Even though it's a spectacle of film magic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is also a hell of a story. One of the best scenes is Eddie sitting at his desk and the camera pans over to his late brother's side to tell their backstory in under two minutes without a single word spoken.
It's a great film. Bob Hoskins should have been nominated for Best Actor for this. What director Robert Zemeckis was able to do with him in this film is nothing short of stunning. Deservedly, this was a star-making performance for Mr. Hoskins.
I mostly just saw the ending when channel surfing at the age of 9. And when I saw a bunch of my favorite cartoon characters together, I couldn't resist checking it out!
This movie is one of the great technical masterpieces. But the fact that it also works dramatically AND comedically shows how talented Zemeckis and Co. really were.
@@dpw181 here's something to consider about Cool World that no one brings up, or at least none that I've seen, Ralph Bakshi made a mistake trying his hand with high budget adult animation. his strength was always working within cost effective budget productions like his adaptation of Lord of the rings, Fire and Ice, Coonskin, and Fritz the cat. now I do applaud him from not shying away from taking risks but Cool World wasn't just a risk but a miscalculated risk, as far as finished products are concerned.
If you get the special edition DVD or bluray they have a lot of behind the scenes material on how it was made and they were damn lucky to finish it at all. This was a massive project the kind Hollywood had never made before and so many things kept going wrong but they got it in theaters somehow.
There was supposed to be a prequel called Who Discovered Roger Rabbit that never got made. I think Zemeckis had planned to start filming it after completion of Back to the Future III. The script never fully came together so Zemeckis moved on to Death Becomes Her.
Real elbow-grease film making, looks infinitely more convincing than CGI. Saw this in the theater a few times, absolutely fantastic flick. Real shame a sequel could never get done.
Even more frightening? His ultimate plan is just a slightly satirized version of something that really took place. L.A. really did use electric streetcars-- they were even painted red-- at that period of time. The major auto manufacturers of the day schemed to buy it, decommission it-- then sell more buses, cars, and auto parts to those who needed transport. Then more roads were built. Traffic got worse. Freeways were built to BYPASS the traffic issues-- and became an even larger one as the car scene grew. Finally, the environment began to suffer-- enter that famous Southern California smog. The trolley line was not only clean running, but at the time it even far exceeded it's own necessity. What might have been, huh? We'll never know.
I first watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit on ABC Family when I was 5 years old. Greatly enjoyed it but also scared me a bit. Wouldn’t even call it a Kids movie. It’s a hardcore PG movie that is for a Family audience but is a bit hard edged. Occasionally profane, filled with sexual innuendos, scary imagery and violence.
Animation and "cartoons" have provided much of cinema's greatest works. You make it sound as though a "cartoon" creating something iconic is somehow unheard of.
6:37 You're correct, Gene. *Harrison Ford* was the first choice but his asking price was too high 🤑 Then *Bill Murray* but he never got their offer (he hasn't a rep) So many other choices but *Bob Hoskins* IS *Eddie Valiant*
Fun fact: When Bill Murray found out about the role and that he missed out 'cause they couldn't get in touch with him, he literally screamed despite being in public.
Dec 2022: WFRR is free on YT this month. After 34 years I finally saw the whole thing. Parts of it were too loud and brash for my taste (I'm 55) but Ebert is correct: the overlap between live and animation is peerless. There's a scene where RR smashes a stack of dishes one-by-one, and it _clearly shows the stack _*_shrink_* as a cartoon character grabs each dish. Unheard of. Also, outstanding voice work by Charles Fleischer.
Fantastic movie! The idea of toons living in a physical world is great and being able to buy the idea makes it look a million times better than any CGI these days
Impressive well-done & well-entertainment movie, they load all toons we love, introduce new toon characters & made them realistic w/out computers which I love, I'm glad Bob Hoskins was right choice play private detective. I had same reaction Hoskins had when Jessica first appears, tall, beautiful, sexy & voluptuous. Christopher Lloyd was great clever villain, a toon who disguised as human wants destroy the toons in toontown to build freeway. I agree when they say it's going entertain more adults than kids. On my list of favorite movies. Major thumbs up👍👍👍👍👍😉 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I have to say that this, not only was one of the best films I have ever seen, but 4th on my list of the top ten best films of all time. The first four on my list are: 1. The Wizard of Oz 2. E. T. 3. Flight of the Navigator 4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit I am not sure of the fifth, yet, but I can tell you that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is among the top 5 movies of all time.
