Thoughts on This Film

https://thegirlwholovesmuppets.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/book-vs-movie-the-secret-of-nimh-edition/

Okay, I just finished watching The Secret of NIMH for at least the second time, and the above as well as my own impressions from a long-ago reading of the book has convinced me that this film belongs on my list of "Movies Better Than the Book." I have read every Newbery Award winner with the exception of the present year, and often I have very distinct memories of story details decades later, but I was struggling to remember much about this book. I recalled that some intelligent rats escaped from NIMH and lived by stealing electricity from a farmer, which some of them were against, and about a mouse having to go into the farm kitchen through a hole too small for a rat, that the book's heroine is a mouse whose husband died doing this to help the rats, and that she had to do this. That's about it. The above reader asserts that the book is boring and I tend to agree. It is not tortuously boring--the gold for that belongs to The Story of Mankind with The Bronze Bow taking the silver--but it's more boring than the film and more boring than the book should be. One thing, though, really bothered me about the film. I watched the credits carefully, both beginning and end. I watched the beginning credits twice just to make sure. NOT ONCE is the book author, Robert C. O'Brien, mentioned, although this film is a very direct and recognizable adaptation of his book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I can see (maybe) not mentioning the book title, as there was trouble with Wham-O, the makers of Frisbee, which is a registered trademark, which is why the mouse's name was changed from Mrs. Frisby to Mrs. Brisby, but why could the book author not be credited? He'd been dead for nine years when this film came out so had nothing to say about it, but that doesn't make this right on any level. The film was made to sound like a direct idea of Don Bluth and company, with no original book being involved at all. Whether or not this is even legal doesn't make it right. Why do this to an award winning book? It should say, "Based on the award winning book by Robert C. O'Brien," and don't tell me those credits weren't long enough. Fantastic animated movie otherwise.