What makes NIMH so good?

Domo!

Here is a very simple question...

What do you think makes "The Sceret of NIMH" a good movie?

I guess the main thing is that the film is quite a sophisticated piece of animation. The animation was a way to tell the story, not sell it. Don Bluth and his team don't seem to be pandering to the archetypal animated film that usually has lots of bright colours and happy songs so it will appeal to kids. They obviously loved their chosen medium and their skill is evident in every scene, in every character. What really makes it appeal to me (though it gave me the creeps when I was young) is the darkness, the very serious theme. The dangers in the film are not cartoon dangers, they are very real, be they monstrous farm cats or megalomaniac rats. The characters won't necessarily get through this tale unscathed. All in all it's a wonderfully executed animated film with a maturity that makes its appeal longer lasting than its contemporaries.

What makes the film so appealing to me personally is it is the first movie that didn't hurt my eyes.

--Tzolkin
ﺶﺞﻚﷲ

To me, the main reasons that Secret of NIMH is such a fine masterpiece is because of the way the plot and storyline seek to (and succeed rather brilliantly) at involving the audience on an emotional level with the trials and tribulations of the characters in the film. I dare anyone to watch this film and not come away carinng for the welfare of and having a deep respect for the main character, Mrs. Brisby. Also the quality of the animation itself is nothing short of superb. In fact, even after 23 years, the quality still appears as fresh as when first shown.
Plot and character development earn high marks in my book as well. In short, this movie is a stand-out amongst its peers and in my honest opinion, it deserved much better treatment at the box office than it got when it first debuted back in the summer of 1982. Oh well, who knows; this film may still become a classic yet.... :D :D :D

Let's see...why do I like NIMH? To tell the truth, I wasn't really sure as to why I liked it at first, having first seen it at a very young age. However, after some reflection and repeat viewings throughout the years, I feel that I can muster a satisfactory answer.

It wasn't necessarily the technical aspects that caught my attention (I hadn't really looked at that closely during my first two viewings, though that might have had something to do with it. The primary reason for me is that the movie was able to almost completely immerse me in a different world, a fantastic place where intelligent rats struggle to form a fledgling civilization while coping with the threat of Man and Nature...What's more, the effect of this immersion was heightened greatly by the fact that it all took place within our own world; it was a world within a world. All the events of the movie, despite their fantasy, were made profoundly substantial and actual by their concurrance with our world.

I recall another movie that used this device to great effect: Disney/Pixar's "The Incredibles." For those who have not seen this movie (you should; it's really cool :P), or for those who need a refresher, "The Incredibles" is essentially about a family of superheroes (called "supers" colloquially) who struggle through everyday life with the burden of knowing that they are very, very different from the unsuspecting public around them. Without spoiling the movie, I believe that it is safe to say that their story is an acute mixture of the mundane and the fantastic (or, to put it another way, the incredible :P), a premeditated intention of the creator, Brad Bird. Not only is there the standard superhero's fight against evildoers, there is also the more common confrontation with the worries and cares of everyday life, only punctuated and accented by the fact that one is "special."

This mingling of the mundane and the fantastical, the normal and the amazing, is also what attracts me to the "Secret of NIMH." You start with a common fight against circumstance and situation with Mrs. Brisby's quest to cure Timothy. Here, you have a wonderfully human (well, you know what I mean ^_^) tale about a mother's familial love towards her children and her gift of self towards their welfare; a tale told, of course, through the spectrum of one of Nature's most underappreciated little fellows. However, things get, well, weirder when she learns about the rats. Now, as before in "The Incredibles," Mrs. Brisby's everyday problems are accentuated by the rat's not-so-everyday problems; they must fight not only against those same forces that Mrs. Brisby must deal with but also against the scorn of greater beings (Dragon, the farmer, and the like), the indefatigable will of their scientist creators, the feeling of isolation from those around them, and, perhaps most importantly, their own animal nature, represented by Jenner.

When I came out from watching "The Incredibles," I could not help but be amazed as to how believable the whole thing all was. Despite their obvious differences from the rest of the world, the protagonists of the movie were just another normal family like every other, wending their way through the challenges of life. They could have been my next-door neighbours. The same is true, I think, for the "Secret of NIMH;" it was so fantastic, and yet, so wonderfully believable that one could almost feel the impulse to check the nearest cinder block for any occupants, or take a trip into the backcountry to discover a hidden society...

There is another, less serious reason why I liked NIMH, at least subconciously...Since my early childhood, I have had a strange facsination with physical transformations and anything related to them. As such, the movie seems to have struck a chord with me at least on that level; genetically altered creatures are a special interest of mine ^__^

Anyway, I hope your hungry minds will devour my reflections with gusto :)



---Matthias: Reluctant warrior, or savage renegade? Tortured hero, or hero torturer? An example worthy of Justin...or Jenner? Well...I guess it depends on my mood :D

When I came out from watching "The Incredibles," I could not help but be amazed as to how believable the whole thing all was. Despite their obvious differences from the rest of the world, the protagonists of the movie were just another normal family like every other, wending their way through the challenges of life. They could have been my next-door neighbours. The same is true, I think, for the "Secret of NIMH;" it was so fantastic, and yet, so wonderfully believable that one could almost feel the impulse to check the nearest cinder block for any occupants, or take a trip into the backcountry to discover a hidden society...

I'm a very big fan of "The Incredibles" and I'd like to say that I agree with you. No matter what happens to them(Stuff that would never happen to a non-super hero family), they have this family conversation all the time.

"Now both of you will get a grip.Or so help me I will ground you for a month! "

is an example.

But I think that the Brisby's are different from the Parr'sli. It's hard to explain but the easy thing is that the Parr's are "reall-realistic". I thought about your comment on the Brisby's for a moment, I believe that they are more "story-realistic" unlike the Parr's. So I have an opinion that the Brisby's are not as realistic as the Parr's.

liParr's - The "Incredible's"

But I think that the Brisby's are different from the Parr'sli. It's hard to explain but the easy thing is that the Parr's are "reall-realistic". I thought about your comment on the Brisby's for a moment, I believe that they are more "story-realistic" unlike the Parr's. So I have an opinion that the Brisby's are not as realistic as the Parr's.

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean that, while the Parrs are more realistic in terms of our world, the Brisby's are more realistic in terms of their fantasy world?

Sorry if I sound somewhat officious; I just want to know what you meant.

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean that, while the Parrs are more realistic in terms of our world, the Brisby's are more realistic in terms of their fantasy world?

Yeah. That's basically what I meant. The Parrs are really showing how people act these days. The Brisbys are realisitic, but (probably because of the fact that they are not humans,) unlike the Parrs, the "realistic" pays attention to maijnly the conversation and the major acts. The Parr's acts are a lot more specific. Like when Bob needed to right something really quickly, he was looking for something to write with but the pen he got was out of ink... Something like that. The Brisby's pay attention on major facts like the way Mrs. brisby feeds Timmy, or the way Martin talks back to Auntie Shrew.

The Parrs have all of that (Violet being embarrased when Dash talks about her crush, etc) plus the small details.

DO you get the difference now? Sorry. I always write what comes in my mind and forget to organize the detail all the time... :?