Eco-Tainment #6: Ferngully: The Last Rainforest

Well, there's no use putting it off. This Eco-tainment review was a long time coming. But first, some background. In the early 1990s, there was a big "environmentalism fad," just like the one in the late 60s and early 70s. A lot of environmental-themed TV shows and movies came out of this. Captain Planet, which I've looked at already, was one. Another was 20th Century Fox's animated movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest. Like most animated movies in the 1990s not made by Disney, FernGully was not very successful in theaters (though it did sell well enough on video to get a sequel, which I will NOT be reviewing). But how good is it as a work of environmental fiction?
The movie told the story of the titular FernGully, a rainforest near Mt. Warning, Australia that is inhabited by a community of fairies. One of these fairies is Crysta, the movie's protagonist. She is a bold, adventurous sort, prone to wandering off and getting herself into trouble. This happens when she encounters Zach, a young man working for a logging company. Fearing that Zach will destroy the rainforest, Crysta shrinks him down to the size of a fairy. In the meantime, however, the loggers have accidentally released Hexxus, a demon of pollution voiced by Tim Curry. Crystal and Zach must team up to stop him. Rounding out the cast is Batty, a comic-relief fruit bat voiced by the late Robin Williams.
While the animation in FernGully is beautiful and some of the songs--especially Tim Curry's delightfully evil "Toxic Love" and Robin William's insane "Batty Rap"--are catchy, its environmental message sadly falls flat. There are a couple of reasons for this. The biggest one is the character of Hexxus himself. By including a supernatural villain personifying environmental destruction, the movie inadvertently distances these problems from their actual, human, causes. In other words, it essentially attributes both pollution and conservation to magic.
In all fairness to FernGully, however, its creators showed an admirable willingness to put their money where their mouths were. A portion of the film's proceeds were donated to environmental funds, including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Out of all the works of environmental entertainment produced in the early 1990s, FernGully could perhaps be said to have had the most tangible impact on environmental protection in real life.

 FernGully: The Last Rainforest was a noble attempt to combine an engaging fantasy narrative with an environmental message. Unfortunately, the movie's good-versus-evil plot tends to dominate over its real life context.