Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

So much average

Overrated and overhyped

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Marv Newland's "Bambi Meets Godzilla" is a short cartoon whose purpose is to be cheeky, and it succeeds. Lasting only ninety seconds, the cartoon tricks you towards the end. You've probably heard the song that plays throughout most of the cartoon. It's "Call to the Dairy Cows" from Rossini's "William Tell". I understand that it was originally played by alpine herdsmen while they kept tabs on their cattle, and they played it on alpine horns. Rossini's version is played on an English horn and flute.No matter. This is one enjoyable short. I hope that more people get to see it.

Bambi meets Godzilla? Not having the slightest idea that this film existed, one day, several years ago, I found it at the IMDb and my first reaction was of absolute incredulity; who could have filmed something so absurd? A very high ranking of 10/10 (which has naturally come down since that day) helped to increase my curiosity about this, and while it took me a I finally could find a copy of this film that today can be easily found around the internet.bringing together a little deer and a giant atomic lizard certainly looks like something unimaginable, and for a person that has never seen this short before it can be hard to imagine what the hell will happen; the film is less tan two minutes long, and while you sit and watch Bambi placidly eating grass while the opening credits roll the expectation for Godzilla appearance grows and grows.Finally the time comes, and while the result of the meeting is at first completely unexpected, once it finishes you have absolutely no doubt that, if Bambi could meet Godzilla that would definitively be the outcome. Once the surprise is over and if you watch the film other times the film is less funny, but for me it is still a great experience to share it with people that has never Heard about it , and enjoy their incredulity to the film existence and their reaction to it after their watch it which remembers me my first watching several years ago.For managing to build suspense in just a couple of minutes and for making plausible a very strange idea, this short film deserves the cult film status it has attained. I recommend you to watch it to get a nice laugh. Animation is crude but it fits the film, and the few credits that are on screen also have a dose of humor. There are some other imitations of this film, but not one of them can be compared with this original and great idea.

Film Review.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAVYYe87b9wReview by Film Critics: Noncompusmentus and Wu~ Ming~CATEGORY: Short Subjects. Very Foreign Film. Title: Bambi Meets Godzilla.Certainly a classic in the genre, and a cult favorite. I enjoyed it but must say the portrayals were a bit cartoonish..A bit too long getting to the crux of the plot. Perhaps just a bit more editing would have helped. How many times can an actor ( Bambi) be expected to hold ones interest raising and lowering his head. A glance to the side perhaps? A frolic in the flowers perchance? Something to give us an insight into his character. The vegetation was rather prosaic as well, a bush in the foreground would have provided more depth.I was particularly taken in by the monochromatic initial frames expecting as in W. O. OZ, a shift to color which unfortunately never came. Personally I think the use of color in the conclusion would have graphically heightened the dramatic effect. The director must have thought it would detract from the sudden impact, but the overall effect was strikingly disappointing. Somehow we expected more from the plot. After all, Godzilla a star in his own right certainly carried several films on his own creating a cult following. Godzilla is a natural leading actor whilst Bambi has been pretty much relegated mommies boy parts. Godzilla has usually demanded top billing and for unknown reasons (political influence by Disney?), never got it in this film, yet , he agreed to step into playing a cameo role.The title was a bit confusing.Bambi meets Godzilla ! !! That's is akin to a title saying The Joker Meets Batman. It doesn't work as a title. Obviously Godzilla is the larger better known actor. And surely the film shows clearly that it was Godzilla that in the end, met Bambi. It is also rumored that the mighty lizard worked to scale.I'm sure with more latitude the heroic lizard would have upstaged the deer little Bambi who never went on to bigger parts. He did however have many smaller parts subsequent to this film. As it turns out, Bambi was crushed by the lack of dialogue in his role having practiced enunciating the dialogue, ("Flower"), for weeks only to find he was to play a deer and sweet mute.The background music was a bit much. While It certainly succeeded in creating the pastoral and peaceful scene demanded, it was distracting in its corny, banal, commonplace, dull, feeble, hackneyed, mawkish, melodramatic, old hat, old-fashioned, sentimental, shopworn, stale, stereotyped, stupid, tired, warmed-over and just a bit boring in its repetitiveness.One can't help but fault the egotistic rendering of the rolling and repetitive credits (Marv Newland promotion) that took up so much over the introduction of the Bambi character and the subsequent scene. Less is more sir! Obviously the director was influenced by Quentin Tarantino.I think Godzilla's inspiration was perhaps based on an Eastwood role, Dirty Hairy.Though there was a touch of the Vigilante films character as well. The role of Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey was glaringly obvious to your critics. Bambi's acting was much reminiscent of in the Matrix, though certainly more dramatic than the Keanu Reeves portrayal might have been.One can only ponder the choice to go in two dimensions. Certainly 3D would have been the logical choice given the dramatic action in front of the camera lens. The final scene alone showed that dimension counted!Peripheral issues: There have been PETA objections to the violence towards animals in the film (long version), that thus far have fallen on deaf ears at the studio. Similarly Horticultural societies have condemned the casual and cavalier treatment in the collateral extinction of flora and fauna. Your reviewers must admit the destruction of the secondary scenery was both devastating and unnecessary to make the point.On enlarged views IMAX, we think we saw a single scurrying worm escape the crush and wiggle to freedom? Maybe symbolic of something? Perhaps a sequel?We noticed that while writer-Directer- etc. was over and over and over rolled onto the credits, no cast list was given. Crediting a foreign country like Tokyo was however a touch of class. Subtitles might have been nice for that audience ya think?We give it two thumbs up none the less, since the overall content was entertaining and stuck so closely to the book of the same title by the same old same old. (®).Wu~ & Noncom.

Yes, this classic one and a half minute animated short still amuses and entertains even today. We start off with sweet little Bambi grazing in the woods to the lovely, lulling orchestral overture to "William Tell." WARNING: Possible major *SPOILER* ahead. Then big, bad Godzilla stomps his massive foot down and squashes poor Bambi as if he was a minuscule bug. This is without a doubt one of the most shocking and brutal, yet appropriate and inevitable conclusions to a movie period. Yeah, it's grim and disturbing, but that's the point. I believe writer/director Marv Newland intended this infamous cartoon to be a poignant and provocative meditation on just how fleeting and fragile life really is. Dainty Bambi represents the frailty of existence itself, while the massive Godzilla symbolizes the harshness of dark death and cruel mortality. This picture starkly states in no uncertain terms that everything that's alive eventually dies. So, this just isn't some goofy little spoof. It's a profound artistic statement on life itself.