My Favourite Animated Film: Anastasia

I hate having to start the same post twice. Just because it wouldn't save after I broke Firefox. I swear it was saving as I went along ¬ ¬

Anyway, while I eat this here Arctic Roll I shall tell you about my favourite movie in the world.. And according to the UK English pack I installed into Firefox, "movie" is not a word in this language. Nor is "Firefox".

Change it to US and everything is fine other than the extra vowel in "favourite".
*sigh*

 Anyway, I went shopping for shoes the other day (which was only 66.6% successful as the heels on one pair broke after 10 minutes of walking. And falling down some stairs..), and as I got to the till, I saw MY FAVOURITE MOVIE IN THE WORLD AND JUST HAD TO BUY IT!!!

*Drumroll*

You can see it for yerself there, dear reader, my favourite movie above any other.
I don't even know where to start with this one... I love everything about it; the amazing animation, the style of the animation, the detail in the backgrounds and scenery, the voice actors, the ways they portray their characters, the music, the story, the magic, the freaking EVERYTHING.

I can't say I really feel like doing any kind of review or synopsis of this one, buuuuut... For the sake of adding more pictures I'll write a lil' sum'm sum'm (I don't even know if that was phonetic to what I was saying... lol)

I say a little... Anyone who knows me will know I can't tell stories briefly; it has to be from start to finish with only minor details left out, possibly because I forgot them (probably why this has taken me 5 days to write, format and edit... If there are spelling mistakes, get over it. Too lazy to check). Now, get comfy.

So basically, the story is based on the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter to the Czar/Tsar/Zarr of Russia, Nicholas II (I think...), in a siege of the palace yadda yadda - I love the movie but I'm not really interested in the history, so just like the movie, I'm gonna happily skip over the murder of the royal family. Insert perfectly co-ordinated singing townspeople (and Dimitri and Vlad running about telling everyone about their con.. They will be in troduced in a moment).

Roof sliding - Like a boss.

The plot follows Anya, an orphan girl who's lost all memory of her past, as she sets of into the world of the working adult. She sits on a bit of snow for a while considering her options - whether to go work in a fish factory and earn a living for herself just like everyone else in her level of society, or go to Paris like the necklace she wears suggests and figure out who she really is...

Enter small excitable dog, Pooka. It seems the dog wants her to go to St Petersburg and what reason does she have to turn the dog's offer down? So she totally turns all rebel on the fishmonger job she was offered and decides to go off to Paris (with what money, heaven knows). Cue song about journeys and such.

Through a random series of events she comes across the old abandoned palace, where she totally invites herself in for a little meander and begins to feel all nostalgic, but can't fathom why... Cue song elaborating such while magical ghost people in sparkly clothes dance around and interact with her.

She doesn't seem phased... Perhaps this is a normal occurrence for her?

So, spooky figures from the past aside, naturally with all that noise she's making and whatnot, she's bound to be heard... Well, not really - it's an abandoned palace. But with such massive quarters, it's not unlikely that there will be squatters. Enter Dimitri.

A rather attractive con man from St Petersburg bursts into the ballroom yelling at her for being in there (like he owns the place... I'd say something, but that'd be a spoiler). He's shortly followed by his partner, Vladimir, who takes very little part in the conversation as he is then seduced by the small dog.

Dimitri, having noticed how similar Anya looks to the Grand Duchess Anastasia, starts plotting and tries to charm Anya into following them to Paris to be presented to the Dowager Empress and find out if she actually is the long lost princess (which would mean that Dimitri gets big munies.. That's really all he wants from this). Anya thinks it over for about a minute then decides what's she got to lose?

Insert small talking bat, Bartok. He overhears the conversation below and believes they're all mad 'cause Anastasia's dead. The reliquary next to him disagrees and off they fly to limbo where they meet Rasputin! A rotting, undead corpse seeking revenge on the Romanovs for... The sake of being evil, really. He's wondering why he's still stuck in limbo when finds out from his little bat friend that there's one family member still running about all alive and stuff, so Rasputin's totally like "SHE WILL DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE".

Insert villain song, and then he gets all creepy (as if he wasn't already?) and summons his little green-glowy-smoke-people minions from the reliquary to go see to the little princess and make sure she's gotten rid of this time.

Did I mention he sold his soul for that thing? Quite literally in fact. Hence the undeadness about him.



That's an attractive look.. Get some pants on! It's a family show.



So, the trio get on the train to Germany, I think (dog included.. that makes four), and then we see an "unspoken attraction" between Anya and Dimitri. Yay.



I just wanted to put this picture in...



Now, Sod's law states "Anything that can go wrong, will", so naturally, our trio encounter some problems on their trip to Paris from Russia... To start with, their travel papers are out of date. Illegal border crossing! Yay!

