An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (also known as An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West or An American Tail II) is a 1991 American animated Western comedy film directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells (in their feature directorial debuts), with producer Steven Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment and animated by his Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures.[4] A sequel to 1986's An American Tail, the film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Russian-Jewish mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles him and Sheriff Wylie Burp teaching Tiger how to act like a dog.
This article is about the film. For the 1994 video game, see An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (video game).An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
- November 17, 1991 (Kennedy Center)
- November 22, 1991 (United States)
75 minutes
United States[2]
English
$16.5 million[3]
$22.1 million (US)
Fievel Goes West was the first production for the short-lived Amblimation, a studio Spielberg set up to keep the animators of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) working. It is also the only Amblimation film to use cel animation, the last in the series to do so, and the last to be released in theaters. While the animation medium was transitioning to computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Spielberg wanted almost all of the animation of Fievel Goes West to be hand-drawn, describing animation as "an arts-and-crafts business". He also wanted the animation to have a "live-action" feel. Phillip Glasser, Dom DeLuise, Nehemiah Persoff, and Erica Yohn reprise their roles from the first film for Fievel Goes West. Tanya's original voice actor, Amy Green, was replaced by Cathy Cavadini, and new characters were voiced by John Cleese, Amy Irving, Jon Lovitz, and James Stewart in his final film role. James Horner returned as a composer and wrote the film's song "Dreams to Dream", which garnered a Golden Globe nomination.
Premiering at the Kennedy Center on November 17, 1991, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West began its American theatrical run on November 22. This was the same day Walt Disney Pictures' Beauty and the Beast (1991) was distributed, making it the third instance of two animated films being released on the same date. Fievel Goes West was promoted with a wide array of tie-ins and started in the top ten at the box office. The film grossed $22 million in the United States against a budget of $16 million. Some film journalists and executives attributed this to having to compete with the Disney film.
Upon its release, Fievel Goes West was panned for a lack of perceived innovation compared to other animated films of its time.[5] However, it found success when it came to home video sales, quickly reaching the top of the video charts when released on tape in March 1992; at the time, the film held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer, and it has since gained a large cult following. In addition to garnering more home media releases, TV lairings, and video game adaptations later on, the film has made numerous 2010s retrospective best-of lists from online publications, especially best Netflix-available Western films. Fievel Goes West was followed by a short-lived CBS series named Fievel's American Tails and two direct-to-video films: An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island (1998) and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster (1999).
Plot[edit]
In 1890, five years after fleeing Russia and emigrating to the United States, the impoverished Mousekewitz family are still struggling against the attacks of mouse-hungry cats. Fievel spends his days thinking about a bloodhound-sheriff called Wylie Burp, while Tanya dreams of becoming a singer. Meanwhile, Tiger's girlfriend, Miss Kitty, leaves him to find a new life out west, remarking that perhaps she is looking for "a cat that's more like a dog".
A British aristocratic cat named Cat R. Waul launches an attack on the mice, forcing them to flee into the sewers. There, they come across a cowboy mouse, who is in fact a marionette controlled by Waul, who tricks the mice into moving out west. Tiger tries catching up with his friends, but is thrown off course by a group of dogs. While on the train, Fievel wanders into the livestock car and overhears the cats' intentions to eat the mice. After being discovered, Fievel tries to flee but Waul has his hench-spider, T.R. Chula, hurl Fievel off the train and leave him stranded in the middle of the desert. Devastated over his loss, his family arrives in Green River, Utah.
Upon arrival in Green River, Chula blocks up the water tower, drying up the river. Waul approaches the mice and proposes to build a new saloon together, although intending to trick the mice into doing the bulk of the work and eat them afterwards. Meanwhile, Fievel wanders aimlessly through the desert, as is Tiger, who has found his way out west as well, and they pass each other. However, they each figure that the other is a mirage and continue on their separate ways. Tiger is captured by a local mouse native tribe and hailed as a god. Fievel is picked up by a hawk, dropped over the native village and reunites with Tiger. Tiger chooses to stay in while Fievel catches a passing tumbleweed, which takes him to Green River. He reunites with his family and tells them Waul's plans, but they figure he is hallucinating due to the desert heat. Entering the saloon, Fievel overhears the cats' plan yet again and is discovered once more by Waul. Waul tries eating Fievel, but is thwarted when he hears Tanya singing. He sends Tanya to Miss Kitty, who is now a saloon-girl cat and she reveals that she came at Waul's request. He tells Miss Kitty to put her on stage and Tanya performs for the cats. Meanwhile, Fievel is chased by Chula and taken prisoner, but flees.
