Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Encyclopedia
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a 2002
2002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...

 American animated film
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 that was released by DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...

. It follows the adventures of a young Kiger mustang
Kiger Mustang
Kiger Mustang is substrain of Mustang horse located in the southeastern part of U.S. state of Oregon. Originally feral horses with specific conformation traits discovered in 1977, the name also applies to their bred-in-captivity progeny....

 stallion
Stallion
A Stallion is a male horse.Stallion may also refer to:* Stallion , an American pop rock group* Stallion , a figure in the Gobot toyline* Stallion , a character in the console role-playing game series...

 living in the 19th century wild west. The film, written by John Fusco and directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In contrast to the way animals are portrayed in an anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

 style in other animated features, Spirit and his fellow horses communicate with each other through sounds and facial expressions. Spirit's thoughts are narrated by his voice actor Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

. This is the second film, after Chicken Run
Chicken Run
Chicken Run is a 2000 British stop-motion animation film made by the Aardman Animations studios, the production studio of the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit films...

, and the only traditional animated
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...

 from DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. is an American animation studio based in Glendale, California that creates animated feature films, television program and online virtual worlds...

 film to get a G rating from the MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...

.

Plot

The film starts with a brief introduction featuring a bald eagle
Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...

 gliding over the homeland of the mustangs
Mustang (horse)
A Mustang is a free-roaming horse of the North American west that first descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but there is intense debate over terminology...

, which resembles several western US National Parks. There is then a scene showing the birth of a Buckskin Kiger Mustang
Kiger Mustang
Kiger Mustang is substrain of Mustang horse located in the southeastern part of U.S. state of Oregon. Originally feral horses with specific conformation traits discovered in 1977, the name also applies to their bred-in-captivity progeny....

, Spirit (voiced in his narrations by Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

). Spirit soon grows into a stallion
Stallion (horse)
A stallion is a male horse that has not been gelded .Stallions will follow the conformation and phenotype of their breed, but within that standard, the presence of hormones such as testosterone may give stallions a thicker, "cresty" neck, as well as a somewhat more muscular physique as compared to...

, and assumes the role of leader of the herd, whose duty it is to keep the herd safe. This is demonstrated when he saves two foals from a mountain lion.

Spirit is a courageous leader, but has a serious mischievous streak and a high sense of curiosity. Spotting a camp one night not far from his herd, the stallion is unable to control his curiosity and moves towards it, as he's never seen humans before. To Spirit's surprise, the humans (possibly wranglers
Wrangler (profession)
In North America, a wrangler is someone employed to handle animals professionally, especially horses, but also other types of animals. Wranglers also handle the horses and other animals during the making of motion pictures...

) are vicious. After a long chase, he is captured and taken to a US cavalry post. During this time in the film, the army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 is fighting the Indian Wars
Indian Wars
American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...

 and taking over the soon-to-be western United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. There he encounters, "The Colonel" (voiced by James Cromwell
James Cromwell
James Oliver Cromwell is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable roles are in Babe , for which he earned Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Star Trek: First Contact , L.A...

). The Colonel attempts to tame the mustang, but Spirit manages to outwit all who attempt to ride him. During this time, a Lakota Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 named Little Creek (voiced by Daniel Studi) is also brought into the fort and held captive, through the night and day they become friends. Through a series of events, Little Creek and Spirit, along with several army horses, escape the post. Little Creek's own paint mare, Rain, meets them, along with other Indians who loosely capture Spirit.

After returning to the Lakota village, Little Creek ties Spirit and Rain together, much to Spirit's dismay. Rain willingly shows Spirit her world. Spirit begins to understand their ways and falls in love with the mare. His affections for Rain, however, do not soften his yearning to be free.

At the end of their time together Little Creek decides that Spirit should never be tamed and frees him. As Spirit asks Rain to come with him to his herd, a Cavalry Regiment led by the Colonel ransacks the Lakota village. Rain is shot by the Colonel, knocking her into the river while Spirit knocks the colonel off his horse, saving Little Creek's life. Spirit dives into the river to try to rescue Rain, but is unsuccessful and they both plummet over a waterfall. Having both survived, Spirit comforts Rain on the riverbed as she is dying from her gun wound until cavalry scouts tear him away. After finding Rain critically injured just as Spirit is being led away, Little Creek vows to free the mustang once and for all in accordance with his life-debt; and follows the men after tending to his own mare.

Spirit and other stolen horses are loaded onto a train and taken to the work site of the Transcontinental Railroad
Transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...

 where they are put to work pulling a locomotive engine up a mountain when attempts to tunnel have failed even with explosives. Spirit realizes that if the track extends along its present course it will infringe on his homeland. Spirit breaks free from the steam engine and causes it to fall down the steep hill where it collides with another locomotive, causing a boiler explosion which starts the camp and woods on fire. Little Creek appears, saves Spirit from the wildfire, and takes him to safety.

