Hey guys! How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday morning. Today I'm going to be looking at a movie from my childhood that I've been wanting to review since I first started blogging in 2015. I'm talking about the 1990 animated movie, Jetsons: The Movie. Let's get into it.
Based on the cartoon series from the 60s and 80s, Jetsons: The Movie is one of those movies that is the epitome of what the 90s was about. The 90s was all about saving the Earth and protecting the environment, which played into alot of TV shows like Barney & Friends, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, among others. Some critics have said that the environmental message comes out of nowhere at the end of the movie, but at the beginning of the movie we see Rosie the Robot press a button that raises the Jetsons's house above the smog, so it kind of shows that Earth is so polluted that Humanity has to live in the sky. Which is something that the TV show never touched upon.
After his new plant, the Spacely Sprocket and Spindles Orbiting Ore Asteroid, has been sabotaged and the head of the facility runs away, Mr. Spacely promotes George Jetson to the position of Vice President and head of the plant. This forces the family to relocate into outer space and George discovers that there's more to what's going on than what Spacely told him originally. The movie came out in 1990, we were just coming out of the 80s and animation was just starting it's rennaissance in popularity thanks to films like The Little Mermaid and All Dogs Go to Heaven which had both come out the previous year. However it did not do very well, making only $20.3 million at the box office in total, and only opening to $5 million on it's first weekend, opening against Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Days of Thunder, and Dick Tracy, all of which had been out for a week or more at this point. Critics hated it as well, with Siskel & Ebert giving it two thumbs down.
Jetsons: The Movie is probably one of my favourite non-Disney animated movies of all time. I didn't get to see it in theatres unfortunately but I had it on VHS and watched it all the time. In fact, I still have it on VHS. The Jetsons, which had long been in reruns when I was growing up in the 90s, was one of my favourite cartoons when I was a kid and I watched it all the time, along with The Flintstones. So it was exciting to me that it had a theatrically released animated movie that I owned on VHS. And like I said, I watched it all the time. What's cool about this VHS release is that there's a promo for Universal Studios Florida, which had just opened on June 7th, 1990, at the beginning of the tape. This is one of the reasons that I still collect and watch VHS tapes, as much for the promos and trailers at the beginning (or end) of the tapes as they're like time capsules of the period of time when the tape was released, as for the movies themselves.
My favourite scene in the movie is at the end when Spacely, voiced by the legendary Mel Blanc, orders George, voiced by the late George O'Hanlon, to restart the plant despite the Grungees revealing themselves to the Jetsons and Spacely, and after years of bowing down to him and saying, "Yes Mr. Spacely" and "Right away Mr. Spacely" George puts his foot down and says, "No Mr. Spacely" for the very first time. It felt so satisfying to see that, because again, I watched the cartoon in reruns for years when I was a kid. Of course it took some heavy convincing from Jane and the rest of the family, but George came through in the end. And it was also satisfying to see the look on Spacely's face when he realized he was outnumbered.
My absolute favourite thing about this movie is the soundtrack. The songs in this movie are so late 80s/early 90s songs that you can't help but sing along to them every time one starts playing. Tiffany, a pop singer who was huge at the time, not only voiced Judy Jetson, replacing Janet Waldo, but recorded three songs for the movie. "I Always Thought I'd See You Again" is the one that sticks out to me the most with "You and Me" being another favourite. All of these songs are iconic for me just because I watched this movie so much when I was a kid.
Jetsons: The Movie wasn't released on DVD until 2009, long after the first season of The Jetsons was released, but before the first volume of season 2 was released. Then it got re-released again on DVD in 2015. There's no North American/Region A Blu-ray release yet, though a Region B release did come out in the U.K. in 2016. Apparently Kino Lorber is putting out a Region A Blu-ray release on February 16th, 2021, which is less than a month away. So that's cool. I've only ever had the VHS of this movie and have never seen the DVD in person. Just the pictures online, and it doesn't show any special features on the back cover so I'm assuming that it's a barebones release. According to the front cover of the VHS for this movie there's also a novelization from Grosset & Dunlap (original publisher of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew) but I can't find any information on it or an image of the cover. So either there was one but it's been lost to the sands of time or there was supposed to be one but it didn't get published and they didn't have time to remove that from the VHS cover before that went to press.
If I had to give this movie any negatives, I think it would have to be how Mr. Spacely is portrayed in it compared to how he's portrayed on the TV series. Specifically near the end of the movie when George says, "No sir, Mr. Spacely". Now Spacely has always been a grumpy person, having numerous encounters with George because George is a bumbling fool most of the time. But in this movie Spacely is teetering on the edge of actual villainy because he KNEW the Grungees lived on that asteroid, but he chose to mine it anyway all in the name of profit. I mean on the show he was never heartless and actually helped George on occasion. Here though he was knowingly outright destroying the homes and lives of the Grungees. Also, how were the board of directors not aware of Spacely building the plant in the first place? In their very first scene, Spacely is unveiling the plant to them for the first time though one member has received reports on it prior to that meeting. It doesn't make any sense.
Overall this movie is still one of my favourite movies from the 90s. The music is great, the story is good, and the Jetsons still act like the Jetsons though Mr. Spacely is pretty out of character. It's not the best movie ever made by any means and the story could've been alot better than it ended up being, but it's still entertaining after almost 31 years. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it unless you're a completist when it comes to The Jetsons though, just because it isn't a good movie and wouldn't appeal to everyone. I still love it though, even if the music is the best part of it.
Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about the trailer that dropped today for the new Superman series that is debuting next month, Superman & Lois. I'm also going to have my review of Animorphs book #1, The Invasion up on Saturday and the TV movie adaptation of the Bruno & Boots, The War With Mr. Wizzle (retitled The Wizzle War since 2003) on Sunday. YTV is airing it on Saturday night so I'll definitely be watching it since I haven't seen it yet. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all tomorrow. Take care.
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