YMMV / An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island

• Anvilicious: With the persecution of the Native mice being a major plot point, the film is far from subtle with its constant allusions to the real-life atrocities that European settlers inflicted on Native Americans.
• Complete Monster: Mr. Grasping is a crooked cheese factory owner and Chief McBrusque is his enforcer. Grasping viciously mistreats the mice working for him and threatens and uses the sadistic McBrusque to have any resistance beaten into submission, much to the latter's enjoyment. Trying to distract the workers by claiming peaceful natives living under New York City plan to attack them, Grasping sends McBrusque and his goons to detain one of the natives, though instead wind up catching Dr. Dithering, who Grasping tries to have executed via meat grinder. With his plans foiled, Grasping bitterly orders McBrusque to kill the native tribe.
• Contested Sequel: Almost no one argues that this film is better than the first movie, but there are some fans who will defend it over Fievel Goes West due to it being closer in spirit to the original film (dialing back the Denser and Wackier elements of that film quite a bit, containing far more pathos and covering real historical social issues), as well as a far less racist, if still not perfect, depiction of Native Americans. Other fans would counter that Fievel Goes West still has objectively superior animation and production values, and at least still had Steven Spielberg involved.
• Fanon: There are fan theories which link the direct to video sequels to Fievel Goes West, and several different explanations for why Bridget didn't appear in the 3rd or 4th movies but is seen with Tony in the second (which would have to have happened after the third and fourth movie chronologically for them all to be canon).
• Fanon Discontinuity: For a lot of fans (especially if they really liked Fievel Goes West, due to the third film proclaiming it to be All Just a Dream) insist these movies never happened. On the other hand, the third film is remembered by fans of TMS Entertainment at least. Meanwhile, the above Fanon is usually followed with the understanding that the creators of the third movie probably wanted to Retcon Fievel Goes West. It's just more fun for fans to disregard that and try to make sense of the jumbled continuity themselves.
  • Some fans will also insist they're Interquels, and Fievel Goes West is actually set after these films; the dream is actually about future events. This may create its own continuity issues, however.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The film clearly tries to present Tony and Cholena as a potential couple, with the former having a one-sided crush for most of the film before the latter hints at returning his feelings in the ending. Despite this, the majority of the fanbase finds Cholena's chemistry and growing bond with Fievel to be far more believable, and are much more interested in pairing them together while Tony stays with Bridget.
• Improved Second Attempt: Though not without their outdated elements, the Native American mice featured in this film are regarded as a significantly more dignified and respectful representation than the blatantly racist depictions of the Natives that appeared in Fievel Goes West.
• Memetic Mutation: Clips of Chief Mcbrusque are used in YouTube videos where he's beaten by characters of other animated movies.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: Tends to be the opinion of most fans when it comes to the direct-to-video sequels (as well as those who dislike Fievel Goes West due to Bluth's lack of involvement, though Spielberg was still involved in that one, as he was with the original). Then again, compared to other Bluth sequels, they could have been a lot worse.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: The film tries to present Fievel and Cholena as merely becoming close friends, while teasing a potential romance between Cholena and Tony. Despite this, Cholena's interactions with Fievel - in addition to them seeming closer in age - can be just as easily be interpreted as a budding romance, with their duet "Anywhere In Your Dreams" in particular sounding remarkably similar to a love ballad.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One can’t help but feel that the Unfortunate Implications surrounding Chief McBrusque could’ve been mitigated by having Bridget, Tony’s Irish girlfriend from the first film, serve as a Good Counterpart to McBrusque rather than subjecting her to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome in favor of having Cholena serve as Tony’s new love interest. Especially given her status as a mouse-rights activist, which would’ve made her a natural fit for defending the Native mice against the prejudice heaped upon them.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: With its themes of worker rights and racism, illustrating how the ruling class uses racism to divide and distract the working class, it might be the most political movie in the series.

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