Winnie the Pooh (2011 film)

Winnie the Pooh is a 2011 American animated musical film produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Saban Films, Amblin Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the 51st Disney animated feature film. Inspired by A. A. Milne's stories of the same name, the film is part of Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, the fifth theatrical Winnie the Pooh film released, and Walt Disney Animation Studios' second adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh stories, as well as currently their most recent film to be made using traditional animation. Jim Cummings and Travis Oates reprise their vocal roles as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Piglet, while series newcomers Tom Kenny, Dennis Hopper (in his final role), Fred Tatasciore, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez provide the voices of Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore, and Kanga, respectively. In the film, the aforementioned residents of the Hundred Acre Wood embark on a quest to save Christopher Robin from an imaginary culprit while Pooh deals with a hunger for honey. The film is directed by Stephen Anderson and Don Hall, adapted from Milne's books by a story team led by Burny Mattinson, produced by Peter Del Vecho, Clark Spencer, John Lasseter, and Craig Sost, and narrated by John Cleese.

The film was released on April 15, 2011 in the United Kingdom, and on July 15, 2011 in the United States. Production for the film began in September 2009 with John Lasseter announcing that they wanted to create a film that would "transcend generations." The film also features six songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, as well as a rendition of the Sherman Brothers' "Winnie the Pooh" theme song by actress and musician Zooey Deschanel.

The film is dedicated to Dan Read, who had worked on Disney films including The Emperor's New Groove and Chicken Little, and died on May 25, 2010. This was also Huell Howser's (who voices the Backson in the epilogue) only film role.

Plot
Winnie-the-Pooh wakes up one day to find that he is out of honey. While out searching for more, Pooh discovers that Eeyore has lost his tail. Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, and Roo come to the rescue while Tigger has his bouncing fun, and Christopher Robin decides to hold a contest to see who can find a replacement for Eeyore's tail. The prize for the winner is a fresh pot of honey. After many failed attempts for what would replace Eeyore's tail, Kanga suggests that they use a scarf, which unravels.

The next day, Pooh goes to visit Christopher Robin and he finds a note that says "Gon Out Bizy Back Soon" (a misspelling of "Gone Out Busy Back Soon"). Pooh is unable to read the note, so he asks for Owl's help. Owl's poor reading comprehension skills lead Pooh and his friends to believe that Christopher Robin has been abducted by a ruthless and mischievous monster they call the "Backson". Rabbit plans to trap the Backson in a pit, which they think he will fall into after following a trail of items leading to it. Meanwhile, Tigger, who wants a sidekick to help him defeat the Backson, recruits a reluctant Eeyore to be a second Tigger. He dresses up like the Backson and tries to teach Eeyore how to fight. Eeyore manages to escape from Tigger and hides underwater where he discovers an anchor.

After a failed attempt to get honey from a bee hive, Pooh's imagination combined with his hunger get the better of him which has ended up eating some mud and later, accidentally falls into the pit meant for the Backson. Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Piglet, and Eeyore (using the anchor he found as a replacement tail) try to get him out, but fall in themselves. Piglet, who did not fall in, attempts to get Pooh and friends out of the trap (though continuously irritating Rabbit with over-interpretations of his instructions), but he runs into Tigger, who is still in his Backson outfit, and mistakes him for the actual monster. Piglet escapes from Tigger on a red balloon, which knocks some of the storybook's letters into the pit. After the chase, Tigger and Piglet fall into the trap as well, where Eeyore reminds Tigger that he, being "the only one," is "the most wonderful thing about Tiggers". Eventually, Pooh figures out how to use the fallen letters to form a ladder, and his friends are able to escape the pit. They soon find Christopher Robin, and tell him about the Backson, but he clarifies, saying that he meant to be "back soon". The hunny pot prize is given to the red balloon from earlier, much to Pooh's dismay.

