Pips (L) and Crysta are fairies in the rainforest. Photo courtesy of Shout! Factory
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Director Bill Kroyer said his animated film, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, in a 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition Tuesday, has a "save the rainforest" message that has only become more relevant since the film's release in 1992.
"Being more conscious of how we are caring for the Earth, and how we are being part of the Earth, is more critical than it has ever been," Kroyer told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "I think that's why the Ferngully message has remained timeless, and in some ways is more important to hear today than ever."
In Ferngully, a rainforest construction worker, Zak (Jonathan Ward), is shrunken down to the size of a forest fairy. While falling for fairy Crysta (Samantha Mathis) and getting to know her friends, Zak realizes the error in cutting down rainforests.
Kroyer said the film's message is "about looking at yourself as part of the web of the world."
Ferngully made $32 million worldwide. It was not the kind of money Disney films like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin made around that time, but Kroyer said he still hears from kids who loved it.
"Not a week goes by that I don't meet somebody that says to me, 'I grew up with that movie, I love that movie,'" Kroyer said."That's nice to hear."
When Avatar came out in 2009, some critics even compared it unfavorably to Ferngully. In Avatar, a military volunteer inhabits the body of an alien forest creature.
"I thought that was very funny," Kroyer said. "James Cameron has never acknowledged the similarity, but it is kind of a funny thing."
Ferngully was released on Blu-ray in 2012 for its 20th anniversary. For the new Shout! Factory release, Kroyer said the latest restoration looks superior to even the original theatrical release.
"The Blu-ray is the best color that anybody will have ever seen of Ferngully," Kroyer said. "We were able to bring to the new version a beauty that has really never been seen before."
.jpg)
Ferngully is the only feature film produced by Kroyer Films, which Kroyer launched in 1986 after departing from Disney. Australian producers Peter Faiman and Wayne Young were looking for animators outside of Disney to adapt Diana Young's Ferngully stories.
At the time, Kroyer Films only had 17 employees. Faiman and Young agreed to fund their expansion to make Ferngully.
Kroyer said he ultimately hired 140 animators in Los Angeles and between 50 and 70 in Toronto. Korean studios helped with inking and painting.
At Disney, Kroyer was in the same Disney training program as The Incredibles creator Brad Bird, The Little Mermaid co-director John Musker and Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick.
Unlike his colleagues, Kroyer did not attend school to learn animation. He taught himself using an 8 mm.camera to animate a snake for a Northwestern University advertising class.
"That's the cathartic moment of my life," Kroyer said. "I had created a life."
Kroyer spent two years after college doing animation for commercials. He used his commercial reel to get into Disney.
At Disney, Kroyer animated on The Fox and the Hound and then chose to work with Steven Lisberger instead of working on Disney's The Black Cauldron. After making Animalympics with Lisberger, Kroyer collaborated on Tron, which Lisberger ultimately sold to Disney.
BATTY WAS VOICED BY ROBIN WILLAMS
Tron pioneered computer animation. However, Kroyer pointed out that this early form of computer animation was limited to printing digital frames one by one.
"There was no animation software when we did Tron," Kroyer said. "You had to literally render an object 24 times in 24 different places to make 1 second of movement."
Tron used computer animation to depict the world of electrons inside a video game. Its light cycle and deadly disc sequences paved the way for more sophisticated visual effects.
After Tron, Kroyer saw the potential for combining digital animation with traditional Disney-style drawings. That was Kroyer Films' specialty, and he put it to use in Ferngully.
"In Ferngully, we had over 40,000 frames of computer-generated imagery," Kroyer said. "The beetles were all computer generated. We put those Beetle Boys on top of them, but they were all hand-drawn."
After Ferngully, Kroyer said, Kroyer Films had trouble mounting another animated feature because companies like Dreamworks were launching their own in-house animation studios. Kroyer briefly worked for Warner Brothers Animation in the '90s, but left over creative differences.
Instead, Kroyer went to work for friends at Rhythm & Hues Studios, first on commercials. Kroyer continued to direct animation for live-action/animated combo films like Cats & Dogs, Garfield and Scooby-Doo.
