ANI-MOVIES, *Bambi II

"An actually good made-for-video animated Disney follow up?" Bambi II was a 2006 midquel to the original 1942 classic taking place during the title character's awkward teenage years. The midquel theme was something that Disney has done before with additional releases like Beauty And The Beast or The Fox And The Hound, but this film put forth a genuine effort to making it an addition to the original's timeline, as well as in comparing its quality. Disneytoon Studios was an additional department of the main Disney Entertainment that handled the production of Bambi II, a separate animation division that specialized in creating full-length spinoffs to other Disney titles such as Duck Tales and Tinkerbell.

Taking place during the original movie just after Bambi's mother was shot, the young prince is now watched over by his father, The Great Prince, voiced amazingly by Sir Patrick Stewart. TGP has difficulty maintaining his position as guardian of the forest while taking on the task of being a full-time single parent. Bambi gets to spend time with his friends Thumper and Flower but learns to mature by following his father's lead. The father and son bond over the course of the long winter and manage to spare the forest's inhabitants from being hunted down by man. This all apparently takes place before the point in the original movie where Bambi emerges at the beginning of spring and gets "twitterpated".

Bambi II is an honestly sincere tribute to the prior film working through the trauma of a young child losing one of his parents while having to trust the other for guidance and familial love. Disneytoon outdid themselves in keeping the style of beauty that the first movie set as a standard in the annals of animated history. If the shock of having a beloved character getting killed off from the original traumatized you as a kid, then Bambi II might help as a good coping mechanism for both fictional and real life people.