Tales of the Journey: The Mythical Woods is a 1990 American animated adventure family comedy-drama film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and Valentina Animation. A sequel to Tales of the Journey, the film follows the story of Valery and her friends discover the lost forest that was abandoned for years. However, an evil lord who plans to enslave the forest and the world in order to create his perfect world. As a result, Valery, and her friends must team up with the imp, Imply, and the lonely girl, Naima, to stop the evil lord from his evil plan and save the forest. The Mythical Woods was the first production for Warner Bros. Feature Animation, now known as Shield Animation.
Billy Crystal, Don Messick, Robin Williams and Janet Waldo reprise their roles from the first film for The Mythical Woods. The original voice actor of Valery, Travis, Colten and Lampy, Judith Barsi, Wil Wheaton and Gabriel Damon were replaced by Cathy Cavadini, Phillip Glasser and Scott McAfee, and new characters were voiced by Dom DeLuise, Anndi McAfee, Mako Iwamatsu, John Glover and Charles Nelson Reilly. James Horner returned as a composer and wrote the film's original song "Forever".
Premiering at Los Angeles on December 9, 1990, Tales of the Journey: The Mythical Woods began its American theatrical run on December 14. The Mythical Woods was promoted with an incredibly expensive amount of tie-ins and started in the top ten at the box office. It was a success at the box office, earning over $428 million worldwide on its $50 million budget, making it the third highest-grossing animated film of 1990. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised its animation, story, voice acting, and musical score.
The Mythical Woods was also fared better when it came to home video sales, blasting to the top of the video charts when released on tape in June 1991; at the time, the film held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer, and it has since gained a large cult following. In addition to garnering more home media releases, TV airings, and video game adaptations later on; the film has made numerous 2010s retrospective best-of lists from online publications, especially best Netflix-available films. The Mythical Woods was followed by two television series named Tales of the Journey: Valery's Greatest Adventures (1991-1993) and Return of the Journey (2015-2020); and two direct-to-video sequels: Tales of the Journey: The Quest for the Crown (1999) and Tales of the Journey: The Greatest Escape (2002).
Plot[]
The mother tells a story to her young children, Valery and Macie about the legend of the lost forest as a bedtime story. A few years after the event of the first film, Valery spends her days thinking about the lost forest, while Colten met a lonely girl, Naima, who dreams of being a special.
Soon after, Lord Reeve, a evil lord, attacked the place where animals and living objects lived. Valery tried to stop him, but she knocks her into a river and kidnapped her sister, Macie. After being rescued by the imp named Imply, Valery and her cat Coco actually enter the lost forest known as the Mythical Woods. Valery meets the Hermit who tell her that the woods was a kingdom once until a spell casted a spell during the war and turned all combatants into creatures.
After the kingdom was destroyed, it was turned into a woods as everything went peaceful with Spirits keeping the forest under order and coexisted governing the woods for a long time. However, an evil spirit, now known as Lord Reeve set a destructive attack to achieve its conquest, implying the kidnapping and assimilation of innocent people.
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Cast[]
- Cathy Cavadini as Valery
- Phillip Glasser as Travis
- Scott McAfee as Colten and Lampy
- Frank Welker (vocal effects, uncredited) as Coco
- Billy Crystal as Slippy J. Doggy
- Don Messick as Horsey
- Robin Williams as Griffy
- Anndi McAfee as Naima
- Janet Waldo as Macie
- Dom DeLuise as Imply
- Anndi McAfee as Naima
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Additional voices[]
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Development[]
A sequel to Tales of the Journey (1985) under the working title Tales of the Journey II put into pre-production by Lorena Valentina in May 1987 after she finished directing Greenwoods; when announcing the project that same month, she summarized that Valery will go into the abandoned forest. The screenplay was written by Flint Dille and David N. Weiss.
During the production of TBD in 1987, then-president of Warner Bros., Terry Semel convinced Carolina Zavala to launch a new animation studio for the studio, in which Zavala accepted. Warner Bros. formed its own feature animated division Warner Bros. Feature Animation, whose offices were located in Sherman Oaks. The Mythical Woods was its first production, and over 250 crew members from 15 different nations worked on the project starting May 1988. At the time, Warner Bros. was also developing The Peacock Princess, The Last Little Pegasus and The Three Princes. In December 1987, Warner Bros. announced that they would release an animated film every eighteen months and begin production on Tales of the Journey II in early 1988.
Goldcrest Films, who had partnered with Valentina Animation on both the original film, Greenwoods and Animals Story, was set to co-produced with Valentina and Warner Bros.; owing to creative differences, however, they parted ways. As Valentina explained, "making a business deal with Goldcrest wasn't worked for our company." With no Valentina in sight, Goldcrest later struck a deal with Irish-American animation studio Sullivan Bluth Studios to partially finance and distribute its two feature films, All Dogs Go to Heaven and Rock-A-Doodle.
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Production[]
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Release and promotion[]
The Mythical Woods was initially planned for a fall 1989 release, but it was delayed to a late 1990 date. The film is accompanied by a Looney Tunes short film Box-Office Bunny featuring Bugs Bunny.
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Reception[]
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Home media[]
Tales of the Journey: The Mythical Woods received its first VHS and cassette release on June 12, 1991. Upon its 1992 VHS release, The Mythical Woods held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer, previously held in a tie by Batman (1989). The video for The Mythical Woods topped the video charts the week it was issued, and even when it was dethroned by a reissue of Robin Hood (1973). The release was pulled from the shelves in April 1992.
On October 13, 1998, as part of Warner Bros. Family Entertainment's highly-family-demanded $15-million campaign to relaunch the Tales of the Journey franchise after a five-year moratorium; digitally-restored versions of both Tales of the Journey and The Mythical Woods were released on VHS on a 2-tape release.
Tales of the Journey: The Mythical Woods was re-released on DVD in January 22, 2002. The film was released again on DVD on September 6, 2005. The Mythical Woods was issued to Blu-ray on June 7, 2016. In April 2020, the film's distribution rights were purchased by JeremyWorks Entertainment from Warner Bros. and transferred to Universal Pictures and Entertainment One.
Sequels and spinoffs[]
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Soundtrack[]
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Transcripts[]
Main[]
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.
Trailers[]
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.