Available on Netflix since October 23, "Voyage to the Moon" is directed by a certain Glen Keane. Or a true animation legend, who has worked on some Disney classics and given birth to iconic characters.
Netflix As of Friday, October 23, Voyage to the Moon is available on Netflix. And this is not a film like the others, because this animated musical tale, centered on the mourning, the Chinese culture and the realization of his dreams, is the first feature film directed by Glen Keane. Which is none other than a true legend of animation who participated in some of the classics of the Disney studios, where he entered in 1974. And it is on the first opus of The Adventures of Bernard and Bianca that he makes his debut, responsible for animating the character of little Penny, orphan kidnapped by the evil Madame Medusa, determined to use it to find a legendary diamond, and whom the two heroes will rescue.
Released in 1977, the feature film marks the start of a career spanning nearly four decades with the studio. He thus participates in its revival twice (during the second half of the 80s and then in 2010, thanks to Rapunzel), gives birth to several of his mythical characters and even participates in a live action film, since responsible for animating the one of the two heroes of Peter and Elliott the Dragon, who mixes real shots and animation. An area in which he plunges fully and definitively shortly after: like Tim Burton, he works on Rox and Rouky, and more precisely the sequence of the fight between the adult fox and a bear, alongside a certain John Lasseter, who Then occupies the position of intervalist, animator responsible for ensuring the fluidity of movements by taking care of the missing drawings in a scene.
PEDRO CABREIRA / BESTIMAGE
Glen Keane in 2010
Then come Mickey's Christmas then Taram and the magic cauldron, whose failure almost spell the end of the studios, which nevertheless manage to get back in the saddle. With Glen Keane among the major players in this return to the top. After a detour on the side of the Adventures of the Chipmunks, he takes the lead at Disney since he is no longer only responsible for the animation of characters, but also their creator. This is particularly the case of the wicked Ratigan in Basil, private detective, of Fagin and Georgette (among others) in Oliver and company, or of Marahute, the majestic eagle of Bernard and Bianca in the land of the kangaroos, released in 1990. So between two of the most striking feature films in the history of the firm: The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Films in which we owe the host neither more nor less than the creation of heroes.
Ariel has indeed come to life under his pencil, just like the Beast, a marvel of design born from a cross between a lion, a bison, a boar, a gorilla, a wolf and a bear. In their wake, and thanks in particular to the formidable musical sequences inspired by Broadway shows, Disney finds the heights of Hollywood and even competes for the Oscar for Best Film with Beauty and the Beast, a feat that only Toy Story 3 will repeat in 2011 While he's not the only one responsible, Glen Keane has played a big part in this revival, and he drives the point home thanks to the main characters of Aladdin (partly based on Tom Cruise and Michael J. Fox), Pocahontas and Tarzan, one of his last real big hits within the studio, which then begins a new crossing of the desert during the first decade of the 21st century.
Disney characters Glen Kean worked on:
See the slideshow
Ten years during which Glen Keane is a little behind since he only works on La Planète au Trésor, a futuristic rereading of "Treasure Island" on which he creates and animates the villainous John Silver, who has become a cyborg. Despite its presence and that of the directors of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid (John Musker and Ron Clements), as well as a desired animation style close to that of the classics of the previous decade, the feature film fails to reconnect with the magic of yesteryear and Disney suffered the full brunt of competition from Pixar (whose opuses it distributed) and the rise of Ghibli, whose influence now extends to the whole world. But everything changed in 2010, and the future director of Voyage vers la Lune was still involved: after a convincing first attempt with The Princess and the Frog a year earlier, the studio regained its mojo by associating computer-generated images with stories that made it famous.
Released on our screens on December 1, 2010, Rapunzel marks the real big comeback of the Disney princesses in cinema and the first step towards the Frozen phenomenon. Adapted from the homonymous tale of the Brothers Grimm, the feature film is more dynamic and the heroine more modern than some of those that came before her, but the animators do not forget her roots: although computer-animated, the young woman was first drawn by hand by Glen Keane, starting with her incredible hair. Almost a character all on his own who took some software creation to bring him to life and make the hair appear independent of each other, instead of appearing as a block. If modernity is the watchword of the film, the animation supervisor still knew how to respect traditions, for his last feature film in the studio, which he left in 2012 after having participated in Paperman.
An Oscar-winning (and black and white) short film on which he takes care of the character of Meg and works under the direction of John Kahrs whom he will find a few years later, since this ex-Pixar host will become the co-director of Travel to the Moon. A film which, although in synthetic images, contains some passages animated by hand, like a nod from Glen Keane to the style of his beginnings. And who knows if this opus will not take him to the Oscars, where he triumphed in 2018 with the short Dear Basketball, co-signed with the sportsman Kobe Bryant according to the latter's career?
"Voyage to the Moon" is available from October 23 on Netflix:
