Word: anastasias
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...November 20, Twentieth Century Fox was on the verge of staging one of the greatest coups in entertainment history. With the premiere of the full-length Anastasia, Fox hoped to do what no company has done over the past 60 years: crack the monopoly of the animated market held by Disney. With nearly $100 million put into production and marketing, Fox even scared the Magic Mouse--Disney quickly re-released The Little Mermaid in a feeble attempt to block Anastasia's success...
...position for its mini-revolution; the only obstacle in its way was the movie itself. Epic in scope and grandeur, Anastasia almost pulls off the impossible upstaging of Disney. But the challenge to the animated empire is clear: Disney magic is no longer an exclusive product...
...Anastasia is dazzlingly huge. It gives us sights, sets and animation that surpass anything we have seen before. Trying to emulate the grand love stories of the past, Anastasia sweeps between stunning backgrounds. There are three palatial balls, hundreds of costume changes, colossal dance numbers and magnificent computer-animated sequences. There is no lack of effort on the filmmakers' part to pummel us with the imposing scale of the film...
...years after the Rasputinolution, Anya (Meg Ryan) is 18 and alone. She meets Dimitri (John Cusack), a onetime palace servant with a 10 million-ruble scheme: to take a suitable young woman to Paris, persuade Marie that the girl is Anastasia and pocket the reward money. The usual complications ensue--boy hates girl, boy loves girl, girl keeps tripping annoyingly over scarf, dead monk tries to kill girl--accompanied by lilting melodies...
There probably aren't, so what is Anastasia's target audience? "We wanted our story to appeal to adults," says Mechanic, "particularly women who are most likely to take their kids to the movies." To keep Bluth from wandering too far into his trademark whimsy, the Fox creative brass kept tight reins on script and character development. They also insisted that he and Goldman give up their old-fashioned Rostrum camera and use Silicon Graphics computers in the studio Fox built for them in Phoenix. Says Goldman: "They pulled Don and me into the 21st century, kicking and screaming...