It took four years to get this movie made and a large portion of that time was just getting the various studios to agree to be in it. Bob Zemeckis has said that he would not want to make another one because of the difficulty, but with technology improvements since then (especially in software) it would be significantly easier.
I agree with Gene Hoskins was perfect for the part. Bill Murray was offered the part but they couldn't contact him. He was disappointed when he found out because he would have done it. But I think Hoskins was great in the end. Great casting choice.
It's amazing how Bob Zemeckis went from making masterpieces like this to the crap he's been making the last two decades. I have given up hope he will ever return to this form as a director again.
Still remember having to convince my entire friend group to pick this movie to go see when it came out (we were all between 16-18). Big Business almost won out, with Bull Durham being the pick of others. I may have acted like a bit of a petulant child to get my way on this one.
Here is a tiny bit of trivia...the crime story aspect of Roger Rabbit was actually taken from an unmade sequel to Chinatown...it was suppose to be the third chapter in the story of Private Eye J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson), however, after the poor box office of the first sequel "The Two Jakes" , the studio decided not to make the last entry in the trilogy. I am not sure how that screenplay became a part of this one, but if I had to guess I would say at some point screenwriter Robert Towne (writer of Chinatown) worked on the script for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After all, in the late 1980's, Towne was considered the top script doctor in Hollywood. He fixed a lot of scripts and never got credit for any of them.
The Two Jakes came out in 1990, 2 years after Roger Rabbit. Maybe the Chinatown 3 screenplay was floating around for a while and parts of it were used, but the box office failure of Jakes couldn't have been a factor on Roger.
in who framed roger rabbit bob hoskins was brave enough and tough enough to stop judge doom and become roger jessica and the rest of toon town's biggest hero
"Roger Rabbit" was a foreshadow of what is now business-as-usual in Hollywood: Insert animated characters seamlessly into real life footage. But today the characters are made with CGI and not hand drawn.
The merger of 2D Animation and real life was never done as good again movies like Space Jam and Looney Toons Back in Action tried but failed because they didn’t put in nearly enough effort
Space Jam 1 and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (the Looney Tunes movies made by Warner Bros. Feature Animation) were polarized with Space Jam being a box-office hit and Back in Action being a box-office bomb that caused the shut down of Warner Bros. Feature Animation.
Even though it's a spectacle of film magic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is also a hell of a story. One of the best scenes is Eddie sitting at his desk and the camera pans over to his late brother's side to tell their backstory in under two minutes without a single word spoken.
Nostalgia Critic agrees.
ruclips.net/video/EcFrG3L7YGQ/видео.html
@@jpo8193❤agreed
thats why its a modern classic. They combined a solid story with top of the line effects and some neat innovations.
It's a great film. Bob Hoskins should have been nominated for Best Actor for this. What director Robert Zemeckis was able to do with him in this film is nothing short of stunning. Deservedly, this was a star-making performance for Mr. Hoskins.
I resisted watching this movie for decades and I really missed out - WHAT A FANTASTIC PICTURE
Welcome to the crew, mate! It really is quite a spectacle and very charming.
Why did you resist?
Marchant2 I also would like to know this.
I mostly just saw the ending when channel surfing at the age of 9. And when I saw a bunch of my favorite cartoon characters together, I couldn't resist checking it out!
@@Marchant2 thought it was for kids when it came out
This movie is one of the great technical masterpieces. But the fact that it also works dramatically AND comedically shows how talented Zemeckis and Co. really were.
@@dpw181 here's something to consider about Cool World that no one brings up, or at least none that I've seen, Ralph Bakshi made a mistake trying his hand with high budget adult animation. his strength was always working within cost effective budget productions like his adaptation of Lord of the rings, Fire and Ice, Coonskin, and Fritz the cat. now I do applaud him from not shying away from taking risks but Cool World wasn't just a risk but a miscalculated risk, as far as finished products are concerned.
If you get the special edition DVD or bluray they have a lot of behind the scenes material on how it was made and they were damn lucky to finish it at all. This was a massive project the kind Hollywood had never made before and so many things kept going wrong but they got it in theaters somehow.
R.I.P Bob Hoskins.
And this was one of his best roles, EVER!
And both of the reviewers in this video...
And Richard Williams
It's really nice to see them smile 😃 about there passion and love for film.
They where enchanted by this art.
I saw it in the theater back 1988? Something like that. Great movie.
"Two Thumbs Up and two jaws dropping open in admiration for the animated/live-action extravaganza Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
as it should be
This movie deserved a sequel.
