Um.
i don't think "flex" is a strong enough word for whatever the last three minutes of my life was
That was one of the most beautiful sequences I have ever seen.
Marahute the eagle and her animation are some of my most formative memories of learning to adore animation as a discipline. I wore out our VHS tape of this movie just watching her sequences over and over again.
The speed, scale, weight and accuracy with which lead animator Glen Keane captures her motion and movement, and balances the scales between anthropomorphizing her and keeping her strictly animal... it's just masterful. It is so, so beautiful as a piece of craft.
This was 20 years before How to Train Your Dragon, and that first flight has so much of the same energy.
As a person who usually cites the 1st movie in any series as “the best one”, it was always weird to have to tell people I preferred The Rescuers Down Under. They just read as such different movies, animation style alone. It’s seriously an /experience/.
I mean in fairness, The Rescuers came out in 1977 and Down Under came out in 1990, which explains the vast difference in animation style, but it really is a trip to go from one to the next. Especially since Rescuers was nominally a musical and Down Under isn't.
Down Under was also the first sequel to a Disney animated movie! Came smack in between Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, was just as good and just as gorgeous, but I barely EVER see it listed with the other Disney Renaissance films and that's a crime, frankly.
