Well, the pandemic is still causing havoc, but things seem to have died down just a bit. More businesses are opening (With wise policies put in place to prevent anything from spreading), and I was able to get my hair cut for the first time in months! We've still got a way to go, but I'd say now there's definitely starting to be a light at the end of our tunnel, praise be to God. We must stay positive, keep praying, and keep following the "Rules" relating to how to stay safe and healthy.
After my 'Lord of the Rings' series, I decided to look at some more light- hearted fare for a while, and since I have a Disney Plus membership (Which I highly recommend, btw; It really does offer an amazing array of content for a pretty reasonable price), I figured that would be a good way for me to get inspiration in.
To that end, for the next few segments of the Nightcrawler Experience, I will be taking devotional looks at some of Disney's beloved animated films, examining them both as a fanboy and as a Christian.
I'll start this series on a lively note with their hilarious 2000 animated film, 'The Emperor's New Groove.' This movie was originally conceived as a much more serious, epic- type film which would have been called 'The Kingdom of the Sun,' but it went through a ton of re-writes, character re- designs and a near- complete change to its plot, and ultimately became instead one of the most light- hearted comedy films Disney has ever made.
(Credit for this image goes to the user "RRabbit42"at the Emperor's New Groove fan wiki @ https://emperorsnew.fandom.com/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Groove?file=The_Emperor%27s_New_Groove_-_The_New_Groove_Edition_-_front_cover.jpg)
This movie takes place long ago, in an impressive kingdom located somewhere in Pre- Colombian South America. The kingdom is ruled by the teenage Emperor Kuzco (Voice of David Spade), an incredibly selfish, spoiled jerk with a snarky attitude and a colossal ego. He views his kingdom as his own personal playground in which he can do and say whatever he wants regardless of how it affects others, and he becomes furious whenever anyone disrupts his lifestyle in any way. In the first few minutes of the film, he even has an elderly peasant thrown out of a high palace window for "Throwing off my groove," by accidentally bumping into Kuzco when he was doing a dance.
As you can probably guess, Kuzco living and acting in such a way results in a lot of people not being very fond of him. The worst in that regard is Yzma (Voice of Eartha Kitt), his scheming and power- hungry royal advisor. When Kuzco fires her, she and her dim- witted but amiable hunk of a henchman Kronk (Voice of Patrick Warburton) decide to do away with him so that Yzma can then seize the throne for herself. She invites Kuzco to a dinner in which she attempts to poison him, but through a mix- up caused largely by Kronk's incompetence, he is fed the wrong potion, so rather than being killed, Kuzco is instead turned into a talking llama.
Yzma then has Kronk take the transformed emperor out of the kingdom to finish him, but (Surprise, surprise) Kronk once again screws up. The llama- fied Kuzco ends up with Pacha (Voice of John Goodman), a humble and good- natured peasant farmer who had just learned that his entire village is due to be torn down to make way for a private vacation resort Kuzco intended to build for himself.
When Pacha realizes the extent of what had happened to his emperor (Though Kuzco doesn't yet know that Yzma was deliberately trying to kill him, he thinks it was all just a mistake), he makes Kuzco a deal: He'll help Kuzco make it back to the palace and get turned back into a human, if Kuzco in turn agrees to spare Pacha's village and build his vacation home somewhere else. Kuzco more or less agrees (He varies a lot in his position), and they set out, not realizing that Yzma knows Kuzco is still alive, and she and Kronk are actively searching for him in order to finish him for good. Along the way, Kuzco gets a much- needed dose of humility and perspective, and he and Pacha learn the meaning of true friendship.
The only minor problem I have with 'The Emperor's New Groove' is that, for the first half or so, Kuzco acts as a voiceover narrator to the story, and while it works for the beginning with introducing the major characters and whatnot, it gets old fast. It becomes almost a relief in the middle of the movie when Kuzco then tells his narrative voiceover to buzz off.