Kroyer still has reunions with the Ferngully crew, which he says are widely attended. He said it is rare for any film crew to remain in contact years later, and he feels Ferngully represents the passion of every artist involved.
"I'm proud of that, as well, because it kind of fits into the web of life," Kroyer said. " I'd like to think you feel that when you watch it."
Director BIll Kroyer Reflects on FernGully: The Last Rainforest for Film's 30th Anniversary
By NICOLE DRUM - August 23, 2022
It's been 30 years since FernGully: The Last Rainforest opened in theaters with the beloved animated feature bringing to life the story of a beautiful rainforest paradise filled with tiny sprites, winged fairies, tree spirits, and all kinds of animals all living in joyful harmony who find their home threatened by humans — and one courageous sprite who must give her all to save it. Now, Shout! Factory Kids is bringing this iconic film to Blu-ray and DVD with the release of FernGully: The Last Rainforest 30th Anniversary Edition.
Available now, the Blu-ray and DVD combo features an incredible restoration from a brand-new 4K scan of the original film, as well as a wealth of special features, including a new introduction from director Bill Kroyer which includes never-before-seen pencil character and animation tests as well as multiple commentaries, featurettes, a music video, a multi-angle scene study, a script-to-scene comparison, and more.
To mark the 30th anniversary of FernGully: The Last Rainforest as well as celebrate the Blu-ray release, ComicBook.com sat down to talk with Kroyer about the film, how it was made, it's important message about the world's rainforests and more — including some interesting facts about the film, which was hand painted. Kroyer told us that the entire film comprised of 32,000 pounds — that's 16 tons — of art, something you just don't see in contemporary animation.
"When the movie was over, we had to pack it all up and give it to a consignment house," Kroyer said. "And we weighed it, and we loaded the boxes into the truck. It was 16 tons. And four tons of that was paint, cell paint. So, that's another thing you don't get with digital animation. That's another thing that's kind of neat. Even when I think of that, I'm amazed at how we did it. Just all that paper, all those people drawing, all those people painting, shooting stuff under camera, just, oh gosh. And all the special effects, all the color, you know, all these things that no longer exist in filmmaking. It was like another age. But what a result."
He also spoke about getting FernGully: The Last Rainforest ready for this 30th anniversary edition, explaining that he was involved in doing all of the transferring to high resolution, leading to the "best version ever" of the film.
"Shout! Factory let us, let me and the art director come back to Los Angeles a couple months ago and we did all the color timing transferring of this to the new high resolution, high dynamic range version that you're going to watch in this Blu-ray. And it is the best... Excuse me, it's the best version ever. I mean, our jaws were dropping because, remember FernGully was handmade. It's paintings and painted cells. It's not digital. It's not resolution dependent. And then it was filmed on film, so it's emulsion. So, when we transferred from the emulsion of film to high resolution, high dynamic range digital, it was gorgeous," he said.
"I think when you watch it, on your screen, you're going to be kind of immersed in that color and the beauty of the environment. It's just really something that really pops out. It was something to see. And that's of course, Ralph Eggleston our art director, who went on to do Toy Story and Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. He was the guy behind all that. And you can see a genius at work when you watch FernGully."
Read on for more from our interview with Kroyer.
ComicBook.com: It's been 30 years since FernGully opened in theaters. Does it feel like it's been three decades?
Bill Kroyer: It does in some ways. In other ways, it's so alive because FernGully had one of the happiest crews that I've ever experienced in making a movie. It was almost like a family. We have reunions every five years with almost the entire crew. And everybody stays in touch, so in a weird sort of way, it's never really stopped for me because I still see all the people I know, all the animators, background painters, the ink paint people, production managers. We still talk to them and see them. And every one of them will tell you, if you ever went into one, that it was the best experience they ever had making a movie. And I like to think that comes across on the screen.
I watched it as a kid… watching it as a teen, I don't watch it with the same eyes I do now. I know watching it as an adult, it just really does seem like there's a lot of love there.
