Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
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| Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki |
| Produced by | Ameake Owens |
| Written by | Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki |
| Starring | Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki, Tim Hodge, Lisa Vischer, Dan Anderson, Shelby Vischer, Kristin Blegen, Jim Poole |
| Music by | Kurt Heinecke, Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki, David Mullen |
| Distributed by | FHE Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 4, 2002 |
| Running time | 83 minutes |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is a computer-animated film based on VeggieTales, produced by Big Idea Inc. for Artisan Entertainment and FHE Pictures. Released in 2002, it was the first feature-length film in the VeggieTales series.
The themes of the movie are compassion and mercy. The movie weaves two stories together to illustrate these themes. The first take place in the current day and concerns a mishap that occurs on the way to a concert. The second, set in ancient Israel, is based directly on the Biblical story of Jonah. Through both stories viewers learn that they must be compassionate and merciful and that all people deserve a second chance.
This movie features the popular "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" in both segments. They were first seen in the Silly Song of the same name in Very Silly Songs! and later hosted The Ultimate Silly Song Countdown.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The movie opens on a Volkswagen Bus where Bob the Tomato is driving some of the Veggie children to see the popular singer "Twippo" in concert. Junior Asparagus, Laura Carrot, Percy Pea, and Annie are happily singing while Dad Asparagus plays the guitar and the harmonica. Dad is supposed to be helping Bob navigate, however, and instead keeps hitting him with the guitar. Meanwhile, Laura is taunting the other children because she won a backstage pass in a contest and will get to meet Twippo after the concert.
Bob loses control of the vehicle when the guitar gets caught in the steering wheel, and Laura loses her ticket out the window. They narrowly avoid hitting a family of porcupines who take out the front wheels of the van with their quills. The vehicle goes careening down a hill and stops just short of a river.
Unable to proceed, they take refuge in a nearby fancy french/seafood restaurant. But conflict is tearing the little group apart: Bob blames Dad Asparagus for crashing the car, and Junior blames Laura, repeatedly telling her that she's getting what she deserves. Junior, sitting at a table alone is met by the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. The Pirates say he was tough on his friend and encourage him to show some compassion. To illustrate, they begin to tell a story (which they claim to have experienced, despite it clearly being set in ancient times).
Jonah is a prophet who receives messages from the Lord and delivers them to the Israelites. He is popular among the people and rather enjoys his role. One day, God asks him to deliver a message to Nineveh, a rough and dangerous city in Assyria where people slap each other with fishes. The Israelites fear and hate the Ninevites; Jonah too hates Nineveh and does not want to go there. He questions God's will even though it is clear the God intends to show mercy to the Ninevites.
Jonah panics and decides he wants to go as far from Nineveh as possible. He tries to get a ticket on a cruise going to Tarshish, "the other side of the world", but voyages that far are rare and he can't get a ticket. When he spies the Pirates' ship docked in the harbor, he asks them to take him there. They resist on account of the fact that they don't do anything (and therefore don't know how to sail), but Jonah is able to persuade them, with the simple statement, "Money is no object".
On the pirate ship Jonah is wracked with guilt and goes below deck to sleep. There he meets Khalil the Caterpillar, a traveling rug salesman. Khalil recognizes Jonah and goes on at length about how great and famous and wonderful Jonah is. He mentions Nineveh in the course of his rant, and Jonah, feeling even more guilty now falls into fitfull sleep.
Jonah wakes from a dream to find the ship beset by a great storm. Captain Pa concludes that the storm has been sent because God is angry at someone on the ship. They all play Go Fish to determine who it is: the loser will be thrown from the ship. The game concludes and Jonah is left holding the only card. He admits his fault, confesses that he is running from God, and is forced to walk the plank. With Jonah off the ship, the skies clear immediately.
The Pirates attempt to reel him back in with a life belt, but a whale swallows Jonah. It also swallows the life belt which, attached to the ship, imperils everyone on board. They fire the cannon at the whale but are forced to use a bowling ball as ammo. Unfortunately for Khalil, he was relaxing in the ball. The whale surfaces and swallows the ball, simultaneously releasing the life belt. The ship is spared.
Inside the belly of the fish, Jonah is visited by a host of God's messengers. They break into a rousing gospel number about how God is a compassionate and merciful god, a God of second chances. They explain that if Jonah repents then God will grant him a second chance too. Jonah vows to go to Nineveh if God shows him mercy, and he and Khalil are spit up onto the shore.
