To convincingly depict a wild prehistoric landscape, animators tried every trick in the book - and then they invented some new ones. The first scenes in the Rite of Spring segment showcased the studio's skill at special effects. Walt Disney originally conceived of following evolution all the way up to "the age of mammals and the first men" and even beyond that to "fire and the triumph of man." That was ultimately deemed to be too controversial, though, so the segment was written to wrap up with the extinction of the dinosaurs.ĭespite the fact that the animators knowingly took some creative liberties - the climactic battle between a Stegosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus rex could never have happened, since those animals lived in different eras - the segment was taken seriously enough as an educational aid that a 16mm film of the Rite of Spring sequence was circulated among schools for decades for use in science classes. If Stravinsky's 1913 ballet was the most musically daring among the Fantasia segments, so was the idea of evolution - or at least, the idea of dramatizing it via animation in a family film. It was Deems Taylor who suggested that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring might be just the thing for a barbaric battle, and Disney wholeheartedly agreed. The motion and sweep of it fits right with the music."ĭisney's ambition to task his animators with a dramatic exploration of the prehistoric world came before he knew what music would provide its soundtrack. "When we go 50 million lightyears in space and come down on the Earth, it's something that's never been seen before. "The ballet was built for people who have to put their feet on the ground - who can't fly through the air," noted Disney.
Walt Disney himself was proud of the decision to depart from the ballet's original story (in a primitive ritual, a young girl dances herself to death).
Nine years after the film's release, though, Stravinsky had come to the conclusion that the Rite of Spring segment was "terrible." In the last years of his life, Stravinsky called the animation "imbecility" and even tossed in a dig at conductor Leopold Stokowski, saying his interpretation was "execrable." Composer Igor Stravinsky himself had signed a contract to do more music with Disney, has blandly averred that Disney's paleontological cataclysm was what he had in mind all along in his Rite of Spring."
He even posed for a photo with Walt Disney, signing it "from an admirer of your great achievements."Īccording to a Time cover story that was published upon Fantasia's release in 1940, "An imposing list of top-flight contemporary composers (Paul Hindemith, Serge Prokofiev, William Grant Still, Deems Taylor, et al.) have vowed that they would spend their lives working for Disney if he gave them a chance. Stravinsky personally granted approval for Disney to use the music, and he expressed no disapproval - at least, any that made it on record - when he visited the animation studio and saw work in progress on the segment.
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