The next morning, Colonel and his men find Spirit and Little Creek. A climatic chase scene ensues on winding rock passages that lead to a canyon where the two again outsmart the Army. Spirit also makes a "freedom" jump which amazes The Colonel. The Colonel stops one of his men from shooting the two and exchanges nods of respect with Spirit before they part.

Spirit races back to the rebuilt Lakota village with Little Creek. Spirit finds Rain still alive, nursed back to health by the Lakota people. Little Creek decides to name the Kiger mustang "Spirit-Who-Could-Not-Be-Broken". Little Creek, knowing it's for the best, sets Spirit and Rain free. Eventually, the two horses joyfully meet up with Spirit's own herd, including his mother. Viewers then see the eagle as he flies up into clouds shaped like horses.

Cast

  • Matt Damon
    Matt Damon
    Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

     as the voice of Spirit
  • James Cromwell
    James Cromwell
    James Oliver Cromwell is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable roles are in Babe , for which he earned Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Star Trek: First Contact , L.A...

     as the voice of The Colonel
  • Daniel Studi as the voice of Little Creek
  • Chopper Bernet as the voice of Sgt. Adams
  • Jeff LeBeau as the voice of Murphy, Railroad Foreman
  • Richard McGonagle
    Richard McGonagle
    Richard Francis McGonagle is an American actor and voice actor.McGonagle was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Hildagard Virginia and William Francis McGonagle....

     as the voice of Bill
  • Matt Levin
    Matt Levin
    Matt Levin is an American voice actor.Levin has appeared in supporting roles in Above the Law, Starship Troopers, Zoolander, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Levin has also appeared in Star Trek: Voyager, in an episode titled "Nemesis"...

     as the voice of Joe
  • Robert Cait
    Robert Cait
    Robert Cait is a Canadian-born comedian and voice actor.Among the characters he voices are Duke the Golden retriever in Bush's Baked beans television commercials and Horace T...

     as the voice of Jake
  • Charles Napier
    Charles Napier (actor)
    Charles L. Napier was an American actor, known for his portrayals of square-jawed tough guys and military types.-Early life:...

     as the voice of Roy
  • Zahn McClarnon as the voice of Little Creek's Friend
  • Michael Horse
    Michael Horse
    Michael Heinrich Horse is an American actor, jeweler, and ledger painter.-Early life:Michael Horse was born in a Yaqui Native American reserve near Tucson, Arizona, and is of Yaqui, Mescalero Apache, Zuni, European and Latino descent...

     as the voice of Little Creek's Friend
  • Donald Fullilove
    Donald Fullilove
    Donald "Don" Fullilove is an American film and voice actor who has had a role in numerous projects over the course of his forty-year plus career in both films and television...

     as the voice of Train Pull Foreman

Production

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was made over the course of four years using a conscious blend of traditional hand-drawn animation
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...

 and computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....

 in a technique the film's creators dubbed "tradigital animation." DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...

 purchased a horse as the model for Spirit and brought the horse to the animation studio in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

 for the animators to study. In the sound department, recordings of real horses were used for the sounds of the many horse characters' hoof beats as well as their vocalizations. None of the animal characters in the film speak English beyond occasional reflective narration from the protagonist mustang (voice of Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

). Many of the animators who worked on Spirit also worked on Shrek 2
Shrek 2
Shrek 2 is a 2004 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film, produced by DreamWorks Animation and directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon. It is the second installment in the Shrek film series and the sequel to 2001's Shrek...

, and their influence can be seen in the horses in that film, such as Prince Charming's horse from the opening sequence and Donkey's horse form. The film was also referenced in the Disney animated feature Home on the Range, where a character refers to Buck as "Stallion of the Cim-moron".

Writer John Fusco, best known for his work in the Western and Native American genres, was hired by DreamWorks to create an original screenplay based on an idea by Jeffrey Katzenberg. Fusco began by writing and submitting a novella to the studio, and then adapted his own work into screenplay format. He remained on the project as the main writer over the course of four years, working closely with Katzenberg, the directors, and artists.

Makers of the film took a trip to the western United States to view scenic places that they could use as inspiration for locations in the film. The homeland of the mustangs and Lakotas is based on Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

, Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...

, and the Grand Teton mountain range
Teton Range
The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. A north-south range, it is on the Wyoming side of the state's border with Idaho, just south of Yellowstone National Park. Most of the range is in Grand Teton National Park....

. The cavalry outpost appears to be located at Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...

. The canyon of the climax looks like Bryce Canyon
Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park is a national park located in southwestern Utah in the United States. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon which, despite its name, is not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau...

 and Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...

.

Music

The instrumental score was composed by Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...

, with songs from Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...

