A História de Nessie

Another few minutes to myself on Disney Plus, so I decided to continue running through the short films on there and watched "The Ballad of Nessie" a short that originally aired before the 2011 "Winnie The Pooh" feature.

Happy and playful, Nessie is enjoying her life in pond in the Scottish Highlands. Her life is upset though by a developer who destroys the pond and levels the surrounding land for a golf course. Having searched for weeks for a replacement waterway, Nessie becomes despondent and starts to cry. She cries nonstop for weeks on end, until she can't cry anymore, at which point she discovers that she has flooded the area with her tears and created Loch Ness.

There's a nice little lesson at the heart of "The Ballad of Nessie", one which you might argue wasn't really needed given the strength of the animation and the quality of Billy Connolly's narration. The idea that keeping a stiff upper lip and bottling up your emotions aren't a good thing is the message and it's a noble one.

The animation style is good, a soft edged pencil style with calls back to Disney's 70's style. The whole piece is written like a poem and performed as such by Billy Connolly in the way only he can.

It's charming and pleasant rather than life alteringly brilliant, but that's all you really need.

Perhaps drawing a great deal of inspiration from Pixar's 'Boundin'' in its structure and emotion, 'The Ballad of Nessie' follows suit with a traditionally animated short, narrated (affectionately by Billy Connoly) with the same comic poetry that made the former effort so endearing. Coincidentally, the Scottish setting is shared with the upcoming Pixar feature 'Brave', presenting 'Ballad' as a worthy warm-up act for that release and suppressing any disbelief of mine that the location could prove to be hit or miss.

Following Nessie's search for a home after her idyllic residence is destroyed, the short is funny, heartwarming and unique in style, unfolding in a manner very much like a pop-up storybook; this makes for beautiful transitions between shots, creating a fluid pace to accompany the quirky visuals, tuned to Michael Giacchino's gentle scoring.

'The Ballad of Nessie' is a clear indication that Disney are capable of still being innovative not only with traditional animation, but with the short film format also.

9/10

The plot was about Nessie playing his rubber duck until all of a sudden a lot of people arrive at her lake and they turn it into a golf camp with a very weak villain named Tycoon Mcfroogle despite having the same voice actor Billy Conolly who voiced Fergus (Brave) and he also did the movie The Muppets Treasure Island, now Nessie needs to find a new home without crying like baby does even though we sometimes cry whenever something bad happens to all of us, she tried to find the perfect lake but she failed so she started to cry using her tears and turning everything into a big lake and the ending was alright, when the credits start to roll we see that Tycoon Mcfroogle is crying like a spoiled brat just like Prince John (Robin Hood) and this is the end. Also this short was released when Winnie The Pooh was about to release in theatres back in 2011, but on the dvd opening after Lady And The Tramp, The Muppets and Cars 2 i saw that a short named Tinkerbell And The Pixie Hollow Games premeired on Disney Channel.

I saw this short before seeing the wonderful new Winnie the Pooh movie. And I for one found it absolutely charming. The animation is beautiful with a real charm to it, whether it was in the character designs, the background art or the colouring. Michael Giacchino's music is stunning as well with a warm, heartfelt and nostalgic feel to it, plus it was careful not to overshadow the narration or the storytelling. The story is swiftly told, is very heart-warming, full of pathos and emotion and I think it would appeal to children and adults, the writing is amusing and poignant and Billy Conolly's narration is note-perfect.

Overall, I recommend this short for all, it is absolutely charming. 9/10 Bethany Cox

This is a slight little film starring a cute cartoon Nessie and, naturally, it's set in Scotland...and an odd Scotland it is, with plaid-colored mountains and scenery. The cute little Nessie is enjoying its lake when along comes some jerk who takes it away and builds a golf course there instead. Brokenhearted, Nessie then goes in search of a new lake. And, in the end, it has a very schmaltzy solution to its problem.

The animation is nice enough but overall it's not exactly a memorable film. You may like the story as narrated by Billy Connelly but I wasn't captivated. Decent and mildly interesting and nothing more.