The Hidden Legacy of Walt Disney's Fantasia

As a stand alone project Fantasia is a pretty highly regarded work of Art.  But Walt's ambition for it was at face value a failure, arguably Walt's greatest failure.

He wanted it to be an ongoing project.  To be the birth of a whole new medium of entertainment, a new way to experience both Music and Animation by bringing them together.  A new kind of Artistic Expression.

And there is no denying that it didn't happen exactly the way he envisioned it, as Fantasia being repeatedly re-released with old segments being swapped out for new ones.

But in the modern Internet era there is a new flourishing Artform that I feel can be viewed as kind of fulfilling Walt's vision in a sense.

The AMV.....

.....Anime Music Video.

That is a collection of experts from some of my personal favorite AMVs.  At the bottom of this post I'll provide links to each of them.  I put a variety of different kinds of AMVs in there, to show the different kinds of Artistic expression they are capable of.

Now this is a theory, I can't solidly prove a connection.  Disney has had a lot of influence on Anime in general, early Toei films and Osamu Tezeka drew inspiration from Disney in different ways.  And Anime fans have been making AMVs since the 80s.

Two interesting YouTube videos on the subject of AMVs I recommend are one Pause And Select made AMVs and Transformative Storytelling, and one from Mother's Basement about Linkin Park AMVs.  It'd be interesting to see Mother's Basement do more videos on AMVs, it's kind of a natural spin off from being the OP guy, since OPs and EDs are basically Canonical AMVs.

Now part of Walt's Vision was this being on the big screen, in theaters.  I'm not sure, but I think at Anime Conventions sometimes you might get to see popular AMVs on the big screen, maybe during the AMVs contests they hold.  I don't know since I still haven't gotten to attend one.  It's something they should do if they aren't.

Now Disney the company might not be very interested in celebrating this possible connection, since some want to see AMVs as a possible violation of our Draconian Copyright Laws, and Disney is largely responsible for them being how they are now.  So they maybe aren't fond of there being a YouTube videos that puts footage of Attack on Titan over the only good song from Mulan.

I wonder if any of those AMVs made way back in the 80s can be found on the Internet now? I'd be curious to check some out, even though most of the Anime I'm into didn't exist yet back then.  The only AMV in my montage that even hypothetically could have been made back then was Rose of Versailles to a song from the Les Miserables Musical.  I'm disappointed there aren't more of those, there are a few other songs that fit just as perfectly as Do You Hear The People Sing.  There are a number of AMVs of the Les Miserables Anime, Shoujo Cossette, to the Musical, I wonder if some day there will be enough to potentially experience the whole Musical via Shoujo Cossette AMVs?

I haven't made any real AMVs myself.  I doubt I'll ever be able to.  The above video I'm kind of proud of how I handled all the transitions (and I like how it demonstrates my bias for Yuri when I didn't really plan for it to), but I don't think I could make one from scratch.  I do have Yui Castanets to Snoop Dogg's Betta Days, which is just K-On!'s first Meme and what I still consider Snoop's best song.  And a video looping the Lucky Star OP to Bone Thugs' Flo Motion.

There is definitely more I'd like to see AMVs do.  There are many ideas for AMVs I have that I'd like to see someone try to make.  The Metropolis Anime to All Along The Watchtower.   Angel Beats to Tha Crossroads by Bone Thugs N Harmony.  I'd like to see one called Smooth Criminal Bear, that would be a YuriKuma Arashi AMV to Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal focused on Ginko Yurishiro.  There is already an AMV of Lucky Star to White and Nerdy, but I was disappointed by it, it should be done under the premise that Patty is the one rapping it.  And It'd be pretty cool to see the UFO Table Fate/ Animes to Battle of The Heroes from the Revenge of The Sith soundtrack.

But also as a homage to the very premise I've presented here.  I'd love to see one of Puella Magi Madoka Magica to Night on Bald Mountain/Ava Maria.  First of all most people don't know this but the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia is NOT depicting Halloween but Walpurgisnacht.  And then there is the fact that Ava Maria is played in the last episode of Madoka, during her Apotheosis.  The first reason the name Wampurgisnacht is used in Madoka is as one of it's many homages to Goethe's Faust (A subject I intend to eventually write about on my comparative mythology blog), but the use of Ava Maria right after has me thinking Fantasia must have also been an influence.