Jonah proceeds straight to Nineveh as promised. He is refused entrance to the city and in relief turns to go. But before he can get away, the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything appear. They have won the Mr. Twisty's Twisted Cheese Curls Sweepstakes that includes a tour of the factory in Ninevah. They sneak Jonah into the city disguised as "cheese goblins".
Once in the city though, they are all arrested for the theft of Cheese Twists. Their punishment is to be the "Slap of No Return", demonstrated to be a lethal blow. But before their deaths they are granted an audience with King Twistomer who turns out to be the source of the likeness on the bags of Cheese Twists. Apparently Ninevites take their snacks very seriously. When King Twistomer hears that Jonah has survived in the belly of the whale, he listens to his message. Jonah delivers the message given to him by God. He tells them they must repent, amend their ways, and stop slapping people with fish. King Twistomer and the Ninevites put up no resistance and quickly repent.
Jonah still doesn't get it though, and from a distance waits for God's wrath to destroy Nineveh. But the fire and brimstone never come. Khalil gets angry and tries to explain that God is compassionate and merciful, that he has granted the Ninevites a second chance, and that so too should Jonah. But Jonah, feeling pathetic and self-important, can't accept that. The story ends with Jonah abandoned on a cliff overlooking the city.
Back in the current day, the Veggies understand the point of the story. Bob forgives Dad Asparagus and agrees to give him a second chance; Junior gives his Twippo ticket to Laura. Twippo appears in the restaurant unexpectedly and the movie ends with a grand musical number.
[edit] Cast of Characters
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie weaves two stories together. The first takes place in the current day and the second in Ancient Israel and Assyria. The characters that appear in each setting are listed here:
[edit] Current Day
- Bob the Tomato as himself
- Dad Aspargus as himself
- Junior Asparagus as himself
- Laura Carrot as herself
- Percy Pea as himself
- Annie as herself
- Phillipe and Jean Claude as restauranteurs
- Larry the Cucumber as Pirate Larry
- Mr. Lunt as Pirate Lunt
- Pa Grape as Captain Pa
- Archibald Asparagus as Twippo
[edit] Ancient Times
- Archibald Asparagus as Jonah
- Larry the Cucumber as Pirate Larry
- Mr. Lunt as Pirate Lunt
- Pa Grape as Captain Pa
- Mr. Nezzer as an Israeli merchant
- Jimmy Gourd as an Israeli mailman
- Jerry Gourd as an Israeli milkman
- Scooter Carrot as Angus, seller of cruise tickets
- Mabel and Penelope as Israelites
- Various other gourds, carrots, and peas as Israelites
- Cockney Peas as the Ninevite Guards
- Carrots as Ninevites
- Khalil the Caterpillar as a carpet salesman
- Reginald, Jonah's camel
- A Great Big Squash as King Twistomer
[edit] Songs
- Billy Joe McGuffrey, sung by Dad Asparagus and the Veggie children
- Drive into the River, Bob, sung by the Veggie children
- Steak and Shrimp, sung by Phillipe and Jean Claude
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, sung by Pirates Larry, Lunt, and Pa
- Message From the Lord, sung by Jonah and the Israelites
- It Can Not Be, sung by Jonah
- Ding Dong, sung by Pirate Larry and Pirate Lunt
- Second Chances, sung by the Heavenly Gospel Choir
- Jonah Was a Prophet, sung by Twippo and the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
- Belly of the Whale, sung by the Newsboys under the closing credits
- The Credits Song, sung by Larry, Mr. Lunt, and Pa Grape under the closing credits
[edit] Bonus Songs on DVD
- "Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)" by Newsboys
- "Other Side of The Radio" by Chris Rice
- "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything(Remix)" Superchick
- "Billy Joe McGuffrey" Chris Rice
[edit] Trivia
- The Volkswagen Bus that the Veggies ride in to the concert was modeled after the van of animation director Ron Smith and appeared in the earlier VeggieTales release Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space! where it was almost crushed by the Fib.[1]
- The license plate on the VT bus: IN A PKL.
