1992’s FernGully: The Last Rainforest is an animated feature classic. For its 30th Anniversary, Shout! Factory is releasing a new blu-ray and DVD combo pack on Tuesday August 23rd with incredible picture and sound and cool bonus features, including a new introduction from director Bill Kroyer. In this Animation Scoop Q&A, Kroyer discusses what FernGully means to him 30 years later, the challenges of making and marketing an animated movie in ’92, and how the message of the film is more important now than ever. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: As you were preparing to record this new intro, what was one of the first memories that popped into your head and you wanted to make sure you talked about?

Bill Kroyer: In the intervening years the industry has changed so much, but the technology of making movies has completely changed. FernGully was essentially a handmade film. We were cutting edge in that we had 40,000 frames of CG animation in it, and we did one of the very first digitally painted sequences. But other than that, the whole movie, from storyboarding, layout, animation, cleanup, hand-painted cels, hand-inked cels — was all done lovingly by hand with real, physical artwork. I wanted to remind people that this is one of the last movies ever made with real, physical artwork. Not only does that look distinctly different now from CG, but it also gave us an opportunity in this new blu-ray release to go back to the original emulsion on the film and give it an incredible 4K, high dynamic range transfer.

JM: In watching the sequences where you go deep into the rainforest, I could feel that depth and so much realism, as you explain when talking about the trip you took to Australia. That realism really comes through.

BK: We felt that was essential to the whole movie because… we were entertainers, we were animators, we made our living making people laugh and enjoy watching movies. But this was a movie that had that other layer. You had to do everything else. It looked beautiful and had to be fun to watch. But there was a message here, basically a real thing: we’re all connected to nature. We thought the best way to show that, in a sincere way, was to not fake it. Not to fantasize it, but to show the immense beauty and truly magical nature of the real forest — the real plants, the real animals, the real fungus. That’s why we went there and were so faithful to what we found there.

JM: That really enhances the overall experience, and a new generation of kids who watch this will love being in that world and learning about all of this, including the important messages. I really like these characters. They have substance and are fun. How have characters like Crysta and Zak stayed with you over these past 30 years?

BK: They’re kind of iconic representations of the contrast between the worlds. The human world, people who find themselves inadvertently disconnected and living according to the rules of civilization are represented by Zak. He’s just a kid and he’s doing everything any kid would do. Summer job: “Show me what I have to do. I’m not thinking about the consequences.” Then you have Crysta, who embodies a soul, who’s literally a fabric of nature. Everything that happens to her represents what is happening to nature. When those two characters meet, we tried to personalize the learning that happens and the transformation that happens when the person from the “civilized world” understands the natural world. So I felt there was a timelessness to that — a timelessness that’s really more appropriate for now than maybe any time in history.

JM: Sure. And learning that Robin Williams voiced Batty Koda in this before doing The Genie in Aladdin... the fact that you were able to watch him find his voice in the voice acting and animation world, that had to be an unforgettable experience.

BK: It’s hard to imagine the movie without him because he is the central character. Batty Koda literally, physically represents man messing with nature (laughs), and nature speaking about it. Robin was our first choice. It was a MIRACLE that he agreed to do it. He loved the theme. He loved the idea of saving the rainforest. I often say the hardest job I ever had on the whole movie was trying to pick out the best take of Robin Williams. He would do his scene and nail it the first time, and then he would start riffing on it and making it better and better with all of his improvisations. It was such a pleasure to work with him. I wish everyone in the world had a chance to meet him and know him. He was such an exceptional human being. Not just a genius but, God, he was just a wonderful guy. He was nice to every person, no matter how lowly the P.A. was, or the recording assistant, Robin treated that person like they were his friend. That’s why I think everybody loved the guy.

JM: Great character. And anytime Robin was on a talk show, like Carson, or on an awards show, he was unforgettable. And you had another icon involved: Elton John. Not too many people can say, “I’ve had Elton John close my movie with an original song.” “Some Other World” is a fantastic song.

BK: Yeah, I think it got a little bit overlooked because it was under the credits and not in the movie. But the movie, when you really think of it… it was great having Elton but Jimmy Buffett wrote [a] song. We had terrific artists at every level with all the songs. Our big thing was: don’t stop the story. Have the songs carry the movie along, and I think they all did that. But you’re right, it was great having Elton cap it off.

