The Rescuers Down Under

The Rescuers Down Under is a 1990 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 29th Disney animated feature film, the film is the sequel to the 1977 film "The Rescuers", which was based on the novels of Margery Sharp. Directed by Hendel Butoy and Mike Gabriel from a screenplay by Jim Cox, Karey Kirkpatrick, Byron Simpson, and Joe Ranft, it featured the voices of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor (in her final film role), John Candy, and George C. Scott. In "The Rescuers Down Under", Bernard and Bianca travel to the Australian Outback to save a boy named Cody from a villainous poacher in pursuit of an endangered bird of prey.
By the mid-1980s, "The Rescuers" had become one of Disney's most successful animated features. Under the new management of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a feature-length sequel was approved, making it the first animated film sequel theatrically released by the studio. Following their duties on "Oliver & Company", animators Butoy and Gabriel were recruited to direct the sequel. Research trips to Australia provided inspiration for the background designs. The film would also mark the full use of the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), in which it became the first feature film to be completely created digitally. The computer program allowed for artists to digitally ink-and-paint the animators' drawings, and then composite the digital cels over the scanned background art.
"The Rescuers Down Under" was released to theaters on November 16, 1990 to positive reviews from film critics. However, it struggled at the box office, as it opened on the same day as "Home Alone", in which the film garnered $47.4 million worldwide.
Plot.
In the Australian Outback, a young boy named Cody rescues and befriends a rare golden eagle called Marahute, who shows him her nest and eggs. Later on, he falls into an animal trap set by Percival C. McLeach, a local poacher wanted by the Australian Rangers. Finding out from a feather Cody possesses that Cody knows Marahute's whereabouts, McLeach, who earlier killed Marahute's mate, kidnaps Cody, throwing the boy's backpack to a float of crocodiles to convince the Rangers Cody was eaten.
The mouse who was the bait in the trap hurries to an outpost, from which a telegram is sent to the Rescue Aid Society headquarters in the United Nations, New York City. Bernard and Miss Bianca, the RAS' elite field agents, are assigned to the mission, interrupting Bernard's attempts to propose marriage to Bianca. They go to find Orville the albatross, who aided them before, and meet his brother Wilbur, who flies them to Australia. There, they meet Jake, a hopping mouse who is the RAS' local regional operative. Jake becomes infatuated with Bianca and flirts with her, much to Bernard's dismay. He serves as their "tour guide" and protector in search of the boy. Wilbur accidentally bends his spinal column out of shape trying to help them, so Jake sends him to the hospital (an old ambulance). Wilbur refuses to undergo surgery, and his back is straightened as he fights to escape the medical mice. He flies off in search of his friends.
At McLeach's hideout, Cody is imprisoned with a number of captured animals after refusing to divulge Marahute's whereabouts. Cody attempts to free himself and the animals, but is thwarted by Joanna, McLeach's pet goanna. Realizing that Marahute's eggs are Cody's weak spot, McLeach tricks Cody into thinking someone else killed Marahute and releases him, knowing Cody will go to her nest.
Bernard, Bianca, and Jake arrive as McLeach departs in his halftrack after Cody. The three hitch a ride on the vehicle and attempt to warn Cody upon arriving at the nest, but Mcleach captures Cody, Marahute, Jake and Bianca. McLeach then sends Joanna to eat Marahute's eggs, but Bernard manages to trick her using egg-shaped stones. Wilbur arrives at the nest, and Bernard convinces Wilbur to sit on the real eggs while he (Bernard) goes after McLeach.
McLeach takes his captives to Crocodile Falls, a huge waterfall at the end of the river he threw Cody's backpack into. He ties Cody up and hangs him over the float of crocodiles, intent on feeding him to them, but Bernard, riding a wild razorback pig he tamed using a horse whispering technique he learned from Jake, arrives and disables McLeach's vehicle. McLeach then attempts to shoot the rope holding Cody above the water, but Bernard tricks Joanna into crashing into McLeach, sending both of them into the water. The crocodiles attack McLeach and Joanna, while behind them Cody falls into the water as the damaged rope breaks. As Joanna flees to the bank, McLeach fends off and taunts the crocodiles, forgetting about the waterfall until it is too late; he is washed over the edge, presumably to his death. 
Bernard dives into the water and holds Cody long enough for Jake and Bianca to free Marahute, allowing her to save Cody and Bernard just as they go over the waterfall. Bernard, desperate to prevent any further incidents, proposes to Bianca, who immediately accepts, while Jake salutes him with new-found respect. Safe at last, the group departs for Cody's home. Meanwhile, Wilbur is still sitting on Marahute‘s eggs; they hatch, and one of the eaglets bites him.
Cast.
"The Rescuers Down Under" features three characters from the first film; Bernard, Bianca and the Chairmouse, all of whom feature the same actors reprising their roles from the original 1977 film.
Production.
Development.
By 1984, "The Rescuers" had become one of Disney's most successful recent animated films, earning $41 million in worldwide box office rentals. Under the new studio management of then-CEO Michael Eisner and studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, it was decided that a feature-length sequel should be produced. Shortly after, the success of "Crocodile Dundee" had made Australian culture more appealing to a mainstream American audience. The new sequel was titled "The Rescuers Down Under", for which writing began in 1986.
