An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (also known as An American Tail II: Fievel Goes West & An American Tail II) is a 1991 American animated western film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio with Francis Ford Coppola and Fred Fuchs' American Zoetrope, Le Studio Canal+, Regency Enterprises and Alcor Films and released by Warner Bros. in North America and Universal Pictures in International. It is the sequel to An American Tail, and the last installment in the series to be released theatrically. Two direct-to-video sequels were released in the late 1990s. A continuation, Fievel's American Tails, aired on CBS in 1992.

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, the original film's directors, had no involvement with this one. Instead, it was directed by Phil Nibbelink, Simon Wells and Francis Ford Coppola (who returns to direct the sequel). Wells went on to do We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, and The Time Machine, while Nibbelink went on to codirect We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and direct his own independent features.

The film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family (again) as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles him and Sheriff Wylie Burp (voiced by James Stewart in his final film) teaching Tiger how to act like a dog. It performed modestly at the box office grossing $40 million and received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot
Several years after living in New York City, the impoverished Mousekewitz family discovers that conditions are not as ideal as they had hoped, as they find themselves still struggling against the attacks of mouse-hungry cats. Fievel spends his days thinking about the Wild West dog-sheriff Wylie Burp, while his older sister, Tanya, dreams of becoming a singer. Meanwhile, Tiger's girlfriend, Miss Kitty, leaves him to find a new life out west, remarking that perhaps she is looking for "a cat that's more like a dog."

Soon after, Cat R. Waul forces the mice into the sewers, including the Mousekewitzes, and entices them into moving yet again to a better life out west. Tiger chases the train, trying to catch up with his friends, but is thrown off course by a pack of angry dogs. While on the train, Fievel wanders into the livestock car, where he overhears the cats revealing their plot to turn them into "mouse burgers." After being discovered, he is thrown from the train by Cat R.'s hench-spider, T.R. Chula, landing him in the middle of the desert. His family is devastated once again over his loss and arrive in Green River, Utah with heavy hearts.

Upon arrival at Green River, Chula blocks up the water tower, drying up the river. Cat R. approaches the mice and proposes to build a new saloon together, although intending to trick the mice into doing the bulk of the work and then eat them afterwards. Meanwhile, Fievel is wandering aimlessly through the desert, as is Tiger, who has found his way out west as well, and they pass each other. However, they each figure that the other is a mirage and continue on their separate ways. Tiger is captured by mouse Indians and hailed as a god. Fievel is picked up by a hawk, dropped over the mouse Indian village and reunites with Tiger. Tiger chooses to stay in while Fievel catches a passing tumbleweed, which takes him to Green River. As soon as he makes his arrival, he quickly reunites with his family but is unable to convince them of Cat R.'s plans to kill them. However, Cat R. hears Tanya singing and is enchanted by her voice.

He sends Tanya to Miss Kitty, who is now a saloon-girl cat, and she reveals that she came at Cat R.'s request. He tells Miss Kitty to put her on stage. With a little encouragement from Miss Kitty, she pulls off a performance for the cats. Meanwhile, Fievel is chased by Chula and briefly taken prisoner, but flees.

While walking out of town, Fievel stops to talk with an elderly bloodhound sleeping outside the jail, discovering that he is actually Wylie Burp. Fievel convinces him to help and train Tiger as a lawman and as a dog. Tiger is reluctant at first, but relents at the suggestion that a new persona might win back Miss Kitty. They go back to Green River to fight the cats, who attempt to kill the mice at sunset during the opening of Cat R.'s saloon using a giant mouse trap. Tiger, Wylie and Fievel intervene and battle the cats. When Chula threatens to kill Miss Kitty, however, Tiger rescues her and uses a pitchfork and Chula's web as a lasso with him trapped on it to hurtle Cat R. and his men out of town by having them piled on part of the trap, which the heroes use as a catapult. The cats fly into the air and land into a mailbag. The train picks it up and leaves.

Enchanted by his new personality, Miss Kitty and Tiger are reunited. Tanya becomes a famous singer and the water tower flows with 9000 gallons of water again, making Green River bloom with thousands of flowers. Fievel finds Wylie away from the party who hands him his sheriff badge. Fievel is unsure about taking it, but realizes that his journey is not over.

Cast

 * Phillip Glasser as Fievel Mousekewitz
 * James Stewart as Wylie Burp
 * James Earl Jones as Tiger
 * Cathy Cavadini as Tanya Mousekewitz
 * John Cleese as Cat R. Waul
 * Amy Irving as Miss Kitty
 * Jon Lovitz as T.R. Chula
 * Martin Landau as Papa Mousekewitz
 * Angela Lansbury as Mama Mousekewitz
 * Christopher Lee, Clancy Brown, Archie Hahn, Lucile Bliss, Sofia Coppola, Al Pacino, Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Ron Perlman and Johnny Cash make the cameo appearances as the mouse Conductor, the mouse chief and the Indian mice.
 * Jeff Bergman as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (Looney Tunes segments)
 * Bob Bergen as Porky Pig (Looney Tunes segments)

Looney Tunes segments
Along with the main plot, there is animation by Chuck Jones in the film featuring the Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (who are now voiced by Jeff Bergman (for Bugs and Daffy) and Bob Bergen (for Porky), due to the death of Mel Blanc, the original voice actor). Jones had actually quit animation before returning to work on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Nibblenick, Wells and Minkoff explained the animation at the beginning of the film was meant to "set the anarchic tone."