You know, I think being a completely handmade film has a lot to do with that, because people who are not separated from the art by a keyboard and the screen, but are actually holding the artwork in their hands, they're drawing, they're painting, they're polishing, they're carefully hand inking cells, I think that you're so immediately connected to the artwork that I think that that feeling creates a different feeling, not only the crew, but I always thought that came through in the art. I guess I had this kind of weird mystical feeling that somehow the art would emanate that kind of love and care and it was just better. I think there's something special about handmade films.
Looking at this, I love that the film is getting a 30th anniversary Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. I just love how it looks. It does have this almost completely different, ethereal quality to it that I don't think we see as much anymore and I think it really does come from that, the handmade feel, which is so interesting.
Well, it's interesting you should say that because, FernGully is, I think, completely unique in that look because of one thing, is that rather than try to create a... Animation's called world building where you create a fantasy world, our fantasy world, our mission, was to not to create a fantasy world, but to represent the actual real world with the magic that it contains. And I don't think any film has ever done that. Every single blade of grass, every flower, every tree, every animal in FernGully exists in the Australian rainforest.
We went down there and did tons of research. And then we came back, and we made it our mission to say, this is a movie whose message is about saving a magical place. And it's not a fantasy. This magical place exists in the world. And we want you to realize that this is here, and this is something that's worth caring about saving, so I think that's why the look of FernGully is so unique from any other film.
That's something that actually really surprised me. I hadn't realized that y'all actually went to Australia to this remote rainforest. Again, young me was like, this is just so cool. And now I'm like, you guys really went there. Walk me through a little bit of how, because that's unheard of. I mean, that's unheard of now and that's unheard of in the '90s. How did that come to be part of the process of this movie?
Well, people were starting to do little research trips. They were starting that back then. But this was a trip that had to be made because, the producers, the Australian producers, they kind of had that as part of the mission statement. They said, this is a movie about all... This is about not just the Australian rainforest, not just rainforests. It's a movie about nature. It's about loving nature and appreciating nature and protecting nature. But they said in this case, because this is the place where it takes place, it's really, really important for you to go there and to learn about it and to see it.
And all the things in the movie, like the fairy circle, and all the animals, the leaches, the glowing fungus. Who in the world ever saw glowing fungus on trees like that. We never saw anything like it. Or the cave, with all the little glowing... that's all real stuff. We didn't make that up. I think it gave an extra kind of dedication for the whole crew to be making a movie with that kind of sincerity.
To say FernGully changed my life is no exaggeration. It marked the first time I became aware of environmental issues, and I know immediately after seeing the film, it started changing how I personally interacted with the world even as a young teenager. I think there are a lot of younger Gen Xers and millennials who also saw this movie and it framed our relationship with the environment. It feels now like the message of FernGully is still timely, but perhaps even more timely now. What do you hope that people take away from this 30th anniversary edition of the film?
I think you've just said it. I think it is more timely and more important to learn the lesson of FernGully today than ever. And I've always rejected this idea that FernGully was in any way a political statement. It is an absolute truth, an absolute principle of life that that idea of the web of life is how we all live on this earth. We live with each other, and we live with nature, with animals, with plants. That's how we do it. We aren't separate. It's impossible to be separate. We're all connected by the web of life. And that's the thing that I hope that kids and anybody that watches it are reminded of now when they see it, is that, wait a minute. I do have some role here. Everything I do and everything I say and the way I live has some connection to everyone else and I should be more conscious of that.
I'm really interested to see how this very 'we're all connected' approach to it really impacts the younger folks.
I used to get letters from the logging lobby, as if I was anti-logging. We were never anti-logging. It's just common sense land management. You don't clear cut rainforest. That doesn't make any sense. That's just kind of a greedy and dumb approach as anybody who really studies the issue will tell you. It's all about a more conscious way. That's all it is. More careful and conscious way to care for everything. And it's really taking care of yourself. That's what you're doing. You're really caring for yourself when you think more carefully about the environment and how you deal with it.
