Somewhere out there
Universal Pictures
In an August 2022 interview with the Los Angles Times, Bluth singled out the one thing all the characters in his films have in common. Be they field mice, dinosaurs, or lost Russian princesses, each of them is searching for a place to call their home:
“Every movie that I’ve ever made, if you look at it closely, is about going home. Those are thematic things that seem to push their way inevitably into all my movies. Home isn’t necessarily the soil that you walk on, but where your spirit can breathe, where your loved ones are. It’s where all your memories are. It’s something that’s very dear.”
Indeed, “going home” sums up the plot for most of Bluth’s films. “The Secret of NIMH” and “An American Tail” are stories about mice and rats looking for a place where they can live in peace and harmony away from those that would seek to do them harm. Both “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and “Anastasia” center on lonely young orphans trying to find their family and a place where they feel loved, be it with the family they were born into or one of their own making. In “The Land Before Time” and “Titan A.E.,” the heroes similarly undergo a perilous journey in the hopes of finding a safe harbor for them to live after their old home is destroyed (very literally, in the case of “Titan A.E.”).
Perhaps that’s why Bluth’s films continue to speak to people who were raised on them well into adulthood. Part of growing up and getting older is learning when it’s time to say goodbye to the home you once knew and set out to find a new one. When you think about it, we never really stop “going home,” do we?
The Recurring Theme That Appears In Every Single Don Bluth Movie
MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
By Sandy Schaefer/Aug. 30, 2022 4:57 pm EST
Somewhere out there
Universal Pictures
In an August 2022 interview with the Los Angles Times, Bluth singled out the one thing all the characters in his films have in common. Be they field mice, dinosaurs, or lost Russian princesses, each of them is searching for a place to call their home:
“Every movie that I’ve ever made, if you look at it closely, is about going home. Those are thematic things that seem to push their way inevitably into all my movies. Home isn’t necessarily the soil that you walk on, but where your spirit can breathe, where your loved ones are. It’s where all your memories are. It’s something that’s very dear.”
Indeed, “going home” sums up the plot for most of Bluth’s films. “The Secret of NIMH” and “An American Tail” are stories about mice and rats looking for a place where they can live in peace and harmony away from those that would seek to do them harm. Both “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and “Anastasia” center on lonely young orphans trying to find their family and a place where they feel loved, be it with the family they were born into or one of their own making. In “The Land Before Time” and “Titan A.E.,” the heroes similarly undergo a perilous journey in the hopes of finding a safe harbor for them to live after their old home is destroyed (very literally, in the case of “Titan A.E.”).
Perhaps that’s why Bluth’s films continue to speak to people who were raised on them well into adulthood. Part of growing up and getting older is learning when it’s time to say goodbye to the home you once knew and set out to find a new one. When you think about it, we never really stop “going home,” do we?
Indeed, “going home” sums up the plot for most of Bluth’s films. “The Secret of NIMH” and “An American Tail” are stories about mice and rats looking for a place where they can live in peace and harmony away from those that would seek to do them harm. Both “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and “Anastasia” center on lonely young orphans trying to find their family and a place where they feel loved, be it with the family they were born into or one of their own making. In “The Land Before Time” and “Titan A.E.,” the heroes similarly undergo a perilous journey in the hopes of finding a safe harbor for them to live after their old home is destroyed (very literally, in the case of “Titan A.E.”).
“Every movie that I’ve ever made, if you look at it closely, is about going home. Those are thematic things that seem to push their way inevitably into all my movies. Home isn’t necessarily the soil that you walk on, but where your spirit can breathe, where your loved ones are. It’s where all your memories are. It’s something that’s very dear.”
Perhaps that’s why Bluth’s films continue to speak to people who were raised on them well into adulthood. Part of growing up and getting older is learning when it’s time to say goodbye to the home you once knew and set out to find a new one. When you think about it, we never really stop “going home,” do we?