If that wasn't enough, after they hid in the baggage car (which is right behind the engine of the train), they become dislodged from the rest of the train. To make matters worse, there's no driver. Run away train! Yay!
So, how do we fix this? Try to unhinge the car from the engine... WHOAH!! It's all melted together... Get some tools! Smash it apart!
Hammer broke.
Now what?
Anya has a plan!! She hands Dimitri a stick of dynamite.
"That'll work."
They run to take cover behind the crates of dynamite (how convenient they were there...).
Dimitri: "What do they teach you in those orphanages?"

BOOM!!!

So, now they just have to stop the car from running away madly after the engine. Breaks don't work.. And now Vlad has broken them. Cool.

Now you might think, 'Well, there's plenty of track; they'll just coast to a stop', right? That's what Dimitri thought.

BOOM!!!

No more chinese laundry. Wrong movie.
No more train track; the bridge mysteriously blew up... Cool. They like their explosions.

So, the bridge is out and if they keep following the tracks it's certain death.

Well, it's alright; Dimitri found an anchor... Just push that out the train and away we go!
Didn't quite stop the car... just turned it 90° to face sideways on the tracks..
So, after having caused enough havoc to last a liftime, they jump off into the snow and continue their journey by foot.



Dimitri being a douche again.... He's like that for a bit.



A little further along Vlad breaks out into to sonnets about some girl in Paris called Sophie.. Anya asks about her only to find that she's the Dowager Empress' first cousin who they must speak to before they get to see the Empress. To say the least, Anya wasn't keen on having to learn an entire lifetime for something that may turn out to be false. Little bit of pep talk from dear old Vlad and we're into another song!



Totally just in the way and making a scene.





I am actually in love with this GIF I found X)



Welcome aboard the S.S Weirddreams!
So, now they're on a boat. Nothing can go wrong on a boat, right? (I was going to make a Titanic joke here but I'm not too fond of making jokes that hit below the belt.. Leave that to Jimmy Carr.)
Of course not!
Smooth sailing, nice weather, Dimitri buys Anya a dress, she makes fun of it, they have a little waltz, Vlad sings for them, Dimitri attempts to compliment Anya and falls on his face doing so (not literally), they slow down, he leans is and then... The dog barks. Dimitri chickens out and buggers off somewhere. Cool.

That night they're getting ready for bed when Anya finds a music box... She doesn't know what's what it is, she can't open it. Or can she?

Well, either way, she doesn't but does get all nostalgic again and the sparkly ghost people start dancing round her head - I feel it is a normal occurrence at this point..)
So they go to sleep. No harm done.
'Till, you know, Rasputin comes along and taints her dreams.. And then she goes for a sleepwalk and totally tries to jump overboard.

Dimitri to the rescue! Yay!



He looks well pleased with himself...



They get to Paris, they see Sophie, Vlad flirts, Anya answers a few questions about being Anastasia. It's all going great (as usual).
And then it goes a little pear shaped (also, as usual.. what's wrong with pears anyway?). Sophie asks what she calls 'an impertinent question' - "How did you escape during the siege of the palace?"
Now Dimitri loses all hope. He never expected such a personal question.. He just convered the obvious basics and had that jewellery box as his trump card. It's over now...
Anya pipes up, "There was a boy... A boy who worked in the palace... He opened a wall... *Laughs* I'm sorry, walls opening.."
Dimitri's all lke o.o




OMIGAWD!! NO WAII :O

 

And then they're all like 'YAY! WE GET TO SEE THE EMPRESS!!!' And then Sophie's like 'Uh... No. Lol soz. She won't see anyone :/ BUT totally come to the ballet this evening coz we're, like, gonna be there *wink wink*'
SO! They go shopping in Paris (cue Welcome to Paris music) and all the while Dimitri's getting all depressed coz he BLATANTLY fell in love with Anya but because now he knows she really is the princess ('cause he was the boy that helped her escape), he's all like "Princesses don't marry kitchen boys. So now I shall walk out of her life forever."

Noooooo!



He did have some fun.. But he was too busy being melancholy to keep it up :/



Well, anyway, they go to the ballet, Anya's looking pretty fine in her blue dress, Dimitri's jaw hits the ground when he sees her and then it reminds me of that one scene in Titanic... Anyway, show over, he goes to meet the Empress while Anya waits outside. Marie (the Empress.. why didn't I say her name before?) is like 'OMG go away will you. I'm not interested in this game anymore. And I know you're some little con man from St Petersburg who held auditions for this. Bugger off will you.'

He gets chucked out (aww damn), Anya overheard the whole thing (double damn), he tries to explain himself but she won't have it (triple damn), and then she's totally like 'OMG GTFO', slaps him and runs off. This just isn't your night, is it, Dimitri?

Not quite ready to give up yet, he kidnaps Marie (good on ya! ..Wait, what?!?), and drives her to where Anya is.