The other thing I hope your kids will pay attention to in this movie is something they are not seeing anymore, and that's hand drawn animation. This is one of the last, truly, fully animated hand drawn films. And that the way the characters, the performance of the characters and the way it works is so different from CG. And when you watch them, there's a magic there because remember, the animator doesn't have to obey any laws of physics or dimensionality or structure, they just have to draw something that you believe in. And so that's why, when you look at these characters, that you go, well, wait a minute. How can those eyeballs move around like that? It doesn't matter because it was just drawn. And that's one of the, I think, one of them were captivating and fun things about the movie.
Looking back now, what are your favorite moments or memories from making FernGully and what are you most proud of?
I have to say, obviously having made a film under... It's always tough to make a movie with a relatively low budget and a very tough time schedule and have it come out so beautifully, I'm very proud of that. But I'm also really proud of the fact that our crew was the happiest crew on any movie. And if you ever talk to any of them, they'll tell you it was the best experience. And we have reunions every five years. Nobody does that. And we're still close to almost everybody. Everybody's still good friends of ours and we still see them. In a way I think that's one of the things that I like to think, again, comes across, is that FernGully was a true labor of love that everybody bonds with it.
One of the things that jumped out at me was that in the commentary track… the song "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You). Did I hear correctly in that commentary that Jimmy Buffet actually wrote that song?
Yes. The billionaire wrote that song. How about that? I mean, I think FernGully probably has the most eclectic collection of music of any movie. I mean, when you look at all the different authors and songwriters, but yeah, Jimmy Buffet, he came into the studio, and I went through the sequence with him. And I said, so, and I have the sequence with the Goanna and he kind of had some lyrics in mind and he had that thing about strange exotic stew and everything. And I went, "Well, would animals know what a stew is?" And he looked at me with this look that kind of said that you realize I'm a billionaire, right? I know what I'm doing. So anyway, he wrote the song, and it was hilarious, and it worked really well.
All the songs moved things along so beautifully. It was so much fun to work with everybody.
I've got one last question for you. Robin Williams' performance as Batty Koda is, in my opinion, iconic. And doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves because that bat is great and everything about it is great. What was it like working with him.
He was the most brilliant guy I've ever worked with, and he was, not just a genius, but the other thing is, the flip side of it was he was a complete gentleman. He was wonderful to every single person. Even the lowest PA, Robin was always friendly and polite and very genuine. He had no ego. He'd just come in and make everybody comfortable. And I always say the hardest job for me in FernGully was picking which take to use, because he would instantly get the sense of the scene and do what was written and then he'd start to improvise and do other things. And he was always brilliant.
But can you think of a better person to embody that character? Because if you think about it, Batty Koda is the center of the movie. He is the absolute symbol, the metaphor, for nature being met by man and struggling to understand why. And Robin was just, that's what he loved about it. He loved that character and that's why he signed on. It was his first animated voice that he ever did, and he just loved doing it. And I'll always be so grateful now, and so happy that he did it because he was the best.
30th Anniversary Blu-ray and DVD
FernGully: The Last Rainforest:
Crysta (Samantha Mathis) is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in Australia, and has never seen a human before. In fact, she is told they are extinct. But when a logging company comes near the rainforest, she sees that they do exist, and even accidentally shrinks one of them: a boy named Zak (Jonathan Ward). Now her size, Zak sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but an evil entity named Hexxus (Tim Curry), who feeds off pollution.
