The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

Emperor Kuzco is turned into a llama by his ex-administrator Yzma, and must now regain his throne with the help of Pacha, the gentle llama herder.

Director:

Mark Dindal

Writers:

Chris Williams (story), Mark Dindal (story),

Stars:

David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 24 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
David Spade	...	Emperor Kuzco / Narrator (voice)
John Goodman	...	Pacha (voice)
Eartha Kitt	...	Yzma (voice)
Patrick Warburton	...	Kronk, Yzma's Sidekick (voice)
Wendie Malick	...	Chicha, Pacha's Wife (voice)
Kellyann Kelso	...	Chaca, Pacha's Daughter (voice)
Stephen J. Anderson	...	(voice)
Eli Russell Linnetz	...	Tipo, Pacha's Son (voice)
Bob Bergen	...	Bucky the Squirrel (voice)
Rodger Bumpass	...	(voice)
Tom Jones	...	Theme Song Guy (voice)
Robert Clotworthy	...	(voice)
Jennifer Darling	...	(voice)
Patti Deutsch	...	Waitress (voice)
John Fiedler	...	Old Man (voice)

Storyline

In this animated comedy from the folks at Disney, the vain and cocky Emperor Kuzco is a very busy man. Besides maintaining his "groove", and firing his suspicious administrator, Yzma; he's also planning to build a new waterpark just for himself for his birthday. However, this means destroying one of the villages in his kingdom. Meanwhile, Yzma is hatching a plan to get revenge and usurp the throne. But, in a botched assassination courtesy of Yzma's right-hand man, Kronk, Kuzco is magically transformed into a llama. Now, Kuzco finds himself the property of Pacha, a lowly llama herder whose home is ground zero for the water park. Upon discovering the llama's true self, Pacha offers to help resolve the Emperor's problem and regain his throne, only if he promises to move his water park.

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Plot Keywords:

llama | emperor | potion | jumprope | old man | 

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Taglines:

Beware the groooooooooove!

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Disney

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 December 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Kingdom in the Sun

Box Office

Budget:

$100,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,235,883 (UK) (16 February 2001)

Gross:

ESP 250,669,396 (Spain) (29 June 2001)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

78 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film was originally planned to have been a dramatic, sweeping Disney musical named "Kingdom of the Sun", to be directed by The Lion King director Roger Allers and Mark Dindal, director of Turner's Cats Don't Dance, with six original songs written by Sting, that was essentially an Incan re-telling of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper." David Spade was the voice of the young emperor Manco, Owen Wilson was Pacha, a young peasant with a striking resemblance to the emperor, and Eartha Kitt was Yzma, the aged royal sorceress. The film involved Manco and Pacha switching places, except that Yzma finds out, turns Manco into a (non-speaking) llama, and makes Pacha do her bidding. Pacha also eventually was to fall in love with Nina (voice of Carla Gugino), the emperor's betrothed. The resulting film tested very poorly, and the production was suspended, even though the film was 50% complete. Allers and Yzma supervising animator Andreas Deja both left the project and moved to Orlando, Florida to work on Lilo & Stitch. During the production hiatus, Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer, story man Chris Williams, and screenwriter David Reynolds completely overhauled the film, eventually throwing out Wilson, the "Prince and the Pauper" angle, the completed footage, and all but one of Sting's songs. As Roger Allers's take on the film was starting to take shape, Disney management were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the film, feeling it was too similar to the story of the Prince and the Pauper. Test screenings too generated poor feedback. On the strength of this, Mark Dindal was hired to add more comedic elements to the film. Dindal and Allers did not get on and essentially both began making their own separate version of the film. The Disney executives, although unhappy with Roger Allers's direction on the film, held off from interfering with him, given that he had provided them with their biggest hit, The Lion King, which too had had a troubled production. Also, most of Allers's crew were very loyal to their director. By the summer of 1998, it was increasingly clear that "Kingdom of the Sun" was not going to make its summer 2000 release date. Merchandising tie-ins with McDonalds and Coca-Cola amongst others meant that the release date could not be moved. Director Roger Allers asked for a six month extension to the release which was denied. Allers then quit the project. With the film on the brink of total shutdown, co-director Mark Dindal worked on a retooling of the film. While he did this, most of his animators were reassigned to work on the Rhapsody in Blue segment of Fantasia/2000. The result of this retooling was the film we have today. The story was rebuilt from the ground up, retaining Spade's and Kitt's characters and creating a new, wackier film that centered around Spade's (talking) llama, Yzma, and two new characters: Pacha, now a middle-aged man played by John Goodman, and Kronk.

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Goofs

When Yzma pulls the lever to go down to their laboratory the first time, she is on the right and Kronk is on the left, but when it cuts to the next screen, they are switched.

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Quotes

Kronk: [while falling down the stairs] Back! Elbow! Shoulder!

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Connections

References Pinocchio (1940)

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Soundtracks

"Perfect World / Perfect World Reprise"
Lyrics by Sting
Music by Sting & Dave Hartley
Performed by Tom Jones
Produced by Sting and Dave Hartley
Arranged, Orchestrated and Conducted by Dave Hartley
Recorded and Mixed by Frank Wolf

User Reviews

Hurrah! Perfection.

Hard to see why it wasn't a wildly popular mega-hit - I have two theories, one charitable, one not. The charitable theory is that people were put off by the title. MY heart certainly sank when I heard it. I mean, just say it out loud - "The Emperor's New Groove" - now how could a good movie POSSIBLY have a title like that?

Yet now, I rather like the title. It fits the story; it doesn't care if it's fashionable or not; it's just so pleasingly RIGHT - but in an almost indescribable way you'll have to watch the film to find out. Maybe it WAS a marketing mistake. Who cares? I never took seriously the charge that Disney's artistic decisions were made by its marketing department, anyway.

That was the charitable explanation for why it made considerably less, inflation adjusted, than every other one of Disney's animated features from "Beauty and the Beast" on, and failed to even get nominated for a "Best Picture" Oscar in a year in which they had difficulty coming up with half-plausible candidates. The uncharitable explanation is probably closer to the truth. People are idiots. This is a classic - but it's also animated - by pencil on paper rather than finger on keyboard - so who will ever notice?

Doubt me? You won't once you've seen it. Everyone to speak of who did reports that it's very, very funny, and they're right - and trust me, nothing is ever THIS funny unless it's clever and witty as well. It goes without saying that their character animation is unmatched in its brilliance and ... I've already used the words "humour" and "wit"? Well, I'll use them again. In addition there's a charming dottiness that a merely hip film could never quite capture. Art direction is perfectly judged and consistent throughout, with a pleasing absence of because-we-can computer effects.

Here's just ONE example of what I'm talking about. One side of the emperor's palace consists of this HUGE golden face, and we find out in a funny scene (but they're all funny) that all excess water is drained out through the nostrils. But that's not all we see. We see characters crawling out of the nostrils, we see someone dangling like a big booger on a rope out of one of the nostrils - one snot gag after another - yet no explicit camerawork ever draws our attention to them. Not only do the characters deliver their lines perfectly deadpan, the camera delivers its images perfectly deadpan. It's just perfect.

Two more things I should mention. Unlike Disney's other recent features, it never, not even for a second, feels as though the story has been unduly compressed - and at 78 minutes it's a trifle shorter than most.

Also, despite the constant hilarity, it's rather touching.

No movie I've seen in the past six months has filled me with such joy. Well, perhaps there have been a few others, but they were all made long ago.