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Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland AKA Little Nemo AKA Nemo
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Discotek Media Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (13th July 2015). |
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The Film
 While sleeping at night in his bed, young boy Nemo’s (voiced by Gabriel Damon in English, Takuma Gono in Japanese) bed magically floats out of his bedroom and into the city. Nemo gets excited by the soaring bed which suddenly turns dark as the bed floats to a decaying city and then chased by a locomotive. But then Nemo falls out of his bed, and realizes that it was just a bad dream! In the morning, Nemo runs out of his house with his pet flying squirrel Icarus (voiced by Danny Mann) to see a parade for a circus visiting town. He asks his father to take him to the circus, but unfortunately his father says he is too busy with work to take Nemo to the circus that day. While sleeping at night, a light shines through Nemo’s bedroom which paves a visit by people from “Slumberland”. A lanky old man who goes by the name of Professor Genius (voiced by René Auberjonois in English, Koichi Kitamura in Japanese) says he has a message from the King of Slumberland inviting Nemo to Slumberland. Nemo immediately takes up the offer, and takes the dirigible that is returning to Slumberland. When arriving, Nemo is greeted with cheers and excitement from the people, but there is one weirdly character named Flip (voiced by Mickey Rooney in English, Chikao Otsuka in Japanese) who introduces himself to Nemo, but is warned by Professor Genius that Flip is not to be trusted. Nemo meets King Morpheus (voiced by Bernard Erhard in English, Kenji Utsumi in Japanese) playing with his elaborate model train sets, which excites Nemo as he also has an affinity for mechanics. The King has an important decision he made about his kingdom: He has chosen Nemo to be his sole heir as the future ruler of Slumberland. And with this decision, King Morpheus gives Nemo the Golden Key, which can open any door in Slumberland, but warns him that there is one door that should never be broken: the door which has the same dragon symbol as the one on the key itself. Nemo makes a promise to the King to never open that particular door. Later Nemo encounters Flip again, in which Flip shows Nemo how to have “fun” in Slumberland. Things like messing with police officers and sneaking into places where they don’t belong. Messing around Slumberland, the two suddenly encounter a large door with a dragon symbol on it, the same symbol that is on Nemo’s Golden Key. Mischievous and curious as he is, Flip says to Nemo that they should open the door. Although Nemo made the promise not to open the door, he thinks that just a “peek” would be fine. But when the two of them open the door, they encounter something sinister: It is where The Nightmare King (voiced by Bill Martin in English, Taro Ishida in Japanese) is locked away. But with the door open, it leads to his escape into the world of Slumberland, in effect kidnapping King Morpheus and bringing darkness to the land. It is now up to Nemo to fix his wrongdoing and to rescue the King and also rescue Slumberland from eternal darkness! As much as “Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland” is a fun film, it is also quite a mess. Trying to watch a movie that takes place within a dream doesn’t exactly follow set “rules” of storytelling. "Inception" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street" films set their own rules of how dreams work within the film. "Little Nemo" doesn't seem to have a set of rules to follow. When Nemo wakes up, at one point he wakes up and faces reality. At other times, he "wakes up" but he is still in the dream which makes things quite confusing. Nemo "waking up" in his bed seems more like a plot hole escape rather, and it shows a bit of lazy screenwriting. Another big problem is that there is no strong emotional core to hold onto. Nemo’s relationship with his parents or with the King is not strong enough to hold consequence, and the only one that could be considered “strong”, is with his pet squirrel Icarus. But that never has the chance to show an emotional connection that it could have. If Icarus and Nemo were separated and caused disruption, a reunion of their characters would have helped their relationship. Icarus is placed in the movie because of the "cute" factor and not for any particular plot reason. In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy had Todo and her new found friends and the wish to get back home. In "Alice in Wonderland", Alice had the MacGuffin of following the white rabbit but still the wish to find her way home. In "Little Nemo", Nemo does not have the wish to go home at all, and is fine being the new heir to the throne of Slumberland after being there for less than a day. Also surprising is that the King’s daughter Princess Camellia (voiced by Laura Mooney in English, Hiroko Kasahara in Japanese) doesn’t seem to be bothered that she is no longer the King’s heir. Why not? The King suddenly gives a boy he meets for the first time the keys to the kingdom forever? Seems she could have been a better antagonist character instead of "the good girl". The Goblins who appear very late in the movie when the story is set toward the excitement of the final battle, slows things down with a song and dance. Why? With the world in danger it should be no time for a song! The character of Flip seems to be the only one who gets the plot rolling, being the character that causes mischief and causes the evil door to open. He obviously is the “evil” portrayal of Nemo’s subconscious, the one telling him to reason with doing things that might be bad, but could also be fun in a child's mind. But these points may be looking into the story way too logically. It is all but a dream, anyway. What else works well? It does show consequences and taking the matter of responsibility as a moral tale in an exciting way in the second half, and the darker scenes look