The Emperor's New Groove is a 2000 American animated buddy comedy film produced by Walt
Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on December 15, 2000.
It is the 40th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.
The title refers to the Danish fairy tale The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian
Andersen, though the two have little else in common.
A comedy produced by Randy Fullmer and directed by Mark Dindal, The Emperor's New Groove was
altered significantly over six years of development and production from its original concept as
a Disney musical epic entitled Kingdom of the Sun, to have been directed by Dindal and
Roger Allers.
The documentary The Sweatbox shows the production hell that the film endured, as the film was
morphed by Disney executives into a light-hearted buddy comedy.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "My Funny Friend
and Me" performed by Sting, but lost to "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan from Wonder Boys.
A direct-to-video sequel, Kronk's New Groove, was released in December 2005, followed by
an animated television series, The Emperor's New School, in January 2006.
Plot Kuzco is the selfish teenage emperor of the
Incan Empire, who summons Pacha, the leader of a nearby village, to inform him that he
is planning to build his enormous summer home, Kuzcotopia, on the site of Pacha's house for
his 18th birthday, thus rendering Pacha and his family homeless via eminent domain.
Pacha attempts to protest, but is dismissed.
Kuzco's recently fired advisor Yzma, furious after having been sacked, enlists her guileless
right-hand man Kronk to try and poison Kuzco so that Yzma can take control of the empire,
but the supposed poison turns out to be a potion, which turns Kuzco into a llama rather
than killing him.
After knocking Kuzco unconscious, Yzma orders Kronk to dispose of him, but conscience-stricken
Kronk loses the sack holding Kuzco and it falls into Pacha's cart.
Kuzco ends up in Pacha's village, accuses Pacha of kidnapping him and demands Pacha
to help him return to the palace, but Pacha refuses unless Kuzco builds his summer home
elsewhere, and Kuzco attempts to find his own way home in a jungle, where he accidentally
gets surrounded by a pack of black panthers, only to be saved by Pacha until they get tied
to a huge log by a vine and float out of control down a river and go over a waterfall.
Kuzco then falls unconscious again and Pacha gets him up by nearly giving him mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation.
They then camp there for the night.
Meanwhile, Yzma assumes command of the empire, but when Kronk reluctantly reveals he never
killed Kuzco, the two head out and begin to search the local villages for him.
Kuzco lies to Pacha about agreeing to build his home elsewhere, and Pacha agrees to take
him back to the palace by crossing a bridge.
After the bridge breaks slightly, Pacha almost falls in the river, and Kuzco admits that
he lied, followed by Kuzco almost falling in as well.
The two fight, break the bridge completely, and are forced to work together to escape
falling in the river and being eaten by crocodiles, and agree to take a longer way to the palace.
They stop at a roadside diner, Mudka's Meat Hut, where Yzma and Kronk arrive shortly after.
Pacha overhears Yzma discussing their plans to kill Kuzco, and attempts to warn him throughout
the commotion in the diner, but Kuzco does not believe him, calls Pacha selfish and tells
him to go, and returns to Yzma, only to overhear them discussing that they are seeking to kill
him and that the kingdom does not even miss him.
Kuzco realizes Pacha was right, but to his shame, Pacha has already left.
Later that night, at Yzma and Kronk's camp spot, Kronk then suddenly realizes that Pacha
is the guy who had Kuzco in his cart, and tells Yzma that if they find him at his village,
they would find Kuzco.
After a repentant Kuzco spends the night alone in the jungle, to his surprise he finds and
rejoins Pacha in a llama field, with Pacha having forgiven Kuzco.
They race back to the palace, with Yzma and Kronk chasing them, although temporarily impeded
to their frustration by Pacha's family, until the pursuers get hit by lightning and fall
into a chasm.
Kuzco and Pacha arrive at Yzma's laboratory only to find that their pursuers somehow got
there first.
Yzma orders Kronk to kill Kuzco, but Kronk refuses to do so, and ends up changing sides
after a vicious tongue-lashing from Yzma and Kronk gets dropped down a trapdoor.
