As a young man, he had the idea to manufacture Thneeds, a sweater-like thing that required the tufts from trees. But when a tree is cut down, a grumpy little character appears who announces he "speaks for the trees." This is the Lorax, voiced by Danny DeVito. A deal is struck guaranteeing that trees will not be cut down while the tufts are harvested. Pressure from a greedy family and the popularity of the Thneeds causes the Once-ler to break his promise. Utter devastation follows, including the departure of the Lorax.
The Lorax: He Speaks for the Trees 720p movies
The imaginative world of Dr. Seuss comes to life like never before in this visually spectacular adventure from the creators of Despicable Me! Twelve-year-old Ted will do anything to find a real live Truffula Tree in order to impress the girl of his dreams. As he embarks on his journey, Ted discovers the incredible story of the Lorax, a grumpy but charming creature who speaks for the trees. Featuring the voice talents of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Rob Riggle, Jenny Slate, and Betty White, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is filled with hilarious fun for everyone!
Movie fans should be acquainted with Illumination Entertainment by now. The Universal-based animation studio has released three major motion pictures over the past three years. They grabbed everyone's attention in 2010 when their debut effort, the supervillain comedy Despicable Me, won acclaim, passed the $250 million mark domestically and earned well over $500 million worldwide. The company's second release, 2011's live-action/CGI hybrid Easter tale Hop, drew cooler reactions and more grounded ticket sales, ending up profitable but not especially beloved. Last March, Illumination rebounded with the all-animated Dr. Seuss adaptation The Lorax.Blue Sky Studios made one of their best films in 2008's Horton Hears a Who!, a colorful adventure sprung from a 72-page Seuss book. Illumination's founder Chris Meledandri knew that; Horton was the last executive producer credit he took over at Fox's Ice Age factory. Thus, these were familiar waters: so rarely do big animated family films misfire commercially that padding Seuss' 45-page Lorax to feature length was guaranteed healthy returns especially on Illumination's modest budgets, which kept this production to a reported $70 million, less than half the price tag on this summer's DreamWorks and Pixar releases.The Lorax is set in a dystopic utopia. In the colorful, artificial, insulated town of Thneedville, residents sing and dance about recklessly dumping chemicals and swimming in water that makes them glow. The opening musical number makes clear the in-your-face environmentalism that is to come, which is perhaps no surprise from the super-conglomerate that hosts a "green week" of television every November and regularly touts minimizing the carbon footprint of their films.In the present day, scooter-riding teenager Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) dreams of wooing the girl next door Audrey (Taylor Swift). When she longs for a real tree, something that hasn't grown in Thneedville for as long as anyone can remember, he sets out to get some information, making a long trek beyond the city limits to consult an odd recluse named the Once-ler. Speaking through a boarded-up window and on his terms, the Once-ler (Ed Helms) shares his story, one of greater interest to the film.As a young man, the Once-ler leaves his family's unsupportive home to be an inventor and a salesman. He finds success with the Thneed, a multi-use product made from tufts of foliage from the candy-colored Truffula trees. The first time the Once-ler chops down a tree, he summons the titular creature, the short, mustachioed orange guy who speaks for the trees (in the suitable natural voice of Danny DeVito). The Lorax tries to rid the forest of the Once-ler, but instead circumstances create a bond between them and the various woodland creatures who rely on the trees.Commercial greed (or more accurately, short-sightedness) ultimately does in the forest, as the Once-ler's relatives, resurfacing in his life with dollar signs in their eyes, become his business partners and hatch the nonsensical idea to chop down full trees to save time and increase revenue. Before long, every Truffula has been chopped down, summoning the Lorax and all the bears elsewhere while putting Thneedville on its way to being a town of electric trees run by a CEO whose billion-dollar idea is selling cans of fresh air to a population plagued by pollution. It seems as though Meledandri's vision for his studio is to basically become a lot like Blue Sky, only more formidable commercially. Young Illumination has now crossed the $200 million mark domestically twice in just three tries, including both of its all-animated ones. That is no small feat. In their productive 14-year existence, DreamWorks Animation has only passed that threshold with non-sequels three times. Blue Sky has come close with two Ice Age sequels, but never surpassed $200 M in North America (their uninspired efforts are inexplicably a lot more popular outside the US). At former market dominator Disney, Tangled's narrow eclipse of the $200 M mark was the first since the studio's 1990s heyday (which, adjusting for inflation, was obviously a lot more significant than comparable current grosses). Clearly still the industry's king by the numbers, Pixar almost always passes $200 M, Cars 2's narrow miss being the only exception since 1998.Illumination has lots of different models of success to aim for and they seem to be most taken with their founder's former home and DreamWorks. There are fewer cultural references and adult gags here, but we find the same broad mix of comedy and sentiment. (And the same appreciation for sequels, judging from the totally unnecessary Despicable Me 2 scheduled to hit theaters next summer.) Commerce has long come before art at DreamWorks, and Illumination's priorities seem to be the same.It must be noted that with The Lorax, Illumination takes large strides in the animation department, its grander visuals, aided by Seuss' bold and iconic blueprint, a considerable improvement over the chilly Despicable Me designs and not quite seamless Hop CG elements. Comically, though, the studio still has yet to tickle my funny bone. Gags like fish who sing like the Chipmunks (an obvious successor to Despicable's minions and Hop's chicks) strike me more as obnoxious than amusing, and that'd be true even if they weren't la-la-la-ing the "Mission: Impossible" theme music. Likewise, will anyone find Ted's stereotypical Jewish mother funny? The Lorax's unorthodox structure is quite interesting. Placing the Once-ler and Lorax's story inside contemporary framework allows the film to remain true to Seuss' work while expanding it to feature length. The teen romance, whose characters take their appellations from Seuss' birth name and his widow/executive producer Audrey Geisel, makes the film's 40-year-old story more palpable and its voice cast a little more hip. Perhaps inevitably, though, it is the adapted core that has the most resonance and least heavy-handedness.Like every animated tentpole these days, The Lorax is offered in 3D ("Tree-D" according to marketing material puns), a format it takes advantage of with some gimmickry, flinging objects at you and letting drool drops fall in your direction. The colorful settings of Thneedville and the Truffula forest lend themselves to more subtle applications of depth effects, though ones you can easily stand to do without.The Lorax is now available to own in a single-disc DVD, a two-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet set, and this review's subject, the 3-disc Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet combo pack.
Call it fate or an unfortunate coincidence that Dr. Seuss' The Lorax celebrates its 50th anniversary the same week the United Nations releases an urgent report on the dire consequences of human-induced climate change. The conflict between the industrious, polluting Once-ler and the feisty Lorax who "speaks for the trees" feels more prescient than ever.
The beloved children's story tells of a businessman called the Once-ler who harvests a forest of Truffula Trees to make garments called thneeds. Amid the environmental devastation, the orange Lorax speaks in defense of the trees. Some see the story as a warning against abusing the environment, and as a critique of capitalism. 2ff7e9595c
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