Anastasia (Animation): Difference between revisions

[[File:anastasiagu4.jpg|frame| The answer? [[Reality Subtext|Anastasia and her family were all killed in real life.]] Kind of a [[Downer Ending]], huh?]]

 

 

 

 

Ten years later (1926), Anya, an eighteen-year-old orphan making her way in the world for the first time, decides to head for Paris. She hopes to find her family there, guided by the message "Together in Paris" inscribed on the [[Orphan's Plot Trinket|necklace she was found with]] in an [[Easy Amnesia|amnesiac state]] as a child.

The rest of the film deals with Anya learning to become more ladylike while Rasputin calls upon the powers of hell to try and kill her. The ending, like most animated movies, is a happy one; however, it is enlightening in a few ways. It's better if you see it.

 

 

 

* [[All Animation Is Disney]]: Falls victim to this quite often. One of its more [[Disneyesque]] home video covers even provides the page image.

* [[Almost Kiss]]: Anya and Dimitri do this at least twice. {{spoiler|They finally get to kiss for real at the end.}}

* [[And This Is For]]: {{spoiler|Anastasia}}'s [[Moment of Awesome (Sugar Wiki)|Crowning Moment of Awesome]] {{spoiler|(to Rasputin as she kills him) ''"This is for Dimitri! This is for my family! And this... this is for you! [[Gratuitous Russian|Do svidaniya!]]"''}}

* [[Animated Musical]]

* [[At the Crossroads]]: in the Journey To The Past sequence

* [[Awesome Moment of Crowning]]: Sure, the communists have taken over Russia and Anya {{spoiler|runs off with Dimitri}} in the end, but she still gets a sparkly crown. She gives it back {{spoiler|before leaving with her boyfriend}}, though.

* [[Beta Couple]]: Vlad and Sophie.

* [[Crowd Song]]: "A Rumor in St. Petersburg" and "Paris Hold the Key (to Your Heart)".

* [[Dance of Romance]]: Anastasia and Dimitri, while Vladimir [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this with a brief song.

** For some reason, his powers often manifest as green light, though.

** Some of the dubs, like the Russian dub, even outright say he gained his powers from [[Satan]].

* [[Disney Death]]

* [[Disneyfication]]: Of the play ''and'' history itself. Bluth has admitted he never intended it to be accurate.

** Given she was all of, what, eight? She gets knocked out, and what child would ''want'' to remember that? It's possible she repressed it.

* [[Everyone Can See It]]: Well, Vlad definitely can, and Sophie appears to share his suspicions, and the Dowager Empress figures it out pretty quickly.

* [[Evil Plan]]: Everything is kicked off by Rasptutinian's desire to kill the Romanov family. He continues with this plan after the time skip.

* [[Evil Sorcerer]]: Rasputin.

* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: Rasputin, again.

* [[Fiery Redhead]]: Anya/Anastasia.

* [[Fingerless Gloves]]: Anya's purple gloves in snowy Russia.

* [[Foot Focus]]: Pooka begins licking Anya's feet, making her laugh and distracting her from remembering that she once owned the music box. We get another closeup of her feet a few minutes later, when {{spoiler|Anya nearly sleepwalks off a ship.}}

* [[Gay Paree]]

* [[Genki Girl]]: Hi, Sophie!

* [[Historical Villain Upgrade]]: The real Rasputin was an enigma but undoubtedly an ''ally'' of the Romanovs.

** The important ones, anyway. Several relatives kinda hated him and plotted his death. *cough* Grand Duke Felix Yussopov *cough*.

* [[Inhuman Human]]: Rasputin [[Came Back Wrong]], and is rather narked about it.

* [[Ironic Echo]]

* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy]]: {{spoiler|Dimitri, shown most clearly when he refuses the reward money for reuniting Anastasia and her grandmother.}}

* [[Large Ham]]: [[Evil Is Hammy|Rasputin]], Bartok, Vladimir, and Sophie all qualify.

* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Dimitri. When they originally animated him, they actually thought he was too "obviously cute" - so they added the bump on his nose to tone it down. It backfired.

* [[The Musical]]: Most of the songs are pretty good, actually.

* [[Nostalgic Music Box]]: Literally.

* [[Not Afraid of You Anymore]]: Anastasia says this to Rasputin at the end.

* [[Not My Driver]]: {{spoiler|Dimitri hijacks the Dowager Empress's car in order to force her to see Anastasia and be convinced that she's the real deal.}}

* [[Not Using the Z Word]]: Rasputin gets progressively more gruesome throughout the film.

** Throughout most of the movie, it's fairly easy to tell that Anya is almost as tall as Dimitri is. Contrary to that, in the scene where Dimitri {{spoiler|rescues her from sleepwalking overboard}}, when she presses close against him, she's very plainly almost a full head shorter than she's supposed to be. Her stance, and the way Dimitri is holding her close doesn't provide a valid excuse for her being that short, either.

** The dress Dimitri buys for Anya when they get on the ship, the one she wears when learning to waltz, changes from the scene in which he gives it to her to when she's first seen wearing it. When he gives it to her, it has distinct white ruffles on the collar and sleeves. When she emerges on deck actually wearing it, it's a plain blue dress.

*** That could have been due to Anya changing it though, as she expressed a dislike for its original appearance.

* [[Ominous Latin Chanting|Ominous Russian Chanting]]: During the prologue's recapitulation of the coup set off by the curse; this troper [[Bilingual Bonus|would very much like to know what the chorus was singing]]. It happens again in the finale during Rasputin's death scene.

* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: The "Together in Paris" necklace, which the viewer knows from the start of the movie is a key to a music box the Dowager Empress had commissioned for Anastasia as a child. Additionally, Dimitri and the music box that goes together with the necklace.

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Like clockwork, this element is always in Bluth films. ''But'' this time, we do get to know a little more about her family, and Anya's lack of family identity isn't incidental to her character. It's the driving force behind her journey throughout the film, which is a nice change of pace for a trope that in animation is often just tacked on for the sake of it.

* [[Pig Latin]]: Dimitri tells a terribly lovestruck Vlad this: "Ix-nay on the Ophie-say!"

** And while Anastasia Barbie had the opera house program, it had no sparkly dress, just the orphan outfit.

*** They did make an Anastasia Barbie with the blue sparkly dress, as well as the [[Disney Acid Sequence]] dress, AND a line of dresses that didn't appear the movie at all, but were 'inspired by' it and made to fit the Anastasia doll.

** Most likely back to Rags, as girls from orphanages and reformed conmen who refuse reward money aren't known to be rolling in it. Unless {{spoiler|in addition to writing a hurried goodbye note, they stopped by her grandmother's office to take the reward money, but probably not. Though it is possible Grandma could be sending them something to live on. The ending more or less implies that Anya and Grandma will remain close.}}

* [[Rasputinian Death]]: Well, they got ''this'' part right.

* [[Red Headed Heroine]]: Anya/Anastasia.

* [[The Renaissance Age of Animation]]

* [[Road Trip Romance]]

* [[The Roaring Twenties]]

* [[Runaway Train]]: Complete with a graphically-explosive crash to top it all off, and Dimitri commenting afterward "I HATE trains, remind me to never get on a train again."

* [[Scenery Porn]]: The usage of CinemaScope ''really'' shows off some great views of St. Petersburg, Paris, and the interiors of palaces.

