Animated Movies Throughout the Years: 2000

Animated Movies Throughout the Years: 2000

Note: Pixar did not release a single movie this year.

The new year, decade, and century began with Fantasia 2000, the long-awaited sequel to Walt Disney’s Fantasia. This movie featured seven new animated segments plus the original classic segment ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ digitally remastered.

February saw the release of The Tigger Movie, our first visit to the Hundred Acre Woods on the big screen in over 20 years. In this movie, Tigger feels lonely being ‘the only one’, so he sets off on an adventure to find his family. The success of The Tigger Movie lead to two more theatrical Winnie the Pooh movies: Piglet’s Big Movie and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.

There were two animated movies released in March. The first was DreamWorks’ next feature The Road to El Dorado, which was about two Spanish con artists, Miguel and Tulio, who hitch a ride on a boat to the legendary Mesoamerican kingdom of El Dorado. Unfortunately, the movie tanked at the box-office, earning only 76 million dollars on a 95 million dollar budget.

Dinosaur, released in May, was the first CGI movie from Walt Disney Feature Animation, now known as Walt Disney Animation Studios. Many fans blandly compared it to Don Bluth’s The Land before Time, while others compared it to Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. It had CGI dinosaurs (and for an odd reason, lemurs) in live-action landscapes, since Disney wasn't ready to create believable 3D CGI backgrounds, yet. While Dinosaur was written, directed, and produced at WDFA, the animation was done at a lesser-known production house acquired by Disney called Dream Quest Images.

In June, Chicken Run, the first movie from Aardman Animations, was released. It earned over 200 million dollars at the box-office and got excellent reviews. The film was so successful that it lead to two more co-productions with DreamWorks; Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away. Also in June was Titan AE, the final film from legendary film director Don Bluth, director of beloved films like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, and The Land before Time. Titan AE was a sci-fi flick about a young man who must save humanity from extinction after the Earth has been destroyed by aliens. Unfortunately, like The Road to El Dorado, Titan AE tanked at the box-office: It earned less than 40 million dollars on a 75 million dollar budget.

In July, the Pokémon returned to the big screen with the US release of Pokémon 2000: The Power of One. In this movie, a greedy Pokémon collector plans to catch the three Legendary Birds: Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. Now Ash has to find the spheres of fire, ice, and lightning to restore peace to the Orange Islands, where the film takes place.

In October, another Japanese monster franchise reached the big screen as an animated film; Digimon: The Movie. Website Rotten Tomatoes states that "Digimon is better than Pokémon, but it's still a predictable movie with mediocre animation."

In November, the Rugrats returned to the big screen with Rugrats in Paris. In this movie, the Rugrats go to Paris, France so Stu Pickles, Tommy’s father, can repair an animatronic Reptar at Euro-Reptarland. Much like the previous movie, a new character is introduced who would also appear as a regular on the TV series: Kimi Watanabe, who is secretly part Japanese.

And finally, in December, Disney released their 40th animated movie The Emperor’s New Groove. It got great reviews, but unfortunately didn’t meet box-office expectations. ‘New Groove’ had to compete against How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the one with Jim Carrey) and Rugrats in Paris. That's all I have to say for this week's Animated Movies Throughout the Years! Tune in next
week when we talk about animated movies from 2001, in which both Pixar and DreamWorks brought computer animation to new heights with Monsters Inc and Shrek, Disney released their first sci-fi animated film with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Warner Bros mixed animation with live-action again with Osmosis Jones.