In a world of reboots, remakes, and remasters, when Disney revealed the Disney+ exclusive Chip
N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, almost everyone assumed it would be a remake of the classic cartoon.
However, the movie, which aired on May 20th, surprised all of us by being almost
wholly unrelated to being a reboot of the cartoon. Much like 2019’s “Jay and SIlent Bob: Reboot”
it’s more using the reboot and remake trend as a plot device. With the movie’s usage of a million
different animation styles all mashed together, it’s pretty rightfully being compared with 1988’s
classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” So, with that, a question has arisen, which one was better?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers vs. Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Before we continue: obligatory spoiler warning for Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers,
with the movie just recently being released on Disney+ the plot of this movie is still fresh
enough to be qualified for a warning. We will also be issuing a spoiler warning for Who Framed Roger
Rabbit if you somehow haven’t watched this 30-year-old classic movie.
So now we can get down to the meat and potatoes of this video, Chip N Dale vs. Roger Rabbit.
One of the most important parts of a film is the Main Characters as they are the major
driving force in a film. When it comes down to an audience’s perception of these characters,
being likable is very important. The main characters of Roger Rabbit are the titular
Roger and detective Eddie Valiant, both of which are flawed protagonists. Roger can be seen as
very annoying at times and Eddie’s prejudice against the toons is a major theme of the film
and something we’ll get to later. Eddie and Roger both are likable in their own ways, especially
after the full length of a crime-solving movie. On the other end of the spectrum are Chip and Dale,
the titular characters of Rescue Rangers. Chip is kind of consistently annoyed throughout the film,
not to say Dale is annoying but Chip’s whole deal is being annoyed with him until the end.
Meanwhile, Dale seems to be so focused on the potential reboot that he comes off as fame hungry
after falling into relative obscurity. However, they are definitely the heart of the film,
and they’re also very relatable characters in the end. However, we do have to say
that in the main character section of this list, Who Framed Roger Rabbit has a better selection,
just because we feel they’re more fleshed out and far more memorable.
However, just as important are the Villains/Antagonists of the film. Both
films feature a villain who is uniquely targeting the many cartoon characters
throughout the film. In Chip and Dale, the main villain is Sweet Pete, the original
Disney Peter Pan who was ousted from his role and decided to create bootleg films as revenge.
Sweet Pete is revealed early on and is the major villain for the majority of the film,
wanting to bootleg Chip and Dale. However, on the other end of the spectrum is Judge Doom,
the superior court judge of Toontown who hates the toons and wants to disintegrate them in “The Dip”.
One of the most effective twists we can think of is the fact that Doom is actually a toon as well,
which changes everything we thought we knew. In the end, while Sweet Pete is an effective villain,
we think that Who Framed Roger Rabbit has a much superior villain in Judge Doom.
A bit of a weird section that’s mostly to talk about the remaining character is the References.
Both films have a wide variety of cameos, references, and characters from varying IPs.
In the case of Roger Rabbit, it has two iconic scenes referencing specific characters,
the first is the duck Piano fight with Donald and Daffy Duck going head to head, and the second is
when Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse pop around in the skydiving scene. Now obviously there is more than
this, like Dumbo appearing early on in the movie, but those are the two big ones. Chip and Dale on
the other hand have everything ranging from Disney IPs like Darkwing Duck and Lumiere to characters
like Randy Marsh and Roger Rabbit himself. One of the most important characters in the film is Ugly
Sonic, the pre-release Sonic render from the Sonic Movie, and he’s made a very funny joke.
There’s also the very interesting Seth Rogen scene near the end where Puumba, Master Mantis,
and BOB all appear, not to mention Paul Rudd and Aunt-Man. So, there’s no surprise that
Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers takes the cake for this category because these cameos and references
are major characters for the most part and don’t feel like glorified background characters.
Probably the most important part of any film is the Story, which is our next category.
Both films feature vastly different stories with similar themes running through both.
Rescue Rangers focuses on Chip and Dale trying to save their old friend Monterey Jack
from being bootlegged. This leads to the two rekindling a friendship that broke up many
years ago and realizing that they need each other. Meanwhile, the story of Who Framed
Roger Rabbit is right there in the title, Eddie is hired to find out if Jessica Rabbit
is cheating on Roger, and when it seems like she might be, the man she was with ends up dead. Now
Eddie has to clear Roger’s name because it seems like he was the one who did it,
this leads to them facing off against Judge Doom and his acidic “Dip”. While both films have a
similar villain plot, we do think the overall story of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is better,
the almost film noir vibes of the film definitely bring it a bit higher in our eyes.
The next major thing we need to chat about is the Setting of both films. The funny thing about these
films is that both of them actually take place in the Los Angeles Area, the main difference being
the time. Who Framed Roger Rabbit takes place in the 1940s in L.A. but most of its focus is on
Toon Town, where 90 percent of the “toons” live. Its wacky representation of cartoon characters
and plenty of interesting locales makes the film a fun ride through plenty of slapstick.