incredible. The Nightmare King looks like the Devil from “Night on Bald Mountain” in Disney's “Fantasia”, and there are various homages (ripoffs?) to the aforementioned “The Wizard of Oz” and “Alice in Wonderland” with some incredible animation in many points, including the flight scenes and other action scenes. Now how faithfully does it follow the original comic? There are certain elements that are referenced, such as the scene with the walking bed or the scenes of Nemo falling out of his bed, but not everything is the same. Icarus is an original character created for the film and not a character in the comics, and Flip is an untrustworthy "Irishman" in the comics for example. American cartoonist Winsor McCay created the comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland” in 1905. This was a full page color newspaper comic, which stood out from the rest with its use of color, alternating panel sizes, and the detailed backgrounds. The comics were initially successful, but by the 1920’s the interest and popularity started to decline. McCay ended the comic series in 1926. McCay was also one of the pioneers of film animation. His 1914 short film “Gertie the Dinosaur” is one of the most pioneering works in the world of film and animation. In 1911, he made a short film of “Little Nemo” which is more of a demonstration of the animation process rather than a story, but it was the first time the characters from “Little Nemo” were introduced in film. He continued to work in the world of illustration until his death in 1934, at an age unverified since his birth record is not extant. The legacy of the “Little Nemo” comics found small audiences throughout the years in revivals and book publications, but it never reached an audience large enough to sustain big interest. It took nearly 70 years after the 1911 “Little Nemo” film by McCay for someone to attempt a film adaptation of “Little Nemo”. Japanese animation producer Yutaka Fujioka, the head of Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS) convinced the descendants of Winsor McCay for the right to produce a feature animated film of Nemo in 1977. TMS was already well established in the animation world with television works such as “Lupin III” and “Moomin”, and also with theatrical animated films such as the “Panda! Go Panda!” films and the “Lupin III” features. With the acquirement of the rights, this was to become Fujioka’s dream project, but as a parallel with Nemo’s story, it headed toward a huge nightmare… First let’s take a look at the production time: The rights acquired: 1977 The first test film: 1984 The second test film: 1987 The Japan premiere: 1989 The US premiere: 1992 It took more than 7 years to complete a 3 minute test film. Then it was all scratched and 3 years later a second test film clocking at 10 minutes was made with an entirely different crew. That was also scrapped and 2 years later, the film was fully finished, a long 12 years later. And then it took another 3 years until it was screened in America. Now, a question: What do the following people have in common? Ray Bradbury. Gary Kurtz. Yoshifumi Kondo. Hayao Miyazaki. Isao Takahata. Frank Thomas. Ollie Johnston. Brian Froud. Chris Columbus. Moebius. Brad Bird. The Sherman Brothers. Besides all of them being masters in various works of art, all of those people were at one point attached to the production of "Little Nemo" film! Just looking at the names listed above, this could have been the greatest animated film of all time. The creators of “Fahrenheit 451”, "Star Wars", Studio Ghibli, countless Disney classics, The Muppets, "Alien" … it is an incredible list of masterpieces. But the production was not 12 years of them together in one room. It was a tiresome revolving door of talent, with directors, writers, and animators coming and going, with the next talent coming in trying to pick up the pieces, or scrapping it all completely. Miyazaki said the creative differences he experienced with his short time on production was one of the worst experiences of his career. By looking at the 2 test films produced and the final film produced, it’s bizarre to think that they were all animated by the same company, as they all look and feel completely different. But considering the trouble with the ever changing lineup of the people behind the scenes, it is absolutely understandable. One of the biggest concerns was to make sure it pleased both the American producers and pleased the Japanese. The first two short films in style looked very “anime” which was not a style that Americans were used to, so the final film has a very Disney or Don Bluth look to the characters and backgrounds which lacked the originality it should have gone for. “Nemo” was released theatrically in Japan in July of 1989, the same weekend as “Dragon Ball Z” and the “Patlabor”/“SD Gundam” double feature and was clobbered. Later that month, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” was released theatrically and “Little Nemo” became quickly forgotten. Rumored to cost ¥5.5 billion to make, the film grossed less than ¥900 million, making it a huge flop in Japan. Consider the fact that it only cost ¥800 million to produce "Kiki's Delivery Service" and that grossed nearly triple the production cost in ticket sales alone. Because of the financial failure of "Little Nemo", producer Fujioka willfully stepped down from his position as head of TMS. The American release was not any better. Hemdale Film Corporation was reluctant to release such a flop to the American marketplace, but it was finally released 3 years later in 1992, with about 10 minutes of cuts. Opening in less than 600 theaters, the film failed to find an audience and grossed only $1.3 million theatrically. Hemdale tried to market the VHS heavily, but their doors shut in 1995 through bankruptcy. The film of “Little Nemo” did not cement the character back into the public consciousness as it could have. And now, the film’s troubles and disappointments are more talked about than the film itself. Note this is a region free Blu-ray disc and can be played back on any Blu-ray player worldwide.
