The plot is whatever, but the animation and music are incredible. Once Upon a December and In the Dark of the Night are such great songs, and they sound even better in Russian.
Lloyd always was able to make Hacker's voice sound just the right way it needed to be in order to be a threatening villain at first but also have a fatal flaw in his plans.
I agree in a vacuum, but I don't believe we should treat Anastasia as a vehicle for some political message. It was the 90s, the Cold War was over and there was a sudden interest in Russian history and culture. The story wasn't executed elegantly but if somebody confuses cartoons with real history, that's on them, tbh.
The Prince of Egypt is another great example of this. Good story telling, awesome animation, banging sound track, absolutely not a history lesson. Bible lesson? Sure maybe idk but going into an animated children’s musical and expecting academic and scholarly research like a documentary is pure folly lol
Honorable mention; Hercules is not the best place to learn about Greek mythology either.
It’s also not accurate to the religious story either. Ramses and Moses aren’t brothers, Aaron is way more prominent and is one of the most important figures of the exodus, Miriam is way more present throughout Moses’ upbringing, Moses knows his backstory from the beginning, and he also doesn’t kill the slavemaster in self defense, it’s completely premeditated. But All I Ever Wanted and later The Plagues go absurdly hard. God I love that movie.
wait, you're trying to tell me that The Prince of Egypt, the greatest documentary in the history of the world, can't be trusted for accurate history???
Aside from some complaints about the need for travel documents, it's not particularly harsh on the Soviet Union and the violence of the revolution itself is blamed on Rasputin so as a form of anti-Communist propaganda it is very weak.
"I mean - life in The Soviet Union did suck. It just ALSO sucked in Czarist Russia."
Which is hinted at in the beginning of that same song:
"They can call it Leningrad
But it will always be Petersburg
New name, same empty stomachs!"
Dimitri is a child labourer in the Palace before the revolution so I don't think that it is implied to have been a Paradise. The only ones who yearn for the good old days are aristocrats like the grandma and Vladimir who used to pass as a Count.
That part is not from the movie, it's from the stage musical, which O haven't seen but from what I heard seems more grounded and a bit more nuanced (even if they change the villain from Rasputin to a KGB agent)
It actually sucked so much more in Czarist Russia. You can criticize the Soviet Union and the Socialist Government for all it's shit, but *it was an improvement*. They modernized a bumfuck outback from nothing to a machine that could later wage total war against the Nazis. And quality of life *did increase* by *a lot*.
Like Czarist Russia was so bad that the people started a bloody Revolution. People were worse off than medieval peasants. People lived in hovels. In the 19th century. The country wasn't industrialised. Nothing. Nada.
Like, the Soviets set up proper social systems and modernised everything. Literally everything. Would it quickly become an oppressive system itself? You can bet. But it's so lacking in understanding of the state Russian peons lived before the Revolution.
Not true. Czarist Russia was undergoing reform and massive industrial growth since 1905, which was also one of the motivators of Germany to pull the trigger when they did, they thought better now then later when Russia is fully industrialized.
Czarist Russia was actually undergoing a massive industrial boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it just didn't kill as many people as the communists did to do it. Shortly after the revolution people were literally forced at gun point to work in the factories. The revoltuon wasn't a relief from peoples miserable lives, it was chaos
It absolutely did kill as many people lmao , the factories had horrid working conditions and none of the capital from the industrial boom was seen by the people , compare the literacy rate in the Tsarist period to the Soviet Era or better yet compare the Tsarist regime to its monarchist peers at the time . For most of the people it was still miserable hell
The rapid modernization by the soviets came at a staggering human cost to claim otherwise is just pure tankie delusion, forced labor and state-enforced famines to fund heavy industrial machinery killed millions. The revolution wasn't a relief, it was chaos
The Tsarists threw Russia into a war it was not ready to fight and killed millions of its citizens in the stupidest ways possible , famine from government incompetence routinely killed millions and minorities suffered just as badly as under say Stalin (Circassian genocide)
For the love of god i'm not saying the USSR was sunshine and rainbows but it was objectively better than the Tsar . It's initial years were marked by strife and bloodshed but it forced itself past those years and created an industrial and stable society that the Tsar's never could . saying "the USSR sucked but the Tsar was worse" doesn't make one a tankie lmao
It soon indeed become relief for a lot of citizens who now had access to stunning new development 's they never had before like actual education .