However, Rescue Rangers takes place in the current day L.A. area, being what you
could call a “spiritual successor” to Roger Rabbit where “toons” now live all over Los
Angeles. Unlike in Roger Rabbit, toons aren’t segregated and work with humans regularly,
the only place where it doesn’t seem to be the case is in the “Uncanny Valley” where characters
who fall into the uncanny valley seem to be forced to live. We personally think the setting for the
two of them is very similar but we say that Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers is just a bit better.
A very important factor in these movies, in particular, is Comedy, which both movies have
in spades. Since these are claimed to be comedy movies, having good comedy is very important. Yes,
comedy is subjective and this category is going to be the same way, so this might
be what causes problems in the comments. Chip N’ Dale’s comedy is alright, throughout most
of the film, jokes land but none are really laugh-out-loud funny, there are fun references
that we enjoy and think they’re quite clever. The joke with Dennis Hayberg’s Zipper and the
Seth Rogen scene near the climax of the film are both quite funny in our eyes. However, on
the other hand, a lot of Roger Rabbit’s comedy hasn’t aged the greatest, some jokes are just meh,
and the entire first scene with the 40s cartoon is kind of bland in our eyes, but
we think a lot of jokes from the movie are classics. We did find the sort of throwaway
line with “LA has the best public transportation system in the world” to be quite funny with it
being immediately upended in the next scene and of course, the Dueling Piano scene is also an
absolute classic. So while not every moment of the movie is laugh-out-loud funny, and
some jokes haven’t aged well, we do think Who Framed Roger Rabbit has the better comedy.
While comedy is important, just as important are the General Themes of the film. Who Framed Roger
Rabbit’s themes are very important topics when the movie came out in the 80s but they are just
as important nowadays. The film focuses on racism, prejudice, and red-lining. Now, we won’t be
digging too deep into these themes here as plenty of videos are made on these topics. Eddie is
prejudiced against toons because he feels they caused the death of his brother, but despite this,
he still takes a job regarding them. By the end of the film he has gotten over his prejudice to
deal with Doom, Doom is a toon who hates the other toons and wants them dead for political
and business gains and the fact that Toons are segregated into a specific section of L.A. that
is consistently messed up due to redlining, a problem from L.A.’s past shows that these
themes are consistent and important. Meanwhile, the themes of Rescue Rangers are friendship,
breaking up and the absolute hell that is show business. Throughout the film, Chip and Dale deal
with the pain that is show business, everything from being chewed up and spit out to canceling
the show to everything in between. Chip and Dale need to rekindle their friendship by saving Monty,
and Sweet Pete’s whole deal is that he was spat out by the system and he wants to break it.
While these are important things no doubt, we think Who Framed Roger Rabbit has a
much more focused and well-made theme that they handled surprisingly well.
A very important factor in both films is the Animation Blending/CGI
as they’re the focal point of both films. Rescue Rangers mixes dozens of animation
styles from claymation to 3D animation to muppets to everything in between and somehow it all blends
together really well. While some characters look out of place, that’s usually on purpose,
like Bob who is created to be part of the Uncanny Valley. Even during the Captain Putty fight,
it blends really well despite fighting with a live-action person. It’s honestly surprising
how most things don’t feel out of place, even the giant walking muppet fits really well,
which is surprising. The Animation Blending in Roger Rabbit is just as impressive,
with almost everything in the film feeling like it works really well, and that includes the kind of
crazy stuff. Sure, they only really show off 2D animated characters throughout the film,
but that comes down to the technology at the time. For the time, it’s actually amazing, however, we
do think Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers surpasses Roger Rabbit in this section.
With pretty much everything else covered, we do have to talk about the centerpiece of any movie,
The Cast. Now obviously, since both of these films have phenomenal acting for the most part and are
made by big studios, they have large star-studded casts. To name just a few, in Roger Rabbit,
we have iconic cartoon voices like Mel Blanc, Eddie is played by Bob Hoskins who was known for
films like “Mona Lisa” and the Super Mario Bros movie we don’t talk about. The main villain Judge
Doom was played by renowned actor Christopher Lloyd who is known for playing Dr. Brown from the
Back to the Future series and Uncle Fester from the live-action Addams Family movies, and even the
main villain Hacker in Cyberchase. Rescue Rangers on the other hand has a massive cast, from Dennis
Hayberg, known for the Allstate Commercials, to Tress McNeil who voiced your childhood from Dot
Warner to Agnes Skinner to Mom from Futurama and everything else you can think of. The main villain
is voiced by Will Arnett who is BoJack Horseman and Lego Batman, and Captain Putty is voiced by
J.K. Simmons who played J. Jonah Jameson and Ford Pines, and that isn’t even getting to Andy Samberg
and John Mulaney. So if it isn’t already obvious we really enjoy the cast from Chip N’ Dale’s
Rescue Rangers because it’s a star-studded cast that we absolutely love the spread of.
But with that, we have reached our Conclusion, where we wrap everything up. After a
long and arduous debate about a lot of small things and big major things, we’ve decided that
to no one’s surprise Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the better film. With superior acting, a better
plot and being a much more iconic movie, in general, it’s no surprise that this would be the
outcome. Now, Rescue Rangers is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination but it
just doesn’t hold a candle to the absolute classic film that is Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking. And tell us
what we should cover next. Remember to hit that notification bell and binge more of our videos.
But most importantly, stay wicked.