Ranking Every Fantasia Segment
In honor of the original movie’s 85th Anniversary, I’ve decided to do my own personal ranking of every segment from both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. Keep in mind that this all based on my own personal opinion. So, try not to get too offended if I ranked your favorite too low.
[NOTE: I started this post on Nov. 14, but I wasn’t able to finish it until the 22nd, so consider this a late 85th anniversary tribute.]
15. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Now, in my mind, there’s no such thing as a “bad” Fantasia segment, but if I had to choose a least favorite from both movies, it would be this one. Great music aside, this one never really grabbed my attention as well as the others did. It’s the segment I tend to skip the most upon rewatches because, as Deems Taylor puts it, it’s not a short that tells a very definite story. If anything, it’s more of a Fantasia demo track than an actual segment. Speaking of demo tracks…
This segment might’ve been really cool for a 1940s audience that’s never seen Fantasia before, but by modern standards, it’s hardly necessary because it tells us what we already know about the general idea of Fantasia and how music affects our imagination. The way that Deems Taylor interacts with the soundtrack is very charming, but other than that, this sequence is really just filler that only serves as an intermission between Act 1 and Act 2 of Fantasia.
13. Pomp and Circumstance
No shade to Donald Duck, but even as a kid, I always found this to be the weakest segment in Fantasia 2000. Again, it’s not that it’s “bad”, it just…feels less like an actual Fantasia segment and more like a standard Donald Duck short but with classical music. I’m sorry, but when I hear Pomp and Circumstance, I don’t think “Donald Duck on Noah’s Ark”. Maybe I’m just bitter that Pomp and Circumstance ended up playing over this, instead of that christening ceremony with the Disney Princesses and their babies, as it was originally intended.
12. The Carnival of Animals
It really pains me to rank this one so low, because I really do like this segment a lot. It has some gorgeous Eric Goldberg animation, and that one flamingo with the yo-yo is a pure autistic icon! The problem with that is that IT’S TOO DAMN SHORT. Seriously Disney, why couldn’t we see more of this?! I mean, the first Fantasia movie is 2 hours and 5 minutes long, so you have no excuse for giving us only 2 minutes of this king and his funny yo-yo shenanigans!
Might be a bit of a hot take for me to rank this one so low, since it’s a fan favorite, but honestly, whenever I talk about Fantasia with someone, this is one of the segments I think about the least. Maybe it’s because next to other Fantasia segments, this one looks much more…plain. It doesn’t have the visual flair of something like The Nutcracker Suite or Pastoral Symphony, or even Sorcerer’s Apprentice; nor does it reach the same theatrical heights as something like Rite of Spring or Night on Bald Mountain. The only time I’m ever invested in this segment is when Hyacinth Hippo or Ben Ali Gator are on screen. Hyacinth shows so much personality in just a small amount of screen time, and her chemistry with Ben is absolutely charming. It’s a shame this segment didn’t just focus entirely on them.
10. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (aka - Symphony No. 5)
This was never really one of my favorites as a kid, but looking back at it now, I think it’s a very pleasant little segment. It takes some very abstract and colorful shapes, much like the Toccata and Fugue segment, except this one uses them to tell an actual narrative. Just a simple “Light vs. Darkness” story with a mother butterfly and her child at the center of it all. Not the most complex thing ever made, but in my opinion, it’s very easy to get emotionally invested in a butterfly that nearly dies to save their child from a swarm of malicious “dark butterflies”.
Since dinosaurs were a huge childhood passion of mine, I was expecting to put this one a lot higher on the list, but sadly, its slow pacing drags it down a few spots. The first 7 and a half minutes are mostly just volcanoes and lava, but once we get to the sea creatures and the dinosaurs, it’s a really good time. Now, as a fan of Don Bluth, I can’t help but wonder if he used this segment as the main template for The Land Before Time, because they look so aesthetically similar: from the underwater intro, to the moody backgrounds, to the design of the T-Rex itself. I’m just saying it’s kinda neat.
People who are more accustomed to the Nutcracker ballet might be disappointed to see Tchaikovsky’s music playing over scenes of dancing fairies, fish and flowers, but I think it’s a really nice twist. It’s like watching a surreal, dreamlike take on the four seasons. Granted, this segment received some minor criticism over the years for depicting “racist caricatures”, particularly in the Chinese mushroom dance sequence, but…it never really bothered me, since the mushrooms don’t have any notable facial features, apart from the slanted eyes (then again, I’m not Chinese, so I can only really speak for myself here).
I’m probably a little bit biased towards this one, since it’s always either at the bottom or near the bottom of everyone else’s Fantasia ranking list, but I can’t help it. This whole segment is peak aesthetic, from the vibrant colors, to the Ancient Greek setting, to the various fantasy creatures! Sure, it’s not very heavy on plot, and Bacchus could’ve been designed to look a lot less dopey and childish, but again, there’s something about this segment’s whole aesthetic that’s very soothing and comforting to me. Now, before anyone screams about it in the notes, yes, I’m aware of the two racist centaurettes that used to be in this segment, but they haven’t been apart of this movie since 1963, so it doesn’t really matter anymore.
Much like Pastoral Symphony, Pines of Rome is peak aesthetic! It’s a beautiful segment that focuses on a pair of majestic humpback whales and their baby. Again, it’s not very heavy on plot, but the baby humpback is super adorable, and sympathetic enough for the audience to latch onto. Plus, the CGI whales look surprisingly good with the 2D environments.
5. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
What can I say? This one’s a classic. It has Mickey Mouse in one of his finest roles, and it’s the short that introduced us to the mysterious Yen Sid (aka - The Sorcerer).
4. Piano Concerto No. 2 (aka - The Steadfast Tin Soldier)
Now this gets my vote for most underrated Fantasia segment. Lots of classic Silly Symphony vibes with this one: scrappy young hero falls in love with a beautiful girl, and challenged by a nasty villain. Rachmaninoff’s music also fits remarkably well with everything that goes on in this story. I’ve heard some people accuse this segment of being a “Toy Story ripoff”, but here’s the thing: The Steadfast Tin Soldier was an old fairytale written in 1838, just over a century before Toy Story came out, so that criticism doesn’t really hold up much.
I’m gonna be totally honest with you guys, I had a very hard time deciding the order for my top 3 here, because these next 3 segments are really close for me. Anyway, this one’s great because it manages to expertly juggle four different character arcs all in the same short; and once again, I’ve gotta give a major shoutout to Eric Goldberg, because his animation team really knocked it out of the park here. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that this Fantasia segment gives us Eric Goldberg’s best animation yet!
Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! One of the most gorgeous pieces of Disney animation I have ever seen. Just watching this segment on the big IMAX screen as a 7 year old was one of the most amazing movie theater experiences of my life. Seriously, if you haven’t seen this short, PLEASE go watch it!
Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria
Yes, I’m having both these segments share the #1 spot, because as Deems Taylor puts it: these two are so different in structure and mood, that they complement each other perfectly. Night on Bald Mountain is so boldly dark, that Disney would never attempt to do anything like it again until 56 years later, with Hellfire in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Ave Maria sequence is more subtle, yet equally bold, because you rarely see serious depictions of Christianity in a Disney movie (again, Hunchback is the only other example I can think of).
So, which Fantasia segments are your favorite? Let me know in the notes.
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