Fantasia 2006

Fantasia 2006 was a planned third movie in the Fantasia series of films. The film started development in 2002 and had a release date of 2006. However, it was cancelled in 2004.

Conception
Fantasia 2006 started production in 2002. It was to be the first movie in the Fantasia series to feature music from all around the world, not just classical European pieces. It was also to be the first movie in the series to incude singing, which was going to be shown in several of the shorts. There was an unspecified number of shorts made, but it can be reasoned that it was probably six. A planned segment rumored to be included would have been set inside of Australia. It was also heavily rumored that there was going to be a British sequence sent in tone to music by The Beatles. The film was canned in 2004 after a series of under-performing films caused Disney to shut down their hand-drawn animation studios in Florida in the same year. Only 23 minutes of animation was produced, which were the four shorts that were released to the public.

Program
Though the film was never made, all of the segments to be used in the film had been written and storyboarded.


 * One by One. The film shows a story of children from a South African town flying kites down a hill after one boy is inspired by a colourful feather floating from the sky. The children find materials from places all over the town and produce equally colourful kites. After a walk, they fly the kites and release them into the sky for the ending of the film. The music intended to be used was Performed by Lebo M


 * The Little Matchgirl. Set in Russia, The Little Matchgirl tells the story of an unnamed girl as she tries to make it through a harsh Russian winter, with match’s with her only way to make money. She later uses all of her match’s to make her happy. At the end, a woman (assumed to be her dead grandmother), appears and takes her spirit to the afterlife. Her frozen body remains in the snow pile. The music intended to be used was Nocturne from String Quartet No. 2 in D Major, composed by Alexander Borodin


 * Lorenzo. Lorenzo is a vain narcissistic cat living in a restaurant, lazing about on a couch near the window and eating shrimp cocktails. After feigning sympathy towards less fortunate strays watching him through the window, a stub-tailed black cat named Molly walks by the restaurant. Lorenzo laughs at her lack of a tail while lovingly dancing with his own luxuriously fluffy one. Molly then places a curse on Lorenzo's tail, bringing it to life. After dancing with his very domineering tail, Lorenzo tries to kill it and make it inanimate again, trying and failing through various methods. Molly reappears with a knife, beckoning him to just chop it off. He hesitates, but takes the knife, only for his tail to grab it and try killing him. After hiding behind a door, Lorenzo is able to grab the knife and cut it off. Molly, Lorenzo, and his tail happily reappear and take their bows. The music intended to be used was Bordoneo y 900, composed by Osvaldo Ruggiero

Dahlia awakens from her dream and is surprised by a shadow of a bell tower. Realizing how perfect it looks, she stands in front of the shadow of the bell as if she were emulating a dress with it. She fuses with the shadow and happily dances in her new dress. When she throws her head up, it transforms into a dandelion complete with the seeds blowing in the wind. The Chronos statue begins moving forward as the bird on its chest breaks free and flies away. Dahlia continues to dance, oblivious to the current event, as the scene suddenly becomes dark and the clock situated next to Chronos begins to form a glowing liquid that tries to restrain the Chronos statue. Chronos succeeds in escaping the stone and he and the bird check his melted watch as ants suddenly come out of a hole in his hand and suddenly transform into mustachioed men on bicycles with bread on their heads. Chronos, examining the landscape, spots a dandelion seed which floats away from him and transforms back into Dahlia. The lovers spot each other, but as Dahlia attempts to step towards Chronos, a large structure rises and separates them. Dahlia sends birds flying into the labyrinth to lead Chronos towards her and he finds an exit where she bows to him. As Chronos leaves the maze, he is suddenly adorned in baseball attire, but cannot find Dahlia anywhere. Instead, he sees two tortoises with stretched faces atop of them. They create a dancing woman whose head becomes a ball that Chronos fittingly hits with a baseball bat and lands in a catcher's mitt. The mitt transforms into a giant cloth heart that Chronos hugs into Dahlia, but quickly gets swallowed by his body where his heart is. The final shot is of the Chronos statue with a hole where the bird used to be, but straight through to the other side is the bell tower that Dahlia admired implying that they have truly become one. The music intended to be used was Performed by Dora Luz
 * Destino. A naked Dahlia wanders towards a statue of Chronos in a desolate landscape where she dozes into a dream (relatively speaking). Her body swallows the statue as she dances in a nighttime setting while wearing a dress. As she attempts to kiss a stoic Chronos, he melts away leaving her "sad and lonely", but she perks up upon seeing a variety of unusual statues and dandelion seeds blowing in the wind which entice her to dance up the spire she is standing on. Upon reaching the top, strange green eyeball creatures (one which has a pointing finger sticking out of its eye) disrupt Dahlia's happiness when her dress is caught on the eyeball creature's hand. The dress rips off and she retreats into a sea shell that falls from the spire and lands in a satchel/flower full of green eyeballs that are being held by a statue situated on an opposing structure. Dahlia leaps from the shell just before it lands and she begins hopping upon floating telephones that are close to Chronos' statue.

Fate and Legacy
The most celebrated of the four shorts produced is “Destino,” Walt Disney’s infamous collaboration with Salvador Dali from 1945 that was storyboarded. Test animation was produced and Mexican singer Dora Luz, who had appeared in The Three Caballeros, recorded the song, which was written for this project by Armando Dominguez. Believe it or not, “Destino” does have a story although it easily gets lost in all of the mind-tripping wonderment that appears on screen. If you pay extra close attention, you will understand that Chronos (time) has fallen in love with a human girl, a forbidden love that can never be. Destino was only released to home video once, on the limited Blu-Ray release of Fantasia in 2010. Between these four shorts, just 23-minutes of animated content was produced. Little has been revealed about what other segments were planned for Fantasia 2006. From a Roy Disney quote in 2002 about the project, we know that one of the planned segments was to be set in Australia. It is also heavily rumored that Disney had the idea of doing a British sequence set to music by The Beetles. That would bring us to six possible segments for Fantasia 2006.

Nobody knows what order the segments were intended to appear in, but it can be assumed the introductions would have been similar in tone and spirit to both previous films. But in terms of which legacy segment could have been used, I feel the most fitting would have been the “Pastoral Symphony” because of its Greek mythology inspirations, which would have leant itself to the worldly theme of Fantasia 2006. Also with the short run-time of these four shorts, that would have helped boost the project to feature length since that piece alone is 21-minutes long. We may never get to learn about what else would have been included in Fantasia 2006, but we can always dream that someday Disney will provide us with another concert feature to continue the Fantasia legacy.