Despondent, Fievel speaks with an elderly bloodhound sleeping outside the jail, discovering he is actually Wylie Burp. Fievel tries to convince him to help. Wylie feels he has grown old to the point where he is no longer the lawman he was in his youth but agrees to train Tiger as a lawman so he can officially retire. Though initially reluctant, Tiger relents at the suggestion that a new persona might win back Miss Kitty. They return to Green River to fight the cats, who attempt to use a concealed giant mouse trap on the mice at sunset during the opening of Waul's saloon. Tiger, Wylie and Fievel fight the cats, during which Miss Kitty and Tanya discover the trap. Tanya rushes to the mice and, using her singing abilities, helps them escape. Seeing this, Waul uses a giant revolver as a makeshift cannon on the fleeing mice. However, Wylie has Fievel intercept from Waul's attacks, but when Chula takes Miss Kitty hostage, an incensed Tiger rescues her, and the heroes use the mouse trap as a catapult to send Waul and his cats out of Green River. The cats fly into the air and land into a mailbag, which a passing train picks up and leaves.
Enamored by his new personality, Miss Kitty reunites with Tiger. Tanya becomes a famous singer and the water tower flows with 1,000 gallons again, making Green River bloom with thousands of flowers. Fievel finds Wylie away from the party, who hands him his sheriff badge. Fievel is unsure about taking it but realizes that his journey is not over.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
A sequel to Steven Spielberg's An American Tail (1986) under the working title An American Tail II was put into pre-production by David Kirschner in April 1988 after he finished producing Child's Play (1988); when announcing the project that same month, he summarized that Fievel will "fight the cat-tle barons. It's like a John Ford western with Jewish mice".[6] Kirschner started pre-production as Spielberg was setting up filming for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) in Europe.[6] He was not involved in the production and post-production, and admitted in 1993 that he disliked Fievel Goes West as "entertainment without character".[7] The screenplay was written by Flint Dille, who was led to the position by writing for Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures (1990–92).[8]
Spielberg produced the live-action animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), which was the top grossing motion picture of 1988.[9] As a way to keep the movie's animators working, due to the closure of Richard Williams Animation,[9] Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration of Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment, whose offices were located in London.[10] Fievel Goes West was its first production and over 250 crew members from 15 different nations[9] worked on the project starting May 1989.[10] At the time, Amblimation was also developing We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Balto (1995), and a screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats which never saw completion.[10] In December 1988, Universal announced that they would release an animated film every eighteen months and begin production on An American Tail II in early 1989.[11]
Don Bluth, who had partnered with Spielberg on both the original film and The Land Before Time (1988), was set to direct and have Sullivan Bluth Studios provide the animation;[12] owing to creative differences, however, they parted ways.[10] As Bluth explained, "the business deal wasn't such that it helped our company".[13] With no Bluth in sight for the sequel, Spielberg instead relied on ex-Disney animator Phil Nibbelink and ex-Richard Williams storyboard artist Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, to direct the project.[10] Nibbelink and Wells had both previously worked with Spielberg as supervising animators on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Bluth said in April 1992 that he regretted his decision, admitting that he disliked the final product of Fievel Goes West and "maybe we could've helped that film a little more".[13]
Later years[edit]
In the late 2010s, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was recognized on publication lists of best Netflix-available westerns,[82] ranking in the top ten of lists by Paste[83] and The Daily Dot.[84] It was also number 24 on GameSpot's "25 Best '90s Movies On Netflix",[85] appeared on Wonderwall's list of best animated sequels,[86] and landed on a Cosmopolitan list of "50 Movies You Definitely Watched in the '90s and Forgot About".[87] Including it on a list of "19 Classic Movies That Prove 1991 Was Truly The Best Year For Film", Bustle described the film as "a fun, action-adventure comedy that gave Fievel's sister Tanya some much-needed screen time".[88] Both Fievel Goes West and the first American Tail were tied for the number-five spot of a list of best non-Disney films from My Web Times: "Political and historical, these feature some fab songs and fun voice-over work from the likes of Jimmy Stewart (in his last role), John Cleese, Madeline Kahn and Dom DeLuise".[89] In her book Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films (Jewish Lives), Molly Haskell wrote that both An American Tail and its sequel Fievel Goes West were oddly more "personal" for Spielberg than Schindler's List (1993), "the film that certified the director's rebirth as a Jew, and his much-vaunted evolution into a newfound 'maturity'".[90]