Here are the Links

Rose Wars - Utena
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ6T-NYgoeM
Bohemian Rhapsody - Evangelion Opus Remastered (HD 1080p)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdUPwR6mzXo
Amv YuriKuma Arashi Take me to church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj5GlZfXRBk
All The Things She Said[Mahou Shoko Lyrical Nanoha]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PmOF9gnqWU
Do You Hear The People Sing? Rose of Versailles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TCej2mdjHQ
AMV Linkin Park Breaking the Habit Noir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLSN2rF819E
-Till I Collapse - Eminem - Sword Art Online AMV-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFTrQ92Erao
C The Money AMV Mo Money Mo Problems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovNU4RKl00
Amv Davo ft. Kwoat - I Don't Wanna Be A Playa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBepeSOECKs
toradora amv !!!! tangled up in me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrYWm41vQvQ
Yuru Yuri AMV: If You Were Gay from Avenue Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnxrCyA_fOw
I Kissed A Girl~A Strawberry Panic! AMV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giOzD8X5rGk
I Want You Bact (AMV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl9skWhegNc

All should also all be found in this Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CWxmx4wepgy3hqbg1JVT1PYeoiLc7_r

Update April 2021: So the AMV Montage originally had no Copyright issues but now Breaking The Habit has become a problem.  I've added the unaltered version to the Internet Archive.

archive.org/details/amv-montage

I watched Ben-Hur again yesterday

Since April 6th is the day I believe Jesus was Crucified on our Gregorian Calendar.

As an amateur historian and Bible Scholar, I could nitpick the heck out of this movie, and the book it's based on, starting with all the White Israelites, but I don't really wanna do that.

I have sometimes complained about how a lot of these old Biblical movies seem to kind of just make Jesus into Gahndi, and this has elements of that at times.  But when Jesus was on The Cross, Balthazar talked about him dying for the sins of the world, so there is some at least vague knowledge of the actual Gospel there.

Today it's sometimes popular to mock the idea of never showing Jesus's Face or hearing Him talk directly.  And I certainly understand the concern that that takes away His Humanity.  But I've always been a fan of when films try to get as much as they can out of what you don't see.

One moment that really strikes me is after Jesus gives Judah the water and that Roman commander is about to stop him and Jesus just looks at him.  The Roman doesn't seem to back down out of fear, he doesn't himself understand why he's stopping.  That brief performance says a lot.

As someone who still supports Ron Paul on his foreign policy.  Judah saying "Withdraw your legions" really speaks to me as a timelessly relevant line.

The film also depicts it's Arab characters very sympathetically, calling out Anti-Arab Racism.  It's amazing how often old films pleasantly surprise me.  Of course they don't seem to be played by actual middle eastern actors, but I'll take what I can get.

Though I can't say I'm too impressed with the handling of female characters.

On a shipping level, I think there is definitely more then meets the eye to the history between Judah and Messala.

Ben-Hur always makes me think of the Star Wars Prequels.

The most obvious and iconic example is the connection between the Chariot Race and the Pod Race.

But I also connect when Messala says "You're either with me, or your against me" to Anakin saying "you're either with me, or you're my enemy".  I know that's a common expression, and the people politicizing the Prequels liked to draw the analogy mainly to George W Bush.  But these two scenes also have in common two friends becoming enemies in this moment, so I don't think it's a coincidence.

Also Arius saying "Your eyes are filled with Hate, good, Hate keeps a man alive, it gives him strength" sounds like a good Sith motto.

Let's also talk about what was an influence on Ben-Hur.

Ben-Hur is also related to a genre largely codified by The Cont of Monte-Cristo, Revenge Fantasy.  This was I think my first time watching the film since my obsession with French Pulp Fiction started.  And the potential parallels between Judah and Edmund Dantes really jumped out at me.

There are two fictional stories that have iconic Galley Slave sequences associated with them, Ben-Hur and Les Miserables.  I'd be curious to know which story it was associated with first, because Les Msierables came first but I'm pretty sure the specific Galley Slave part wasn't necessarily in the original Novel of either.

It's another old classic that still holds up.  They don't make historical films like that anymore, that today we can do gritty and realistic historical films is great, but ya know with Comic Book movies (some) people have figured out that the grim and gritty appeal is limited.  Why not bring back Historical films that are fun, theatrical, operatic, colorful and sometimes cheesy?