Video
The film is in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 encoded in the AVC MPEG-4 codec. The print used here includes the English language credit sequences at the beginning (which is one of the most boring and unimagintive credit sequences I have ever seen for an animated film) and the end, starting with the TMS logo. The print itself looks very good. Film grain is visible in all the shots and there is no artificial sharpening of the picture. Dust and specs are visible in the darker scenes but these are inherent to the cell animation and not with the film print. Overall it looks very good, but colors seem a bit flat. I don’t know if that is how it looked originally or if the print had faded a little, but it is not distracting. There are multiple versions of the film: The Japanese theatrical version with Japanese credits and running 95 minutes. The Pre-cut US version with English credits replacing the Japanese and running the same 95 minutes. The US theatrical version with English credits and cutting 10 minutes out, running 84 minutes. The Discotek Media Blu-ray features the Pre-cut US version running 94:54.
Audio
There are 3 audio tracks available: Japanese LPCM 2.0 stereo English Dolby Digital 5.1 English LPCM 2.0 stereo For the Japanese and English LPCM 2.0 stereo tracks the dialogue is centered with music and effects taking the left and right directional speakers. Both tracks sound fine but they seem a bit weak considering they are lossless tracks. The English 5.1 track sounds very good with better directional sounds, but unfortunately it is not a lossless option. The Japanese stereo audio has all the dialogue in Japanese and curiously the songs in English. I’m not sure if this is how the film was screened in Japan, but this is how it is presented here. In addition, after the English closing credits roll, the Japanese credits appear in Japanese. There are optional English subtitles that translate the Japanese dialogue, in white. There are no grammatical errors or timing errors to speak of.
Extras
Discotek Media has put together a pretty good selection of bonus features for this release: Pilot Film – 1984 (3:33) This is the test film made by TMS in 1984, and the animation is more “anime” in style than the finished 1989 movie. This short film shows the introduction scene, with Nemo flying on his bed following a boy in an airplane whose character was deleted from the finished film, until his bed is destroyed and he wakes up. The short pilot film stylistically looks wonderful. I wish it could have continued on. The source is a video source so the picture quality suffers. in 480i NTSC, 1.85:1 non-anamorphic, in English Pilot Film – 1987 (10:31) This test film shows quite a few scenes put together. First, there is a scene of Nemo and Icarus flying with the professor to Slumberland, in which their ship is attacked along the way, revealing a much more fantastical world than the finished film. Also are scenes of Nemo meeting the princess, meeting flip, Nemo meeting the professor in the destroyed Slumberland, and Nemo flying on his bed with the Goblins which look very different. Again with different animation from the finished film. The characters and backgrounds are much more detailed, with shading techniques and richer colors. The style is also more “anime” than the finished film. in 480i NTSC, 1.85:1 non-anamorphic, in English "The Making Of Little Nemo" featurette (21:45) A vintage making-of featurette with interviews with the director William Kurtz, actor Mickey Rooney, dance choreographer Michael Peters, The Sherman Brothers, singer Melissa Manchester, and others. There are cuts to behind the scenes footage including live action dance footage, Abbey Road scoring sessions, and the director showing preliminary drawings. There are no talks of the long road to the making of the film or the problems it had during production. Also there are no interviews with the Japanese crew. in 480i NTSC, 1.33:1, in English "Behind the Scenes Clips" featurette (14:41) This featurette collects video footage of the recording booths with the English voice cast, the dance choreography, recording of the orchestra, with occasional picture-in-picture. Some of the footage is the same as in the “Making of” featurette. There are burned in Japanese subtitles for the featurette, meaning this was for the Japanese market. The location captions in Japanese have not been translated to English. in 480i NTSC, 1.33:1, in English with burned-in Japanese subtitles. Opening Sequence – US Cut (2:44) Taken from a video source, it starts off with the Hemdale logo and shows the opening scene of Nemo flying out the window. I don’t see anything different from the Japanese version, except for the Hemdale logo and the worse picture quality. in 480i NTSC, 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen Art Gallery (12:39) Featuring conceptual art, storyboards, finished cells, unused designs including artwork from the pilot films. These look incredible. in 1080p, 1.78:1 US Trailer (1:59) The video quality is very blurry. Looks like an old VHS trailer. in 480i NTSC, 1.33:1, in English Japanese Trailer (1:59) The Japanese trailer emphasizes the crew of the film, plus people like George Lucas, Salvador Dali, and Osamu Tezuka, who were said to be fans of the “Nemo” stories. Also it emphasizes the behind-the-scenes crew such as Moebius and The Sherman Brothers. in 480i NTSC, 1.85:1 non-anamorphic, in Japanese with optional English subtitles. So what is missing? Apparently there was another pilot film made, and it has never been released. How different it is from the finished film is unknown. Also, considering most people want to know the background of the troubled production, there is nothing of the sort included. Also no background info on the original Winsor McCay comics or McCay himself.
Overall
Discotek has done an admirable job with the Blu-ray release of the cult classic, but it could have been better, especially with the extras department. The picture quality is good and it includes both the English and Japanese tracks. You need to suspend your disbelief for the film quite a bit, but kids should enjoy it a lot. Yes, there are problematic elements to the story, but it has some dazzling scenes and wonderful imaginative animation, and so it comes recommended.
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