when i initially set out to review this film , my tag line was going to be " you too can believe whales can fly " . 
then it was going to be " you too can believe pastel triangles can fly " . 
then , it was going to be " you too can believe wood sprites can fly " . 
finally , i just gave up trying to come up with a tag line and decided to say . . . 
there's a lot of flying going on in this film ! 
as our first host steve martin tells us , the original concept behind fantasia was to bring it out every year with some old segments retained and some new segments added in . 
well apparently that plan fell by the wayside for a while , because approximately sixty years have passed since the original classic was released . 
part of this might have something to do with the cold reception the film got when it was first released in 1940 ( grossing somewhere close to $110 , 000 in its original month of release ) . 
subsequent re-releases of the film have elevated the popularity of the film to the classic status it has finally achieved ( and rightfully deserved ) . 
to celebrate the release of an updated version of fantasia , disney and imax teamed up to present the animated film in a fashion no one had seen before : six stories high . 
in an exclusive four month engagement ( from january 1st to april 30th , 2000 ) , fantasia 2000 can be seen at many imax theaters across the us . 
after the engagement is over , the film will be shown at regular theaters . 
is the format effective for the film ? 
with a few exceptions , yes . 
the first segment we are presented with is set to beethoven's fifth symphony . 
it's hard to describe exactly what this segment is about , but it involves a bunch of brightly colored butterfly looking triangles flitting about happily . 
everything seems to be going great for these little things until the ground erupts with swarms of evil , black bat-like triangles that attack and engulf their lighter counterparts . 
eventually , shafts of light from above help drive away the evil bat-like things and peace returns to the butterfly things . 
though this segment isn't very story driven , some of the images are very visually strong , especially the scene in which the dark cloud of bat things ( who are all outlined in blood red colors ) begin to overtake the skies . 
the next segment is set to ottorino respighi's " the pines of rome " . 
in this segment , some humpback whales swim happily through the ocean and eventually emerge from the water and fly around the massive icebergs that pepper the oceanscape . 
a whale calf gets into a scuffle with some nearby birds during the flight and ends up getting trapped in a giant iceberg he smashes into while trying to avoid the birds attack . 
he is finally saved ( by another liberating shaft of light ) and he and his brethren take to the skies and fly into the upper atmosphere where they frolic in the " oceans " of clouds . 
again , visuals are the key with this segment , especially where the whales are involved . 
reportedly the whales , as viewed on an imax screen in certain sequences , are shown as actual size . 
the cgi whales look incredibly life-like , except for some googly cartoon eyes drawn onto the images . 
one especially striking image involves the giant shadow of one of the whales being cast through the wall of an iceberg as the whale calf tries to find a way out to its parent . 
absolutely beautiful stuff . 
the third segment ( and the least of the eight segments ) is set to george gershwin's " rhapsody in blue " . 
this segment is designed as a tribute to acclaimed caricaturist al hirschfeld , and intertwines four different stories about sad souls living in depression era new york . 
there's a construction worker who dreams of being a jazz drummer , an out-of-work sad sack that dreams of having a job , a young girl that dreams of spending time with her parents instead of being hustled off by a schoolmarm , and a nebbish who dreams of being free from his overbearing wife . 
i won't go into how everything works out , but in fine disney tradition there is a happy ending . 
unfortunately , the story drags quite a bit and the seems out of place within the hyper reality of the rest of the segments . 
segment four is set to dmitri shostakovich's " piano concerto no . 2 " and is an animated version of hans christian andersen's " the steadfast tin soldier " . 
a one legged toy tin soldier falls in love with a wind-up clock ballerina ( whom he assumes is also one legged because he can't see her other leg extended out behind her ) , much to the dismay of an evil jack-in-the-box jester . 
the jester knocks the soldier out of a window and continues pursuing the ballerina . 
little does the jester know , the soldier has been deposited in the sewer and has journeyed through the pipelines only to be swallowed by a fish that has been captured and sold to the owner of the set of tin soldiers that the one legged one comes from . 
the soldier eventually saves the day and gets the girl . 
although the ending has been altered from the andersen story , " the steadfast tin soldier " is decently told with in the framework of a seven minute short . 
some children may find the jester to be a little frightening , but otherwise the segment is well made . 
segment five is the funniest of the bunch . 
set to camille saint-saens " the carnival of the animals " , this segment features a flamingo torturing his fellow flamingos with a yo-yo while they are trying to perform a choreographed dance number . 
while it is the shortest clip of the group and a throwback to the alligators and hippos dancing in the first fantasia , it is still well accomplished and a welcome bit of comedy . 
segment six is the only segment to be repeated from the original 1940 fantasia , and it's the one that people remember most , " the sorcerer's apprentice " . 
the story is the most recognizable , so the draw here is seeing it on the enormous imax screen in remastered stereo . 
unfortunately , the segment wasn't made to be presented on large format film ( considering it was shot full frame ) and exhibits large amounts of grain . 
there were at least two occasions where images were very hard to make out due to the excessive grain . 
similar problems crop up on modern day releases when projected on screens too large for the image to be shown accurately ( but no one seems to notice for some strange reason ) , an anomaly common to many 18-plus screen theaters . 
segment seven is set to sir edward elgar's " pomp and circumstance march no . 1 " and is the only other fantasia segment to feature a stock disney character . 
donald duck " stars " as an assistant to noah , whose task is loading all of the animals onto the ark . 
during the loading , donald and his wife lose sight of each other and both believe that the other one didn't make it on the boat . 
they are constantly missing each other due to comic misadventures mainly involving donald being crushed by animals in various manners . 
despite the slapstick style of comedy in this piece , it displays more emotion in its final scene than many of the tear-jerkers foisted on audiences these days . 
powerful stuff . 
segment eight brings a whole new meaning to the clich ? " saving the best for last " . 
set to igor stravinsky's " the firebird " , an elk awakens a forest sprite that proceeds to change the wintery landscape into a beautiful springtime landscape . 
trees bloom and flowers blossom and everything seems to be going well until the sprite becomes inquisitive about a large mountain housing a strange formation . 
when the sprite examines the formation , it awakens and becomes the titular firebird . 
in a stunning spectacle , the firebird rears back and unleashes and fire storm that destroys everything in its path , including everything that the sprite has worked to create . 
some amazing animation is present here , and well worth the ten dollars a ticket alone ( although brush strokes are evident in one scene due to the enlargement of the film ) . 
the host segments are largely ( no pun intended ) throwaways , although steve martin's clip is pretty funny . 
be sure to stay through the credits for a little more humor from martin . 
penn and teller are usually funny , but here their gags seem routine and therefore uninteresting . 
the best segment comes from , of all people , bette midler , who gets to tell us about some of the abandoned segments that never made it off of the drawing board . 
pieces like flight of the bumblebee , a take on the four horsemen set to wagner's " ride of the valkyries " , and a strange segment prepared in the '40s by salvador dali that never was shown are all previewed here and teased that they may appear in future installments . 
for fans of visual stimulation or classical music , fantasia 2000 is a perfect way to spend the afternoon . 
the film is also decent family entertainment and contains little to no objectionable material . 
as i mentioned earlier in the review , if ten dollars seems like too much for you to spend on this film , fear not because after its run in imax theaters it is going to be brought out in regular theaters . 
i must stress that the best way to see this film is on an imax screen though . 
then you too can believe that whales/triangle things/sprites can fly . 
[g] 
