Fantasia 2000 is one of those forgotten classics from Disney. When I was a kid we had a bootleg VHS of Fantasia and I would watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain over and over again. The thing is, I did not really like the other parts of Fantasia, it would just be those two parts I would watch.
How to Download Fantasia 2000
You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. If you like Disney films, check out also Frozen, Frozen 2, Zootopia, and Moana.
The Movie Review
It is pretty interesting to read the backstory of Fantasia 2000 and how Roy Disney was trying for quite some time to get things thing made. It eventually got the go-ahead and in 1999 it would be released. I never saw this in theatres back in the day, but it was actually one of the first Disney DVDs that I ever bought.
Like the original Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 is a series of shorts that are done with classical music as the score and there is a little bit in between each one to introduce them. This is quite clever as it gives you time to breathe and reset yourself before the next radically different story starts.
There are eight parts to Fantasia 2000 and as the movie comes in at a little over 70 minutes none of them overstay their welcome. One thing that is pretty interesting for me personally is that just like the original, there are two stories in Fantasia 2000 that I like way better than all the rest combined.
To start once again with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is part of this, but it has a different introduction as the magic duo, Penn & Teller introduce it. This is as fantastic as it was back in 1940 and had I known that this was part of Fantasia 2000, I am 100 percent certain that I would have made the effort to see it in the theatre. Even to this day, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is one of the most iconic Mickey Mouse stories of all time.
The other story that I want to give special attention to is a take on Noah’s Ark. In this story, Donald Duck is the assistant of Noah and his wife is Daisy Duck. Donald needs to try and get all of the animals into the ark. It is a ton of fun and one of my favorite Donald Duck shorts and probably the highlight of the whole of Fantasia 2000 for me.
As you would expect the animation and the music in Fantasia 2000 are incredible. I have this on Blu-Ray and when you have it on the big screen with the soundbar blasting it is truly something very special. Now, I complain about this a great deal in regards to Disney these days, but why is there no 4K release of Fantasia 2000? This would be even more epic with a 4K transfer and a Dolby Atmos track…. Make it happen, Disney!
If I had to do a direct comparison between Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, I think I would say that I prefer the original Fantasia slightly more. While I love two of the stories in Fantasia 2000, none of the other six stories really do much to leave an impression on me if I am being honest with you. Still, if you have Disney Plus, you have to give this a watch, just make sure you have the sound cranked up and the lights off.
