CryptMistress
In the 1970s, Don Bluth left Walt Disney Studios and ventured out to do his own thing. He made one short film, I believe, and then his first full-length, theatrical, animated film was "The Secret Of Nimh," based off the book "Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of Nimh" by Robert C. O'Brien. It did well enough in theaters, but it had healthy competition with E.T: The Extra Terrestrial. Still, critics liked it, audiences as well, and it even had the honor of receiving an AFI nomination for Best Animated Feature.This is a lot to live up to, but MGM studios thought they could do it. Unfortunately, they couldn't. In 1998, they released the atrocious "The Secret Of Nimh 2: Timmy To The Rescue." I have to admit, I did like this film when I was young, now I can't stand it. This film doesn't live up to the original in any mean, shape, or form. While fans of the original film were treated to a dark, well-animated, mystical movie; this is nothing but cartoony, lazy, and what's worse: A MUSICAL! Okay, for people who've not been treated to the original film (which I highly recommend), I should point out that there was no songs in it. Well, there was "Flying Dreams," but it was in voice-over and no character opened their mouth to sing it. In SON2, there is song after song. Apparently, no one was taught that if the original is not musical, then there is no reason to make the sequel a musical.Another gripe I have with this movie is the plot holes. Even the prologue, which has clips from the original film, is riddled with them. For starters, they tell us that the Great Owl said: "Jonathan Brisby was the greatest mouse to ever live." (or something to that extent, I can't remember the exact words). This is wrong! The Great Owl never said anything of the sort, all he did was tell Mrs. Brisby that Jonathan's name wasn't unknown to the woods. The prologue makes another mistake in telling us that Nicodemus, the leader of the rats of NIMH, made a prophecy about one of Jonathan's sons would save them all. This didn't happen either. Later in the film, the rats are seen going on a mission to steal food, but in the original this is exactly why they wanted to leave the farm, so that they wouldn't have to steal anymore. Of course, there's more plot holes including: Auntie Shrew suddenly admiring the rats, The Lost Six (when it's suppose to be NINE!), and NIMH suddenly going from being this simple mental facility performing experiments, to a mental facility filled with craze doctors, shock treatments for kitties, and a unhealthy determination to recapture the rats of NIMH.The third issue I had with this film was the animation and characterization. Starting with the animation, I have to say one thing about it: Terrible. It's like the animators all watched Animaniacs and said: "Ooh, so vivid! We must animate the sequel like this!" They just forgot one little thing; this is not how a sequel for TSON is suppose to look. The original animation was dark and gritty, not bright and colorful. It also wasn't lazy. Seriously, the animators have trouble with finishing drawings. A fan site pointed out that there is flowers that were drawn in but never finished and put on the film; also, I'm plenty sure (according to one screen-cap), that Jenny (Timmy's love interest) was also drawn in one frame but never finished. Oh yes, as many others have pointed out, Jenny has boobs. She's a mouse with breasts....Anyway, about the characterization. They got the characters all wrong! For starters, Mrs. Brisby, our spunky heroine in the original film is replaced with an old lady mouse. What's worse, is that she doesn't even care that her son is leaving. As someone on another site pointed out, this is wrong. Timmy was the sick son that Mrs. B fought so hard to protect from the plow in the first film. Now, she doesn't even really care that he's leaving for some distant place? Also, fans of the original will recall Brutus, the silent rat guard that frightened Mrs. Brisby off by threatening to electrocute her! Okay, Brutus is nothing like that now. He can talk, he actually smiles, and he's not too bright either. Mr. Ages hasn't changed, he's still wise and old (no offense, of course). Justin, the captain of the guards in the original (and leader of the NIMH rats at the end), is semi-leader now but he's changed as well. No more sword, voice sounds nothing like the original Justin, and it seems like the only thing he is around for is to offer Timmy advice.What also makes me mad is that MGM made this film without Don's help or support (according to Wikipedia). I know this can be most likely said about most sequels, but with a film like TSON, a little support and aid from Mr. Bluth would have been wonderful. Instead, MGM decides to go ahead and make the unworthy sequel that is: "The Secret Of Nimh 2: Timmy To Rescue." P.S-Some things I have mentioned about TSON2 were thoughts echoed on other fan-sites for the original film. I apologize if it sounds like I'm just mimicking them.
TheLittleSongbird
The original Secret of Nimh is an absolute masterpiece,(I do confess I saw this and the original fairly recently) with gorgeous animation, great characters and phenomenal music by the late Jerry Goldsmith, and is regarded by a vast majority including myself as Bluth's masterpiece. However, this sequel is awful in every aspect, and makes Rock a Doodle Doo, Troll in Central Park and almost all of the Disney sequels look like masterpieces, which of course they are definitely not. Sure it is a direct to video sequel, but the cheap production values really show here.The animation was horrid. The character animations were jarring, and the editing was very choppy. The colours made the backgrounds look extremely flat and dull, and the visual effects rarely impressed either.One of the highlights of the original was the music by the wonderful Jerry Goldsmith, who has also done magnificent scores for Legend and Rambo:First Blood. In the sequel, the music was dreadful,(lacking the darkness and lyricalism of the original's) and it was pretty evident that Goldsmith's score is sorely missed. "Just say yes" (I think it's called)is the only half decent song in the movie. And the singing was even worse, it was as if the vocalists thought they were singing in a school end of year production.The dialogue was pathetic, and held no correlation whatsoever to the original or the parts of the book I read. Some of it was extremely cheesy, it really was. Also it completely lacked the mystery and suspense of the first film.(sorry I'm comparing the whole time, and this is what I honestly feel) The plot was also unoriginal and unevenly paced, and inappropriately bright, compared to the darkness and sentiment of the original.It was also a shame that the characters that made the original so memorable didn't have a bigger part to play. Timmy came across as rather whiny and annoying, a far cry from Elizabeth Hartmann's sorrowful and poignant portrayal of Mrs Brisby who you hardly see in the sequel, and Dom DeLuise was nowhere near as funny as he was in the original. Justin's voice was dubbed, and quite poorly might I add. I also thought, and I am probably the only person to think this, that the villains were rather lame. Despite some spirited voice work from Eric Idle, the villain Martin was very bland, in everything he did and said. In the original, Jenner while not the best and most complex villain ever, was very convincing, a complete juxtaposition of the villain here.In conclusion, an awful sequel to a beautiful film. The only redeeming quality was the talented voice cast, who were given little to work with. I am truly sorry I am sounding like a broken record, and comparing the sequel to the original, but as honesty is the best policy, I'll be perfectly frank, and say I didn't like this movie at all. 1/10 (originally a 2, but it was worse when I saw it again to make sure I wasn't taking leave of my senses) Bethany Cox.