The first scene appears at the very beginning of the movie, and features the classic "Looney Tunes" opening card, causing people to assume it is the short cartoon that usually plays before a movie begins; however, when Bugs Bunny appears through the rings on top of the Warner Brothers shield, Daffy interrupts the intro, and steals the shield from Bugs. Daffy attempts to recreate the opening with himself in place of Bugs Bunny, but the shield overshoots, causing the entire title card to fall apart. Daffy surrenders the stardom, claiming that since he won't star in the cartoon, they might as well just skip straight to the movie. Bugs is willing to do so, and spins Daffy off screen like a spinning top for the movie title to appear.

The DVD and Blu-ray includes a longer version of the cartoon short. In it, Daffy is informed by Bugs that he has been promoted to executive and is subsequently put in charge writing the title of the movie. When Daffy mistakenly writes the title An American Tail: Fievel Goes West as "American Mice Stew", Bugs corrects the error. Daffy then attempts to rename the film The Return of Super-Daffy Meets An American Tail 2 Part 6: The Movie, but Bugs rejects this for being too long, changing it back to An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (rendered in the font of the official logo). Daffy then quits his new job and Bugs decides to add in the subtitle, saying it looks "a little skimpy". This material was removed from the film because early audiences expected a animated film and were bewildered by the lengthy animated sequence.

Throughout the film's closing credits, Daffy pops into frame sporadically and spouts off sarcastic comments. The last scene appears after the credits, and again features the Looney Tunes rings. This time, Porky Pig comes out of the rings and says his usual "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" However, Daffy Duck interrupts again and takes over. After Daffy says the slogan, the back of the Warner Bros. shield, with the words, "Written and Directed by Chuck Jones (with Chuck Jones' signature)", smashes him. He peeks his head out to the left side and says, "Fade out," and the segment ends.

Production
The film was the first production for Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, a collaboration of Warner Bros., Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment with the company joined is American Zoetrope, whose offices were located in London. There, over 250 crew members worked on the project, which began in May 1989. At the time, Amblimation was also developing We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, and a screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats which never saw completion. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, who had partnered with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola on both the original film and The Land Before Time, was set to direct and have Sullivan Bluth Studios provide the animation; owing to creative differences, however, they parted ways. With no Bluth and Goldman in sight for the sequel, Spielberg instead relied on Phil Nibbelink, a former Disney animator and Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H.G. Wells, to direct the project with the director Francis Ford Coppola, who returned to direct the project. The result was that the film's animation style was distinctly different from that of its predecessor.

The Frankie Laine song "Rawhide" is played at the tumbleweed scene, although the version used is from The Blues Brothers. This sequence was designed and laid-out by an uncredited Alan Friswell, a special effects expert and stop-motion animator who was employed by the studio at the time, and is better-known for his work on the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos computer game, Magic and Mayhem (1998), his restoration work for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation as well as his many model creations and magazine articles for publications such as Fortean Times, among others.

In addition to a new voice actress, the character of Tanya was heavily redesigned as well. Instead of her red babushka headdress and blue and yellow dress, she wore a different colored dress and was given bangs and a ponytail and she was a couple inches taller than Fievel. Tiger also underwent minor changes (such as removing the "M" from his shirt), as did baby Yasha and Fievel. James Horner and Hans Zimmer both returned to write the score to the film and reuse old themes (with Stanley Myers) with the composers Fiachra Trench and Shirley Walker composing the additional music while James Horner and Hans Zimmer both introducing new ones with the composer Fiachra Trench along with the lyricists Will Jennings and Howard Ashman.

Amy Irving, who voiced Miss Kitty in the film, was Spielberg's ex-wife. During production, he married Kate Capshaw who had worked with him on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. John Lithgow and Martin Short were considered to play Cat R. Waul and T.R. Chula, but Jon Lovitz signed to play Chula and John Cleese turned down the role as Cogsworth in Disney's Beauty and the Beast to play Cat R. Waul.

Release
The film was released in the United States on November 22, 1991, exactly five years and one day after the release of the original one, and the same day as Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Although it profited at the box office, the film grossed less than its predecessor; it opened in fourth place with $3,435,625 despite being shown on nearly 1,700 theaters and eventually made just over $22 million domestically, and $18 million overseas, for a total of $40,766,041. By contrast, the original film made $47.4 million in the U.S. in 1986, a record at the time for a non-Disney animated one., and a further $36 million overseas, for a total of $84 million.

