[.ca] The Island of Misfit Toys - Ru

From Amazon.com:
Thirty-seven years after his famous TV debut, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer returns in a sharp-looking computer-animated feature. Using excellent voice casting with actors that sound like the originals, this new Rudolph looks and sounds grand. There's a mysterious Toy Taker gobbling up toys around the world. Rudolph and his team (including deer-friend Clarice, elf-turned-dentist Hermey, and the Abominable Snowman) try to track the toys down and save Christmas again. While the setup and songs hold no candle to the original, and the lessons learned are borrowed from Toy Story 2, the final third succeeds--it's always good to have a flying reindeer when you are chasing a blimp. Kids ages 3 to 9 who have seen the original will certainly want to see the sequel; however, their parents might be less enthusiastic. --Doug Thomas

makes me angry on christmas!!! misleading sales pitch!:
all I asked for christmas this year was the original Rudolf the Red Nosed reindeer. Instead I revieved this version. It's one thing if they wanted to do a sequel to the original movie from 1964, but they should have made the box art look different. Anyone looking quickly at the cover of rudolf and some familiar faces from the original can be easily fooled that they are buying the original. Even the title is close to the original plot. It's like me doing a sequel to the wizard of oz and calling it "The wizard of oz- follow the yellow brick road" I didn't want to rate this DVD because I didn't see it, but I'm going to give 1 star because of the misleading sales pitch! I know others share how dissapointed and angry I am that the distributors are obviously trying to fool people into buying this, thinking that its the original. Shopping should be easy and stress free. You shouldn't have to spend 10 minutes reading the fine print and conducting an investigation before you buy something.

if you remember the original - don't bother!:
If the scoring could be zero? well I disgress. If you are old enough to remember the original claymation or what ever it was; you will be VERY disappointed. The computer generated characters are ok, but the story has been changed so completely that you will only recognize the main characters. Not worth the money. I suggest you look for a copy of the original.

This "misfit" fits in... sort of:
Having been a big fan of the original Rankin-Bass stop-motion classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", I decided to give its computer-animated follow-up, "Rudolph and The Island of Misfit Toys", a look. While I didn't find it to be a presentation that can stand with the all-time holiday classics, it wasn't all that bad, either. Although most of the songs were fairly catchy if somewhat silly, most of 'em didn't really have a Christmas-y sound or feel to them. But at least the computer animation looked pretty advanced... had this movie been released some time in the early to mid-90s instead of 2001 when this hit the video shelves. Now I wasn't expecting the computer-generated 'toonage here to be on par with Disney/Pixar contemporaries Toy Story or Monsters, Inc (this WAS produced by GoodTimes Video after all). But at the very least I'd expected it to look as good if not better than the CGI stuff produced for the Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles show that had debuted some time before this came out-- no such luck, I'm afear'd... I was also abit disappointed that GoodTimes didn't want to spring for a feature-length director's commentary track. All the guy was given was three minutes to talk about the 'state-of-the-art' effects used to create this feature. I was also kinda miffed over the fact they decided to give some of the characters the same appearance (or as close to the same appearance as possible) they did in the original stop-motion classic (e.g. Hermey, the Foreman Toy Elf, Yukon Cornelius), but partially or almost completely revamped the appearances of other characters (e.g. Santa and Mrs. Claus, King Moonracer, and the sled-pulling reindeer). Call me old-fashioned, but the way I see it they should have had all of the recurring characters look exactly (or, at the least, very close to) the same way they did in the original show. Rudolph demoted from a ten-point buck to a four-pointer? Blasphemy! On the upside, I thought the story was pretty good, even though it was geared a bit more towards a new generation of young'uns than nostalgia buffs who grew up watching the original show. It also, for the most part, had captured the heart and spirit of its predecessor and the other Rankin-Bass holiday classics that inspired it. And best of all, it featured more than a few amusing hijinks with my fave character from the original Rudolph show: Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster! Though it's a shame he doesn't look as cool in the CGI realm as he did in stop-motion form... 'Late Post Script: Another downside to this presentation is the English subtitles, which are displayed in white type. Now white might be a fine shade to use for subtitles in movies where most of the scenery and backgrounds AREN'T COVERED IN FREAKING SNOW AND ICE-- but not here... 'Later

Kids love it!!:
The first Rudolph animated movie is pale in comparison to this one. OK it may be sugary sweet but your kids (under 9) will love it. Why people pour scorn on this version is beyond me. Maybe they should have left it to their kids to review it!

