Movie Thoughts: The Fox and the Hound (1981)

• Released: 10 July 1981
• Directed by: Ted Berman, Richard Rich, Art Stevens
• Running time: 1 h 23 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

The story of an ill-fated friendship between a pet red fox and a hunting dog.

My Thoughts

This is one of the Disney movies I've been dying to get to to review. One of my childhood favorites, I've watched it countless times and loved it, obviously. But now it's time to take a critical look at it. Does it hold up?

If you ask me, absolutely. There are definitely some negatives, don't get me wrong. For example, the comic relief birds aren't very funny, and the friendship between Tod and Copper wasn't as developed as it could've been (they saw one another a total of two, maybe three times before they were torn apart). 

It was also quite odd to see Disney be confused about the setting. This movie obviously takes place in the United States, yet for some reason the badger is actually an European badger. I don't nitpick this as much in the Disney fairy tale movies. Like in Snow White, which supposedly takes place in Germany, there's also all kinds of American fauna. But it doesn't bother me there as much because it's fantasy and a fairy tale, it could take place anywhere. But The Fox and the Hound does have a very real setting, so it's kind of weird to see them mess up animals like this.

Another complaint I have is the fact that Widow Tweed just abandons Tod like that. I get that they want to make it a heartbreaking and emotional moment in the movie, but it's been bothering me for a while now because abandoning your pet that has never been wild before in the woods will most certainly get it killed, even if it's a wild animal. If I were Tweed, I'd have looked for a rescue center or zoo or whatever. Dropping Tod off at the woods like this is basically dooming him to death, as is with any captive-raised animal.

Finally, I believe that Chief should've died after the train accident, rather than just broken a leg. It would've made more sense for Copper to want to off Tod after that. Disney didn't have any problem with killing off parental figures before (see: Bambi and even the prologue of this very movie), so why they backed out on killing Chief I don't know.

But, okay, these are really the only problems I have with the movie. It's obviously not perfect, but my enjoyment out of it is immense. It's very heartfelt and cute in the first half, then quickly turns dark and depressing, but never overly so. 

The animation is beautiful. I think that this movie finally marks the end of the awful sketchy style Disney had going on in the 70s for a while. It worked in some cases (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh) but not in many others. This is definitely the most visually appealing Disney movie I've seen in a while. I just love the backgrounds, settings, colors and character designs. 

The characters are also great. Tod and Copper are interesting protagonists, and it's just heartbreaking to see them go from best childhood friends to mortal enemies. I also quite enjoyed the villains, Chief and Amos Slade. They're not too interesting, but they definitely had a threatening presence at times. I also liked Chief's mentor/parental figure-like relationship to Copper, and how his apprentice eventually grew to outshine him. Widow Tweed and Big Mama were also really sweet parental characters. Vixey didn't have a whole lot to her, but she's definitely still really likable.

This is definitely my favorite Disney movie in a long time. Yes, I obviously have my problems with it, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the hell out of The Fox and the Hound. This is a definite recommendation from me!