Look where you're driving!!! ><



Marie goes up to see Anya after having been persuaded by the music box. Anya and her have a little talk, and they more they talk, the more things they say become familiar to the other. Marie sees and recognises the necklace, she pulls out the music box which Anya all of a sudden remembers how to work, key fits lock, they sing their lullabye and BOOM! We have our princess reunited with her grandmother! Yay!

And then Dimitri slinks off into the night.
And then Rasputin hears about it and decides that he needs to pay Anastasia a visit himself and ruin the part, much to Bartok's dismay.

So, off to Paris he flies, while in the meantime Anya is getting fitted with some Princess gear and Dimitri is getting all soft hearted and not taking his reward money. Out of guilt, and out of love. Aww ♥

So, he goes off, passing Anya on his way out. They have a brief encounter where he's all like "I'm glad you found what you were looking for (I wish I didn't have to leave you)", to which Anya replies, "Yes, I'm glad you did to (you money hungry pig. Good riddance to you.. Wait I didn't mean it please stay...)" He bows to her and bids her farewell, and she bids him the same as they part ways for ever. Damn.



Noooooooo! Now he really IS walking out of her life... Running, even -.-



Marie holds a party for the return of her granddaughter, who has run off to follow her dog.

So we're taking a nice little run around because the dog got all happy and took himself for a walk and then, who's that over there... "That face.. A curse.." Then he pretends to drown her and his minions rips up her dress, "Rasputin!!!"
Ah, she remembers him.
He has his little evil man rant, threatens her life, is about to set his reliquary on her when SUDDENLY!
Potatoes. Dimitri!! Whoah, where'd you come from dude? I totally thought - never mind, big angry stone horse coming your way.. I'll leave you to it.

Ah crap, and now Rasputin's just knocked Anya into the river below.
This isn't looking too good... Oh wait, there she is!
And the dog totally stole the reliquary from the dead dude, so things are finally looking up.
How shall we break this to make it a super epic ending? Throw it down and smash it? Smack him in the face with it?

Or she could crush it under her heeled shoe.. That's cool too.

Let's check on Dimitri for a sec - Some massive rock just knocked him down :/ Could be fatal...
"This is for Dimitri" she steps on it..
"This is for my family" Rasputin's totally grabbing at it now..
"And this.. This is for you.. Do Svidanya" SMASH
Insert creepy angry choir music while Rasputin's minions totally go ape at him, then he melts, leaving his skeleton to have a seizure by itself, then crumble into ash and dust and fly away in the wind... Nice.



Not entirely sure... What the hey? He's gone now..



So, all's well that ends well.
Oh, crap, Dimitri.

Looks like he's dead. The dog howls. Anya mourns. Dimitri lifts his hand up. Oh, he's alive! Anya turns around and kisses him madly claiming how scared she was that he might've been dead She slaps him... That's cool too.

Ok it was an accident be were totally going for something more romantic... Not their style really, I suppose.
And then they're like:
Anya: I thought you were going to-
Dimitri: I was
Anya: You didn't take the-
Dimitri: I couldn't
Anya: ...Why?
Dimitri: Because..
And they lean in and... The dog barks. Thanks, Pooka, once again for spoiling the moment -_-. The dog holds up the crown and they realise she still has a duty to fulfill now...

Cutscene to Marie who finds the crown and a letter explaining the situation. She and Sophie get all happy for the newly eloped couple who are now on yet another boat. They have a little dance and FINALLY there's the kiss. Yai :3



Possibly my favourite GIF picture in the world... Yup. It is.

 

 

So it's all one big happy ending. Even Bartok gets himself a girlfriend.
Cue ending music. Maestro, if you please *grabs random mic and sings along*

I love this movie. If that wasn't obvious enough.

I've loved it since I was little and had lent my VHS (OMG ANCIENT) of it to a friend who then left my school and forgot to return it... I could still get it back from her because she doesn't live too far but it's alright because I got it on DVD for £2.99. As I kinda half metioned previously.
I totally had half the collection of merch I could get my hands on... I still have "The Royal Carriage" in my wardrobe.
Although, come to think of it, Anya (the main protagonist) never did ride in a carriage throughout the entire movie... I still have the music box, which plays a massive role in the storyline - it's not the main part but it is a very important feature.

 

Also, I'd just like to take this moment, while my laptop tries to burn through my lap, to point out that contrary to popular belief, Anastasia isn't Disney; It's a Don Bluth Film by 20th Century Fox. Sheesh, get your blatant facts right people   ¬ ¬

♥ Happy times ♥

Bren ♪♫

OMG I LOVE IT ><

I may watch it again... Tomorrow.

And then at some point I must get Ryan to watch it as she's never seen it before... I know she doesn't like Russia but it's still a good story with such beautiful animation. As an artist she can at least appreciate that if nothing else -.-