In a 2017 /Film feature about Amblimation, Dalin Rowell highlighted the "cinematic" scale of its animation and opined that it "should be remembered for its creativity and willingness to be a bit more bold and daring than its predecessor".[91] A 2016 review from Greg Jameson of Entertainment Focus opined it "has less universal appeal than the original, because the themes aren't as rooted in human experience so it packs less of an emotional punch", but he nonetheless called it a fun film and praised its animation and voice acting.[92]
Home media[edit]
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West received its first VHS and cassette release on March 19, 1992.[5][93] Nichols and Tower Video's John Thrasher predicted it would do well in sales due to a lack of competition. According to Nichols, three million copies were rumored to be circulated, although MCA/Universal was willing to reveal the real number.[5] Upon its 1992 VHS release, Fievel Goes West held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer, previously held in a tie by Batman (1989) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).[53] The video for Fievel Goes West topped the video charts the week it was issued,[94] and even when it was dethroned by a reissue of One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), it remained at the number-two spot of the Top Kid Video chart for several weeks.[95][96] On April 10, 1992, the U.S. Postal Service began selling envelopes with 29-cent Western-Americana-themed stamps designed by Harry Zelenko to promote the home video of Fievel Goes West; 19 of them were reissued on May 1 using recycled paper.[97] The release was pulled from the shelves in January 1993.[94]
Beginning on November 18, 1994, McDonald's, in a deal with MCA/Universal, offered customers a $2.50 rebate on a video purchase of Jurassic Park (1993) if they purchased from McDonald's one of the following tapes for six dollars: Fievel Goes West, The Land Before Time (1988), Back to the Future (1985), and Field of Dreams (1989).[98] Fievel Goes West garnered its first American television airing on April 13, 1997, via a Disney Channel "Tune In to Kids and Family Week" promotion of another TV debut, Pocahontas (1995).[99] On August 11, 1998, as part of Universal Family Features's highly-family-demanded $15-million campaign to relaunch the American Tail franchise after a six-year moratorium; digitally-restored versions of An American Tail and Fievel Goes West were released on VHS on a 2-tape release.[100] On the issue of October 3, 1998, the set debuted at number 19 on Billboard's Top Kid Video chart.[101]
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was released on Video CD in Hong Kong on July 20, 2001,[102] on DVD in the United States on September 25, 2003,[103] Spain on September 29, 2005,[104] and Denmark on November 15, 2011.[105] In the United Kingdom, it first appeared on December 6, 2006, on DVD as part of a Slim 2 box set that featured the first two American Tail films.[106] Similar two-film DVD collections were released in Spain on June 22, 2009,[107] and the United States on August 22, 2010.[108] The film was part of a DVD collection that included all four movies in the franchise on June 13, 2017.[109] Fievel Goes West was issued to Blu-ray on April 4, 2017, in the United States,[110] July 4 in Canada,[111] and September 25 in the United Kingdom.[112] Unlike the previous home media releases, the film has a sequence edited, like the infamous hidden penis doodle that was briefly seen during Tanya's version of "Dreams to Dream" was removed, thanks to the controversy.[113] On online platforms, the film was released to Amazon Prime on November 11, 2013,[114] Netflix on April 1, 2017,[115] and Movies Anywhere on October 12, 2017.[116]
Other media[edit]
Comics[edit]
Between January and February 1992, Marvel Comics ran a three-issue series based on Fievel Goes West, written by D.G. Chichester with art by George Wildman.[117]
Video games[edit]
An LCD game based on the film was created by Tiger Electronics in 1991, and a computer game was created in 1993. A Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game of the same name was released in 1994; it was heavily praised by video game critics for its presentation, although its simple gameplay garnered divided opinions.[118][119][120][121] A Game Boy Advance video game based on the film called An American Tail: Fievel's Gold Rush was released by Conspiracy Entertainment in January 2002[122] to mixed reviews.[123][124]
Legacy[edit]
Fievel later served as the mascot for Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, appearing in its production logo. There was also a Fievel-themed playground at Universal Studios Florida, featuring a large water slide and many oversized objects such as books, glasses, cowboy boots, and more. It was the only such playground at any of NBC Universal's theme parks.
The Jimmy Stewart Museum, a museum dedicated to Stewart, has presented Fievel Goes West four times: on September 6, 2015,[127] January 9, 2016,[128] March 11, 2017,[129] and July 8, 2017.[130] On April 28, 2018, Fievel Goes West was screened at the Autry Museum of the American West, a Los Angeles museum of the history of the American West.[131] Comedy television series such as 30 Rock,[132] Brooklyn Nine-Nine,[133] and Rick and Morty have referenced Fievel Goes West.[134]