Later, Pooh visits Owl only to find that Owl is the one that has taken Eeyore's tail, not realizing that it belongs to Eeyore. Owl has been using Eeyore's tail as a bell-pull for his door. Pooh chooses to leave and return the tail to Eeyore instead of sharing a pot of honey with Owl. Christopher Robin is proud of Pooh's selflessness and rewards him with a large pot of honey.

In a post-credits scene, the Backson is revealed to be real, but actually gentle. He notices a trail of things from Tigger’s Backson costume and decides to pick them up so they do not get broken. But he does not realize the trail leads to the pit, and falls in. He decides to wait for someone to help him out and hopes he will be "back soon".

Voice cast

 * Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger
 * Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin
 * Travis Oates as Piglet
 * Fred Tatasciore as Eeyore
 * Kristen Anderson-Lopez as Kanga
 * Mary Matilyn Mouser as Roo
 * Tom Kenny as Rabbit
 * Dennis Hopper as Owl. This was Hopper's last role before his death.
 * Huell Howser as Backson
 * John Cleese as The Narrator

Production
In 2009, John Lasseter, Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall viewed the classic Winnie the Pooh feature shorts and films to figure out how to make the title character culturally relevant. Following a trip to Ashdown Forest in Sussex, South East England to explore the location of A. A. Milne's original stories, the filmmakers enlisted Burny Mattinson, a Disney veteran who worked as the key animator on Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, to serve as lead storyboard artist for the film, with Anderson and Hall directing. Director Stephen Anderson is best known for his effort on Meet the Robinsons, Journey Beneath the Sea, Brother Bear, The Emperor's New Groove and Bolt. Director Don Hall also has veteran status at Walt Disney Animation Studios, significantly contributing to The Princess and the Frog, Meet the Robinsons, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, The Emperor's New Groove and Tarzan. Supervising animators for the film included Mark Henn (Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin), Andreas Deja (Tigger), Bruce W. Smith (Piglet, Kanga, Roo), Randy Haycock (Eeyore), Eric Goldberg (Rabbit and the Backson) and Dale Baer (Owl). Similar to The Princess and the Frog, the film also uses Toon Boom Animation's Harmony software.

Originally, the film was supposed to feature five stories from the A. A. Milne books, but the final version ended up drawing inspiration from three stories. Executive producers Steven Spielnerg, Frank Marshall and John Lasseter had also announced that Rabbit's friends and relatives would be in the film, but their scene was ultimately deleted.

Short films
The film was preceded by the animated short The Ballad of Nessie, which was about a friendly Loch Ness Monster named Nessie and how she and her best friend MacQuack, the rubber duck, came to live in the moor they now call home. In some international screenings, the episode "Cubby's Goldfish" from the Disney Junior series Jake and the Never Land Pirates also appeared.

Home media
The film was first released on DVD only on August 22, 2011 in the UK, where it does not fall under the numbered Animated Classic branding. In the US, it was released as number 51 in the Animated Classics range on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download on October 25, 2011. The releases included animated shorts The Ballad of Nessie and Mini-Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: "Pooh's Balloon", as well as deleted scenes.

Critical response
Winnie the Pooh received generally positive reviews, with many praising the animation, voicing, script, and the musical numbers (notably "The Backson Song" and "Everything Is Honey"), but some criticizing the very short film length. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of 127 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.2 out of 10. Its consensus states "Short, nostalgic, and gently whimsical, Winnie the Pooh offers young audiences—and their parents—a sweetly traditional family treat." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 74 based on 26 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film an A- on an A+ to F scale.

Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times says the film "proves a fitting tribute to one of the last century's most enduring children's tales." The film has been praised for not only being able to charm the children audience but the parents as well. Roger Ebert, giving it 3 stars out of 4, said in his review "In a time of shock-value 3-D animation and special effects, the look of the film is gentle and pleasing. It was hand-animated, I'm told, and the backgrounds use a subtle and reassuring watercolor style. It's a nightmare-proof experience for even the youngest viewers."