Following work on "Oliver & Company", Peter Schneider, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, asked supervising animator Mike Gabriel if he would consider directing. At the time, Gabriel declined the offer, stating "Well, after watching George [Scribner], it doesn't look like it would be much fun." After a few months, Schneider made Gabriel the offer to direct "The Rescuers Down Under", which he accepted. Following his assignment as supervising animator as Tito on "Oliver", which was met with favorable praise from general audiences, Hendel Butoy was added to co-direct "Rescuers Down Under" with Gabriel. Meanwhile, Schneider recruited Thomas Schumacher, who had worked at the Mark Taper Forum, to serve as producer on the project.
With Schumacher as producer, he selected storyboard artist Joe Ranft to serve as story supervisor because of his "ability to change and transform through excellence of idea". Throughout the storyboarding process, Ranft constantly bolstered the creative morale of his crew, but rarely drew storyboard sequences himself. In addition to this, Ranft had creative disagreements with the studio management and marketing executives, including one disagreement where he and the story team petitioned for the casting of an Aboriginal Australian child actor to voice Cody. According to storyboard artist Brenda Chapman, then-Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg overrode this idea, casting "a little white blonde kid" and giving Cody a matching design.
In view of the rising popularity of action films set in an Australia, and with Americans becoming more environmentally conscious, the filmmakers decided to abandon the musical format where they found the placement of the songs slowed down the pacing of the film. Instead, they decided to market the film as the studio's first action-adventure film, with Butoy and Gabriel finding visual inspiration from live-action films by Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and David Lean. It would also mark the studio's first film since "Bambi" to have an animal rights and environmental message. In December 1988, original cast members Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor were confirmed to be reprising their roles. However, Jim Jordan, who had voiced Orville in the original film, died earlier that same year in April following a fall at his home. In acknowledgement of Jordan's death, Roy E. Disney suggested the character of Wilbur be written as Orville's brother, to serve as his replacement. Intentionally, the names were in reference to the Wright brothers.
Animation and design.
Members of the production team including art director Maurice Hunt and six of his animators spent several days in Australia to study settings and animals found in the Australian Outback to observe, take photographs, and draw sketches to properly illustrate the outback on film. There, they ventured through the Uluru, Katherine Gorge, and the Kakadu National Park where Hunt's initial designs emphasized the spectrum of scale between the sweeping vistas and the film's protagonists.
Serving as the supervising animator on the eagle character Marahute, Glen Keane studied six eagles residing at the Peregrine Fund in Boise, Idaho, as well as a stuffed American eagle loaned from the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History and an eagle skeleton. While animating the eagle, Keane and his animation crew enlarged the bird, shrunk its head, elongated its neck and wings, and puffed out its chest. Additionally, Keane had to slow the bird's wing movements to about 25–30 percent of an eagle's flight speed. Because of the excessive details on Marahute who carried 200 feathers, the character only appeared in seven minutes during the opening and ending sequences.
Furthermore, in order to have the film finished on time, Schumacher enlisted the support of the Disney-MGM Studios, which was originally envisioned to produce independent cartoon shorts and featurettes. On its first assignment on a Disney animated feature film, seventy artists contributed ten minutes of screentime, including supervising animator Mark Henn. Serving as one of ten supervising animators, Henn animated several scenes of Bernard, Miss Bianca, and Percival C. McLeach. For the mice characters, Henn studied the mannerisms made by Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor during voice recording sessions, and looked to George C. Scott's performance in "Dr. Strangelove" for inspiration while animating McLeach. To create believable realism for the Australian animals, additional animators traveled to the San Diego Zoo to observe kangaroos, kookaburras, and snakes, while an iguana was brought in by the staff at Walt Disney World's Discovery Island for the animators drawing Joanna.
"The Rescuers Down Under" is notable for Disney as its first traditionally animated film to completely use the new computerized CAPS process. CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) was a computer-based production system used for digital ink and paint and compositing, allowing for more efficient and sophisticated post-production of the Disney animated films and making the traditional practice of hand-painting cels obsolete. The animators' drawings and the background paintings were scanned into computer systems instead, where the animation drawings are inked and painted by digital artists, and later combined with the scanned backgrounds in software that allows for camera positioning, camera movements, multiplane effects, and other techniques.
The film also uses CGI elements throughout such as the field of flowers in the opening sequence, McLeach's truck, and perspective shots of Wilbur flying above Sydney Opera House and New York City. The CAPS project was the first of Disney's collaborations with computer graphics company Pixar, which would eventually become a feature animation production studio making computer-generated animated films for Disney before being bought outright in 2006. As a result, "The Rescuers Down Under" was the first animated film for which the entire final film elements were assembled and completed within a digital environment, as well as the first fully digital feature film. However, the film's marketing approach did not call attention to the use of the CAPS process.
Release.
During the film's theatrical release, the film was released as a double feature with the new Mickey Mouse featurette, "The Prince and the Pauper".
Home media.