Kuzco admits that his behavior in the past was wrong, but questions Yzma if murder is
really the answer.
Yzma ignores him, and summons the palace guards, forcing Kuzco and Pacha to grab all of the
transformation potions and flee.
After trying several formulas that convert Kuzco to other animals, some which help them
in certain places, and then back to a llama, they escape the guards, who foolishly try
to follow them down a drain, and the duo find they are down to only two vials.
Yzma catches up to them and accidentally steps on one of the two, turning herself into a
tiny, squeaky-voiced kitten.
She still almost manages to obtain the antidote after fighting Kuzco and Pacha for it, but
is thwarted by the sudden reappearance of Kronk, who questions why the trapdoor led
him outside.
Kuzco becomes human again and sets out to redeem himself, building a small summer cabin
on the hill next to Pacha's home at the peasant's invitation, both Kuzco and Pacha's family
sharing a swimming hole.
Meanwhile, outdoorsman Kronk as a scout leader with the squirrel that Kuzco came across earlier
teaches Yzma to be a member of the troop with the children.
Voice Cast
David Spade as Emperor Kuzco, the vain, 18-year-old emperor of the Incan Empire.
John Goodman as Pacha, a portly peasant who serves as a foil for Kuzco.
Eartha Kitt as Yzma, Kuzco's advisor who wants to get rid of Kuzco so she can take over.
Patrick Warburton as Kronk Pepikrankenitz, Yzma's dim-witted right-hand man.
Wendie Malick as Chicha, Pacha's wife.
Kellyann Kelso and Eli Russell Linnetz as Chaca and Tipo, Pacha's children.
Bob Bergen as Bucky the Squirrel, Kronk's companion who dislikes Yzma.
Tom Jones as the Theme Song Guy, Kuzco's personal theme song conductor.
Patti Deutsch as a waitress.
John Fiedler as an old man thrown out of Kuzco's castle.
In the sequel his name is revealed to be Rudy.
Joe Whyte as an official in charge of finding Kuzco a bride.
Frank Welker as Black panthers, Fly, Cat, Llamas and Bees.
Additional voices include Andre Stojka, Jess Harnell and Sherry Lynn.
Production Kingdom of the Sun
Development of Kingdom of the Sun, later retitled The Emperor's New Groove, began in 1994 with
Roger Allers as the film's director and Randy Fullmer as producer.
Among those on Allers's production team were supervising animator Andreas Deja, who was
in charge of the witch character of Yzma, and pop musician Sting, who, in the wake of
Elton John's success with The Lion King's soundtrack, had been convinced to write several
songs for the film.
Sting agreed to the project, but specified only if his filmmaker wife Trudie Styler,
could "document the process of the production".
This film, which was eventually entitled The Sweatbox, and made by Xingu Films, was agreed
to, and Sting joined the project.
Along with collaborator David Hartley, Sting had composed eight songs inextricably linked
with the original plot and characters.
Kingdom of the Sun was to have been a tale of a greedy, selfish emperor who finds a peasant
who looks just like him; the emperor swaps places with the peasant for fun, much as in
author Mark Twain's archetypal novel The Prince and the Pauper.
However, the evil witch Yzma has plans to summon the evil god Supai and capture the
sun so that she may retain her youth forever.
Discovering the switch between the prince and the peasant, Yzma turns the real emperor
into a llama and threatens to reveal the pauper's identity unless he obeys her.
The emperor-llama learns humility in his new form, and even comes to love a girl llama-herder.
Together, the girl and the llama set out to undo the witch's plans.
The book Reel Views 2 says the film would have been a "romantic comedy musical in the
'traditional' Disney style".
Troubled production Development suffered from several attempts
at trying to make the plot more original, and also from a general lack of direction.
Upper management felt the plot was too similar to any number of other "Prince and Pauper"
stories, and test screenings of the work-in-progress generated poor feedback.
