at least punch his ugly face?”

She smiles, “We can do it together!” and they punch out Font le Roy together.

Ha great couples work together!

We’d debut for Thanksgiving of 1997 and made $242 million against our $72 million budget. Not bad, but not breaking the bank (we did have a wee bit of competition from other studios that year, like Spirit of the West and Flintstones 2, not to mention a little picture called Star Wars Episode I). Critics mostly liked us, though some found it a bit formulaic. We got accused of everything from bias against interracial relationships (*ahem!*) or bias against white people since the villain was white (so was half the damned supporting cast!) and we even got accused of promoting necrophilia!

Not bad going up against Star Wars!

Also Haters gonna hate, cant make it fit for everyone, especially not for the ones feeling sympathy for the descendant of a Lynch mob leader.

But most importantly, I get a lot of fan letters, particularly from folks that look like me and my kids, who are just happy to have a Disney Animated Feature and Disney Princess of their own, and that’s the legacy that means the most to me.

Yeah that's the most important part and it's a really great movie not just for it's representation but also for how it tackles the uncomfortable suspect matter of Racism.

I wonder if they will integrate Marie's Story with some of the Parks Rides like with the upcoming Splash Montain rethemeing. I mean New Orleans Square is right there in Disneyland! I would be tempted to say put her in the Haunted Mansion as the new Heartbeat Bride but idk if that would be appropriate given the matter of her death.🤷‍♂️

Great chapter @Geekhis Khan

 

[ajm8888]

I think children would work better than kids, to me at least kids seem more like a western world, particularly American, term. Also both kids and children are used interchangeably when either one or the other should have been used throughout.

Is this the right word here or did they mean bazaar?

I will just tell you, Yuri wrote the letter angry. And While he is a master of English and Spanish when angry the terminology slipped, Kids became children and Bazaar became Bizarre. Yes he's an ex-spy but he can get angered and riled and a shooting at a place he thinks is safe for his kids is gonna make him angry. And when people make Yuri angry like that, they die.

 

[Denliner]

What an amazing story that was cooked up within Disney Animation. I'm actually shocked at how many inspirations were put into this movie yet it feels completely original, so that's a huge plus. As much as I do like The Princess and the Frog, this is a way better movie conceptually.

But most importantly, I get a lot of fan letters, particularly from folks that look like me and my kids, who are just happy to have a Disney Animated Feature and Disney Princess of their own, and that’s the legacy that means the most to me.

Probably the best takeaway from this whole post. Hopefully Terrell Little is proud of himself for crafting such a film.

I wonder if they will integrate Marie's Story with some of the Parks Rides like with the upcoming Splash Montain rethemeing. I mean New Orleans Square is right there in Disneyland! I would be tempted to say put her in the Haunted Mansion as the new Heartbeat Bride but idk if that would be appropriate given the matter of her death.🤷‍♂️

What? Splash Mountain isn't getting rethemed. Considering the changes to Song in the South with the remake, the ride is probably even more sacrosanct as a Disney classic.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks @Nerdman3000 for the writeup on Spirit of the West and thank you all for the kind words on Kindred Spirits. It was a fun story to come up with even as I delved into some dark history.

I'm surprised they didn't split the two approaches and made the Living World 2D animated and the Land of the Dead and it's characters all Stop Mo. But I guess that would've been too much work for a full feature film.

Well, I wish I'd thought of that. LOL!

Also I hope the low key racist chef gets his comeuppance too.

At the end he sits back and fumes as Celine's place becomes an award-winning New Orleans staple and a famous French Chef declares it some of the best food he's had while largely finding his food mediocre.

Heartbreaking! I wonder what happened to the Groom to be? Dud he ever find out what happened to her?

Backstory has him killed too. A very tragic story all around.

I guess he got a bit of that truth dust on him? Or did he just decide to backstap his slimy boss right now?😅

Le Fou being le fou. A Dumb Disney Villain Sidekick moment.

