Emperor’s New Groove
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:12 am
THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE (2000):
Written by: David Reynolds, Chris Reynolds & Mark Dindal
This one had a fabulously-awful production process, with a Prince and the Pauper-themed story being written by one guy, and a comedy film being written by another. When the first, also the director of The Lion King, quit over being forced to shorten his timeline, things looked to be a disaster. Instead, they completely re-did the entire film, dropping the "lookalike peasant" plot thread and a subplot about the sun being stolen (initial movie names: The Kingdom of the/in the Sun). They even dumped a bunch of songs written by Sting, who wanted to pull a Phil Collins and gain some sales/cred from the association with a Disney product (Sting was reportetdly VERY bitter about this).
The Kingdom of the Sun was supposed to be an epic in the tradition of Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, with Yzma being obsessed with gaining her youth, summoning an evil God to steal the Sun. Kuzco would switch places with a peasant lookalike for fun, but be transformed into a llama, eventually falling in love with a peasant girl after he learns humility. Ymza was more threatening and less neurotic, there was no Kronk, there was a talking Incan Idol sidekick, and a friendly peasant would be played by Owen Wilson (whose recording was completed). Disney would fear that this would be an unprofitable movie, owing to their recent batch of box office disappointments- the whole thing would be scrapped save for a few elements. There's a lot of "What Could Have Been?" about this movie, but the original seemed geared up to be a generic Cookie-Cutter Disney Film, complete with environmentalist subplot, wacky sidekicks, and love-based subplot.
In the end, we got a Buddy Movie with a ton of Aladdin-esque Modern Pop Culture gags and genre-savvy stuff. This was the PERFECT time for such a thing, as many of its cartoon contemporaries were becoming more self-referential all the time (Kim Possible came out not so long after), but not to the point where ALL cartoons were like that (like, say, today, where nearly every cartoon is a self-referential pop culture gag-fest written by 40-something nerds). Yzma would be turned into a comedic character, with an incompetent sidekick, and Kuzco's statue sidekick was replaced. They even dumped Owen Wilson's completed dialogue and re-cast John Goodman into his role! The movie's name evokes How Stella Got Her Groove Back- it's a little odd that a DISNEY FILM took a name from a movie that was ten years old and known pretty much only for an older chick boinking a younger guy.
The whole thing is about arrogant, lazy, self-absorbed idiot Emperor Kuzco, who's been transformed into a llama by an Evil Sorceress (one of Disney's hammier villains- a Madame Medusa/Cruella de Vil-like figure that represents the "Hag" archetype). In this sense, the movie is highly original for the Disney canon- none of their heroes had ever been DOUCHEBAGS before. So the "Character Arc" of Kuzco's is rather large, which makes for a solid narrative. But honestly, Yzma's henchman Kronk kind of runs away with this movie, and is probably the most popular character.
Watching it again... this HAS to be the first time a pregnant woman has shown up in a Disney Animated Feature- Wendy Malick's trademark "sly older woman" voice is fantastic, and she does the most with her very few scenes. In a clever bit, the movie pulls the "they do one nice thing and make amends" thing... but then Kuzco IMMEDIATELY goes back to being a douchebag! He repeatedly threatens to ruin Pacha's village just out of spite, and only Pacha's REPEATED insistence that Kuzco has some good inside of him keeps them together. The movie is so straight-up 100% comedy that it's impossible to take anything seriously, so the narrative of Kuzco changing is a LITTLE flat, but there's some solid jokes in here.
Reception & Cultural Impact:
-The movie ended up being pretty popular, and it's considered one of the funnier Disney movies- until last week, I hadn’t seen it in an eternity and found it rather "blah", but I couldn't tell you a thing about it. It didn't do overly well in theatres (this was the end of the Renaissance and after a HUGE series of disappointing films by this point), but didn't bomb or anything. There's apparently a REALLY good documentary out there that essentially explains why Disney willingly gave its "Feature Animation" crown to Pixar & DreamWorks in the late '90s- executive incompetence, cluelessness about what the public wanted, and lack of trust in its artists to produce a real vision (a strong case of "What Could Have Been"). Despite being this giant albatross around the neck of the company for a time... it's not a hated film. In actuality, it's REALLY popular online, with multiple characters and images from the film becoming huge memes. Yzma's "WRONG LEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" gets quoted ALL THE TIME, and Pacha's face has become an ongoing reaction every time someone posts something that's sexy or really good- kind of a high-class "MMMMMM..." face, drawing his pinched fingers forwards from a clenched-shut mouth. Kronk himself is also really popular.
It did okay but not too great (Chicken Little made MUCH more), but still managed to get its own TV series for some reason, which I never found amusing in the slightest. Just not my kinda thing. Kronk's New Groove was a sequel film on DVD, but the movies haven't had much of a cultural impact on the Disney Parks or anything. Bizarrely, both of these sequels were released FIVE YEARS after the movie first came out, which is a very oddly-long delay.
It's not really an old shame, but isn't really heavily pushed, either.