There was supposed to be a prequel called Who Discovered Roger Rabbit that never got made. I think Zemeckis had planned to start filming it after completion of Back to the Future III. The script never fully came together so Zemeckis moved on to Death Becomes Her.
Real elbow-grease film making, looks infinitely more convincing than CGI. Saw this in the theater a few times, absolutely fantastic flick. Real shame a sequel could never get done.
I beg to differ, I just heard that Robert is planning a sequel
It doesn’t need a sequel. If it gets one, it’ll have A LOT to live up to. I’d be surprised if it _meets_ expectations, let alone surpasses them
seems like it’s in development hell to me, not much news in the last few years.
I don't think Robert needs to make one. He did the Pinocchio live action remake for Disney and it sucked and looked really really uncanny valley.
One of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.
An amazing movie from my childhood.
Just showed it to my buddy last night who hadn't seen it. We both had an absolute blast
Endlessly inventive, funny, exciting, and a tiny bit scary. It's really everything I want from a movie.
Siskel & Ebert were the masters of film criticism.
they are masters of death...thats metal
One of my favourite films, Roger Rabbit. Such a classic.
Loved this movie as a kid. However, I always had to skip the ending, Christoper Lloyd’s character always frightened me. Still kind of freaks me out. 😂
Even more frightening? His ultimate plan is just a slightly satirized version of something that really took place.
L.A. really did use electric streetcars-- they were even painted red-- at that period of time.
The major auto manufacturers of the day schemed to buy it, decommission it-- then sell more buses, cars, and auto parts to those who needed transport.
Then more roads were built. Traffic got worse. Freeways were built to BYPASS the traffic issues-- and became an even larger one as the car scene grew. Finally, the environment began to suffer-- enter that famous Southern California smog.
The trolley line was not only clean running, but at the time it even far exceeded it's own necessity.
What might have been, huh?
We'll never know.
IM meltingggg
Yea he gave me nightmares as a kid but still a great movie!
Yeah, he kind of scared me in "Dennis the Menace" too.
I first watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit on ABC Family when I was 5 years old. Greatly enjoyed it but also scared me a bit. Wouldn’t even call it a Kids movie. It’s a hardcore PG movie that is for a Family audience but is a bit hard edged. Occasionally profane, filled with sexual innuendos, scary imagery and violence.
the baby shoe death was too much for me
Happy 35th Anniversary to Who Framed Roger Rabbit!
"I'm not bad; I'm just drawn that way".
That has become one of the most classic lines in film; and it's from a cartoon.
Animation and "cartoons" have provided much of cinema's greatest works. You make it sound as though a "cartoon" creating something iconic is somehow unheard of.
6:37 You're correct, Gene. *Harrison Ford* was the first choice but his asking price was too high 🤑 Then *Bill Murray* but he never got their offer (he hasn't a rep) So many other choices but *Bob Hoskins* IS *Eddie Valiant*
I could see Harrison Ford ala hard-bitten detective like in Blade Runner or Witness... but yeah, I’m glad Hoskins was cast.
Fun fact: When Bill Murray found out about the role and that he missed out 'cause they couldn't get in touch with him, he literally screamed despite being in public.
Really a great movie!
Well entertainment
Dec 2022: WFRR is free on YT this month. After 34 years I finally saw the whole thing. Parts of it were too loud and brash for my taste (I'm 55) but Ebert is correct: the overlap between live and animation is peerless. There's a scene where RR smashes a stack of dishes one-by-one, and it _clearly shows the stack _*_shrink_* as a cartoon character grabs each dish. Unheard of.
Also, outstanding voice work by Charles Fleischer.
this should have got a best pic nom special effects still impressive over 30 years later
It did receive a Special Achievement Academy Award for animation as well as winning for Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing and Film Editing.
Fantastic movie! The idea of toons living in a physical world is great and being able to buy the idea makes it look a million times better than any CGI these days
Love this movie 😊
This was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. It was at a theater inside a mall.
Impressive well-done & well-entertainment movie, they load all toons we love, introduce new toon characters & made them realistic w/out computers which I love, I'm glad Bob Hoskins was right choice play private detective. I had same reaction Hoskins had when Jessica first appears, tall, beautiful, sexy & voluptuous. Christopher Lloyd was great clever villain, a toon who disguised as human wants destroy the toons in toontown to build freeway. I agree when they say it's going entertain more adults than kids. On my list of favorite movies.
