I watched the Great Mouse Detective tonight and as someone who loves this movie, here's some of my thoughts:
First of all and this cannot be overstated: Best. Sherlock. Holmes. Adaptation.
I was today years old when i discovered that Olivia and her dad are Scottish (which explains her father talking about catching a train at the end of the movie)
(I grew up with the swedish vhs and watched it in english for the first time today. in swedish none of the character's have any particular dialect )
The aesthetic of Victorian human London but with mice having a miniature society mirroring it?? Love that!!
Despite Basil being the titular character and being the main character in so far that he's the one going on a personal journey and change through the movie- Dawson is the POV character for most of the movie which I find interesting
The transitions when Basil tells them about Ratigan and then showing the audience what he's up to and then back to Basil's apartment are stellar
All the songs are sung in universe - I think this is the only disney movie to do this??
And two of them sung by the villain?! Outstanding move
(It should be mentioned that the remaining song was sung by sexy, stripper mice in a bar)
The heroes drink alcohol, get drugged, enjoy a strip tease and accidentaly causes a bar fight all in the same scene
Yes, the toy store was both entrancing and scary to me as a child. The first doll they see when they enter? That doll whose face smashes and nearly kills Basil and Watson? The toys from which Fidget steals the mechanics? All super terrifying
Ratigan is the only character to have a human-like five-fingered hand, all the others have standard animated four-fingered hands
Ratigan mention a that he thought basil would be 15 minutes quicker to find his lair - which he uses to taunt his enemy but it also means he cannot be there to observe his machine killing his captives. That gives them the opportunity to escape unseen. If Basil and Dawson hadn't been late they probably wouldn't have survived, just saying
The clock tower sequence!! I actually clapped when it started
The cogwheels were computer animated while the mice were drawn by hand - which makes for a really dynamic moving camera
(The man who talked about this in the extras were so enthusiastic about this. Love that for him)
Speaking of moving camera - I greatly enjoyed the camera movement when Rattigan jumped over the citizens to reach the balcony with Olivia and the bat after his plan had been foiled at Buckingham palace. It was really fluent and full of angles
Back to the clocktower: when Ratigan snaps and you can see the angry pen strokes?? They simply don't make movies like this anymore
That was of course very scary too as a child
The final battle outside on the clock hands? Give this movie all awards !!
When Basil comes cycling on that little propeller thing? Link in Tears of the kingdom wishes he could do that
In the extras someone mentioned that they'd made extensive backstories of all the characters: why Rattigan became evil, how it was for Basil to grow up so smart etc. And i desperately want to read that
I know no one cares about the swedish voice actors but I found the different performances of both Basil and Rattigan interesting. I know Vincent Price is much beloved as Ratigan (justly so) but idk if it is nostalgia speaking but I think swedish Ratigan really held up. There were actually some lines that I knew by heart in swedish where the delivery was preferable to the English one for me. After looking it up i saw that the swedish VA is an opera singer (base) which really isn't a surprise given his performance. Basil's voices were really similar normally (so similar I didn't hear the change when I switched between languages - which i did one time to freshen up the swedish voices) but the VA in swedish goes up in falsetto quite often which gives a quite manic impression. Swedish!Basil's sanity is hung by a thread in his restless pursuit of his arch nemesis - which makes his devastation when Ratigan bests him more believable imo. English!Basil is much more a proper, brittish gentleman throughout. All performances were great, I just found the differences interesting.
I have some Core visuals from this movie living rent free in my mind since childhood which are: when Basil compares the two bullets, the closeups as Fidget jumps out at the audience, when Dawson pulls out the glass door with his finger, Ratigan squishing Olivia's doll, Basils machine when analyzing the paper, when Toby makes a stair out of his ear, that flag/balloon/matchbox contraption they used to chase Ratigan at the end, the end fight on the clock arms.
Did i miss your favourite part of the movie? Any core memories from this movie for you?
