To this day this is the last traditionally animated Disney canon film. And as far as swan songs go, they could done a lot worse. It's definitely better than House on the Range, which held the same title for some years.
In this film we return to the Hundred Acre Wood and its inhabitants. The whole films is a huge love letter to the original The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and the whole world first imagined and created by A. A. Milne. And I like the homage a lot. The opening is spot on similar to the original, perfectly setting the tone, while the story telling is still very meta in that they speak to the narrator constantly and are perfectly aware that they're in a storybook. The book in question even works as a plot point as a literal object to be interacted with by the characters within, just like before. The art style is also eerily similar, which is impressive keeping in mind that the first film was made using the very cheap Xerox method, which resulted in a lot of scratchy lines and simple character designs, which in that case worked for the film's advantage. This time I suspect they had to work hard to achieve that same "bad" effect.
However, it's not a perfect film. The stories, while pretty good and perfectly keeping in with the spirit of the characters and the original stories, are rather few in numbers and just don't have that same feel the originals had. This is mostly due to the fact that they had to replace pretty much all of the voice actors and some of them were radically different, which resulted in characters that don't feel familiar at all. Owl most noticeably. This new Owl is a maniac, a twitchy mess that always has to be right and is the driving force behind most of the plot. And... it just isn't right, simply said.
It's not a bad film. But the original film is one of my all-time favourites among Disney classics. It's simple, heart-warming and utterly charming yet wise and thoughtful beyond its years. This has most of the charm and a good amount of the warmth, but it lacks the wisdom and even some of the simplicity.
In this film we return to the Hundred Acre Wood and its inhabitants. The whole films is a huge love letter to the original The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and the whole world first imagined and created by A. A. Milne. And I like the homage a lot. The opening is spot on similar to the original, perfectly setting the tone, while the story telling is still very meta in that they speak to the narrator constantly and are perfectly aware that they're in a storybook. The book in question even works as a plot point as a literal object to be interacted with by the characters within, just like before. The art style is also eerily similar, which is impressive keeping in mind that the first film was made using the very cheap Xerox method, which resulted in a lot of scratchy lines and simple character designs, which in that case worked for the film's advantage. This time I suspect they had to work hard to achieve that same "bad" effect.
However, it's not a perfect film. The stories, while pretty good and perfectly keeping in with the spirit of the characters and the original stories, are rather few in numbers and just don't have that same feel the originals had. This is mostly due to the fact that they had to replace pretty much all of the voice actors and some of them were radically different, which resulted in characters that don't feel familiar at all. Owl most noticeably. This new Owl is a maniac, a twitchy mess that always has to be right and is the driving force behind most of the plot. And... it just isn't right, simply said.
It's not a bad film. But the original film is one of my all-time favourites among Disney classics. It's simple, heart-warming and utterly charming yet wise and thoughtful beyond its years. This has most of the charm and a good amount of the warmth, but it lacks the wisdom and even some of the simplicity.