- The song "Billy Joe McGuffrey" was not originally in the script. Writer Mike Nawrocki had written a song about Jonah with lyrics "Jonah, Jonah in the fish all alone-ah" and including the word, duodenum, but the song idea was cut because writer/producer Phil Vischer didn't want to give away the ending of the movie in the first song.[1]
- The video game in the seafood restaurant is named "Moby Blaster" in reference to Moby Dick because the story of Jonah is told in the classic book. The game features a blinking whale on the "Game Over" screen.[1]
- Laura the Carrot has a new hair design and a new dress in this movie because previous versions of her hair "looked sort of like a posterior."[1]
- Junior's eyes had become too small when the animation software had moved from Softimage to Maya before the making of King George and the Ducky. Animators decided to restore Junior's eyes to their original size after production had begun on Jonah, so they had to go back and re-animate a number of scenes in the movie.[1]
- The name of one of the food stands in the "Message From the Lord" musical number is "Joppa Java", a name that reappears in the later VeggieTales video, Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler in the story "Asparagus of La Mancha" with the tagline, "Why pay a little for coffee when you can pay a lot?"
- The 2-D Nineveh sequence on the map was Big Idea's first experience working with any outside animation studio. The studio, Calabash Animation, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short (Stubble Trouble--a similarly styled animation) while working on this segment for Jonah in 2001.[1]
- One reason that Pirate Larry cites for not being able to take Jonah to Tarshish is that ALF is going to be on in half an hour. The line originally read that Regis was the reason.[1]
- The tiki lights on the deck of the ship were the idea of Joe Sapulich, and necessary to motivate warmth and avoid a muddy look during the dark sequences. Because the lights were technically connected to the ship, animators did not have to animate each light individually.[1]
- The Moose Lake reference in this and subsequent VeggieTales releases stems from a Duluth, MN radio station's petition to bring back "Silly Songs with Larry" after the "Love Songs with Mr. Lunt" segment took over in Madame Blueberry.[1]
- The boat motor sequence actually references the biblical account of Jonah in verse 19 when "they did their best to row back to land."[2]
- The bowling ball and bag feature Art Bigotti, the bowling legend from Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space.
- There is a Larry-Boy suction cup stuck to the outside of the pirate's ship.
- The large gospel choir sounds similar to the Muses from Disney's Hercules but was heavily influenced by the choir in The Blues Brothers[1] and was voiced by the Christian group, Anointed.[1]
- The Cockney Peas were based on characters that Vischer and Nawrocki used in a British band called "The Fuzzy Zealots". These new peas were conceived because the French peas were seen back in Joppa selling fish.[1]
- "Mr. Twisty's Twisted Cheese Curls" were originally named "Mr. Twisty's Twisted Leafies".[1] The old name is visible on one of the snack bags that falls from Pirate Larry's hat in Nineveh.
- The film introduces the first use of "carrot people", the carrots that make up the citizens of Ninevah. The carrot people have appeared subsequently in most VeggieTales releases.
- The song used in the score throughout the film whenever mercy is referenced is the old hymn, "There's A Wideness in God's Mercy".[1]
- The design for the song "Jonah Was A Prophet" was inspired by Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Baron Munchausen.[1]
- In the credits, Executive Producer Dan (AWOG) Philips, AWOG stand for A White Old Guy.[1]
- The lighting department for this film was the largest ever in Big Idea history, bringing in lighting artists that had just finished Jimmy Neutron or Ice Age.[1]
- The first song that runs under the end credits was written by Steve Taylor and performed by The Newsboys, except for the rap section which was sung by Taylor himself.[1]
- The second song that runs under the end credits is titled "The Credits Song". In it, Larry, Pa, and Mr. Lunt sing a silly and pointless song about how, despite the song having nothing to do with the film, they're singing it anyway.
- The credits end with: "Filmed entirely on location in a mall in Lombard, Illinois. No vegetable were harmed in the making of this film."
- Larry-Boy makes in appearance in the outtakes following the credits on the DVD and VHS. He appears hanging in the clothesline in place of a pair of underwear.
- In one of the outtakes, in the scene where Bob crashes the car, he lets the kids go to the bathroom.
- The tow truck driver, who arrived at the very end of the film, appears to be Khalil. When Twippo sees him, all he can say is, "Have we met?"
- On the DVD, Mr. Lunt and Larry do a hilarious Audio Commentary for the whole movie. They claim that they were the real producers of the film.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie 2-Disc Collector's Edition; Disc One, Audio Commentary: Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki
- ^ Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie 2-Disc Collector's Edition; Disc Two, Behind the Scenes:Jonah and the Bible
