FernGully: The Last Rainforest

FernGully: The Last Rainforest is an animated feature produced by 20th Century Fox and released on April 10, 1992. It is a film with an environmentalist theme. The film features the voice talents of Tim Curry as Hexxus, Robin Williams as Batty Koda, Samantha Mathis as Crysta, Christian Slater as Pips and Jonathan Ward as Zak.

Synopsis
The film tells the story of Fern Gully, a rainforest in Australia. A curious and mischeivous fairy named Crysta sees a part of the world she has never seen before beyond the rainforest and believes humans dwell on the nearby mountain. But the wise woman of the forest, Magi Lune, says there are no humans in existence anymore. Befriending a mentally unstable fruit bat named Batty Koda (Robin Williams) who has been experimented on by humans and now has wires and aerials fused into his head, Crysta heads into the unknown where she finds dead trees all covered in red crosses. She finds humans, and accidentally shrinks one named Zak to prevent him being crushed by a tree.

Zak goes on a wild adventure with Crysta and Batty, nearly getting eaten by a lizard, beaten up by Pips and his gang of idiot bugs, and unexpectedly falling in love with Crysta. All the meanwhile, Zak's superiors - lumberjacks to be exact, chop down an enchanted tree that releases an evil known as Hexxus (Tim Curry) who represents all that is toxic to nature, and he wishes to get revenge upon Fern Gully for imprisoning him in the tree. He manipulates the lumberjacks and their leveler into tearing down the rainforest toward the fairies. The fairies all join forces and fuse their powers together, creating a protective cage of a tree. Magi sadly sacrifices herself to save the rainforest and it is up to Crysta and the other fairies to defeat Hexxus. Zak turns off the leveler, causing Hexxus to disappear, but he soon rips out of the machine as a giant demonic creature. Crysta seeming sacrifices herself by allowing Hexxus to eat her, and uses her powers from inside him to grow flowers to imprison Hexxus inside a new tree with help from the fairies, and imprison him forever. Crysta resizes Zak to normal and he sets off with his fellow lumberjacks, Tony and Ralph, to try and stop the destruction of the rainforests.

Cast members
Starring the voice talents of:


 * Tim Curry as Hexxus
 * Samantha Mathis as Crysta
 * Christian Slater as Pips
 * Jonathan Ward as Zak
 * Robin Williams as Batty Koda
 * Grace Zabriskie as Magi Lune
 * Geoffrey Blake as Ralph
 * Robert Pastorelli as Tony
 * Cheech Marin as Stump
 * Tommy Chong as Root
 * Tone Loc as Goanna
 * Townsend Coleman as Knotty

Critical Response
The response for the film was mixed, overall. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 67%. Also commericially, FernGully was a complete failure in Fox's eyes, whose only real hit was Anastasia. Critics were not upset with the animation, which they thought was wonderful, but more with the story line; most of them thought that the film had much more potential. The plot of fairies protecting forests and helping things grow could have gone far out, and the "protect the forest" message was far too preachy for their tastes. In the end, some believe that the movie's downfall was the script and songs that were mediocre and pathetic in the scenes they were put in. Almost all the critics stated that FernGully's script was poorly written as were the songs, and that the movie had absloutely no recurring story, let alone a preachy message.

Trivia

 * The movie's rainforest was based in Australia although the movie does not feature Australian accents. However, there are cassowaries, native birds to Australia.
 * Proceeds were donated towards environmental projects aimed at preserving rainforests.
 * The Smithsonian Institute provided informational assistance for the movie.
 * The soundtrack includes songs by Tone Lōc who also was a voice talent in the movie. The ending song Some Other World was written and performed by Elton John. Also included in the soundtrack was Raining Like Magic by Raffi and Land of a Thousand Dances which was performed by Guy.
 * FernGully was followed by a direct-to-video sequel, FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, which featured none of the original voice talents.
 * The film was the first of three animated features released in consecutive years by Fox in the early 1990s: Once Upon a Forest (1993) and The Pagemaster (1994) followed.
 * The film has grossed $ 24,650,296 dollars in theaters and $ 8,060,598 dollars overseas.