. The opening theme song for the film, "Here I Am
Here I Am (Bryan Adams song)
"Here I Am" is a song by Canadian singer Bryan Adams. The song was written and recorded in 2002 for the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and was both released on the soundtrack and as a single. The single reached #1 in Taiwan, Azerbaijan and Portugal. It also reached #5 in the U.K...

" was written by Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...

, Gretchen Peters
Gretchen Peters
Gretchen Peters is a singer-songwriter in the folk/country genre. She was born in New York and raised in Boulder, Colorado, but moved to Nashville in the late 1980s...

, and Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...

. It was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B and pop-music songwriting and record production team...

. Another song, which was not included in the film itself (although it can be heard in the ending credits), is "Don't Let Go", which was sung by Bryan Adams with Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...

 on harmonies and piano. It was written by Bryan Adams, Gavin Greenaway
Gavin Greenaway
Gavin Greenaway is a music composer and conductor. He is the son of Roger Greenaway.Educated at Strode's College and Trinity College of Music. He started working with his father before leaving school...

, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and Gretchen Peters. Many of the songs and arrangements are set in the American West, with themes based on love, landscapes, brotherhood, struggles, and journeys. Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks
Troyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...

 was originally supposed to write and record songs for the film but the deal fell through.

Critical reception and legacy

The film received mostly positive reviews. Based on 126 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron has an overall "fresh" approval rating of 69%, with a weighted average score of 6.4/10. Top critic, Roger Ebert, said in his review of the film, "Uncluttered by comic supporting characters and cute sidekicks, Spirit is more pure and direct than most of the stories we see in animation -- a fable I suspect younger viewers will strongly identify with."

The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
2002 Cannes Film Festival
The 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...

.

Rain received an honorary registration certificate from the American Paint Horse Association
American Paint Horse Association
The American Paint Horse Association is a breed registry for the American Paint Horse. It is currently headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It was founded in 1965 with the merging of two different color breed registries that had been formed to register pinto-colored horses of Quarter Horse bloodlines...

 (APHA), which has registered more than 670,000 American Paint Horses to date. She is the first animated horse to be registered by this organization.

Box office

When the film opened on Memorial Day Weekend 2002, the film earned $17,770,036 on the Friday-Sunday period, and $23,213,736 through the four-day weekend for a $6,998 average from 3,317 theaters. The film overall opened in fourth place behind Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

and Insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...

. In its second weekend, the film retreated 36% to $11,303,814 for a $3,362 average from expanding to 3,362 theaters and finishing in fifth place for the weekend. In its third weekend, the film experienced a good hold of only a 18% slippage to $9,303,808 for a $2,767 average from 3,362 theaters.
The film closed on September 12, 2002 after earning $73,280,117 domestically with an additional $49,283,422 overseas for a worldwide total of $122,563,539. Produced on an $80 million budget, the film fell short of it in the US and Canada, but the film has become a moderate box office success

Awards

Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

Result Award Winner/Nominee Recipient(s)
Best Animated Feature Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an American film producer and CEO of DreamWorks Animation. He is perhaps most famous for his period as chairman of The Walt Disney Company's film division, and for producing DreamWorks animated films such as Shrek, Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Chicken...



Annie Awards
Result Award Winner/Nominee Recipient(s)
Animated Theatrical Feature
Individual Achievement in Storyboarding Ronnie Del Carmen
Ronnie del Carmen
Ronnie del Carmen is an animation storyboard, story artist and designer. He was recently Story Supervisor on Pixar's tenth full-length computer-animated film titled Up and director of its accompanying short film on DVD, Dug's Special Mission.-Filmography:*The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You...

 (Story Supervisor)
Individual Achievement in Storyboarding Larry Leker (Story Artist)
Individual Achievement in Storyboarding Simon Wells
Simon Wells
Simon Wells is an English-American film director of animation and live-action films. He is the great grandson of famous author, H. G. Wells.Born in Cambridge, he attended De Montfort University where he studied audio-visual design...

 (Story Artist)
Individual Achievement in Production Design Luc Desmarchelier (Art Director)
Individual Achievement in Character Design Carlos Grangel
Carlos Grangel
Carlos Grangel is a Spanish-born character designer for animated films.-Career:He started out as a comic book artist, drawing Fix und Foxi for the German market from the mid-80s to 1994 and Disney comics for the Dutch market in 1994/95...

 (Character Design Supervisor)
Individual Achievement in Effects Animation Yancy Landquist (3D Effects Animator)
Individual Achievement in Effects Animation Jamie Lloyd
Jamie Lloyd
Jamie Lloyd is a fictional character in the Halloween film series, serving as the series protagonist in Halloween 4 and 5. The character also makes a brief appearance in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers....

(3D Effects Animator)

Full list of awards is here.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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