In 1994, Don Bluth and his staff churned out two animated features less than 7 months apart; "A Troll In Central Park" and "Thumbelina". Though Thumbelina is arguably the better of the two, both are possibly the worst films of Don Bluth's career.

In 1979 Don Bluth left Disney to revitalize classic animation. He undeniably did that with his debut feature and masterpiece "The Secret of NIMH"(1982). His later films of the 80's varied in quality and it was apparent that they all were declined achievements compared to Bluth's first film, but for the most part they all were decent movie fare, and even arguably better than what Disney was producing in the mid-80's. Though shortly before the 80's came to an end, Disney proved themselves again by releasing "The Little Mermaid"(1989). Coincidently, Don Bluth afterwards fell into extreme mediocrity and started making some of the worst animated films of the time.

So where does Thumbelina rank? Well, like I said, it is not Don Bluth's worst. That honor belongs to "A Troll In Central Park", but Thumbelina is still scraping the bottom of the barrel. Frankly, everything about this film is banal. The title character is nothing but a huge whining pessimist and nothing like the Thumbelina I would have envisioned, but none of the other characters are anything of greater value. Most of them being either obnoxious or racially insensitive. The animation, though fine at first glance, is nothing to look at. Sure it looks pretty at certain points, but it's still deeply flawed on many other levels. The film is littered with with shots of terrible CGI backgrounds that make my skin crawl, the character designs are mundane and cutesy and look like they belong in a century old 5-minute cartoon, not in a theatrically released 85-minute feature film. The story and plot is nothing but cutesy crap and it obviously had no thought put into it. It completely underestimates its audience by following the guidelines of a cheesy, mushy cartoon that would easily insult the intelligence of a 2-year old. And do not believe anyone who says that the music is somewhat enjoyable, because all of it is nothing but a sugar coated fart coming your way.

It's sad that this film's full title is "Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina". To see his lovely fairy tale, which is most definitely my favorite fairy tale, tarnished by this film's infamous legacy. Today, this is still the film that most people relate to the original tale, when it no way does it justice. We desperately need to make another adaption, or at least appreciate the other, BETTER adaptations that we already have.

Thumbelina is one of the Bluth's weaker movies. The character design of many of the characters never really apealed to me. The animation is ok, it's smoother than some earlier Bluth films. What brings it down somewhat for me is all the singing. There's too much of it, but then again I'm real big on musicals, especially the ones where eighty to ninety percent of the lines are sung and not spoken. The only song I really enjoyed was "Let Me Be Your Wings". It was very well written.
The story is a typical fairy tale type. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, some dramatic disaster happens, then the boy rescues girl and everything is hunky dory in the end.
The voice cast did a good job though. Some of the characters were interesting, but I think they could have developed the main characters more than they did.
Overall it's a fair movie, as I said it's definitely not one of Bluth's best, but it'd be good for a rent or two.

Oh lord that was aweful!

Found it in a discount bin at wallyworld, and JUMPED at the chance to watch this childhood favorite...Being a Bluth fan, I't hard for me to say I hated it.

I had to go to Don Bluth addicts anonymous.
My name is Thalia, and I'm a Bluth addict,
and I hated Thumbelina.

Plot summary:

Small person grows out of a flower, drama ensues... or at least it tries to, but it fails... Miserably.

There are a couple of... No, there is ONE good song (Let me be your wings... *glittersparklemagiclove*) and the rest are...mediocre at best. Not just the songs themselves but the sequences they're animated to.

I mean, I want to love this movie as much as I did when I was little... but it's just not possible.

*possible spoilers...*

Thumbelina is discovered by a young fairy prince, and they instantly fall in love for no reason whatsoever. Sound familiar?
While they're fluttering around in a ballad, they cross a toad and his roadshow family. The oldest toad son falls in love with Thumbelina. His mother kidnaps her, and after they think they've convinced her to join their group (and marry the toad) they leave her stranded on a lilly-pad, which is loosed by a gay mime swallow. They both drown... almost.
Then Thumbelina decides to go home, but she's lost. And she wants to marry the fairy prince... but she's lost.
Clue in here thumbelina, there's this really friendly swallow sitting/standing/dancing next to you... Couldn't he fly up in the air, see where your house is, CARRY you to it?
No, instead he goes off to "Find ze prince of ze fairies!" and she gets... picked up? By a cockroach. And ...stops trying to go home? I think... And then she changes her mind, and gets stuck in a hole and engaged to a mole thanks to a weasly little mouse while the sparrow lies wouded in a hole in the ground... Yeah, she's pretty much given up on the fairy prince by now, who might I mention is frozen in the ice, nabbed by the cockroach for the toad to use as bait to lure thumbelina back to his roadshow? All that dotted with some musical numbers, and none of it makes any sense whatsoever...
Yeah...
Well, In the end the guy gets the girl,
and Thumbelina becomes a fairy, but to get that far you have to watch the rest of this stupid movie...

The Pebble and the Penguin made more sense.

i liked this movie.. i always wanted to be that small and to be able to sleep in a nut shell!

I think what I liked most about this movie is the depiction of Thumbelina and Cornelius as two teenagers in love--and behaving as two teenagers would. You've got Cornelius, who would rather ride his motorcycle-like bumble bee than a prissy white butterfly, and Thumbelina, who is still understandably naive about the world. She is a tiny person being swept away by the events around her until she finally puts her foot down. How many teenagers haven't felt like that at one point or another?

The songs in "Thumbelina" are well done and enjoyable. Since much of the story focuses around Thumbelina's incredible singing voice, the musical numbers don't seem out of place and Jodi Benson (likely most famous as the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid) really does have a beautiful voice. The duet, "Let Me Be Your Wings," between Thumbelina and Cornelius soars and is a fabulous song in its own right.