Major thumbs up👍👍👍👍👍😉
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
this movie got only better with time
The movie holds up so well today 34 years later….. I don’t know how but it does.
Effects from 2008 movies are looking dodgy already meanwhile.
I have to say that this, not only was one of the best films I have ever seen, but 4th on my list of the top ten best films of all time.
The first four on my list are:
1. The Wizard of Oz
2. E. T.
3. Flight of the Navigator
4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
I am not sure of the fifth, yet, but I can tell you that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is among the top 5 movies of all time.
ROGER Ebert loves ROGER Rabbit
It took four years to get this movie made and a large portion of that time was just getting the various studios to agree to be in it. Bob Zemeckis has said that he would not want to make another one because of the difficulty, but with technology improvements since then (especially in software) it would be significantly easier.
Love this movie childhood favorite ❄
I agree with Gene Hoskins was perfect for the part. Bill Murray was offered the part but they couldn't contact him. He was disappointed when he found out because he would have done it. But I think Hoskins was great in the end. Great casting choice.
It's amazing how Bob Zemeckis went from making masterpieces like this to the crap he's been making the last two decades. I have given up hope he will ever return to this form as a director again.
Still remember having to convince my entire friend group to pick this movie to go see when it came out (we were all between 16-18). Big Business almost won out, with Bull Durham being the pick of others. I may have acted like a bit of a petulant child to get my way on this one.
You made the right choice. Who even remembers those other films now?
Here is a tiny bit of trivia...the crime story aspect of Roger Rabbit was actually taken from an unmade sequel to Chinatown...it was suppose to be the third chapter in the story of Private Eye J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson), however, after the poor box office of the first sequel "The Two Jakes" , the studio decided not to make the last entry in the trilogy. I am not sure how that screenplay became a part of this one, but if I had to guess I would say at some point screenwriter Robert Towne (writer of Chinatown) worked on the script for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After all, in the late 1980's, Towne was considered the top script doctor in Hollywood. He fixed a lot of scripts and never got credit for any of them.
The Two Jakes came out in 1990, 2 years after Roger Rabbit. Maybe the Chinatown 3 screenplay was floating around for a while and parts of it were used, but the box office failure of Jakes couldn't have been a factor on Roger.
in who framed roger rabbit bob hoskins was brave enough and tough enough to stop judge doom and become roger jessica and the rest of toon town's biggest hero
This movie is funny
The *#2* box-office hit of 1988 ✌
Without looking it up, can you name *#1?* Hint: another classic film
Rain Man
@@b.e.kerian9387 Correct :)
☝🏆🏆🏆🏆
agrees, with their opinion, of the 'opening cartoon', too. I'm going, right now, to watch, "Tummy Trouble."
"Roger Rabbit" was a foreshadow of what is now business-as-usual in Hollywood: Insert animated characters seamlessly into real life footage. But today the characters are made with CGI and not hand drawn.
Bob Hoskins passed away not to long ago. Check out "The Long Good Friday".
6:41 rumor and/or Legend they wanted Bill Murray to play Eddie
If this was made today, it would have awful, distracting CGI and it would be going at a mile a minute.
Sadly, Robert Zemeckis hardly directs anymore😟
He’s a legend but has some stinkers lately…Pinocchio …
Rip Bob hoskins
Roger crow-barring in scenes with Jessica. Nice, you dirty old man. ;)
It was not .a kids movie although they billed it as one
I don't like the scene of Judge Doom dipping the poor squeaky shoe!! I have to skip it everytime I watch it!!
same.
Me too. Cant watch it, always fast forward that part. Fantastic movie tho! Top 10 of mine for sure
When I saw it in the theater I thought it was a borefest. Saw it 30 years later nothing changed.
One person framed Roger Rabbit.
Depends on how you define "person". (wink)
jpo citizen.
Kevin Golson doom framed him.
The merger of 2D Animation and real life was never done as good again movies like Space Jam and Looney Toons Back in Action tried but failed because they didn’t put in nearly enough effort
Space Jam 2 east Way worst than ever even Cool World.
Space Jam 1 and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (the Looney Tunes movies made by Warner Bros. Feature Animation) were polarized with Space Jam being a box-office hit and Back in Action being a box-office bomb that caused the shut down of Warner Bros. Feature Animation.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was produced by people who knew absolutely nothing about cartoons. Tex Avery did not merely concoct an assembly of cliches.
Never cared for it. Too loud and annoying.