Blu-ray: 1080p High-Definition Widescreen (1.85:1)/English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 & Stereo
DVD: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1)/English Dolby Digital 5.1 & Stereo
English SDH Subtitles/1992/Color/Approximate Feature Running Time +/- 80 Minutes
Rated G, Canadian G
Special Features:
• NEW Introduction With Director Bill Kroyer, Which Includes Never-Before-Seen Pencil, Character And Animation Tests
• Audio Commentary with Bill Kroyer, Art Director Ralph Eggleston and Coordinating Art Director Susan Kroyer
• "Seed of the Story" – Script-To-Screen Comparison with Optional Commentary by Screenwriter Jim Cox
• "From Paper to Tree" – Making-of Featurette
• "Behind The Voice: Toxic Love" – Multi-Angle Scene Study
• Original Featurette
• "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You)" Music Video
• Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots0COMMENTS
***
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
By NICOLE DRUM - August 23, 2022
It's been 30 years since FernGully: The Last Rainforest opened in theaters with the beloved animated feature bringing to life the story of a beautiful rainforest paradise filled with tiny sprites, winged fairies, tree spirits, and all kinds of animals all living in joyful harmony who find their home threatened by humans — and one courageous sprite who must give her all to save it. Now, Shout! Factory Kids is bringing this iconic film to Blu-ray and DVD with the release of FernGully: The Last Rainforest 30th Anniversary Edition.
Available now, the Blu-ray and DVD combo features an incredible restoration from a brand-new 4K scan of the original film, as well as a wealth of special features, including a new introduction from director Bill Kroyer which includes never-before-seen pencil character and animation tests as well as multiple commentaries, featurettes, a music video, a multi-angle scene study, a script-to-scene comparison, and more.
To mark the 30th anniversary of FernGully: The Last Rainforest as well as celebrate the Blu-ray release, ComicBook.com sat down to talk with Kroyer about the film, how it was made, it's important message about the world's rainforests and more — including some interesting facts about the film, which was hand painted. Kroyer told us that the entire film comprised of 32,000 pounds — that's 16 tons — of art, something you just don't see in contemporary animation.
"When the movie was over, we had to pack it all up and give it to a consignment house," Kroyer said. "And we weighed it, and we loaded the boxes into the truck. It was 16 tons. And four tons of that was paint, cell paint. So, that's another thing you don't get with digital animation. That's another thing that's kind of neat. Even when I think of that, I'm amazed at how we did it. Just all that paper, all those people drawing, all those people painting, shooting stuff under camera, just, oh gosh. And all the special effects, all the color, you know, all these things that no longer exist in filmmaking. It was like another age. But what a result."
He also spoke about getting FernGully: The Last Rainforest ready for this 30th anniversary edition, explaining that he was involved in doing all of the transferring to high resolution, leading to the "best version ever" of the film.
"Shout! Factory let us, let me and the art director come back to Los Angeles a couple months ago and we did all the color timing transferring of this to the new high resolution, high dynamic range version that you're going to watch in this Blu-ray. And it is the best... Excuse me, it's the best version ever. I mean, our jaws were dropping because, remember FernGully was handmade. It's paintings and painted cells. It's not digital. It's not resolution dependent. And then it was filmed on film, so it's emulsion. So, when we transferred from the emulsion of film to high resolution, high dynamic range digital, it was gorgeous," he said.
"I think when you watch it, on your screen, you're going to be kind of immersed in that color and the beauty of the environment. It's just really something that really pops out. It was something to see. And that's of course, Ralph Eggleston our art director, who went on to do Toy Story and Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. He was the guy behind all that. And you can see a genius at work when you watch FernGully."
Read on for more from our interview with Kroyer.
ComicBook.com: It's been 30 years since FernGully opened in theaters. Does it feel like it's been three decades?
Bill Kroyer: It does in some ways. In other ways, it's so alive because FernGully had one of the happiest crews that I've ever experienced in making a movie. It was almost like a family. We have reunions every five years with almost the entire crew. And everybody stays in touch, so in a weird sort of way, it's never really stopped for me because I still see all the people I know, all the animators, background painters, the ink paint people, production managers. We still talk to them and see them. And every one of them will tell you, if you ever went into one, that it was the best experience they ever had making a movie. And I like to think that comes across on the screen.
I watched it as a kid… watching it as a teen, I don't watch it with the same eyes I do now. I know watching it as an adult, it just really does seem like there's a lot of love there.
