1 of 6 | Pips (L) and Crysta are fairies in the rainforest. Photo courtesy of Shout! Factory
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Director Bill Kroyer said his animated film, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, in a 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition Tuesday, has a "save the rainforest" message that has only become more relevant since the film's release in 1992.
"Being more conscious of how we are caring for the Earth, and how we are being part of the Earth, is more critical than it has ever been," Kroyer told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "I think that's why the Ferngully message has remained timeless, and in some ways is more important to hear today than ever."
In Ferngully, a rainforest construction worker, Zak (Jonathan Ward), is shrunken down to the size of a forest fairy. While falling for fairy Crysta (Samantha Mathis) and getting to know her friends, Zak realizes the error in cutting down rainforests.
Kroyer said the film's message is "about looking at yourself as part of the web of the world."
Ferngully made $32 million worldwide. It was not the kind of money Disney films like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin made around that time, but Kroyer said he still hears from kids who loved it.
"Not a week goes by that I don't meet somebody that says to me, 'I grew up with that movie, I love that movie,'" Kroyer said."That's nice to hear."
When Avatar came out in 2009, some critics even compared it unfavorably to Ferngully. In Avatar, a military volunteer inhabits the body of an alien forest creature.
"I thought that was very funny," Kroyer said. "James Cameron has never acknowledged the similarity, but it is kind of a funny thing."
Ferngully was released on Blu-ray in 2012 for its 20th anniversary. For the new Shout! Factory release, Kroyer said the latest restoration looks superior to even the original theatrical release.
"The Blu-ray is the best color that anybody will have ever seen of Ferngully," Kroyer said. "We were able to bring to the new version a beauty that has really never been seen before."
Ferngully is the only feature film produced by Kroyer Films, which Kroyer launched in 1986 after departing from Disney. Australian producers Peter Faiman and Wayne Young were looking for animators outside of Disney to adapt Diana Young's Ferngully stories.
At the time, Kroyer Films only had 17 employees. Faiman and Young agreed to fund their expansion to make Ferngully.
Kroyer said he ultimately hired 140 animators in Los Angeles and between 50 and 70 in Toronto. Korean studios helped with inking and painting.
At Disney, Kroyer was in the same Disney training program as The Incredibles creator Brad Bird, The Little Mermaid co-director John Musker and Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick.
Unlike his colleagues, Kroyer did not attend school to learn animation. He taught himself using an 8 mm.camera to animate a snake for a Northwestern University advertising class.
"That's the cathartic moment of my life," Kroyer said. "I had created a life."
Kroyer spent two years after college doing animation for commercials. He used his commercial reel to get into Disney.
At Disney, Kroyer animated on The Fox and the Hound and then chose to work with Steven Lisberger instead of working on Disney's The Black Cauldron. After making Animalympics with Lisberger, Kroyer collaborated on Tron, which Lisberger ultimately sold to Disney.
Tron pioneered computer animation. However, Kroyer pointed out that this early form of computer animation was limited to printing digital frames one by one.
"There was no animation software when we did Tron," Kroyer said. "You had to literally render an object 24 times in 24 different places to make 1 second of movement."
Tron used computer animation to depict the world of electrons inside a video game. Its light cycle and deadly disc sequences paved the way for more sophisticated visual effects.
After Tron, Kroyer saw the potential for combining digital animation with traditional Disney-style drawings. That was Kroyer Films' specialty, and he put it to use in Ferngully.
"In Ferngully, we had over 40,000 frames of computer-generated imagery," Kroyer said. "The beetles were all computer generated. We put those Beetle Boys on top of them, but they were all hand-drawn."
After Ferngully, Kroyer said, Kroyer Films had trouble mounting another animated feature because companies like Dreamworks were launching their own in-house animation studios. Kroyer briefly worked for Warner Brothers Animation in the '90s, but left over creative differences.
Instead, Kroyer went to work for friends at Rhythm & Hues Studios, first on commercials. Kroyer continued to direct animation for live-action/animated combo films like Cats & Dogs, Garfield and Scooby-Doo.
Kroyer still has reunions with the Ferngully crew, which he says are widely attended. He said it is rare for any film crew to remain in contact years later, and he feels Ferngully represents the passion of every artist involved.
"I'm proud of that, as well, because it kind of fits into the web of life," Kroyer said. " I'd like to think you feel that when you watch it."