"The Rescuers Down Under" was released in the Walt Disney Classics video series on September 20, 1991, in a pan-and-scan transfer, while "The Rescuers" was released on VHS a year later in September 1992. Unlike the original film, however, "The Rescuers Down Under" was not included in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. Both home video editions went into moratorium on April 30, 1993. In its original release, the VHS edition sold 5.2 million units in the United States, generating $72.8 million in revenue.
Launching in January 2000, Walt Disney Home Video began the Gold Classic Collection, with "The Rescuers Down Under" re-issued on VHS and DVD on August 1, 2000. The DVD contained the film in its 1.66:1 aspect ratio enhanced for television sets and 4.0 surround sound, and was accompanied with special features including a storybook and trivia as well as an "Animals of the Outback" activity booklet.
"The Rescuers Down Under" was released alongside "The Rescuers" on Blu-ray in a "2-Movie Collection" on August 21, 2012 to commemorate the first film's 35th anniversary in the United States.
Reception.
Box office.
During its opening weekend, "The Rescuers Down Under" grossed $3.5 million, ranking fourth in its opening weekend after "Home Alone", "Rocky V", and "Child's Play 2"; and below the studio's expectations. As a result, Katzenberg decided to pull all of the "Rescuers" television advertising. The film eventually went on to make $27.9 million in the United States and $47.4 million worldwide.
Critical reaction.
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "The Rescuers Down Under" has an approval rating of 70% based on 27 reviews, with a weighted average score of 6.32 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Though its story is second-rate, "The Rescuers Down Under" redeems itself with some remarkable production values – particularly its flight scenes."
Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote, "Animation can give us the glory of sights and experiences that are impossible in the real world, and one of those sights, in 'The Rescuers Down Under,' is of a little boy clinging to the back of a soaring eagle. The flight sequence and many of the other action scenes in this new Disney animated feature create an exhilaration and freedom that are liberating. And the rest of the story is fun, too." Likewise giving it three stars out of four, Gene Siskel of "The Chicago Tribune" summarized the film as a "bold, rousing but sometimes needlessly intense Disney animated feature" where "good fun is provided by a goofy albatross (voiced by John Candy), one in a long line of silly Disney birds". Janet Maslin, reviewing for "The New York Times" praised the animation and the action sequences, though remained critical of the storyline labeling it "trifle dark and un involving for very small children", though acknowledged its "slightly more grown-up, adventurous approach may be the reason it does not include the expected musical interludes, but they would have been welcome". Also finding error with "such a mediocre story that adults may duck", the staff of "Variety", nevertheless wrote "The Rescuers Down Under" "boasts reasonably solid production values and fine character voices".
"Halliwell's Film Guide" gave it two stars out of four, saying "[This] slick, lively and enjoyable animated feature [is] an improvement on the original." "TV Guide" gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "Three years in the making, it was obviously conceived during the height of this country's fascination with Australia, brought on by Paul Hogan's fabulously successful "Crocodile Dundee" (1986). By 1990, the mania had long since subsided, and this film's Australian setting did nothing to enhance its box office appeal. Further, the film doesn't make particularly imaginative use of the location. Take away the accents and the obligatory kangaroos and koalas, and the story could have taken place anywhere. Another problem is that "the rescuers" themselves don't even enter the action until a third of the film has passed. And when they do appear, they don't have much to do with the main plot until near the film's end. The characters seem grafted on to a story that probably would have been more successful without them. Finally, the film suffers from some action and plotting that is questionable in a children's film. The villain is far too malignant, the young vigilante hero seems to be a kiddie 'Rambo,' and some of the action is quite violent, if not tasteless."
Josh Spiegel echoes that point and expands on it further, explaining, ""The Rescuers Down Under" tanked with barely $3.5 million in its opening-weekend take, Katzenberg removed all television advertisements for the film. By itself, that's not the worst possible fate, but it proves that he had zero confidence in its ability to perform at a seemingly ideal time of year. Here's the thing: the more demoralizing fact isn't that Katzenberg yanked the marketing. It's that Disney set "The Rescuers Down Under" up to fail, opening it on the same weekend as a little film called "Home Alone", otherwise known as the highest-grossing film of 1990. He may not have been able to predict its long-lasting impact on popular culture, but Katzenberg likely had enough tracking information to tip him off that "Home Alone" would be a monster laying waste to everything in its path. "The Rescuers Down Under" was forced to take the hit, then and afterwards." Conversely, Ellen MacKay of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "A rare sequel that improves on the original".
Music.
The score for the film was composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton. Unlike the vast majority of Disney animated features, the film had no songs written for it (however, "Message Montage" includes a quotation from "Rescue Aid Society" by Sammy Fain, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins, the only musical reference to the first film). This was the second film not to include any songs in it, the first one being "The Black Cauldron". AllMusic gave the soundtrack a 4.5 out of 5 star rating.
1990 album.
In 2002, Walt Disney Records reissued the album on compact disc, including the Shelby Flint songs "The Journey", "Someone's Waiting for You" and "Tomorrow Is Another Day" (from "The Rescuers"). In 2016 Intrada Records released the complete Broughton score, including material (in italics) not used in the movie.