Even if I did not hold this movie as a fond childhood memory, I still would say that I generally like it. I will forgive this movie's creators's use of the name "Hexxus" - which I believe is a morph of the name of the oil company "Exxon" and the oil-producing state of Texas (am I really the only one to have noticed this?). But the main reason for my writing of this review is to describe a fan theory I had over eleven years ago and kind of forgot about until I picked this movie up on DVD and remembered my theory of that time.
In 2008, long before I had an IMDb account, I had this theory about 'Fern Gully', which came about from my observation of multiple aspects of the movie that don't make sense in the world we know.
- We have pixies who physically resemble tiny Europeans with American accents speaking English (as opposed to Australian Aborigine pixies speaking whatever their language is);
- We have lumberjacks in the Australian forests speaking in American accents;
- We have these said lumberjacks cutting down trees in a protected area;
- We observe that these lumberjacks, instead of selectively cutting down trees with chainsaws and picking them up one at a time with forestry excavators, are using this gargantuan leveller;
- We have a bat with a radio antenna drilled into his skull, also speaking English, and also in an American accent;
- We have Zak, who is not old enough to even have a full graduated driver's license, working in this industry.
My conclusion in 2008 was that, in the 'Fern Gully' deeplore continuity, the world was a victim in the 1980s of a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere. The transition from democratic law in NATO and U.S. allies was made to military government, as an emergency measure. These emergency measures were enacted to help batton down the hatches against complete civil chaos, and to rebuild a post-nuclear USA. This would entail a mass harvest of resources from the southern hemisphere - in this case, the USA's ally Australia - such as wood, to rebuild buildings as inexpensively as possible. Thus, U.S. contractors had to invent the levellers in order to cut down as many trees as
quickly as possible, with as few staff as possible, in order to get as much non-radioactive lumber as possible to the USA as fast as possible.
It also explains why a kid Zak's age would be working here - although he's physically fit, he's not of military age. Ralph and Tony - one built like a copper wire, the other built like a can of ham - are not physically fit for military service, so that explains why they've been draughted for leveller operator duties. My post-nuclear analogy, however, does not explain why a couple of men with New York City accents are working in the forestry industry. Being as how NYC is one of the top nuclear attack targets for any aggressor towards the USA, it seems unlikely that NYC accents would exist at all in a post-nuclear USA. I suppose we can simply guess that Tony and Ralph were draughted into the emergency lumber plan before NYC was blown away. It also explains why we have an intelligent bat that is able to speak to humans and has a radio
surgically implanted into his head. In 1992, drones were not yet a common item in the military, but we know that there have been military experiments on wild animals to perform duties too unsafe for humans but too expensive for robots, such as the program to train bottlenose dolphins to find sea mines.
Judging from the experiments on Batty, we can also imagine that Cold War experimentation is the real reason for the existence of these English-speaking, European-looking pixies in a remote Australian forest. A military bioengineering project gone wrong, secretly dumped in the forest, explains the pixies's legend about at one time being in peace with humans, but then the interference of Hexxus led to the humans leaving. Hexxus was not merely the incarnation of pollution, but the incarnation of torment and mutilation the pixies experienced in their human pasts. The abstract tree art we see at the beginning of the movie are representations of primate hands, symbolising the halcyon shared origins of the pixies and the post-nuclear humans.
Hexxus is trickier. He is shown to be visible by both the humans and the pixies. Yet, he has no absolute form; he is shown in the form of a ghostly oil, a snake under a black bedsheet, a black humanoid ghost, and a skeleton. I believe that, as opposed to being a result of a military engineering experiment, as the
pixies were, Hexxus represents a common uber-anxiety in both humans and pixies, which appears from a subconscious trigger in response to the destruction of natural habitat. The fat tree that he was imprisoned in was a religious icon for the fairies that symbolised victory over him. Zak, who was the first of the humans in the forest to take notice of Hexxus, did so because he had taken on in part the mutation of a pixie. Tony and Ralph, who were
fully human, were the last to notice Hexxus, but also the most terrified when they encountered him, because they had buried that anxiety. But as their double-shift wore on, and they continued to drive the leveller further
into the forest, the anxiety in the form of Hexxus appeared before them, and they abandoned the leveller, screaming. After Zak was returned to his normal size, he was less shell-shocked than Tony or Ralph, because he had the pixie sense of peace imprinted on him when Krysta transformed him to their size.
An overly complex theory? Maybe - but why not tell it to all of you?
Thanks for reading.
3 out of 3 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