Disney hired Mark Dindal, director of Warner Bros.'s comedic animated musical Cats Don't
Dance, in hopes that Dindal would be able to punch-up Allers's epic, yet uninvolving,
story.
The result was that Dindal and Allers essentially began making two separate films, with Dindal
pushing his scenes toward comedy and Allers pushing his toward drama.
Disney chief Michael Eisner and his studio executives were not pleased at the uneven
story, the lukewarm test-audience response, and the slow pace of production.
However, the executives were at first reluctant to intervene because of Allers's success with
The Lion King, which had also had a troubled time in production.
In addition, most of Allers's crew had complete faith in the director, who was determined
to create a sweeping epic on the scale of The Lion King.
By the summer of 1998, it was apparent that Kingdom of the Sun was not far along enough
in production to be released in the summer of 2000 as planned.
At this time, one of the Disney executives stormed into Randy Fullmer's office and, placing
his thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart, angrily remarked that "your film is this close
to being shut down".
Fullmer approached Allers, and informed him of the need to finish the film on time for
its summer 2000 release.
By the beginning of 1999, Allers acknowledged that the production was falling behind, but
was confident that, with an extension of between six months to a year, he could complete the
film.
When Fullmer denied Allers's request for an extension, the director quit the project.
Overhaul Angered, Allers left the project, and Eisner
gave Fullmer two weeks to salvage the film or production would be shut down.
Fullmer and Dindal halted production for six months to retool the project retitling it
to Kingdom in the Sun, while their animators were reassigned to work on the Rhapsody in
Blue segment of Fantasia 2000.
In the interim, Dindal, Fullmer, and writers Chris Williams and David Reynolds overhauled
the film completely.
When work on the film resumed, it had a new title and a new story.
Gone were the sun-capturing plot, the look-alike peasant, and the llama-herder love interest.
Now the film was a buddy movie, with Yzma depicted more as a mad scientist.
The co-lead became Pacha, a portly farmer from the countryside.
Eisner worried that the new story was too close in tone to Disney's 1997 film Hercules,
which had performed decently yet below expectations at the American box office.
Dindal and Fullmer assured him that The Emperor's New Groove, as the film was now called, would
have a much smaller cast, making it easier to involve audiences.
During production, many animators and artists from all three Disney animation studios: Burbank,
California, Orlando, Florida and Paris, France worked on The Emperor's New Groove.
The result, while not a groundbreaking effort for Disney, took the animated division in
a "fresh direction by rejecting a number of expected conventions".
Andreas Deja declined to return to the film, and moved to Orlando, Florida to work on Lilo
& Stitch in 2001, instead.
Sting's songs, related to specific scenes that were now gone, had to be dropped.
Sting was bitter about the removal of his songs.
"At first, I was angry and perturbed.
Then I wanted some vengeance."
Influences The title of the film is derived from that
of the popular fairy tale The Emperor's New Clothes by the Danish author Hans Christian
Andersen.
Similarly, the personality of a self-obsessed ruler who puts himself first to the detriment
of his own people is also based on the fairy-tale.
The setting and culture of The Emperor's New Groove are based on the Inca Empire that developed
into what is now Peru.
It is specifically based on the Kingdom of Cusco.
Along with the architecture, roads, intricate waterworks, sun worship, and llamas as domestic
beasts, Kuzco's name is similar to Cusco, the Peruvian city considered the capital of
the Inca Empire, and Pacha's name is drawn from Pachacuti, considered the most important
ruler of the Inca Empire, and a historical figure.
Names and imagery mingle elements of Incan culture with elements from pre-Incan Peruvian
cultures and non-Incan cultures of Central and South America.
There are also incongruities and anachronisms, some for humorous effect and some simply the
result of not prioritizing historical authenticity.
While the animators made a research trip to Peru for inspiration, the film and its publicity
are notably non-specific about the geographical or historical setting of the story.
Unlike many previous Disney animated films, The Emperor's New Groove is almost completely
devoid of musical numbers.
It is the first Walt Disney Feature Animation film since 1990's The Rescuers Down Under
not to be a musical, and the start of a larger trend where the studio began to move away
from musicals.
