A Touching Finale: “Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast”
This film marks the likely conclusion of the “Fairies” series, focusing on a single heroine while delivering a captivating story.
Fauna, among her fairy friends, is renowned for her boundless love for animals, extending even to creatures as large and deadly as hawks. After one of Fauna’s attempts to help a “cute bird” nearly ends in tragedy, Queen Clarion reminds her that she must be responsible as well as kind. However, Fauna’s big heart proves stronger than reason. Hearing a terrifying roar in the forest, she sets out to find a new potential pet and discovers a huge, bizarre monster building mysterious stone pyramids. While all the other fairies decide that the strange creature is dangerous, Fauna believes it is completely harmless, even when it turns out that the monster’s past appearances in the forest have been followed by terrible storms that devastated Pixie Hollow.
For “Legend of the NeverBeast,” Fauna has a new hairstyle, dress, and American voice actress. Ginnifer Goodwin from the series “Once Upon a Time” became the third Fauna, following America Ferrera and Angela Bartis.
The End of an Era?
It seems the Disney “Fairies” cycle is coming to an end, not because DisneyToon Studios has run out of stories about the inhabitants of Pixie Hollow, but because in the US, the films are only released on DVD and Blu-Ray, and the American video market is shrinking. On the one hand, it’s a shame that one of the few animated series aimed at young girls is ceasing production (apart from the titular monster, “Legend” has only one male character, and he is a minor one). On the other hand, “Fairies” has never been a particularly successful cycle, and it would be great if DisneyToon Studios (a Disney subsidiary focused on creating mid-budget animated films) could direct its freed-up resources to a new, better series in the same vein.
Director Steve Loter of “Legend of the NeverBeast” previously worked on television series, including “The Penguins of Madagascar” and “Kim Possible.”
A Step Forward in Fairy Tales
To be fair, the “Fairies” series has made great strides since its inception (the first episode was released in 2008). While the first episodes were as dull as a formal tea party, the penultimate, fifth installment, “The Pirate Fairy,” released earlier this year, was so entertaining that it could be recommended to boys as well as girls. Everyone loves pirates! Well, almost everyone, except for officers of the East India Company.
A Focus on Fauna
The new “Legend of the NeverBeast” isn’t as good as “The Pirate Fairy,” not because it lacks pirates, but because only Fauna and Tinker Bell are truly involved in the action out of all the main heroines. Their friends appear on screen, and each has a few lines, but they hardly affect the plot and only stand out from the crowd because viewers know them from previous episodes. Such a plot would be justified if “Fairies” were a multi-part TV show, with each episode focusing on a different fairy. But even in “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,” which is structured this way, the episode’s heroine’s friends always play a larger role than in “Legend.” When viewers only meet their favorite characters once a year, as with “Fairies,” each fairy should have significant plot importance. After all, the heroines’ devoted friendship and mutual assistance are the emotional center of the series, and “The Pirate Fairy” was very well-constructed in this regard.
A Moral Quandary
Otherwise, we have no major complaints about “Legend.” In keeping with the series’ tradition, broken only in “The Pirate Fairy,” the new film has no villains in the usual sense. Instead, there’s a monster that seems friendly but behaves suspiciously and becomes increasingly sinister and demonic as the storm approaches, and the leader of the Pixie Hollow guard, Nyx, who suffers from professional paranoia and insists that the monster must be caught and restrained before it does any damage. Fauna initially stands firmly by her new “pet,” but even she begins to doubt him as the climax approaches. This creates a didactic and intriguing moral puzzle: “To what extent can we trust someone who seems dangerous to us?” Although the filmmakers’ answer is perhaps overly idealistic (“To infinity and beyond!”), the film can also be used to illustrate the correctness of the suspicious Nyx. After all, things could have turned out differently. Very differently…
Epic Proportions
As in Hollywood blockbusters, a natural cataclysm lends “Legend” an epic and dramatic quality not usually found in the series, and young children will likely watch the climactic scenes with bated breath. Although, of course, it’s not “2012” or “Independence Day.” The film’s animation is also top-notch – not at the level of Pixar’s $200 million films, but at a level where only a professional could find fault with the graphics. Finally, the film is good at sentimental scenes that celebrate friendship and affection. You might even shed a tear at the very end of “Legend,” and not just because it seems to be the last meeting with Fauna, Tinker Bell, and the other residents of Pixie Hollow, who could have had many more amazing adventures…