Fantasia 2000 is an animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, which premiered on December 17 and was released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution; first to IMAX theaters on December 31 1999, and later to regular theatres in June 2000. The film uses a similar format to Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia, visualizing classical music compositions with various forms of animation. The music is performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine.
The composers and their works, in the order they are used in the film, are:
The plan for the original Fantasia movie was for it to be a kind of permanently running show, periodically adding new episodes while others would be rotated out. However, the film's failure to achieve success at the box office meant that the plan went unused. Accordingly, Fantasia 2000 implemented this idea by retaining the sequence with Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer's apprentice, arguably the most popular episode from the original film.
Instead of using a single narrator as in Fantasia, the individual pieces are introduced by a series of celebrities. After the film opens with Beethoven's Fifth, Steve Martin and Itzhak Perlman introduce Pines of Rome. Quincy Jones leads into the Gershwin number, and Bette Midler gives an introduction to the Shostakovich concerto. James Earl Jones introduces Carnival of the Animals, and appropriately enough, Penn and Teller make an appearance before The Sorcerer's Apprentice. When this piece concludes with Mickey Mouse's conversation with conductor Leopold Stokowski of the original Fantasia, Mickey then moves on to chat with Levine before the latter introduces Pomp and Circumstance. The final sequence of The Firebird is introduced by Angela Lansbury.
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Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46
