My Neighbor Totoro and A Troll in Central Park

      Warning: This paper contains My Neighbor Totoro spoilers. It also contains spoilers for A Troll in Central Park, but I don’t think most people would care about those spoilers.
      In the second week of February, I had a little thing called Miyazaki week in which I reviewed five of the eleven movies he both wrote the script for and directed. However, I left out his most famous movie My Neighbor Totoro. I did that because putting in both My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service would be more redundant than putting in both Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. Plus, I wanted the movies more evenly spaced. However, the more I thought about it, the more parallels I drew between My Neighbor Totoro and one of the worst animated movies ever made.
      Don Bluth was one of the great animators in the 1980’s. In the 1990’s, not so much. Most people consider A Troll in Central Park his absolute low point. In a world with Foodfight!, Elf Bowling The Movie, and Felix the Cat the Movie, I would hesitate to call A Troll in Central Park the worst animated movie ever made, but it is up there. How is this movie similar to one of the faces of animation in general? Let’s take a look.
      The premise of My Neighbor Totoro is that a university teacher moves to a new country home with his two daughters to be closer to their sick mother. The movie follows the exploits of said two daughters as they discover forest spirits. A Troll in Central Park has Stanley getting banished from his home in the Kingdom of Trolls because he grows flowers, and Gnorga the Queen of Trolls does not like flowers. After being sent to Central Park in New York City (Gnorga’s husband Llort makes a mistake thinking it is a place of rock and steel where nothing ever grows), he gets found by Gus who is a kid, and Rosie who is a toddler.
      First of all, both movies are nature-based and more character and atmosphere driven than plot driven. As such, neither movie seems to be in a hurry to get to its goals. Both feature a supernatural creature in the title (and several others in the movies) and two child characters who are siblings. So it stands to reason that if one was considered great, then both would be considered great, right? How is it that My Neighbor Tototo is seen as a classic of animation while A Troll in Central Park flopped so hard? I am not sure if I have got all the reasons down, but here are some reasons I could come up with.

1. Annoyance – Satsuki and Mei do have their moments when they can be grating. However, Stanley has an inherently obnoxious voice (which is Dom Deluise trying too hard to be whimsical). Furthermore, Totoro himself does not speak.
2. Better kids – Early in the film, Gus says “Why can’t we ever do what I want to do!” after his father denies permission to go to Central Park. Gus actually sneaks out. Satsuki and Mei never do anything even close to that bratty.
3. The morals of A Troll in Central Park – Even with the above statement, Gus’ character could have been saved if he learned anything. However, he does not and his Dad ends up giving in. Then, there is Stanley who basically teaches us that if you dream something, it will come true. That is not how life works. As for My Neighbor Totoro, it does not appear to have a moral, it is mostly just a fun romp through a few childhood days.
4. Dark Endings – It has been rumored that My Neighbor Totoro ends with Mei dying in the pond where her sandal was found after trying to get food to her mother on foot. After a fruitless search, Satsuki opened the portal between the living world and the spirit world to essentially join her sister. Even if that theory was true (and it has been denied by Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki numerous times), there are many worse fates than spending your afterlife living with friendly guardians. However, in A Troll in Central Park, there is not a lot of room for interpretation after Stanley covers all of Manhattan in plant life (which is treated as a happy ending by the way). That ending is more than a little unnerving.

      Once again, I am not sure if I have everything down. Maybe there is an element I am missing. Let me know in the comment section if I missed something. As for the movies themselves, avoid A Troll in Central Park like the plague. As for My Neighbor Totoro, I do not think it is the masterpiece so many people build it up to be. However, it is still a pretty good movie in its own right.