I wonder if they will integrate Marie's Story with some of the Parks Rides like with the upcoming Splash Montain rethemeing. I mean New Orleans Square is right there in Disneyland! I would be tempted to say put her in the Haunted Mansion as the new Heartbeat Bride but idk if that would be appropriate given the matter of her death.🤷‍♂️

What? Splash Mountain isn't getting rethemed. Considering the changes to Song in the South with the remake, the ride is probably even more sacrosanct as a Disney classic.

Yea, with SotS getting remade and updated it's no longer an Old Shame, so no need to retheme Briar Patch Splash, but New Orleans Square will get some KS touches over the years, like a restaurant retheme to be based on Regina's and a new Downstairs jazz club with an animatronic show.

 

[Kalvan]

Frankly, the story of Br'er Rabbit always felt mismatched to a log flume or a splash coaster.

Not that The Princess and the Frog is that much better. The Louisiana Bayou country is flat as a pancake, if you don't count the trees themselves. A long drop, unless it's into the New Orleans sewers, makes absolutely zero sense, and a long drop into those sewers would require levels of theming and digging Bob Chapek wouldn't have been willing to spend for to make them convincing.

But that is neither here nor there.

I realize this is Disney we're talking about, and they are frequently worse than Shakespeare when it comes to historical authenticity in their dramatic material, especially works for children, but I feel the need to call an especially glaring error out:

There was no Ku Klux Klan back in the 1820s and 1830s. They were founded in 1867, after the American Civil War. It would be as anachronistic to put them in that period as it would be to have a National Socialist delegation in the Reichstag during the Naval Arms Race with Britain ca. 1905-1907.

 

[Bbone91]

I realize this is Disney we're talking about, and they are frequently worse than Shakespeare when it comes to historical authenticity in their dramatic material, especially works for children, but I feel the need to call an especially glaring error out:

There was no Ku Klux Klan back in the 1820s and 1830s. They were founded in 1867, after the American Civil War. It would be as anachronistic to put them in that period as it would be to have a National Socialist delegation in the Reichstag during the Naval Arms Race with Britain ca. 1905-1907.

I think it was just a random racist mob that killed Marie, not the Klan.

 

[Denliner]

Yea, with SotS getting remade and updated it's no longer an Old Shame, so no need to retheme Briar Patch Splash, but New Orleans Square will get some KS touches over the years, like a restaurant retheme to be based on Regina's and a new Downstairs jazz club with an animatronic show.

Seems like a reasonable suggestion.

Frankly, the story of Br'er Rabbit always felt mismatched to a log flume or a splash coaster.

To be fair, it was Tony Baxter's idea, not mine. He even thought of it while he was in traffic, lol.

There was no Ku Klux Klan back in the 1820s and 1830s. They were founded in 1867, after the American Civil War. It would be as anachronistic to put them in that period as it would be to have a National Socialist delegation in the Reichstag during the Naval Arms Race with Britain ca. 1905-1907.

But there wasn't any mention or depiction of the KKK in Marie's past. Records of lynchings in Louisiana happened in the late 1800s/early 1900s but Marie's incident could be explained as a result of her simply being a rich black woman and Le Fou wanting that wealth for himself (and given the racism, no one would care).

 

[Geekhis Khan]

There was no Ku Klux Klan back in the 1820s and 1830s. They were founded in 1867, after the American Civil War. It would be as anachronistic to put them in that period as it would be to have a National Socialist delegation in the Reichstag during the Naval Arms Race with Britain ca. 1905-1907.

I think it was just a random racist mob that killed Marie, not the Klan.

What BBone said. Just a mob of racists that didn't like black people (technically wealthy Haitian Affranchi fleeing the Dessalines government in Haiti in this case) having that much wealth and power. Yes, I know my US history. Nowhere does the KKK come up in the film or the post I made and I have no idea why anyone seems to thing that they were in this feature. No crosses were burned in the making of this fictional hate crime. One of many many many hate crimes committed between 1492 and 2022.