What's your favourite segment in 'Fantasia'?

For me, it's hard to pick a favourite because there are some that are a perfect blend of great music and great animation, and some that suffer from a weakness of one or the other, or both.

The weakest for me for sure is The Pastoral Symphony. The animation is some of the worst in the movie; the story is hackneyed and those centaurettes especially gots to go. Add a bit of racism and some boring music and it gets a thumbs down for me for sure.

Of course, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is practically perfect and perfectly Disney. It's great, but also a bit conventional... Still, it's classic and will always be a favourite.

Dance of the Hours is also in the Disney vein, but introduces fresh characters, is playful and funny, but even a bit biting and sarcastic.

I really admire the film more for it's daring works like Rite of Spring, which is such a departure for a Disney film... So adult and even flies in the face of the more religious themes shown in Ave Maria, and even in the end of Toccata and Fugue. The music is brilliant, and while the animation is not perfect, it's so innovative and original and experimental... Wow!

Nutcracker is a nostalgic part of the film because its so beloved, but it deserves to be... The animation, the colour, all hold their own with such beautiful music. Only fail was the coffee dance with the girlie goldfish.

Night on Bald Mountain is basically flawless... It's chilling, exciting, beautiful... And the pairing with Ave Maria was inspired. While Ave Maria is dull by comparison, it's certainly beautiful, and I can't really fault it much, except those wandering monks look a bit like snails with glowing eyes... They just didn't get the effect of the glow of the candles right.

Then Toccata and Fugue? It might be my favourite even though I admit it's flawed in places. It's one where I wish Disney could have let go of his need for storytelling and let it be purely abstract. The sketches by the original German abstract artist that were eventually scrapped looked like they would have worked better than what was in the final film. However the intro of the orchestra with the shadows of colour... The end with Stokowski in a orange glow with spurts of white foam rising on the sides... The gothic arches of light... And the music that literally gives me chills every time I hear it? That's why it's a standout for me. I also love that it was originally an organ concerto, but Stokowski arranged it for a full orchestra... That's amazing!

So, I guess I'd say Toccata is my favourite even though I admit Bald Mountain is a more successful segment, but really, only the Pastoral disappoints.

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Night On Bald Mountain

Although I really like the film Fantasia as a whole, my all time favorite segment in this film is.....would you believe...Night on Bald Mountain.. I still remember the first time that I saw Night on Bald Mountain, on the Walt Disney Channel, when my family and I had gone to some friends' house for dinner one Sunday night. After dinner, my sister, myself, and the other kids watched Night on Bald Mountain. My younger sister was rather scared by it, but I kept on watching Night on Bald Mountain, which didn't scare me at all.

Mussorgsky (Night on Bald Mountain) and Stravinsky (The Rite of Spring), probably

The ostritches dancing ballet. Okay, I've had season tickets to one of the world's best ballet companies for decades now, I love ballet, I get ballet, and I know good ballet from bad. The animators do too! Every little move the ostritches make is an exaggeration of what real ballet dancers do, from the way they not to each other, to the way their knees bend the wrong way from years of unsupported stretching exercises!

It's one of the few sequences that's just for the adults, but which kiddies can like as well.

The Pastoral Symphony. I loved the beautiful centaurs and centaurettes; the pegasii part was adorable, with the lovely pegasus mother helping her babies learn to fly; and the little cupids were cute. I could care less about Bacchus, but thankfully, he isn't the main feature of the segment. It was especially sweet how the cupids discovered a lonely centaur and a lonely centaurette, and brought them together :).

nutcracker suite
rites of spring
night on bald mountain