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Title: Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985)
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3 wins & 1 nomination.
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Edit
Cast
| Cast overview: | |||
| Bettina Bush | ... | Rainbow Brite (voice) (as Bettina) | |
| Pat Fraley | ... | Lurky / On-X / Buddy Blue / Dog / Guard / Spectran / Slurthie / Glitterbot (voice) (as Patrick Fraley) | |
| Peter Cullen | ... | Murky Dismal / Castle Monster / Glitterbot / Guard / Skydancer / Slurthie (voice) | |
 |
Robbie Lee | ... | Twink / Shy Violet / Indigo / La La Orange / Spectran / Sprites (voice) |
| Andre Stojka | ... | Starlite / Wizard / Spectran (voice) | |
| David Mendenhall | ... | Krys (voice) | |
|
|
Rhonda Aldrich | ... | The Princess / The Creature (voice) |
| Les Tremayne | ... | Orin / Bombo / TV announcer (voice) | |
| Mona Marshall | ... | Red Butler / Witch / Spectran / Castle Creature / Patty O'Green / Canary Yellow (voice) | |
| Jonathan Harris | ... | Count Blogg (voice) | |
|
|
Marissa Mendenhall | ... | Stormy (voice) |
| Scott Menville | ... | Brian (voice) | |
| Charlie Adler | ... | Popo (voice) (as Charles Adler) | |
|
|
David Workman | ... | Sargeant Zombo (voice) |
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Plot Summary
|
Add Synopsis
Storyline
Rainbow Brite, and her magical horse Starlite, must stop an evil princess and her underlings from taking over the planet Spectra. When they meet Orin, the wise Sprite tries to make the two children get along and work together to stop the evil Princess. Orin tells them that they can only destroy her by combining their own powers against her. Getting in the way of their mission is the sinister Murky Dismal and his bumbling assistant Lurky who, as usual, are lavishing in the new gloom created by the darkening of Spectra, as well as trying to steal Rainbow's magical color belt. Written by Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}
Taglines:
Rainbow Brite lights up the screen in her first big movie.Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents »
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Details
Language:
EnglishRelease Date:
15 November 1985 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Iridella e il ladro di stelle See more »Edit
Box Office
Opening Weekend USA:
$1,847,962, 17 November 1985, Wide ReleaseGross USA:
$4,889,971Company Credits
Show more on
IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
DolbyColor:
Color (Technicolor)Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1
Edit
I remember years ago reading in a TV Guide an article about a video store which asked you to select more than one movie title just in case one or the other was already checked out (it was written because back during this time period rental stores were still a new novelty to many at the time), and it mentioned a young teenage girl who was babysitting a small boy who was around five years old. The boy's parents had instructed her to let him select a movie to keep him occupied, and they were standing in line with the two titles he had selected: "The Shaggy Dog" and "Rainbow Brite and The Star Stealer."
When interviewed, she remarked with freaked-out anxiousness, "I sure hope it's 'The Shaggy Dog' they've got. I'll ***DIE*** if it's 'Rainbow Brite'." The article described her as making the comment with "all the air of one about to get sick on the carpet."
She spoke pretty much for everybody out there except a tiny select few who were introduced to this film as small girls back during the time period. That's because we have here what just might be the one film that single-handedly represnts everything terrible that happened to animation during the eighties!
Now to be fair, there were a lot of "cute" children's cartoons that came out during the period which were designed strictly to be animated advertisements for the toys they were based on. (I exempt "The Smurfs" from this list not only because they were great, but because they were never designed to sell toys in the first place and were in fact based on a famous European comic strip.) Most of them were terrrible with cheap animation and dumbed-down plots. The only film out of all of them which has managed to amazingly age with grace is "The Care Bears Movie".
Now, I don't have a big problem with cartoons designed for young girls--provided they are done right. For example, I actually enjoyed watching the "Strawberry Shortcake" specials made for television during the time because they had a lot of deliberately silly humour and also because they actually had imagination to the concept (adults will now see all the tounge-in-cheek jokes in "Shortcake" that went over their heads as toddlers). But this one isn't even fun on a campy level, save for the portions where it becomes unintentionally hilarious. It's just bad bad bad bad BAD.
I've always got the impression that Rainbow Brite was created as a Care Bears ripoff, and that point of view remains unchanged today. It is simply the most unoriginal and unimaginative of all the eighties offerings in its genre. Everything present here has been done before better somewhere else by even cheap lousy cartoons from the time which just somehow managed to not be AS cheap and badly written as this one. It was also considered a bomb compared to its competition, and if you dare see it you'll see why. Oh yes, it also has the most self-conscious and pretentious voice acting I've ever encountered this side of badly-dubbed anime.
As a friend of mine once remarked, "Don't let kids watch this film unless you want them to learn bad manners from Rainbow Brite's stuck-up horse! Can you imagine how many little kids will watch this film and all want to grow up to be stuck-up horses?!" (No, I'm not kidding about that description of Starlite, it's true.)
Avoid, avoid, avoid. Unless you take a particularly wicked pleasure in watching an animated embarrassment fall on its face, that is.
(Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering... the teenage girl I mentioned was later relieved to the point of jumping and shouting "ALRIIIGHT!" when she learned her young charge had gotten his hands on 'The Shaggy Dog' instead.)