Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH/The Secret of NIMH

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No separate thread yet, though both have been referenced by tons of people on here.

Book and film have separate titles and are separate stories in many ways (book: science fiction/film: fantasy, for a start). The book was one of the ones that I first heard in third grade reading sessions (another one was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). I remember being enthralled by it at the time; when I reread it many years later (which is still a long time ago at this point), I was intrigued by all of what I hadn't recalled, as well as how the film had inevitably colored my memories of it (realizing that the rats were hardly supposed to be medieval mystics, for a start!).

As for the film -- never saw it in the theater, I think (I could be wrong) but once it hit HBO in 1983 I caught it pretty much every chance I could. I'm waiting for the day somebody finally samples when Jenner says, "Take what you can...WHEN YOU CAN!" (It may not be Scarface dialogue but hey.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

i saw this in the theater with my mom. we were the only people there. i recall it being rather intense for children.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

For a start for a start. I should set up a macro.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I totally forgot about this. . .

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

It IS intense but I like it for that reason. At the end of the film three characters are violently killed!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, I like remembering that two of the mouse kids were played by Shannon Doherty and Wil Wheaton.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:08 (seventeen years ago) link

There was a sequel called Rasco and the Rats of Nimh that was my favourite book as a kid.

― Will M. (Will M.), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link

My step-brother and I were stunned that they let the Jeremy Irons rat say "damn" when Mrs. Frisby gets captured.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:12 (seventeen years ago) link

It's also interesting that Secret and Tron came out the same year -- the one being a very conscious look back at 'traditional' animation methods (but to an extremely detailed and vivid degree) and the other pointing the way forward to CGI world.

Stepping back to the book, I seem to remember that O'Brien handled the tone of Mrs. Frisby's eventual discoveries of the complicated world her dead husband was a part of very well. (Is it also the kid's equivalent to The Plague Dogs on an antivivisection front? Lord knows that sequence in Secret was pretty terrifying.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Wow. Amnesia lane.

The thing I remember most about the movie was the incredible animation.

― So weit wie knock-kneed (kenan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

My step-brother and I were stunned that they let the Jeremy Irons rat say "damn" when Mrs. Frisby gets captured.

You know, you're right! I had the same reaction!

Whatever was done to the story the animation really is stellar. I wouldn't mind seeing it on a fullscreen in a new print. Maybe the last classic Disney-style animation effort in American film history? (Because it sure wasn't Oliver and Company.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

One of my favorite books and movies as a kid (Ned, we read it side by side with The Plague Dogs in 5th grade), though the book does not hold up as well to adult-reading as Watership Down does. I haven't seen the movie in ages, probably since before DVD.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link

(Ned, we read it side by side with The Plague Dogs in 5th grade)

Wow, I'm *incredibly* impressed. There's a LOT in that book that I wouldn't have guessed would work with such a young readership; even me at 5th grade would have felt a bit overwhelmed by all the Parliamentary allusions and the rather Tristam Shandy-like ending. (Or would that be Pirandello?)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link

It's been so long since I've read the book, am I misremembering that the majority of it was actually from Jonathon Frisby's perspective?

― blotter Budweiser Hackeysadk (nickalicious), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay actually I'm not sure what I'm thinking of, I mean, duh Nick, even the TITLE of the book began Mrs. Frisby and...!

― blotter Budweiser Hackeysadk (nickalicious), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

i had nightmares about tractors for weeks after i saw the film.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, it was an experimental class -- six or seven students from 4th/5th/6th grade. We had units like "animal points of view" and read Call of the Wild and those two. The Plague Dogs freaked me out a lot, but I loved it, even if I'm sure a lot of it was over my head.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Those opening pages alone. In medias res as nightmare fuel.

i had nightmares about tractors for weeks after i saw the film.

Yup.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I was explaining this movie to my husband recently. I LOVED this movie when I was little even though it was pretty scary! I wonder if netflix has it, another viewing might be in order. *Runs to check*

― ENBB (expatrica), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:28 (seventeen years ago) link

I was thinking netflix too.