JM: Definitely. In one of the bonus features, you say that you made this animated movie, basically, in two years, which is an incredible achievement. What advice would you give somebody who thinks, “Yeah. Okay. I think I can do this. I think I can make a really strong animated movie in just two years.”?

BK: (laughs) What advice would I give them? Like, “Don’t even try it.”

JM: (laughs)

BK: That’s probably the first thing I would say. You know, ironically, so many things about making a movie now are much simpler. If you work in the CG world, one thing you can do now is you can network instantly around the world with anybody who has an internet connection and a computer. So in some ways, putting together an animated feature now has never been easier. But at the time, putting together an animated feature unit, which had to be physically together and had to have physical desks and thousands of pounds of paper and cels and paints and pencils… to think that we not only did the movie but built the studio while we made the movie… was pretty amazing. I can’t think of anybody ever doing that before or since. It was like building an airliner in flight.

JM: Quite an achievement. And you could really foresee computers and computer graphics changing the animation experience. In looking back now and thinking about where animation has gone, what did you predict that came 100% true?

BK: The one thing that I always knew was that hand-drawn animation would never be completely replaced… by CG. What made me create my company, Koyer Films, was the fact that I was considered a pioneer in CG animation. I had done TRON and arguably some of the first [CG] stuff ever done on the big screen. I continued to do computer animation with digital productions, and I was continually frustrated by the fact that, at the time, the computer couldn’t do subtle character animation. That was why I created that process where I could combine what the computer could do well with hand-drawn animation, so we could continue to do delicate character stuff.

Now we’ve come to a time when you watch Disney, Pixar and Illumination movies, the characters are fully animated, and there’s no doubt about it. And the performances are great. But the one thing they still don’t do… and can never do… is they do not create movement and character through pure illusion, because they have to be based in a three-dimensional, physical reality of a model. An animator drawing doesn’t have to obey any of the rules of physics or dimension. They just do something that they trick you into believing. And because of that, 2D, hand-drawn animation will always have a strange fascination, and almost magical effect, because you can’t take your eyes off it. You kind of know it doesn’t really exist and make sense but, boy, you know what, you really believe those characters. You really believe Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse and all these other guys really exist. That’s why hand-drawn animation will always be a special thing.

JM: I agree with you. I don’t think hand-drawn is going anywhere. And my all-time favorite movie is Beauty and the Beast. Gorgeous, gorgeous hand-drawn animation. I watched the trailers and commercials that are included on this blu-ray / DVD combo for FernGully. Animation marketing has changed a lot since 1992. It’s even changed a lot in the last three years because of COVID. How was it marketing an animated movie from a major studio, at that time being 20th Century Fox when it existed… back in 1992?

BK: Unfortunately it wasn’t a big push because Fox didn’t own the movie. And that was a critical problem. FernGully was actually owned and financed by an Australian company [FAI Films]. Fox was merely the distributor. So when the distributor doesn’t own the movie, they don’t get into the sales and the commercials nearly as much because they’re not making as much from it. FernGully had an OK push when it came out, but it wasn’t NEARLY the push that a studio film would’ve had. I did some interviews and we did some promotion but we never had a big studio premiere. [My wife] Sue and I had to do the premiere for our own crew. Fox wasn’t gonna do it because they didn’t own the movie. So we actually paid for our own premiere and had our own premiere party. FernGully had that little… hill to climb on its own. It had to get out there and sell itself because it didn’t get a huge studio push.

JM: Wow. That’s crazy to me that [Fox] wouldn’t even do the premiere — that you guys had to do that. Wow. But I think this movie has had such an impact over these last 30 years and, like I said, new generations will get into this. You dedicate the film at the end “for our children and our children’s children.” Now I think we can extend this another two or three generations, for multiple reasons. How do you feel about that dedication now, in looking at that 30 years later?

BK: I am so thrilled that Shout! is not only committed to putting this out in the right way by letting myself and Wendell Luebbe do the color timing on the master, but the fact that they are doing interviews like this with you and they’re helping to promote this movie… The message of this movie is timeless, and it has never been more important… for young people to become emotionally involved in this issue. It’s never been more important for them to get a true understanding that that phrase “the web of life” — being connected to the world and everything you live with — is a real thing. I’ve always felt that FernGully did a magical job in presenting that idea and will never be out of date. And I’m hoping now with this new beautiful blu-ray and 4K high dynamic range version that it reaches even more people.