Nutcracker Fantasy

Let’s watch a Christmas traditional story where the music is better, and this is one of them; The Nutcracker Fantasy. 

This was film that leads me to do the theme of the review of the year. The story is told by a grown up Clara (voiced by Cousin Mel from Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer)

Lil Clare has a visit from her Uncle Drosselmeyer (voiced by Christopher Lee). Clare got the Nutcracker from her Uncle, which was rejected by others. On the same night, her Nutcracker was stolen by mice, led by the Two Headed Mouse Queen, Morphia (voiced by Jo Anne Worley, who later voiced the Wardrobe in Beauty and Beast. The good one, not the soul eating one) She goes through the Father Clock Hole to The Kingdom of Dolls. The kingdom was awakening by the present of Clara, including the Chamberlain (voiced by G1 Hound, Ken Sansom) and the King (voiced by Dick Van Patten, who would later voice another King.)

King Roland: Yes, my dear. Would I lie…too you?

Clara is finding a way to bring the princess back from a deep sleep. (You sure we didn’t stumble into the other Tchaikovsky film).  The meeting fails with all the nationalities’ wisemen….

Yogurt: Wisemen. Wise Guys more like it!

Clara got the advice from the live action puppet of the Queen of Time (voiced by Ava Gabor). The advice is to use the Pearl Sword of Light to destroy the Giant Shell of Darkness to free the Princess’ curse. (Pearl from Steven Universe was nowhere to be found) Clare tells this to Fritz..I mean Franz about the Shell of Darkness as they go onward to war with the Mice Kingdom. (Not Disneyland, the other one. Franz is voiced by Roddy McDowall.)  

This was the last stop-motion to be done by Rudolph’s animator, Tadahito Mochinga. This film kinda goes full circle in both good and bad. The good is leading him to full circle with his stop motion career from Rudolph to Daydreamer to Mad Monster Party, especially working with other stop motion artists that precede him such as Ichiro Komuro, and Frosty’s Animator, Sadao Miyamoto. It has definitely more life than the other Nutcracker stop-motion film from Bura and Hardwick. The shots of traveling through the clock are amazing. The bad is the pacing. It’s shown from Tadahito’s earliest work of Sea Eagle with scenes to go on too long to go nowhere and there’s plenty in this film, but that’s often the price for some Stop Motion movies at the time. It does create a haunting atmosphere during the quiet moment since the beginning by the pointless character, the Ragman. Granted, Tadahito wasn’t the director of either film. Nutcracker Fantasy was directed by Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’s animator, Takeo Nakamura. Maybe it’s the writers as this film has 3 others with E.T.A Hoffman’s Nutcracker story. Though there’s no point as it can be purely coincidence.

Most of the characters are decent. Christopher Lee is an enjoyable Uncle, and his songs are nice to listen. Shame we’ll never have the metal version of his song. Roddy McDowall is a good actor, but he doesn’t have much to work with, but he may got stuck in the same tone as he was voicing the robot in Black Hole on the same year. It doesn’t help the voice and design of Franz/ Fritz looks way too old for Clara, where Clara looks like she 8, as he looks 18-24. I really love the design and voice of the Mouse Queen; creepy and menacing.

I’ve seen many other Nutcracker films. The majority loves is the Nutcracker-less version, aka the Nutcracker Suite from Disney’s Fantasia. In terms of 2D animated Nutcracker film, the best got is the 1973 Russian silent version with an extent of Nutcracker Prince and Saban’s Funky Fable of the Nutcracker with Ninjor as the Nutcracker (A film I remember watching in Elementary School). In term of live-action, that’s tricky than to find the live play version. Nutcracker and the Four Realm (or as I would call, Clara in Undernaria. Featuring Godfather Morgan Freeman, Snow Miser, Micetron and the stupid surprise villain that suffer any Disney film) will never be one good live action films, but it’ll be a step up to Legend of Nutcracker. In terms of stop-motion, the Nutcracker Fantasy is the closest best we got. If you want the best version with the equal focus and music and the best in terms of CGI, then look no further than Barbie’s Nutcracker, featuring Tim Curry as the Mouse King.

Some may find it boring, but unless you suffered from watching Legend of Nutcracker and the Nuttiest Nutcracker, you’ll find the quiet moments endearing. As for me, it’s a neat version of the Nutcracker. I just wish we can have a better version with the Nutcracker.