FernGully: The Last Rainforest is an Australian animated feature produced by Kroyer Films, presented by FAI Films and released by 20th Century Fox on April 10, 1992. It was adapted from a book of the same name by Diana Young. It is a film with a strong environmental theme. The film features the voice talents of Tim Curry as Hexxus, Robin Williams as Batty Koda, Samantha Mathis as Crysta, Christian Slater as Pips and Jonathan Ward as Zak. The film was the first of three animated features released in consecutive years by Fox in the early 1990s: Once Upon A Forest (1993) and The Pagemaster (1994) followed.
In 1998, the film was followed by an unsuccessful direct-to-video sequel, FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, which featured none of the original voice talents.
Plot
The film tells the story of FernGully, a rainforest near Mount Warning, Australia. A curious fairy girl named Crysta (Samantha Mathis) sees a part of the world she has never seen before beyond the rainforest and believes humans dwell only on the nearby mountain. But the wise sprite of the forest and Crysta's mother figure, Magi Lune, says humans are extinct. In the opening scene, she says that they fled, driven away by the attack of an enemy known as Hexxus (Tim Curry), the spirit of destruction and all that is toxic to nature, never to return and presumed dead; Hexxus was defeated by the fairies and imprisoned inside a tree. Crysta mentions a cloud that she saw rising near the mountain, and Magi Lune identifies it as smoke, but dismisses Crysta's speculation that the smoke might be Hexxus, saying "There isn't a force in nature that could release him, and there are no poisons here on which he can feed. Hexxus is trapped for all time."
Befriending a mentally unstable yet comical fruit bat named Batty Koda (Robin Williams) who has been experimented on by humans and now has wires and antennas fused into his head, Crysta heads into the unknown where she finds dead trees all marked with red aerosol paint crosses, which mark them for cutting. She finds male humans, and accidentally shrinks one named Zak in trying to prevent him from being crushed by a tree. He gets stuck on a spiderweb on the tree that's just about to go through a shredder. She tries to get him off but can't when Batty swoops in, grabs them both off of the spiderweb and blames Crysta for her almost getting killed, because she did not listen to him.
Zak (Jonathan Ward) goes on a wild adventure with Crysta and Batty, nearly getting eaten by a Goana lizard named Lou (Tone Lōc), and unexpectedly falls in love with Crysta. Meanwhile, Zak's superiors cut down an enchanted baobab tree that Zak had painted an X mark on. Unfortunately, this turns out to be the tree Hexxus is trapped in, and the cutting down and processing of the tree by the lumbermill-like leveller machine releases him. Determined to get revenge upon the fairies of Fern Gully (specifically Magi Lune) for imprisoning him, Hexxus apparently gains power from pollution, specifically the energy and smoke produced by the Leveler, as he can be seen "drinking" from it like a liquid. He manipulates the lumberjacks and their tree leveler into tearing down the rainforest in the direction of the fairies by the next morning, thereby destroying the very fabric of their world. He does this under the vocal guise of their boss.
Up until this point, all the fairies haven't had a clue as to what danger awaits them. That is until Zak tells the truth about who he is and what the humans are doing in FernGully.
Once the truth is revealed the fairies all join forces and fuse their powers together, creating a protective tree cage. Magi sacrifices herself (giving her power to the fairies and even Zak) and it is up to Crysta and the other fairies to defeat Hexxus. Zak turns off the leveler, causing Hexxus to lose the energy he was gaining from it and disappear, but he soon rips out of the machine as a giant demonic skeleton creature made of oil that breathes fire. Crysta seemingly sacrifices herself like Magi did by allowing Hexxus to devour her in one bite, and uses her powers from inside him to grow a seed she had with her to again imprison Hexxus (together with the leveler) inside a new tree with help from the fairies led by Pips, thereby imprisoning him again. However, she emerges, unharmed and alive, from a flower soon after. Crysta sadly resizes Zak to normal size and he sets off with his fellow lumberjacks, Tony and Ralph, to try to stop the destruction of the rainforests. Meanwhile, Crysta takes Magi's place after learning finally how to control her powers.
Cast members
- Tim Curry as Hexxus, the film's villain. He is inadvertently released from a tree by a group of lumberjacks, whereupon he proceeds to take revenge for his prolonged imprisonment. He is dangerous and amorphous, although his most common form is a stormcloud menace. He is defeated by way of imprisonment in a tree.
- Samantha Mathis as Crysta, a kind-hearted fairy and Zak's love interest
- Christian Slater as Pips, a fairy who flirts with Crysta
- Jonathan Ward as Zak Young, the protagonist. He is currently working as a lumberjack's apprentice, and accidentally discovers FernGully. When FernGully is endangered, he must help the fairies save the very thing that he himself was trained to destroy.
- Robin Williams as Batty Koda, a deranged bat and Crysta's friend
- Grace Zabriskie as Magi Lune
- Geoffrey Blake as Ralph
- Robert Pastorelli as Tony
- Cheech Marin as Stump
- Tommy Chong as Root
- Tone Lōc as Lou the Goanna
- Townsend Coleman as Knotty
- Neil Ross as the Elder
Production
Production time was greatly reduced by the use of computer animation to create elements such as flocks of birds that would have taken much longer to animate traditionally.[1]
The Smithsonian Institution provided informational assistance for the film.
In light of the message of this film, proceeds were donated towards environmental projects aimed at preserving rainforests.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack includes songs by Tone Lōc who also was a voice talent in the movie. The ending song Some Other World was written and performed by Elton John (with lyrics by Bruce Roberts), and Life Is A Magic Thing (performed by Johnny Clegg), Batty Rap and Toxic Love was written by Thomas Dolby (the album version of both songs contained lyrics that were edited out of the movie for being too "adult") and the theme "A Dream Worth Keeping" by Sheena Easton is song played during a key moment in the film. Also included in the soundtrack was Raining Like Magic by Raffi and "Land of a Thousand Dances" which was performed by Guy.
Track listing:
- "Life Is a Magic Thing" - Johnny Clegg
- "Batty Rap" – Robin Williams
- "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You)" – Tone-Lōc
- "Toxic Love" – Tim Curry
- "Raining Like Magic" –Raffi
- "Land of a Thousand Dances" – Guy
- "A Dream Worth Keeping" – Sheena Easton
- "Some Other World" – Elton John
Reaction
The response for the film from both critics and the public was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 69% "fresh" and the film also has a "B-" at Box Office Mojo. Film critic Roger Ebert even gave it three out of four stars. FernGully performed modestly well at the box-office, grossing only $24,650,296 (though the film did hold well considering its opening weekend was approximately only US$3.5 million) in theaters and $8,060,598 overseas, compared to Fox's later hit Anastasia.
According to the DVD's featurette "From Paper to Tree," the film was shown in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations on Earth Day, 1992. Olivia Newton-John said at the event "FernGully is a movie of self-empowerment and promise, a modern fairy-tale for children and adults alike. It speaks to all of us with a simple message: humanity."
References
- ^ Rickitt, Richard (2000). Special Effects: The History and Technique. Billboard Books. p. 147. ISBN 0-8230-7733-0.
External links
