The Secret of NIMH: Difference between revisions

'''This page is about the animated film ''The Secret of NIMH''. If you are looking for the article about the book or its literary sequels, see ''[[Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH (Literature)|Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH]]''.'''

''The Secret of NIMH'' is [[Don Bluth (Creator)|Don Bluth]]'s first feature-length film; it is based ''[[Adaptation Distillation|very]]'' [[Adaptation Distillation|loosely]] on Robert C. O'Brien's Newbery Medal Award-winning novel ''[[Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH (Literature)|Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH]]''.

''The Secret Of NIMH'' was Don Bluth's first feature film after leaving Disney; it was even produced a decade after Disney itself had turned down adapting the original story. Bluth used traditional tools and methods as a way of fighting back against the movement towards lower production costs (and lower quality animation). While the film did poorly at the box office -- thanks in part to [[E.T. the Extraterrestrial (Film)|its competition]] -- [[Vindicated By History|it has come to be regarded as a masterpiece of animation in the years since its release]], with many animation enthusiasts and film critics regarding it as Bluth's best work. The film was released on DVD twice -- once as a single-disc set with no special features, and once as a two-disc "Family Fun Edition" that included a feature-length commentary from Bluth himself -- and 2011 saw a Blu-Ray release for the film.

* [[Fun With Acronyms]]: NIMH - '''N'''ational '''I'''nstitute of '''M'''ental '''H'''ealth.

* [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]]: "Aunt" Shrew. She is first introduced as a pish-posh busybody who walks around with an incredible air of self-importance, but {{spoiler|she soon demonstrates great bravery by warning all the animals about the plow and rescuing Mrs. Brisby from the tractor.}}

* [[Actor Allusion]]: {{spoiler|Jenner's death is similar to [[Scarface (Film)|Tony Montana's]]}}: {{spoiler|hitten in the back and then falled face down into a pool. Paul Shenar, who voices Jenner, played Alejandro Sosa in the same movie.}}

* [[Cape Swish]]: Jenner has mastered this move (which one feels he picked up from [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney)|Maleficent]]).

* [[Doing in The Scientist]]: Amazingly enough, considering {{spoiler|what NIMH is.}}

* [[The Jimmy Hart Version]]: Some sections of "Flying Dreams" have some notes taken from "A Friendly Face", a song from ''[[The Small One]]'', another [[Don Bluth (Creator)|Don Bluth]] production.

* [[Never Say Die]]: Averted, consistently, in that even the youngest characters confront death head on and discuss the possibility openly.

* [[Playing With Syringes]]: The scenes set within NIMH.

* [[The Renaissance Age of Animation]]: One of the (if not ''the'') real instigators of it; animated films hadn't been made as seriously as this for quite a while when it came out and it would still be a few good years before ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]]'' was made.

** Let's not forget [[The Karate Kid]] (the ''first'' one), [[ER|Dr. David Morgenstern]], the announcer for [[Digimon]], [[An American Tail|Fievel]] (yes, really), [[The Carol Burnett Show|Harvey Korman]], [[The Spectacular Spider Man|Dr. Otto Octavius]] and oh yeah, [[The Rutles|Eric]] '''''[[Precision F-Strike|FUCKING]]''''' [[Monty Python's Flying Circus|Idle]]!

** Although the film makes the poor decision to include some footage from the first film as an introduction; the reason this is a poor decision is both because the sequel has very little to do with the original, [[In Name Only|save the names of the characters]], but mainly because the first film was animated by [[Don Bluth (Creator)|Don Bluth]]'s studios. The sequel was not.