Deleted scenes The standard DVD release includes a nearly
complete deleted scene, in which Pacha witnesses a practice attack by royal guards on a mock-up
of his village.
Much of this scene is seen as complete animation in full color.
The 2001 two-disc collector's edition DVD includes several other scenes which did not
make it past the storyboarding phase, including Kuzco meeting Pacha's sitcom-esque extended
family.
The film's ending originally had Kuzco building his Kuzcotopia amusement park on another hill
near Pacha's, and inviting Pacha and his family to visit.
Sting sent a note to the producers that Kuzco had not really learned from his experiences
if he still built his excessive mansion, and in the midst of the peasant community.
The ending was rewritten so that Kuzco constructs a shack similar to Pacha's and spends his
vacation among the villagers Home media
The standard VHS and DVD was released May 1, 2001 at the same time the "2-Disc Collector's
Edition" was released with more Bonus Features.
The standard VHS and DVD & The 2-Disc Collector's Edition are returned to the Disney Vault.
Disney re-released a single-disc special edition called "The New Groove Edition" on October
18, 2005.
The film was also released on a 2 Movie Set Blu-ray Combo-Pack with its direct-to-video
sequel on June 11, 2013.
Reception The film received positive reviews and currently
holds an 85% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the Rotten Tomatoes
consensus saying that the film "isn't the most ambitious animated film, but its brisk
pace, fresh characters, and big laughs make for a great time for the whole family."
Alongside Lilo and Stitch, many consider these films to be one of the better films of Disney's
post-Renaissance era and also one of the most comedic.
The Emperor's New Groove made $89,302,687 at the U.S. box office, and an additional
$80,025,000 worldwide; totals lower than those for most of the Disney Feature Animation productions
released in the 1990s.
It performed better on home video, becoming the top-selling home video release of 2001.
Awards and nominations The Sweatbox
The Sweatbox is a documentary designed to show behind the scenes footage of Kingdom
of the Sun.
In reality, it illustrated the slow and painful transformation from KoS to the Emperor's New
Groove, including the director, Sting, artists, and voice cast being dismayed by the new direction.
Are major theme is creative-executive conflicts.
Adaptations and sequels A direct-to-video sequel entitled Kronk's
New Groove was released on December 13, 2005, and a Disney Channel cartoon series, The Emperor's
New School followed, but without David Spade voicing Kuzco and John Goodman voicing Pacha,
as they had in the original film and sequel.
Patrick Warburton, Eartha Kitt, and Wendie Malick reprised their roles for the series.
John Goodman subsequently reprised his role for the second season of The Emperor's New
School.
Kuzco was featured as a guest in Disney's House of Mouse and Mickey's Magical Christmas:
Snowed in at the House of Mouse.
Two video games were developed and released concurrent with the film.
The first, for the Sony PlayStation, was developed by Disney Interactive and published by Sony
Computer Entertainment of America.
The second, for the Nintendo Game Boy Color, was developed by Sandbox and published by
Ubisoft.
Both titles were released in PAL territories the following year.
The PlayStation version was re-released for the North American PlayStation Network on
July 27, 2010.
The Tokyo DisneySea rollercoaster attraction Raging Spirits took visual inspiration for
its Incan ruins theme from the buildings in the film, with a structure based on Kuzco's
palace similarly crowning the ruins site.
References
External links Official website
The Emperor's New Groove at the Internet Movie Database
The Emperor's New Groove at AllMovie The Emperor's New Groove at the Big Cartoon
DataBase The Emperor's New Groove at Rotten Tomatoes
The Sweatbox at the Internet Movie Database TVGuide.com/movies: The Emperor's New Groove
Designing the Emperor's New Groove A look at the production designs, background art
and character designs that went into creating the mythical South American world of The Emperor’s
New Groove.
Behind the Voices featurette on YouTube Originally published in September 2000, this
article looks at the behind-the-scenes story of how Kingdom of the Sun became the Emperor's
New Groove.