The film is heavily inspired by Bambi, but I wouldn't call it a rip-off. The wise old owl is a probably a nod to Bambi, but Big Mama and Friend Owl are completely different characters. She’s a motherly figure to Tod who guides him thoughout the film. Friend Owl is more like a crazy old man who provides comic relief. Let’s also not forget that Big Mama’s advice was all valuable, while Friend Owl just went off on a tangent once to give the viewers a laugh after the shock of seeing Bambi’s mother killed.
I can accept that the two owl's have different personalities, but their role as giving advice is still very similar in there "I've seen this and such and such will happen inevitably"
Speaking of the dead mothers, they’re also used very differently in each film. In Bambi it’s a major plot point, signifying that his childhood is now at an end. In the Fox and the Hound it’s there to set the sombre tone of the film and kick off the storyline. You couldn’t really do the same story unless Tod had been adopted by a human could you? A fox and a hound would never have the opportunity to bond like that in the wild.
I mentioned, since the beginning, that the riping off it not in the storyline.
I never said that the killings were exactly the same in the story or served the same purpose (aka, part of the story). I'm saying they are very similar. We didn't see the hunter and she disappeared right before the killing shot. Very similar to the way Bambi's mom was killed. Also, the fact that she died in a meadow looked a lot like the meadow shooting scene in Bambi.
Saying that both movies had a thunderstorm, because that’s just being silly. You might as well say both movies had a forest! And again, they’re used to different ends in each film. The storm in Bambi is a magic moment where we observe the beauty of nature. The storm in the Fox and the Hound highlights the gloomy tone of the scene; Tod’s just been abandoned by his surrogate mother and his best friend wants to kill him. The scene with the mother duck however, was taken directly from Bambi. Disney was in a financial slump in the seventies and eighties and was forced to reuse animation on many occasions. While it would have been nice if Disney could have afforded 100% original animation, I don’t think reusing one little snippet from Bambi makes the film a ripoff.
I am not talking about the using a thunderstorm, persay. I'm talking about its execution. There several animal reactions that were ridiculously the same as the thunderstorm scene in Bambi. It wasn't just the duck, it was also the walking birds. Its not just a snipet if you include all the things I've mentioned so far.
I know about the slump, but by using that your basically proving my point. They reused a lot of old stuff, specifically Bambi, because of it.
To be frank most of points you brought up are all very superficial. The key difference is that Bambi's about animals, while The Fox and the Hound is really about people. Bambi shows the life of animals in the woods, and tries really hard to be naturalistic. The Fox and the Hound used the animal characters as metaphors for people and didn't worry too much about getting the animal behaviour just right. There is very little dialogue or character development in Bambi, and that’s the foundation of the Fox and the Hound. Bambi is about the danger and wonder of being a wild animal while the Fox and the Hound is about the bittersweet beauty in both friendship and loss.
To be frank, you misread my argument and focused your argument too much on the storyline. Because of that you were unable to counter my argument. You even proved my point towards the end. I was clear in saying that the ripping off was not the on the storyline or the plot.
If fact, other posts have been unable to counter my argument without recurring to the "its a different story" argument, which is something I never denied.
As for the animal behaviour, my criticism was mostly on the owl's character.
I suggest you reread the OP before responding.
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bdunbar89
16 years ago
It's impossible to discuss a film without also discussing the storyline and characterization. Those are the very foundations of any film. You can’t have a conversation on the subject without going into them. I merely went though your points and discussed them. Inevitably, this is going to get us into the storyline and characterization; those are what make a film. If all you can say is that two scenes were similar and that both movies had hunters and an owl, you don't have much of an arguement.
You said both films have an owl who gives advice. They do, and then I discussed that they were still different characters with different roles in the film. The fact that both films have an owl is not a big deal. Lots of films also have characters that give advice. In Bambi, the so-called "advice" was just for one scene to provide comic relief. In The Fox and the Hound the advice was valuable and continued on throughout the entire film to help tell the story. The execution is just as important as the idea. If you try to say that the Fox and the Hound is a rip off of Bambi simply because they both have an owl who gives advice you’re opening up a big can of worms. Does the Silence of the Lambs rip off the Texas Chainsaw Massacre simply because they both feature serial killers who are also cannibals? Is the Green Mile a rip off of To Kill a Mocking Bird because they both feature a black man who was accused of a crime he didn’t commit?
I also think the death of the mother was executed differently. In the middle of Bambi, the mother tells her son to run and he does. Then we hear a bang and Bambi goes looking for her. In the Fox and the Hound the film begins with a quiet tour of the forest. We’re then hit with a chase which ends with the mother hiding Tod and running off. They only real similarity is that they were both killed off screen. Even then, that probably has more to do with the fear that showing it onscreen would spark complaints from parents than it does with trying to be like Bambi. Chief was originally scripted to die onscreen, but he ended up living for the same reason. And as I said before, a superficial similarity does not constitute a rip off. In terms of the way the background looked, Disney had a house style which was used for all their films. While it has changed with them times, you can still look at any early Disney film and you’ll notice a similar drawing style.
The only good point you have is them reusing animation. Even so, this wasn't because they wanted to recycle old material. They didn’t have the money to produce completely new animation for that scene, or else they would have. I think it’s a testament to the Disney studio’s skill that they still managed to pull off such a good film despite the many setbacks they had during production. They weren’t stealing footage from Bambi so much as they were just budgeting. They were smart and knew where to put their money; I vastly prefer the power and energy of the climatic fight scene with the bear to new drawings of random animals in the rain. The recycling of old animation is very brief and has no effect on the film as a whole, it's not like they took any major animation from Bambi.
You’ve only got a few points. The one about the mothers dieing is very loose and superficial; the points about the owls and hunters are nonexistent; the one about recycled animation is so minor it’s not even worth mentioning. None of your points deal with the plot or characterization, which is what would really determine whether or not the film was a rip off. I’m sure you’re a very intelligent person, but in this case you don’t have a good argument. The Fox and the Hound is one of animation’s coming-of-age stories. They began with Bambi, and were followed by the Fox and the Hound, the Lion King, Tarzan, and others. These films all owe a dept to Bambi for laying down the groundwork for their genre, but they each put a new twist on the theme. It’s comparable to music. The Sex Pistols may have kicked off punk rock, but their followers all brought something new to the genre. Maybe they all played loud and had gruff vocals, but if you look deeper you’ll see there was to it than that.
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