You know, I think being a completely handmade film has a lot to do with that, because people who are not separated from the art by a keyboard and the screen, but are actually holding the artwork in their hands, they're drawing, they're painting, they're polishing, they're carefully hand inking cells, I think that you're so immediately connected to the artwork that I think that that feeling creates a different feeling, not only the crew, but I always thought that came through in the art. I guess I had this kind of weird mystical feeling that somehow the art would emanate that kind of love and care and it was just better. I think there's something special about handmade films.
Looking at this, I love that the film is getting a 30th anniversary Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. I just love how it looks. It does have this almost completely different, ethereal quality to it that I don't think we see as much anymore and I think it really does come from that, the handmade feel, which is so interesting.
Well, it's interesting you should say that because, FernGully is, I think, completely unique in that look because of one thing, is that rather than try to create a... Animation's called world building where you create a fantasy world, our fantasy world, our mission, was to not to create a fantasy world, but to represent the actual real world with the magic that it contains. And I don't think any film has ever done that. Every single blade of grass, every flower, every tree, every animal in FernGully exists in the Australian rainforest.
We went down there and did tons of research. And then we came back, and we made it our mission to say, this is a movie whose message is about saving a magical place. And it's not a fantasy. This magical place exists in the world. And we want you to realize that this is here, and this is something that's worth caring about saving, so I think that's why the look of FernGully is so unique from any other film.
That's something that actually really surprised me. I hadn't realized that y'all actually went to Australia to this remote rainforest. Again, young me was like, this is just so cool. And now I'm like, you guys really went there. Walk me through a little bit of how, because that's unheard of. I mean, that's unheard of now and that's unheard of in the '90s. How did that come to be part of the process of this movie?
Well, people were starting to do little research trips. They were starting that back then. But this was a trip that had to be made because, the producers, the Australian producers, they kind of had that as part of the mission statement. They said, this is a movie about all... This is about not just the Australian rainforest, not just rainforests. It's a movie about nature. It's about loving nature and appreciating nature and protecting nature. But they said in this case, because this is the place where it takes place, it's really, really important for you to go there and to learn about it and to see it.
And all the things in the movie, like the fairy circle, and all the animals, the leaches, the glowing fungus. Who in the world ever saw glowing fungus on trees like that. We never saw anything like it. Or the cave, with all the little glowing... that's all real stuff. We didn't make that up. I think it gave an extra kind of dedication for the whole crew to be making a movie with that kind of sincerity.
To say FernGully changed my life is no exaggeration. It marked the first time I became aware of environmental issues, and I know immediately after seeing the film, it started changing how I personally interacted with the world even as a young teenager. I think there are a lot of younger Gen Xers and millennials who also saw this movie and it framed our relationship with the environment. It feels now like the message of FernGully is still timely, but perhaps even more timely now. What do you hope that people take away from this 30th anniversary edition of the film?
I think you've just said it. I think it is more timely and more important to learn the lesson of FernGully today than ever. And I've always rejected this idea that FernGully was in any way a political statement. It is an absolute truth, an absolute principle of life that that idea of the web of life is how we all live on this earth. We live with each other, and we live with nature, with animals, with plants. That's how we do it. We aren't separate. It's impossible to be separate. We're all connected by the web of life. And that's the thing that I hope that kids and anybody that watches it are reminded of now when they see it, is that, wait a minute. I do have some role here. Everything I do and everything I say and the way I live has some connection to everyone else and I should be more conscious of that.
I'm really interested to see how this very 'we're all connected' approach to it really impacts the younger folks.
I used to get letters from the logging lobby, as if I was anti-logging. We were never anti-logging. It's just common sense land management. You don't clear cut rainforest. That doesn't make any sense. That's just kind of a greedy and dumb approach as anybody who really studies the issue will tell you. It's all about a more conscious way. That's all it is. More careful and conscious way to care for everything. And it's really taking care of yourself. That's what you're doing. You're really caring for yourself when you think more carefully about the environment and how you deal with it.
