Sunday, February 21, 2016

Pete's II

Couldn't they have had the decency and good manners to provide a cameo for Helen Reddy?



(But hey. Maybe they do. And it's nice to see Robert Redford in the Mickey Rooney part.) ...

Pete's Dragon was shot in Burbank in 1976. It was the studio's big-budget attempt to recapture some Mary Poppins magic. I remember being told that Gene Kelly had at one time been in discussions to direct and play the villain, but the studio failed to reach a deal. Stage star Jim (Barnum!) Dale ultimately played the role.

Don Bluth supervised the hand-drawn animation of the original (with Disney veteran Ken Anderson designing Elliot the dragon). The new Dragon seems closer to How To Train Your ... than the 1977 version. And it doesn't look as though it has any toe-tapping tunes.



3 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Don Bluth supervised the hand-drawn animation of the original (with Disney veteran Ken Anderson designing Elliot the dragon). The new Dragon seems closer to How To Train Your ... than the 1977 version. And it doesn't look as though it has any toe-tapping tunes.

Then I guess I'm not going to miss this!

Steve Hulett said...

Neither Frank Thomas or Ollie Johnston worked on PD. They were busy with The Fox and the Hound. There were a number of Disney long-timers on the picture, but a lot of the crew were newbies. The longest-serving employee that worked on Pete's Dragon was Ken Anderson, who designed the dragon and worked with Pete Young and Vance Gerry on storyboards. (It was Vance who told me that Ken would go on screaming tirades with the writer of the film, who sat in on storyboard sessions.)

Unknown said...

The original was dreadful, with truly awful, characterless animation. Even so, as bad as the animation was, the live action was worse.

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