With that out of the way, I had so much fun re- watching 'The Emperor's New Groove'!
Its main strength is most definitely its humor. I don't think there was a single scene in the entire movie that didn't make me laugh at least once! It's funny in a lot of ways, too. Most of its humor is dialogue- based through how the characters interact with each other, but there's also slapstick, sight gags, and situational humor. I actually think it works better this way than as the much more serious epic it was initially conceived as, because making a movie this consistently comedic isn't something that Disney has done very often, making it even more of a novelty.
In spite of this, though, the film does manage a nice serious moment or two here and there to keep it from getting TOO goofy.
All of the characters in the movie are a lot of fun. Even when Kuzco is a spoiled, cocky punk in the beginning, he's at least quite funny to watch, especially with some of the zingers he throws around (i.e. When firing Yzma, he tells her, "Hey, everybody hits their stride; You just hit yours fifty years ago."), and he retains that humor all through the film. However, at the same time, his change by the end of the movie seems really genuine. In a brief scene in the end when he's talking to the old man he'd had tossed out the window in the beginning and making sure the poor guy's okay, you can hear real humility and regret in his voice. The old Kuzco would never have cared that much about anyone else's well- being. Mad props to David Spade for his voice performance; I'm normally not much of a fan of his, but he's truly in his stride here.
Pacha makes for an excellent foil to Kuzco. While Kuzco is over the top, egotistical and often mean, Pacha is humble, down- to- earth, and likable. His interactions with his wife and kids are really sweet, and most of the film's serious moments involve him. John Goodman's voice was perfect for him, it conveys such a warm, sympathetic tone. The friendship that these two unlikely companions build with each other over the course of the film is really nice to see, definitely one of the better hero- duos I can recall from a Disney film.
Speaking of great character duos, easily one of the best parts of the movie (Certainly the funniest) is the villains. Yzma and Kronk play off of each other in an unbelievably funny, "Pinky and the Brain"- esque way. Yzma's overly complex plans and exasperated rants and Kronk's clueless yet endearing observations (i.e. Several hours after he unwittingly runs into Pacha and a disguised Kuzco in a diner, Kronk bolts awake from his sleep with the sudden realization that "That peasant, at the diner! ..... He didn't pay his check.") make a perfect contrast to each other. Even in terms of their voices, the menacing, almost snakelike voice that Kitt gives to Yzma (Which she ended up winning an Annie award for) perfectly contrasts with the dopey, jolly voice that Warburton gives to Kronk. It's no surprise that a direct- to- video sequel focusing on Kronk was made a couple years later, and another sequel centering around Yzma was initially planned but then cancelled when Eartha Kitt died in 2008.
One scene that is probably my favorite in the movie is a scene about two- thirds of the way into it. When it finally dawns on Kronk that Pacha has Kuzco with him and thus that finding the former of the two will lead them to the latter, he and Yzma go to Pacha's house claiming to be relatives of his. Fortunately, after Yzma tries to get some information from Pacha's wife about his location, the family finds a pretty awesome and creative way to get rid of the two. It's a scene that has loads of laughs considering its short time, and makes good use of each of the characters. Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE9Z6dr6WHw
I think there are definitely some Scriptural messages that can be taken from 'The Emperor's New Groove,'
First up, I think Kuzco can easily be seen as a kind of allegory for the Biblical king Nebuchadnezzar, whose story is seen in the book of Daniel, Chapter 4. Like Kuzco, Nebuchadnezzar was the supreme ruler of a large, mighty kingdom, in his case the kingdom of Babylon. Also like Kuzco, he had a horrifically bloated ego about it, and this pride led him to treat everyone around him horribly. Lastly like Kuzco, his pride ended up costing him a lot. See, he was warned by the prophet Daniel that his pride would be his undoing, and for a while, he did act in a more humble way, but it didn't last long. His egotism returned, and on one day when he looked over his kingdom and pompously said "Is not this great Babylon, that *I* have built...by the might of *my* power... For the glory of *my* majesty?," God had enough and punished Nebuchadnezzar for his pride. Nebuchadnezzar was driven mad in an instant, fled his kingdom, and for quite a while he lived like an animal and even ate grass like one. This makes a good parallel to the scene in the film when Kuzco, at his lowest point when he fully realizes just how much of a failure he has proven to be, blends into a herd of regular llamas and attempts eating grass like the rest of them. Eventually, after this, Nebuchadnezzar regained his senses and was restored to his sanity and his throne, and reigned with much more humility and decency for the rest of his days.