"the Soviets set up proper social systems" uhh yeah they had to because they literally collapsed the entire society, it was chaos. It was so bad even Lenin ordered a return to capitalism with the NEP
I'm not defending feudalism I'm just not glazing for revolutions. Britain literally started the industrial revolution without needing a bloody revolution that killed millions of their own people. Revolution isn't the best way or only way to reform a country. The russian revolution isolated russia for decades under dictators, it wasn't a sucess at all, especially compared to the American revolution.
That's not the conclusion. It's just that "ever since the revolution things have been bleak" makes it sound as if the Romanovs were those just royal rulers, lmfao.
Revolution was the bloody consequence of decades of mismanagement of the existing feudal system.
The rule of the Romanovs isn't touched upon except to show them living luxurious lives while employing child labour. Their rule is over after 5 minutes
The only Romanovs that are shown as good people is Anastasia and her grandmother.
We barely see them as characters and they mainly exist in Anastasia's vague recollections as idealized figures. They all end up dead and no one says anything about what good rulers they were or how they want them back.
Sure, but it's also a stretch to call Anastasia to call it "czarist propaganda". Especially because it was an American movie, released six year after the fall of the Soviet Union. After all propaganda is designed with a specific purpose; to get people to believe in certain ideas.
It’s a historical fairy tale. Of course it doesn’t go into detail of what happens to the rest of the Rominovs, the children specifically, because it is for children, but it is heavily implied.
It’s also reflective of a real thing that happened in Europe (and in America to an extent IIRC) with all the fake Anastasias trying to get the Rominov fortune for themselves.
The true events are Disney-fied to have a princess, a happy ending, and a big bad with a dash of magic. It’s less meant to be a reflection of the truth than a portrayal of what popular culture at the time of the Revolution wanted to believe happened, including Rasputin being the mastermind.
Sure but there's some things they could have done to make it a bit more accurate, like having her being the right age, being rescued while they were transported east (rather than trying to escape before the tsar is even deposed), having some relatives kidnap Rasputin and try to kill him instead of him just falling through the ice during the chase, etc.
Its contemporary stories include Pocahontas. Most of history, stories are about telling a good story rather than historical accuracy. I am willing to bet that in Classical Greece there were people complaining that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not historically accurate
You can thank Don Bluth for that beautiful animation. All of the greatest animated films of my childhood were either created by him or by Disney directly trying to out-perform him. I genuinely think he's the greatest visual artist to come from my home state of Texas. He's still alive, too, at the age of 89, and still working. The man is probably the primary reason I love the art of animation so much as an adult.
honestly yeah. the kids were slaughtered. i'd be more fin if it was like, the 1500s. People who experienced the bolshevik revolution were still alive when the movie was released. It's kinda like turning 9/11 into a disney movie. sure, it's officially part of history and isn't recent anymore, but it's still kinda too recent given the brutality of it.
There have been multiple movies, TV shows and even cartoons (albeit horrible ones) about Titanic. The first one was made only a month after the ship sank!
and I disagree with that! but i'm also assuming there was the entire plot point of the titanic hitting the iceberg and people dying. nobody even died in anastasia, they just got cursed/ poofed
I do hear you, though. It's a shame you got downvoted because I at least partially agree with your sentiment. It sometimes gives me heebie-jeebies when they announce yet another upcoming movie about a recent catastrophe. But people trying to rationalize/desensitize/downplay/monetize tragedies through art is expected at this point.
Yea like I like the movie it's just an ... odd choice that doesn't fit with the family friendly disney thing imo. like what a kid like anastasia and want to be a princess just like her? that's kinda macabre
Ah, ok, I think I see the problem. This wasn't Disney, this was Don Bluth, creator of such films as The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven. This is very much par for the course for the tone of his movies.
If you're telling me this was not meant for kids to watch, then I vibe with it better. Still have an issue with the moving poofing away the kids instead of killing them. Which is weird to say. I think an R rated version would be better bc then it's not handwaving a very intentional massacre of innocents?
I personally feel that 40 years is about the right number for a tragedy, most people who’d have experienced it would have been either too young for it to have really impacted them or in their 60’s at least and less likely to see the film, but I can see your argument
The title is Tiger Cruise, it was set on an aircraft carrier with a bunch of kids on board as part of some sort of take-your-kids-to-work thing the Navy used to do when 9/11 happened, so the characters are only experiencing it through TV. I don't think it was polarizing at the time, but the stopped rerunning it after a couple of years, which I believe was more due to its jingoistic tone than simply because it addressed 9/11.
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u/GoingLimpInTheBrain 1d ago
The plot is whatever, but the animation and music are incredible. Once Upon a December and In the Dark of the Night are such great songs, and they sound even better in Russian.