Home Media
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was released onto VHS and Laserdisc in 1992. The Laserdisc edition included a widescreen letterbox release with the original theatrical aspect ratio. On August 11, 1998, both first American Tail and Fievel Goes West were digitally restored and rereleased onto VHS in a limited edition boxed 2-pack set with both videos having clamshell VHS cases.

The film was released on DVD in 2004, a bare-bones release with only a few children's games as extras. Since has been included in combination DVD sets with the first film and with other animated movies owned by Warner Bros. and Universal Studios.

The film was released on Blu-ray as a Walmart exclusive on April 4, 2017 (with a nationwide release on July 4, 2017). Prior to that release, the film was re-released on DVD in January 2017.

Reception
The film received mixed reviews from film critics. The staff of Halliwell's Film Guide gave it two stars out of four, with this comment: "Enjoyable and high-spirited animated film that borrows plot and attitudes from classic Westerns." Roger Ebert gave it two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "There is nothing really the matter with An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, except that it is not inspired with an extra spark of imagination in addition to its competent entertainment qualities." The New York Times wrote "The film is really a bland, randomly connected series of adventures involving the Mouskewitz children, Tiger and Miss Kitty, a sultry barroom chanteuse. While the quality of the animation is above average, the film's visualization of the American West is surprisingly dull. The movie has little narrative drive or emotional resonance, and its final action sequences seem perfunctory and tacked on." As of November 2013, 40% of critics gave it a positive reception on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sequels and spinoffs
A direct sequel, Fievel's American Tails, was produced for television in 1992. Two direct-to-video sequels were produced after the series: An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, released in 1998, and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster, released in 2000.

Fievel later served as the mascot for Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, appearing in its production logo. There is also a Fievel-themed playground at Universal Studios Florida, featuring a large water slide and many over-sized objects such as books, glasses, cowboy boots, and more. It is the only such playground at any of NBC Universal's theme parks.

An LCD game based on the film was created by Tiger Electronics in 1991. A computer game based on the film was created in 1993. A Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game of the same name was released in 1994. A Game Boy Advance video game based on the film called An American Tail: Fievel's Gold Rush was released in 2002.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by James Horner and Hans Zimmer while the additional music was also composed by Fiachra Trench and Shirley Walker and includes "Dreams to Dream", which was nominated for a Golden Globe award. "Dreams to Dream" was based on a short instrumental piece from the original film.

Track listing
(*a close parody of Aaron Copland's "Hoe-Down" theme, adapting the film's leitmotifs)
 * 1) "Dreams to Dream (Finale Version)" – Linda Ronstadt (music: James Horner, lyrics: Will Jennings)
 * 2) "American Tail Overture (Main Title)" – James Horner, Hans Zimmer & Stanley Myers
 * 3) "Cat Rumble" – James Horner (Hans Zimmer & Stanley Myers)
 * 4) "Headin' Out West" – Hans Zimmer
 * 5) "Way Out West" – Chorus (music: Hans Zimmer & Fiachra Trench, lyrics: Howard Ashman)
 * 6) "Green River/Trek Through the Desert" – Hans Zimmer & Fiachra Trench
 * 7) "Dreams to Dream (Tanya's Version)" – Cathy Cavadini (music: James Horner, lyrics: Will Jennings)
 * 8) "Building a New Town" - Hans Zimmer
 * 9) "Sacred Mountain" - James Horner
 * 10) "Reminiscing" - Hans Zimmer & Shirley Walker
 * 11) "The Girl You Left Behind" – Cathy Cavadini (music: Hans Zimmer & Fiachra Trench, lyrics: Howard Ashman)
 * 12) "In Training"* - Hans Zimmer, Fiachra Trench & Shirley Walker
 * 13) "The Shoot-Out" - Hans Zimmer & Shirley Walker (James Horner & Stanley Myers)
 * 14) "A New Land/The Future" – James Horner (Hans Zimmer, Fiachra Trench & Stanley Myers)

Score cues left off the soundtrack

 * 1) Tiger Chases the Train – Hans Zimmer & Shirley Walker
 * 2) Mouse Burger Plot – James Horner
 * 3) The Flying Aaaaah/Tiger's Chase Continues – Hans Zimmer, Fiachra Trench & Shirley Walker
 * 4) Puttin' On the Ritz (Movie Version) – James Horner
 * 5) Two Old Friends Reunited – James Horner & Hans Zimmer (Stanley Myers)
 * 6) Rawhide – "The Blues Brothers" (arranged by Hans Zimmer)
 * 7) Saloon Music – Hans Zimmer
 * 8) Wylie Burp/More Like a Dog – Hans Zimmer & Fiachra Trench
 * 9) The Shoot-Out (Movie Version) – Hans Zimmer & Shirley Walker (James Horner & Stanley Myers)
 * 10) The River Returns/Celebration – James Horner (Hans Zimmer, Fiachra Trench & Stanley Myers)