And if you ever saw the reviews, you could say it blows...:
...but guess what kiddies, it doesn't!!!!! I will put this very gently. Anyone here who rates this movie with a 1 (or less) and says nothing more than "It's not the original" is a moron. Now let me put things in a proper perspective. Now I must admit that I've grown up with the original Rudolph for 19 years straight and am a MAJOR fanatic of anything produced by Rankin/Bass, so when my 5-year-old little cousin forced me to watch this movie when I visited him for the weekend, I was VERY worried. First of all, this movie has been bombed online more than the Middle East, and it dons the "Goodtimes" label. (Goodtimes VHS of beloved movie=Adjusting the tracking for at least an hour before you get a good picture, and anything else from Goodtimes Entertainment=crap). Anyway, cherishing what memories I had left of the first Rudolph, I reluctantly sat down to watch. Surprisingly, it was excellent. First of all, everybody from the original (except most of the original misfit toys have been "replaced" with the next generation of misfits including the "Boomerang that doesn't return", and the Burl Ives snowman was replaced with Scoop the Snowman) makes a comeback (and with voices that are dead-on to the originals). Clarice is now learning how to fly, but will Rudolph's advice help her to stay off the ground? Hermie comes back, and this time, he has built his own super-duper, portable all-terrain dentist cart! He's the best dentist the North Pole could ask for, but he has a crush on someone. Will this timid, shy elf/dentist find a way to ask her out? The Abominable Snowman (now known as Bumbles) and Yukon Cornelius now run a Peppermint Mine. (If anyone would like to know why a Peppermint Mine instead of a silver and gold one, one of the cut scenes from the original shows that Yukon stumbled upon this mine, and that's why Yukon throughout the first Rudolph kept licking his pick after it touched wherever it landed.) Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus look a little different, because they don't have dots for eyes. They actually look better that way. And YES!!!!!! There's more footage of King Moonracer!!!!! Oh my God he is my favorite!!!! He has a horrible toothache!!!!!! Thank god a skilled elf/dentist like Hermie takes his nifty all-terrain dentist cart to the Island of Misfit Toys, but what will poor King Moonracer need done? My favorite of my three new characters was Queen Camilla. I actually knew someone who talked and acted the way she did in real life. I was laughing the entire time she was on the screen. The only character who I didn't care for too much was Scoop the Snowman. I'm not saying this because he's no Burl Ives. If he's not Burl Ives, SO WHAT?!? Sure Burl Ives was better, but I'm saying this because at some tense, thematic moments in this movie (which in the first one would be Bumbles BEFORE he was tamed), instead of hiding behind an umbrella, he tells the story with what appears to be an evil, grinning face. That's the best I can describe it. When Scoop had his "evil" face on during the tense, thematic moments, it scared the crap out of my little cousin, and I had to pause the movie and get him a glass of milk. Anyway, the story line was brilliant. If anyone can recall a TV cartoon series from 1993 called Bonkers and can remember the two-part pilot episode, then they'd too know what I'm talking about!!! (In Bonkers, there was this deranged cartoon rabbit called "The Collector" and he took cartoons like the "Toy Taker" took toys.) Okay, some people think that the ending was ripped from Toy Story 2, but let me give you all a reality check here. This actual movie was shown on some cable channel for the first time in 1998, and THEN three years later was released onto video. So in other words, this came out BEFORE Toy Story 2. And for those of you who are complaining about the computer graphics, DON'T. This is Goodtimes Entertainment we're talking about, not the multi-million dollar razz-a-ma-tazz computer animation job we're so used to seeing!!! For goodness sake, I found the computer animation to be just fine by me. "Moving tanks", "choppy animation", etc. PLEASE!!!! Okay, so Yukon's beard was off just a touch. LET IT GO!!!! Now comes the other reason why I give this a four and a half (I gave it a five because that's what 4.5 rounds up to). (Scoop was the first reason for the lower rating). The songs were actually VERY catchy, but the orchestration sounded like it came out of a cheap MIDI module. It sounded chinsy. The songs themselves (if you can ignore the cheap instrument sounds) were very great, and would be so much better if Goodtimes hired a real orchestra. Anyway, to sum it up, the movie (other than the lacking orchestration) was superb. If you're looking for the original Rudolph, then don't waste your time complaining about this one, but if you're looking for a trustworthy sequel, then go for it. (Note that the DVD has special features showing the painstaking time it took for them to get the computer animation just right). Also, if you people want something to moan and groan about, go purchase "Frosty Returns" and see what an abomination THAT one was to the original "Frosty". Thank you.