Toon Talk: Twice Upon a Christmas
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Toon Talk
Disney Film & Video Reviews by Kirby C. Holt
DVD
All I Want For Christmas is a 2-D Toon
In 1999, Walt Disney Home Video released Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas, a delightfully charming original production that brought Mickey and the gang together to tell three new yuletide tales for the whole family. Now, five years later, the stars and concept return with, appropriately enough, Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas, but with a new, state-of-the-art twist.
And while we have seen snippets of it before (Mickey’s Oscar show appearance a few years back, the 3-D Walt Disney World attraction Mickey’s PhilharMagic), here, for the first time in a full-length presentation, the classic Disney characters of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and their relations are presented in computer animated form. While certainly not as disastrously jarring as one might have feared - the classic characters that we all know and love are mostly rendered realistically - bits of their beloved personalities are still lost in the translation.
(c) Disney
In addition to the upgrade in animation, the filmmakers have upped the ante story wise as well, increasing the total number of stories from three to five. Once’s narrator Kelsey Grammer is gone, replaced by a generic Santa sound-alike who introduces each tale as a 3-D pop-up book (harkening back to the classic storybook introductions of such classic features as Snow White) springs to life to lead into each chapter:
- Belles on Ice