While Platform Online stated that Winnie the Pooh's "hand-drawn animation is such a welcome relief", it found the film's run-time length to be more of an issue, which it stated "At just 70 minutes, even aiming at kids this could have been longer – Pixar have been pushing films well over 90 minutes for years now, and it's clear the children can handle it. Just as you really get into the film it's over, and you're left wanting more."

Box office
Despite favorable reviews, Winnie the Pooh only found modest success at the American box office, mainly because it opened on the same weekend as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. It earned $7,857,076 in its opening weekend from 2,405 single-screen locations, averaging about $3,267 per venue, and ranking No. 6 for the weekend. The film closed on September 22, 2011, with a final domestic gross of $26,692,846, with the opening weekend making up 29.44% of the final gross. It also made $18,000,000 overseas, bringing its worldwide gross to $44,692,846, according to BoxOffice.com, making it a box office disappointment, considering its $30 million budget. The international grosses include $4.13 million in Japan, $1.33 million in Germany, $1.29 million in Poland, $1.18 million in the UK and $1.14 million in Russia.

Soundtrack
Hoping to find the right songwriters for their film, Winnie the Pooh directors Anderson and Hall sent visuals to five songwriting teams. The duo instantly fell in love with the demos returned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who had previously worked with executive producer Lasseter and Disney music executive Chris Montan on the theme park musical version of Finding Nemo. The first song which the songwriting candidates were asked to write was the one which became "Everything Is Honey", in which Pooh undergoes a wild hallucination in his desperate hunger for honey. The Lopezes' inspiration for writing their successful demo was their desperate lack of sleep at the time because of the restlessness of their then-newborn younger daughter, Annie. The Lopezes wrote seven songs for the film, including "The Tummy Song", "A Very Important Thing to Do", "Everything Is Honey", "The Winner Song", "The Backson Song", "Pooh's Finale", and "It's Gonna Be Great". "The Backson Song" was also inspired, again, by the Lopezes' ongoing issues with their younger daughter's difficulty with sleeping through the night, as well as the fact that Disney's request for the song came in while they were on "the vacation from hell" on Fire Island (in Anderson-Lopez's words) and they had to borrow a piano at a local church to compose it. In the song, Kanga (voiced by Anderson-Lopez herself) mentions that one thing that Backsons do is "wake up babies at one and three". Zooey Deschanel performed three songs for the film, including a take on the Winnie the Pooh theme song, "A Very Important Thing to Do" and an original end-credit song "So Long", which was written by Deschanel and performed with She & Him bandmate M. Ward.

The film was scored by Henry Jackman, with additional music by Christopher Willis.

In the trailer, the song "Somewhere Only We Know" by English alternative rock band Keane was used instead of the music written by Jackman. The song by Keane is not included on the soundtrack.

The song "So Long" was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2012 ceremony. The film's acclaimed track "The Backson Song", along with "So Long", were part of the pre-nominees for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Henry Jackman for the Best Original Score category list. However, none of them received the nominations.

Although Winnie the Pooh did not do as well as hoped because it opened against the last film of the Harry Potter series, it was while working on the film that Disney executives started to really notice the Lopezes' "instinct for storytelling with music." In turn, they did not have to audition for their next Disney project; instead, Disney pitched Frozen to them.


 * Track listing

Stage adaptation
A musical theatre adaptation, titled Disney's Winnie the Pooh KIDS, uses additional music from Will Van Dyke and additional lyrics and scenes by Cheryl Davies.

Other versions
The Walt Disney Company released five versions, for the song "Welcome to my world" featuring Edyta Bartosiewicz for the Polish version, Witaj w moim świecie (Welcome to my world),  Anca Sigartău for the Romanian version, Bun Venit în Lumea mea (Welcome to My World), Zséda for the Hungarian version, Az én világom (My world),  Evgenia Vlasova for the Ukrainian version, Мій світ (My world),  and Beloslava for the Bulgarian version,  Добре дошъл в моя свят (Dobre doshŭl v moya svyat).