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:28 (seventeen years ago) link

i LOOOOOVED this book and i never thought the movie was as good; seeing it again a few years ago, i remain convinced of that.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Bit of an overlooked gem, the film. Quite scary, too.

― chap (chap), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:46 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm with s1ocki - the book had such an impact on me I don't think I ever saw the film in its entirety, cuz pre-adolescent me was annoyed at the degree of changes (also the lawsuit necessitating the namechange)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link

what's the deal with the suit?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Frisbee sued and forced them to change the title and characters' names

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

from Wikipedia: "Mrs. Frisby was renamed Mrs. Brisby because of a threatened lawsuit for copyright and trademark violation by the Wham-O company, manufacturers of the Frisbee toy. The movie was criticized for this and other plot changes, especially the change of "the secret" from a science-fictional cause to magic and wizardry."

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

i loved it, but it totally scared me.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Frisbee sued and forced them to change the title and characters' names

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), Today 6:36 AM. (Shakey Mo Collier) (later)

whoa!!! weird

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

i loved anything with hoary underground caveworlds. so yeah, awesome. need to see it again.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

The books was great, the movie sadly seemed to have gotten worse after reading the book. Exposed odd plotholes...

The later books in the 'series' are really terrible.

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

kinda unrelated but totally awesome piece by Lethem about copyright lawsuits and intellectual property:

http://www.harpers.org/TheEcstasyOfInfluence.html

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't find it on Netflix and now I'm bummed; I would love to see this again and I think my 3rd grader would also enjoy it.

― Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I rented it again when I was 16 or 17 because I couldn't remember what the Secret even was and was shocked and dazzled all over again by a cartoon rat saying "damn"

― A B C (sparklecock), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I have it on DVD Sara.
Not that helps TONS...

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Not a ton, but I just looked on ebay and I should be able to get it there. So thanks!

― Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't find it on Netflix and now I'm bummed; I would love to see this again and I think my 3rd grader would also enjoy it.

I just saw it on there!

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=943973&trkid=189530&strkid=27328929_0_0

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

THANK YOU! Yay!

(I guess spelling "NIMH" instead of "N-I-M-H" was my problem.)

― Sara R-C (Sara R-C), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:32 (seventeen years ago) link

I never saw the film but was obsessed with the book for a while in elementary school. It's totally a sci-fi kids book, with most of it never really losing relevance.

― mh. (mike h.), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link

i never read the book, but the movie's probably the best feature-film kids' animation of the 80s. it made the contemporaneous disney stuff look very shabby, art-wise, and the story is really good.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:43 (seventeen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/TheSecretofNIMHscreen.jpg

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Just like with Watership Down I was familiar with the movie first as a kid. Maybe due to my age.
And both I absolutely loved. I've been thinking of going out and watching Watership Down again - maybe I should do both!

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Watership down gives me nightmares to this day.

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I totally did not get the Holocaust parallels in Watership Down AT ALL as a kid. I own a copy of the movie somewhere, its okay.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I should read that book some day.
maybe when I'm done with Wuthering Heights.

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I found it kind of boring

― Charmmy Kitty's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (ex machina), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link

But you want to cover the theme song.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Which boring which theme song?
I'm gonna presume Wuthering Heights for both. I like wordiness, so boring parts are still funny to me.

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

loved the book when i was a kid, saw the movie once and barely remember it. the book though...great shit. i read the sequel(s?) too

― deej.. (deej..), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Which boring which theme song?

Paul Williams sings some song over the NIMH end credits. That said I can still remember the chorus, just.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:49 (seventeen years ago) link

I read every NIMH(Nickel Metal Hydride?) book through the one in the mountain valley.
It was then that I realised what a pile they had become. "They can't talk to PEOPLE! They still speak mouse/rat! In fact even the ones that can't read still communicated 'verbally' fine with the NIMH mice and rats!"
It took years for me to even consider reading a sequel -_-... Disillusionment...