As both Kuzco in the film and Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible came to discover the hard way, holding yourself up so high means the only way you have left to go is down. Our pride can blind us, both to what things around us are really like, and to specifically what God is doing around us. This is just one of many reasons why we need to stay humble, and not think too highly of ourselves. C.S. Lewis once made a good description of humility in one of his books: Humility can be seen as, if you were to build a great building or other structure, being just as proud of it and admiring of it as you would have been if someone else had made it. We can think well of ourselves (God wouldn't want us feeling too poorly of ourselves, either, since He created us), just not let pride blind us from what's really important or set us up for a fall. Proverbs 11:2 sums it up well by saying that "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." Kuzco in the film and Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible found that out, and the sooner we learn that ourselves, the better.
A second lesson that the film teaches is regarding selflessness. Kuzco at the start of this film only cares about or even thinks about his own immediate wants. His initial plans for Pacha's hilltop village are the perfect example of this, as he was going to force Pacha, his family, and all the other families in that village to lose their homes just so he could build a gigantic private resort purely for himself. As the film progresses, however, he very slowly learns to care more about the needs of others than about himself. We see this through the aforementioned scene in the end with him apologizing to the old man, as well as with what Kuzco finally decides to do regarding Pacha's hilltop. Selflessness is an important theme for us as Christians, too. 1 Corinthians 10:24 says "Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor." The world teaches that everyone should only look out for number one, but once again, Jesus came to teach His followers to go against the secular world's bad example. We need to strive to show God's love towards others by seeking their good more than our own, as Kuzco eventually learned how to do.
Another Biblical lesson that the film teaches is, I think, a pretty good lesson on God's grace and love towards us. It, again, involves the scene when Kuzco has hit rock bottom and begun eating grass with a regular llama herd. Out of nowhere, he hears a familiar voice, and realizes that Pacha (Whom he had coldly rebuffed and run away from in an earlier scene) has followed after him and is now talking to one of the other llamas in the herd to try and find him. While talking to the llama, Pacha makes a simple but pretty powerful statement: "You know, call me crazy for following this guy all the way out here, but as much as he tries to deny it, I KNOW there's some good in him!"
Even after how unbearably selfish Kuzco was, how much he mistreated Pacha and turned away from him all throughout the film up to this point, Pacha still came back looking for him. By this point, for Pacha, it wasn't even about saving his village anymore (After all, if Kuzco were to remain a llama forever and never return to the palace, he'd never be able to have Pacha's village demolished); It had become about looking past all of Kuzco's many faults to the good he had deep inside him, and the friend he could be. This is similar to what Jesus has done for all of us, through His grace. Even though we all sinned so many times, turned our backs on God so many times and in so many ways, He still knows that there's something worth loving in us, worth saving. That's why He sent His Son Jesus to save us. Romans 3:22-24 sums it up well by saying that "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus CHrist to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Even though we've all sinned, God showed us His grace by sending Jesus to pay for all of our sins so we can all be redeemed through Him.
There you have 'The Emperor's New Groove,' a fun, hilarious movie that teaches great lessons on humility, selflessness and on the incredible grace God shows to all of us. As Kuzco himself would put it, "BOOM, BABY!"
That's it for this edition of the Nightcrawler Experience. Stay tuned for the next installment in this series, which I should hopefully have up soon. Until then, stay safe and healthy, and may God bless you all!
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