* [[Science Marches On]]: The whole plot of this movie was based on the urban legend that the real Grand Duchess Anastasia somehow escaped the massacre of the Romanov family and survived. This was fueled by the fact that the remains of the Czar and his wife and children were not found for a very long time - until 1991, when all but two of their bodies were discovered, namely Anastasia and her younger brother. Also helped by the imposter known as Anna Anderson who did convince several relatives of the Romanov family that she was the real deal. In the 90's Anderson's DNA was tested and discovered to be of no relation to the Romanov family. Also, in 2007, more than a decade after this movie was made, the bodies of the younger brother and the last of his sisters (assumed to be Anastasia) was found, which at last proved without any doubt that all of the urban legends and reports of survival were false and that Anastasia was killed with the rest of her family in 1918.

* [[She Cleans Up Nicely]]: Yes, Dimitri, that ''is'' the "skinny little brat" you're ogling at the ballet. Now close your mouth, honey, you're gonna catch flies.

* [[Shoo Out the Clowns]]: Bartok leaves his master just before the final confrontation.

* [[Shopping Montage]]: When Anya and co. get to Paris, Dowager Empress Marie's cousin Sophie takes them shopping while "Paris Holds The Key (To Your Heart)" is sung. They also go sightseeing during the song.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: Despite the historical liberties taken (some for the sake of the medium and length, some to spare children the grisly truth about the Russian Revolution, and some for simple poetic license) and myths bought into (aside from the urban legend about Anastasia herself, nods are given to Rasputin's [[Rasputinian Death|alleged exaggerated death]]), [[Word of God|a great deal of work was done to otherwise display geographical and biographical accuracy]]. Photography, including aerial shots, enabled startlingly true-to-life likenesses of St. Petersburg and Paris and the inside of the Winter Palace; period costumes and trains were duplicated, as well as historical figures living in Paris at the time; and [[Reality Subtext|actual relics of the Romanovs]] were scanned into the computers and inserted within the movie, including photographs of the family shown on Marie's wall and the drawing Anastasia made when she was eight years old, [[Tear Jerker|which was drawn by the real Anastasia]]. All of the bathing suits worn by Anastasia, her father, and her sisters during the dream sequence, and the sailor suit worn by her little brother, are also reproductions of the actual suits worn on their frequent family vacations. Even the notion of Rasputin cursing the Romanovs is based off of an anecdotal account that, on one of the few occasions Nicholas and other nobles became worried about the influence he had over Alexandra and foreign policy, Rasputin threatened the family with a pox if he were dismissed from court.

* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: Quintessential example, starting as soon as they get on a train together. Vlad knows exactly what's really going on, even when they don't.

'''Dmitri:''' ATTRACTION?? To that skinny little brat? Have you lost your mind? }}

** ''Literally'' {{spoiler|at the end, where Anya accidentally smacks him in the face, and then cradles his face in her hands for an [[Almost Kiss]].}}

* [[Soul Jar]]: Rasputin's reliquary.

* [[Standard Female Grab Area]]: [[Inverted]]. {{spoiler|When Dmitri grabs her arm she takes one look at his hand, and then raises her other hand and slaps him.}}

* [[That Reminds Me of a Song]]: The aforementioned "Paris Holds The Key" song. It is essentially there to say they had a Benadette Peters number in the film.

* [[That Russian Squat Dance]]

* [[Tsundere]]: Anastasia, to Dimitri.

** Although two of the above are completely hallucinatory.

* [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]]: And ''how''.

** Two of the children were discovered in a grave near Ekaterinburg, apart from the original discovery site in early 2008: Alexei and one of his other sisters, either Marie or Anastasia.

** Also, Rasputin was (probably) neither a lich nor powered by demons. And bats can't talk.

** A very, ''very'' small one: In the Rasputin-created dream sequence where Anya sees her family swimming, her father greets her by calling her "Sunshine." In the actual Romanov family, this was the nickname of Anastasia's little brother.

** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] when you consider that the plot is essentially the same as the 1956 movie with Ingrid Bergmann and Yul Brenner.

* [[Villain Song]]: "In The Dark of The Night".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Animated Films]]

[[Category:The Renaissance Age of Animation]]

[[Category:Romantic Comedy]]

[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]

[[Category:Western Animation]]