Nimh music? Hmm. I should watch it again.

― Lukewarm Watery G. Tornado; Less sick than before (The GZeus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link

National Institute of Mental Health.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.nimh.org/

Not the same as:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Also as far as the science vs magic is concerned, the science that made sense to the enhanced rats might as well have been magic, for all the barnyard animals and mice were able to make of it -- so that switch from book/science to movie/magic isn't a total stretch, it just seems more like an oversimplification.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link

I really don't remember the plot details well at all, but one of the key things I gleaned from it as a kid was how it was mundane human stuff that affected the rats (as opposed to mystical mumbo jumbo). Puzzling out what the rats had been learning was a key factor in several of the revelations in the book - like about the rats that died while attempting to steal a battery.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Loved the book when I was a kid, probably read it quite a few times. Never saw the movie and was never keen to after finding out it was basically shifted genre from scifi to fantasy.

Tempted to revisit the book. Would that be a mistake? Childhood illusions shattered, you can never go back etc etc.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I call my cat Mikademus all the time. The line in the film where Nicademus [sp] says something "...and then, they became intelligent." has always made me laugh for some reason.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:57 (seventeen years ago) link

And your cat is dreaming of the day.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:59 (seventeen years ago) link

the movie creeped me out as a little one

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 23:00 (seventeen years ago) link

did anyone from real-life NIMH ever comment on this book/film?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 8 February 2007 08:45 (seventeen years ago) link

three years pass...

this movie wz very intense! I saw it at a young age (seven years at the latest) andu I will never forget the scene where Mrs. Brisby's house is sinking into the mud. Easily the best movie Don Bluth has ever made (though I have a soft spot for All Dogs Go to Heaven.)

― snitch revvy-rev (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 2 October 2010 04:30 (thirteen years ago) link

This book had such a profound impact on me as a kid that I still randomly think of it to this day.

Movie was decent but I remember being really irked by its inaccuracies re the book.
Should read again.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Saturday, 2 October 2010 07:07 (thirteen years ago) link

Never saw the movie, but yes, the book I read and re-read as a child. The thing with the rock in the middle of the field and the lee side in the shadow jumps unbidden into my mind even today, not having read it for oooh, 25 years?

― the too encumbered madman (GamalielRatsey), Saturday, 2 October 2010 09:02 (thirteen years ago) link

Seen the film, haven't read the book. The film is wonderful.

― rhythm fixated member (chap), Saturday, 2 October 2010 11:58 (thirteen years ago) link

four years pass...

HMMM.

http://deadline.com/2015/03/mrs-frisby-the-rats-of-nimh-ice-age-5-michael-berg-mgm-1201385967/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 5 March 2015 18:20 (nine years ago) link

Ugh. Funk dat.

― Stomach Hurts...And I Don't Care! (Old Lunch), Thursday, 5 March 2015 18:36 (nine years ago) link

anyone who loved "mrs frisby" should read o'brien's first book, "the silver crown." one of the weirdest and most haunting books i ever read as a kid, sort of a more realistic madeleine l'engle-ish quest story with odd conspiratorial overtones. even scarier and more violent than either version of nimh, but an equally strong and memorable protagonist.

unfortunately all the recent editions have embarrassingly terrible covers; i ended up shelling out for a first edition on ebay a few years back just so i could read it again.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 5 March 2015 19:30 (nine years ago) link

I was initially thinking that this in no way needed to be remade but then I started thinking that there weren't nearly enough songs in the original and that it was way too dark and that it would be much improved by the addition of poop jokes and Poochie-fied comic relief characters that make Dom DeLuise seem like the height of restraint and refinement and then I made an appointment with my neurologist for early next week.

― Wet Pet (Old Lunch), Thursday, 5 March 2015 20:34 (nine years ago) link

three years pass...

its not just an issue that the movie changes it from sci fi to fantasy, but it does so in the service of a bizarre deus ex machina

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Friday, 25 January 2019 09:44 (five years ago) link

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