Headscratchers for Fantasia.
- Why is Chernabog considered evil? All he does is to throw around some demons and souls, and the souls at least went to him willingly. I mean, sure he is a jerk, but at worst he is some kind of bully, not the incarnation of evil everyone seems to want him to be. Even House of Mouse seems to interpret him that way (as a bully, not as a "Satan"). It seems as though the only reason he is an evil being is because he looks like a demon, which is roughly as morally decent as claiming someone is evil because they have black hair.
- That's exactly it: Chernabog is a bully. He's bored, petty, and uncaring. He takes the demons and souls that came to him, changes their forms at will, and compels them to dance for his pleasure. They may have come to him willingly, but they clearly have no control over what Chernabog does to them once they get there. That's a pretty vivid interpretation of Hell: to be stripped of your free will and turned into simply the Devil's plaything.
- All he does it's celebrating a sabbath which is equivalent for a human throwing a night party. The villagers don't even seem to notice it or hear it and they are not hurt or something. He throws the demons in the fire but since the fire doesn't hurt him maybe it has the same effect to his minions.
- Your arguments are fallacious* . You may wish to check The Hays Code page to determine what was permissible to show on film when the film was made. A character gleefully engaged in defiling graves, terrorizing villages and torturing his own servants is Obviously Evil.
- It's implied he was banished to bald mountain because of his evil deeds. Word of God also confirms that despite his canonical name being Chernabog he's actually supposed to be Satan, which makes him evil by proxy. You can't get more evil than Satan.
- How would you like to have you soul thrown around by a gigantic demon? I think we can assume that the experience is deeply unpleasant! And who's to say that the souls come to him willingly? They don't have dialogue. They're not all like "Hey, let's all go up to the mountain and get tossed around by Chernabog! That sounds like a jolly good time!" Presumably they've been summoned to the mountain against their will. Why else would they show up?* The idea that Chernabog is just "celebrating a Sabbath" is silly, as is the idea that he's just "throwing a party". I don't know about you, but when I throw a party it's more like "Turn on some music and pass the cake", not "toss the souls of the damned into a demonic fire". And if he doesn't harm the villagers, that's probably because he simply can't. His powers only work on the souls of the dead.
- Which idiot decided that Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony Number 5 was an "abstract" piece of music? It very distinctly tells a story, that of Fate (the famous opening theme) versus the Hero (the counter-melody). Even the animation (two tiny white butterflies fleeing from a mass of black ones) reflects this. I can forgive the original Fantasia for using Toccata and Fugue in D minor since Bach obviously didn't foresee his work being used as the theme music for the quintessential Mad Scientist but this just smack of laziness.
- Complaints like this were addressed by the creators, when fans were upset that some of the pieces of music had nothing to do with the actual "stories" (the Nutcracker Suite featuring no characters from the ballet from which it is adapted, for instance). They said that their goal was to animate the "impressions" they got from the pieces, separated from the context of the songs. As one animator put it: "We say that The Rite of Spring makes us think of dinosaurs. So prove that it doesn't!"
- There is some justification for it from a musical standpoint, actually. The 5th doesn't have a melody the way most other pieces of music from its time had. The 'melody' is clearly made of layers of the famous 'three quarter notes, HALF NOOOOOTE' line, and the counter-melody has aspects of it as well. In that respect, it is like an abstract painting, which is all about playing with form without content or subject. Still, the fact that it still has two discernible threads attests to Beethoven's awesomeness, and the dubiousness of their choice.
- Because God forbid people attempt their own interpretations of great artistic works that may not coincide with the original intent of the artist. I mean it's not like the concept of the Death of the Author hasn't been around since the seventies or anything.
- Keep in mind, the fifth was not program music. Beethoven himself never stated his intent for his themes in the 5th. The story that it's about fate came from his assistant, not from the composer himself. Also the animators on the original depicted exactly what Pastoral's third and fourth were meant to convey - an outdoor party which gets interrupted by a thunderstorm.
- So...Why did they cut out Clair de Lune?
- Probably because it's a particular slow and tranquillizing scene in which nothing much happens, compared to all the other segments. Also, the "Nutcracker Suite" already showed scenes of nature by night, so Walt may have felt it was too much of the same.
- Actually, because the distributor said the movie was too long and that a piece had to go. Disney felt that, indeed as the subject of Clair de Lune was already in "The Nutcracker Suite", Clair de Lune was the one that would feel the least "missing" if removed.
- Why reuse Sorcerer's Apprentice in 2000? Why not put in Claire de Lune as a "Missing piece"?
- Probably because Sorcerer’s Apprentice was the most popular piece in the original Fantasia, and because the image of Mickey Mouse wearing that nice hat was so iconic!
- Before "Night on Bald Mountain", it explicitly mentions the name "Satan". Yet every single piece of media outside this film I have ever seen in my entire life refers to this character as "Chernabog". Is he simply a Satanic Archetype or the actual Devil?
- Word of God has it that he actually is Satan himself, but changed his name to Chernabog in following works so to appease Moral Guardians. You can't make kid-friendly merchandise with the name "Satan" attached to it, can you?
