Well with a new remake out let’s take a look back at the
first attempt to adapt this Seuss work from book to screen.
Now this animated short is really a straight up adaption. The look of the backgrounds and the characters
matches the look of the book. Much of
the dialogue is taken word for word from the book; and Ted Geisel was a
producer and writer on this project; insuring that his vision remained intact
when moving the story to a new medium.
As opposed to what often happens in that the original creator is
credited as a creative consultant, which usually amounts to them getting asked
if they have problems with the project, the answer being yes, and then the
people working on the new project will do what they want anyway. That is not the case here and for the better
I think, which is more than can be said about the new film, but let’s stick to
this project for now.
Like the new film this too is a musical and it works pretty
well as one. The songs are fun with ‘Everybody
Needs a Thneed’ being my personal favourite.
However, I think there’s almost a little too much music in this
short. I mean right after the “Everybody
Needs a Thneed” song we go straight into the ‘He’s a Jolly Good Once-ler’
song. Now that song certainly works on
its own, especially when they do the melancholy requiem of it at the end when
the factory has been shut down and the Once-ler’s family is leaving. But having both songs back to back like that is
really weird. Even in musicals the songs
are usually more spread out than that.
This is even worse when the Lorax is taking the Once-ler to see the plight
of the Hummingfish. We start with a
short fun song just using sound effects about slop and glup and then, after one
line from the Lorax, we go into the fish leaving with the hard dry land
number. That tonal shift is
jarring. I think it would have better to
just show the sludge going into the river and then have the song about the fish
leaving.
The animation is nothing spectacular here. The movement is minimal and the backgrounds
are rather sparse. The voice acting is
very good though and some of the scenes like the Lorax getting dumped into the
thneed delivery truck are quite funny.
The characters are really well done as well. I like that the Lorax is shown as very
proactive and protective here. He
doesn’t just try to make the Once-ler see reason he is also protecting the Bar-ba-loots
from the road making machines and dusting off the smog from the Swami swans. We see him trying to speak not only to the
Once-ler, but to his family when they arrive, and the people of the town itself
when he is on the conveyer belt in the factory.
I think my favourite line from him is the one during the montage, “I’ll
yell and I’ll shout! For the fine things
on Earth that are on the way out!” It was always a striking reminder to me that
this is truly not about an imaginary world with a made up tree, but it is
allegory to represent our world and our responsibility to the planet, to protect
that which we can so easily lose.
I like that the animals are sent off one by one over the
course of the film, because it shows the slow destruction of the environment
from the Once-ler’s business. Not
everything goes to crap the moment you start extracting a natural
resource. There is even a reference to that
later when the Hummingfish leave with the lyric of simple things getting out of
hand. Chopping down one tree isn’t doing
any harm, it’s everything that comes after that does. In this way I like the Once-ler as a
character because he’s not evil. He
isn’t making thneeds in his polluting factory and chopping down trees to deliberately
harm the animals, he does it to further his business and doesn’t see that he is
hurting them until the Lorax shows him that.
He also does think over his actions, even if he does ultimately justify
his actions instead of changing them; and in many respects he is right. If he wasn’t the one chopping down trees
someone else would no doubt have discovered them and made some other business
with them instead. We have lots of
corporations in the real world that use the same resources to make almost
identical products in completion with each other. He is also right when he asks the Lorax what
he should do to fix the problem, simply shut down his factory and fire several hundred
hard working people? That won’t fix the
damage that has already been done and the Lorax acknowledges that problem and
says he doesn’t have an answer for it.
That is a very realistic approach to this, especially for a children’s
film which normally takes a black and white stance on morals. In the real world it would be great for the environment
if none of us ever drove cars again and not another drop of oil was ever
drilled. It would also put hundreds of
thousands of people out of work and spiral the economy down into…well more of a
mess than it currently is. However, we
also see that things can’t simply go on unchecked either. The rampant destruction of the Truffula
forest not only destroys the environment in the end, but the Once-ler’s
business too. At the end all his
arguments are moot because there is nothing left for the Once-ler anyway and
the Lorax leaves him to his misery.
Now with the ending I didn’t really understand why the
Once-ler wouldn’t plant the last seed himself, but watching the movie again as
an adult I think I get it. The Once-ler
for all the destruction and pain he caused doesn’t care enough to fix what he
has broken. To him the word unless is
just a far away word and a far away thought.
The boy he was telling the story to though sees the word as something
that he ought to do and thus the Once-ler sees that he may be the key to fixing
all this and gives him the seed. The
Once-ler’s feelings about his actions actually work well with him being a
faceless character because he is not so much a fully realized character as he a
representation of greed, uncontrolled corporations, and over-consumption. He is an avatar really of the older
generation speaking to the avatar of the younger generation, that is us in the
audience, and saying go forth and do better than we did. Thus we end the story on a hopeful note that
yes things might get better, but we have to care a lot and work for it or it
won’t happen.
Despite my complainants about some of the song placements and
the rough animation this is a really good film. It works as an adaption of the book and it
works on its own with what it adds to lengthen the story as well as to enhance
it, making it a strong stand alone project.
Its got its charm and funny moments.
The characters and dialogue are memorable and its message timeless. It’s a fun cautionary tale with a glimmer of
hope for the future and its message, sadly, is just as relevant now as it was
forty years ago.
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