CommentsXp Best movie ever!

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

rowell-michelle-r This little Disney movie is advertised as a holiday classic, but a person who does not know the Christian story will probably not notice the connection to the traditional tale. Even for those who know the story, it is not clear until the end how it connects.The animation is well-done, and there are many nods toward the complexity of life. The young boy looks just like Mowgli, of "The Jungle Book," but has a completely different mien (and personality). He is loving and caring, especially toward an old donkey that has outlived his usefulness in the family business.There is a change I noticed in one of the songs from the original version on VHS to the DVD version. Where crooked bankers sang, "We simply cheat a little if we must!" on the VHS version, it has been changed to "We work a little harder if we must!" on the DVD version. (I prefer the original...)

Atreyu_II The cover line «A new animation featurette destined to become a Disney Holiday Classic» suits perfectly on this Christmas tale. This short is considered an experiment, reuniting the talents of Don Bluth and the artists from the Walt Disney Company, as much as it is a quality Christian propaganda mini-film.It's a nice cartoon. The story is touching, the artwork is excellent, the animation is great and the whole thing runs on a perfect pace. But, back to the artwork, for those who are familiar with Disney's "Aladdin", the artwork here and even the sceneries give a certain "déjà vu" feeling.As for the characters, the boy looks almost identical to Mowgli from Disney's "The Jungle Book", but he's much better drawn and not as slim as Mowgli. Plus, this boy is kind and very humble, while Mowgli is stubborn and often challenging to deal with. Curiously, some of the animation of the boy is identical to Mowgli's.The donkey is precisely named Small One, which is ironic because he's such a large donkey. Big, yes, but as gentle as a lamb. The boy's father is a nice guy and Joseph (the donkey's buyer) is very kind.About the characters I don't like, they are obviously the guard, the tanner, the 3 merchants and the auctioneer. Curiously, the auctioneer almost looks like Stromboli from Disney's masterpiece "Pinocchio". But although I like Stromboli, I dislike the auctioneer.Our story takes place in Israel, outside of Nazareth. The story focus on the friendship between Small One and the boy, but also on the boy's attempt to sell the donkey for a piece of silver. They both live an awful day but the ending is happy. The donkey is sold to Joseph, who needs a gentle donkey to carry his wife Mary to Bethlehem. The ending has a strong magical feeling because of its excellent artwork and especially because of that sparkling big star.The voice cast does a good job, including Sean Marshall as the boy (which is obvious, because his laughter is very Pete-like). Sean Marshall was not only a very talented young actor, but also a wonderful singer. If there's any doubt about that, he is very good as Pete in "Pete's Dragon" and he sings beautifully in that movie. In "The Small One", he demonstrates again his acting skills (in this case, vocal) and sings very well either. I wonder what happened to him and where is he now.So, in conclusion, it's not an animated short without faults, but it's quite good and deserves more credit than it gets. It's really pitiful that such a trashy and gross movie like "Grease" has much more success, popularity and recognition than this nice little story (which came out in the same year of 1978).The number of animated shorts, animated films and even live-action films made by Walt Disney Company doesn't stop to surprise me. Anytime I think there won't be more or that even more would be impossible, I keep getting surprised.This should definitely be on Top 250.

oconn it's a Christmas story!!! It's a story that is being told not blatant propaganda. No mention of who the stranger who buys Small One is. It's alluded to but never stated. Christmas movies have this strange tendency to be about, of all things, Christmas.It's a sweet story about a boy and his love for an animal that is no longer of use to the family. He's trying desperately to find a home for this donkey he loves so very much. In the end the Donkey finds that he has his most important job ahead of him.This is a childhood favorite along with the story of Nestor (another donkey related children's Christmas flick).Basically, if you like Christmas and the stories surrounding it, you'll love the story. If you don't believe in Christmas, it's not for you.

B-rapunSaario I guess the outcome of a movie always depends on your expectations. Before seeing this one, I expected an emotional and innocent story told from a child's perspective. The first twenty minutes I was completely satisfied. It was a typical storyline for children; a child must face the realities of everyday life despite of their own needs. Only after that the Christian context was introduced. As I had no reason to expect such content, I was absolutely shocked. All I could think was why this nice little movie had to turn out to be Christian propaganda.Now please do not judge me just yet, think it over again. In the movie, we see people of different occupation and even ethnic background. From the children's perspective most of these characters are presented either as evil or odd, caricatures from the adults' perspective. Even in the drawing style this can be seen, as those characters contributing to the Christian content are drawn more realistically. If this movie maybe can not be called racist, it is clearly propaganda. Now if you think I'm taking this too seriously, I would like to remind you that although this is not a serious movie, children are the group most vulnerable to this kind of non-subtle propaganda; we adults can see through it.As an atheist I don't mind being introduced to different religions and religious habits. A little bit of religious touch does not hurt even mainstream movies; it is just realistic. However I find it strongly questionable to glorify one religion with this kind of historical fiction. It is an old trick used by political and religious leaders; make up fantastic stories of their own background, or even the background of their ideology. It just is dishonest, so stories with their roots in mythologies should either be realistic or either point out something important rarely noticed. But a made up story attempting to glorify the figures of Christianity... no good. Then again, the symbols and habits of religions are very deep in our culture, and therefore the attempts to create stories with no religious contexts are often doomed to fail. I do not demand that, I just demand fair play. Well, it IS a good Christian children's propaganda movie and it WAS done almost thirty years ago. Apart from the ending, it is very fascinating for pretty much everyone. The songs are pretty good, even the Finnish translations I heard. Some scenes are slightly intimidating, so the smallest children should maybe not see it. (Although nothing bad really happens, the atmosphere might be frightening, as the crew of this movie really knew their jobs.) Personally I would only give this for my children to see when they are old enough to see through the method (or small enough not to recognize the intertext), as I would want them to get a realistic idea of different religions.