The other thing I hope your kids will pay attention to in this movie is something they are not seeing anymore, and that's hand drawn animation. This is one of the last, truly, fully animated hand drawn films. And that the way the characters, the performance of the characters and the way it works is so different from CG. And when you watch them, there's a magic there because remember, the animator doesn't have to obey any laws of physics or dimensionality or structure, they just have to draw something that you believe in. And so that's why, when you look at these characters, that you go, well, wait a minute. How can those eyeballs move around like that? It doesn't matter because it was just drawn. And that's one of the, I think, one of them were captivating and fun things about the movie.
Looking back now, what are your favorite moments or memories from making FernGully and what are you most proud of?
I have to say, obviously having made a film under... It's always tough to make a movie with a relatively low budget and a very tough time schedule and have it come out so beautifully, I'm very proud of that. But I'm also really proud of the fact that our crew was the happiest crew on any movie. And if you ever talk to any of them, they'll tell you it was the best experience. And we have reunions every five years. Nobody does that. And we're still close to almost everybody. Everybody's still good friends of ours and we still see them. In a way I think that's one of the things that I like to think, again, comes across, is that FernGully was a true labor of love that everybody bonds with it.
One of the things that jumped out at me was that in the commentary track… the song "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You). Did I hear correctly in that commentary that Jimmy Buffet actually wrote that song?
Yes. The billionaire wrote that song. How about that? I mean, I think FernGully probably has the most eclectic collection of music of any movie. I mean, when you look at all the different authors and songwriters, but yeah, Jimmy Buffet, he came into the studio, and I went through the sequence with him. And I said, so, and I have the sequence with the Goanna and he kind of had some lyrics in mind and he had that thing about strange exotic stew and everything. And I went, "Well, would animals know what a stew is?" And he looked at me with this look that kind of said that you realize I'm a billionaire, right? I know what I'm doing. So anyway, he wrote the song, and it was hilarious, and it worked really well.
All the songs moved things along so beautifully. It was so much fun to work with everybody.
I've got one last question for you. Robin Williams' performance as Batty Koda is, in my opinion, iconic. And doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves because that bat is great and everything about it is great. What was it like working with him.
He was the most brilliant guy I've ever worked with, and he was, not just a genius, but the other thing is, the flip side of it was he was a complete gentleman. He was wonderful to every single person. Even the lowest PA, Robin was always friendly and polite and very genuine. He had no ego. He'd just come in and make everybody comfortable. And I always say the hardest job for me in FernGully was picking which take to use, because he would instantly get the sense of the scene and do what was written and then he'd start to improvise and do other things. And he was always brilliant.
But can you think of a better person to embody that character? Because if you think about it, Batty Koda is the center of the movie. He is the absolute symbol, the metaphor, for nature being met by man and struggling to understand why. And Robin was just, that's what he loved about it. He loved that character and that's why he signed on. It was his first animated voice that he ever did, and he just loved doing it. And I'll always be so grateful now, and so happy that he did it because he was the best.
30th Anniversary Blu-ray and DVD
FernGully: The Last Rainforest:
Crysta (Samantha Mathis) is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in Australia, and has never seen a human before. In fact, she is told they are extinct. But when a logging company comes near the rainforest, she sees that they do exist, and even accidentally shrinks one of them: a boy named Zak (Jonathan Ward). Now her size, Zak sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but an evil entity named Hexxus (Tim Curry), who feeds off pollution.
Blu-ray: 1080p High-Definition Widescreen (1.85:1)/English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 & Stereo
DVD: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1)/English Dolby Digital 5.1 & Stereo
English SDH Subtitles/1992/Color/Approximate Feature Running Time +/- 80 Minutes
Rated G, Canadian G
Special Features:
• NEW Introduction With Director Bill Kroyer, Which Includes Never-Before-Seen Pencil, Character And Animation Tests
• Audio Commentary with Bill Kroyer, Art Director Ralph Eggleston and Coordinating Art Director Susan Kroyer
• "Seed of the Story" – Script-To-Screen Comparison with Optional Commentary by Screenwriter Jim Cox
• "From Paper to Tree" – Making-of Featurette
• "Behind The Voice: Toxic Love" – Multi-Angle Scene Study
• Original Featurette
• "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might As Well Be You)" Music Video
• Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots0COMMENTS
***
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
