Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

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Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
PGATSFCR.jpg
2006 edition DVD cover art
Directed byKarl Geurs
Written by
  • Carter Crocker
  • Karl Geurs
Based onCharacters created
by A. A. Milne
Produced by
Starring
Narrated byDavid Warner
Music byCarl Johnson
Production
company
Walt Disney Television Animation[2][a]
Distributed byWalt Disney Home Video
Release date
  • August 5, 1997 (1997-08-05)
Running time
85 minutes[1]
Countries
LanguageEnglish

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (also known as Winnie the Pooh's Most Grand Adventure in some countries) is a 1997 American direct-to-video animated adventure comedy-drama film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Karl Geurs. The film follows Pooh and his friends on a journey to find and rescue their friend Christopher Robin from the "skull". Along the way, the group confront their own insecurities throughout the search, facing and conquering them in a series of events where they are forced to act beyond their own known limits, thus discovering their true potential. Unlike the film's predecessors, this film is an entirely original story, not based on any of A. A. Milne's classic stories (although some elements derive from "In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings" and "In Which Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place and We Leave Them There" from The House at Pooh Corner).

Plot[]

On the last day of summer, Christopher Robin attempts to tell his friend Winnie-the-Pooh some unpleasant news, but Pooh is disinterested and continuously changes the subject. After spending the day playing, Christopher Robin leaves Pooh with the advice, "You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think," but the drowsy Pooh does not clearly understand. Autumn arrives the next morning, and Pooh awakes to find a pot of honey at his doorstep, failing to notice a note attached to it. After eating the contents and staining the note in honey, Pooh searches for Christopher Robin to ask about the honey pot, but discovers that he is missing. Pooh's friends – Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, and Eeyore – have not seen Christopher Robin either and cannot decipher the note attached to the pot, so they go to Owl for assistance. Although he is able to remove some of the honey from the note, Owl misinterprets it as a request for help from Christopher Robin. Further mispronouncing the word "school" as "skull", he deduces that Christopher Robin has been taken to a distant and dangerous place called "Skull", a cave where the monstrous "Skullasaurus" resides. Owl equips the group with a map and sends them into the "Great Unknown" of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Throughout their journey through the Great Unknown, the group hears strange noises behind them, which they assume is the Skullasaurus. The group slowly begins to realize just how helpless they are without Christopher Robin in the outside world. Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit come to believe they do not have the courage, strength, or intelligence respectively to go on; Piglet is abducted by a swarm of butterflies in a tranquil field, leaving him feeling scared and powerless, Tigger plummets into a deep gorge and is unable to bounce out to safety, eventually causing the others to fall in with him, and Rabbit continuously makes poor leadership decisions following Owl's inaccurate map. Pooh tries to comfort them each with the advice Christopher Robin had given him, but fails due to his inability to remember exactly what he said. When Rabbit finally breaks down and admits he has no idea where they are going, the group comes to terms with their failure and take shelter in a nearby cave. While everyone is asleep, Pooh laments on getting no closer to finding Christopher Robin.

The next morning, the five friends realize they had spent the night in the Skull Cave. The group enters and splits up to find Christopher Robin, and though Rabbit, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet eventually reunite, they are scared away by Pooh's distorted reflection as he walks towards them from behind a crystal wall, mistaking him for the Skullasaurus. As Pooh winds up stuck in a small crevasse, his friends believe that he has been eaten. They discover the "Eye of the Skull" where Christopher Robin is supposedly trapped, and overcome their fears and doubts to reach it. Observing his friends' bravery, Pooh excitedly frees himself from the tight gap, only to slip down a long descent and fall into a deep pit that he is unable to escape. While there, he realizes that Christopher Robin is still with him in his heart, even when they are not together, just as Christopher Robin had promised. As Piglet, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore enter the Eye, they are found by Christopher Robin, who has been searching for them as well. He clears up Owl's misunderstanding of the note, explaining that he wanted Pooh to "help [him]self" to the honey pot he gave him. The roars of the Skullasaurus they have been plagued by were actually the noises of Pooh's stomach growling.

After Christopher Robin rescues Pooh from the pit, the group exits the cave, only to discover that from the outside, it and the other places they have crossed are not nearly as big and scary as they seemed when Christopher Robin was not with them. That evening, Christopher Robin says he will be returning to school the next day, but Pooh declares that he will always be waiting for him, and the two happily watch the sunset, knowing they will always have each other in the sanctuary of the Hundred Acre Wood.

Cast[]

Reception[]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes assessed an approval rating of 33% based on 9 reviews and an average score of 4.3/10.[3] George Blooston of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C grade, calling it "treacly" and criticized its lack of "grown up-wit [and] child psychology" from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.[4] David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews called the film "tedious", and Alex Sandell of Juicy Cerebellum felt that Disney "always sucked with Pooh."[5] Jane Louise Boursaw of Kaboose praised the film's songwriting and animation.[6] Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up" on their review show as well.[7]

Home video[]

The film was released on VHS in the United States on August 5, 1997.[8] It was later issued on VHS in the United Kingdom on October 13, 1997. The 1997 VHS release has the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection logo, despite being a direct-to-video film.

It was released for the first time on "Special Edition" DVD in 2006, with digitally remastered picture and sound quality. It includes a featurette "Pooh's Symphony" and the 1968 film, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.[9]

The film, alongside Piglet's Big Movie, was released on Blu-ray for the first time as a Disney Movie Club exclusive on July 17, 2018 to coincide with its belated 20th anniversary and the live-action Christopher Robin film, released over two weeks later.[10]

Elements of the plot - such as the skull, and the mis-read map - were used in the 2001 videogame Party Time with Winnie the Pooh.

Sources[]

The film's plot is based primarily on two A. A. Milne stories from The House at Pooh Corner: "In which Rabbit has a busy day and we learn what Christopher Robin does in the mornings," and "In which Christopher Robin and Pooh come to an Enchanted Place and we leave them there".

Songs[]

All tracks are written by and Sarah Weeks[11].

No.TitlePerformer(s)Length
1."Forever and Ever"Jim Cummings & Frankie J. Galasso 
2."Adventure is a Wonderful Thing"Andre Stojka 
3."If It Says So"Ken Sansom 
4."Wherever You Are"Jim Cummings 
5."Everything is Right"Cast 
6."Wherever You Are (end credits)"Barry Coffing & Vonda Shepard 

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)". Allmovie. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  2. ^ https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b85799ee8
  3. ^ "Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
  4. ^ "Pooh's Grand Adventure - Entertainment Weekly". Archived from the original on 2009-04-21. Retrieved 2012-02-24.
  5. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-12-13. Retrieved 2012-06-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-12-12. Retrieved 2012-02-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ^ http://siskelandebert.org/video/KHMRAUNG63OR/Event-Horizon--Cop-Land-1997 Archived 2017-02-01 at the Wayback Machine,
  8. ^ Hettrick, Scott (May 16, 1997). "Home Movies". CNN. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  9. ^ Rizzo, Frank (April 14, 2006). "Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin". DVD Talk. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  10. ^ "Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray". Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-07-02.
  11. ^ Hischak, Thomas S.; Robinson, Mark A. (2013). The Disney Song Encyclopedia (2 ed.). Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 1. ISBN 9781589797130.
  1. ^ Animation outsourced to Walt Disney Animation Japan.

External links[]

Quotations related to Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin at Wikiquote

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