Barney's Great Adventure
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 Barney and his pals abound for an awful adventure.
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Barney's Great Adventure (also known by its promotional title Barney's Great Adventure: The Movie) is a 1998 American-Canadian musical comedy adventure film based on the children's television series Barney & Friends, featuring Barney the Dinosaur in his first-ever feature-length film. It serves as the follow-up/sequel to Barney's Halloween Party and is overall the thirteenth film in the Barney & Friends series. The film was written by Stephen White, directed by Steve Gomer, produced by Sheryl Leach and Lyrick Studios, and released by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment on March 27, 1998, at Radio City Music Hall in New York and worldwide on April 3, 1998, in the United States and Canada at the height of Barney's popularity.
Plot
Cody (Trevor Morgan), his sister Abby (Diana Rice), their best friend Marcella (Kyla Pratt), and their baby brother Fig are dropped off by their parents for a visit at their grandparents' farm. As Cody is believing that there may be nothing to do at the farm, Abby and Marcella rub a Barney doll in his face. Cody loses his patience and starts a game of "keep-away" by taking the Barney doll and running off with it. The two girls go after Cody, who hides the Barney doll in the shower in the bathroom.
The girls catch up with Cody, who tells them to use their imagination and laughs when he thinks that nothing happened. However, the doll comes to life as Barney the Dinosaur takes the girls to play in the barn. Cody refuses to believe in Barney at first, claiming that imagination is just for kids and that real dinosaurs neither talk, nor laugh. That night, Cody takes advice from Barney and wishes for a real adventure for that summer, and to do something no one has ever done before.
A shooting star deposits a large colorful egg in the barn which Cody discovers in the morning. Barney and the kids go to tell the grandparents about this, but Barney is distracted by Fig's crying. Grandma suggests to Abby and Marcella that they go see Mrs. Goldfinch. Cody finds Barney who has just changed Fig's wet diaper and takes him to see his grandparents. However, Abby and Marcella take Cody and Barney to see Mrs. Goldfinch, who tells them that the egg is a dream maker. Cody accidentally knocks the egg off the table which lands on a birdseed truck.
Barney and the others try to recover it through a parade as the egg narrowly avoids being stomped or cracked by the parade's participants as the egg's five colors begin to reveal themselves, one color at a time. Barney's friend B.J. catches it when it almost lands on the ground, but accidentally tosses it away. Barney and the gang chase the egg throughout a French restaurant, a circus, and fly through the sky on an airplane to continue their pursuit of the egg which is in a hot air balloon. All the while, Baby Bop is looking for her small, yellow blanket, and B.J. and Baby Bop arrive just in time to see the egg hatch. After they return the egg to the barn, it finally hatches into a koala-like being named Twinken by Baby Bop who shows everyone Abby's dream and then Barney's.
Cody apologizes to Barney for being mean and admits that he thinks he's cool. Barney accepts his apology and tells Cody that he thinks he's cool too and the two share a hug. Twinken shows everyone a magical fireworks display that lands in Barney's arms. Barney begins to sing "I Love You", and everyone else sings with him. Baby Bop gets sleepy, which prompts B.J. to decide that they are ready to go home. The film ends with Twinken sitting right next to Barney, who has reverted to his doll form.
Why It Doesn't Go on a Great Adventure
- Extremely weak, lazy, clichéd and a poorly written plot that's been used in numerous better films with lots of filler moments, as mentioned below.
- Tiresome and extremely bland supporting characters, such as Abby and even Barney himself.
- Barney's character itself feels flanderized in the movie and toned down compared to the TV Show and Video Series (pre-Season 9), showing mostly only his happy side rather than his caring side and intelligence he had in the TV show. In fact, this was an early indication that the show was beginning to decline in quality.
- Baby Bop is also flanderized though not as severely as Barney.
- Speaking of which, B.J. and Baby Bop barely get any screen time despite the former being a bit more tolerable unlike the TV show.
- The film itself only involves Barney and the children trying to find an egg and need to get it back before it hatches, yet most of the movie boils down to 76 minutes of pure filler, with practically nothing interesting and noticeable going on during the movie, even some of the earlier films had more involve plots.
- It also has a poorly made contrived conveniences, with Cody idiotically knocking the egg into a bird seed truck and drives off with it, which is how the whole plot even begins in the first place.
- The film itself was only completed in a month, which could explain all of the bad CGI, terrible acting, and all of the other goofs found in the film.
- No real or clear villain besides "The Collector", despite the film being meant for kids. While other medias like books, shows, and movies without an antagonist have worked before, the fact that the actual plot for this movie is so weak and lazy makes the fact that there's no villain give the story absolutely no stakes whatsoever on top of that.
- Terrible editing with a lot of goofs being present. For example, there is actually a scene where you can see a bit of Baby Bop's fur fall off which for some reason they kept in, not to mention Barney's blinking mechanism glitching at times, making him look uncanny.
- Horrible CGI and effects for the wooden airplane scene. It's so ridiculously unconvincing and obviously fake that it's almost laughable. It looks more like it was shot for green-screen effects.
- There are noticeable continuity errors in the film. During the intro of the film, the father is shown driving the van with his wife next to him; after cutting to a scene where there's a Merrivale Apple Day Festival, the mother is now shown driving the van with her husband next to her.
- Unfunny and weak humor.
- The writing is just as bad, if not worse than the movie itself.
- Very poor pacing that drags the film for way longer than it should, especially the scene when the girls try to imagine Barney when Cody hid the Barney Doll in the bathroom, and Cody giving of a smattering grin which is utterly punchable.
- Near the begging of the film, Cody snatching Barney from the girls is treated as a very funny scene, when in truth is very mean-spirited and out-of-place.
- Dreadful, horrible, and annoying soundtrack, special mention goes to the intro song "Barney the Song", which sounds more like something out of Mr. Bean than something out of Barney the Dinosaur.
- Speaking of the soundtrack, the musical numbers, such as Imagine, are laughable and serve no purpose.
- Terrible acting, especially from Barney himself, as well as other actors like Trevor Morgan and Kyla Pratt.
- Speaking of Barney's voice, at one point, Barney's voice cuts off before he's finished speaking. Not to mention how he sounds even more ridiculously happy and endlessly unrealistically joyful than usual. And given how that's his normal style of talking, even in the TV show (one of the major flaws of the original Barney & Friends series), that's certainly saying a lot.
- Twinken, despite what the movie constantly tells its audience and wants them to believe, isn't even that cute and cuddly at all. They could have designed him better. He looks like an old, fuzzy white koala with sad, droopy eyes. That's it. He is just the filler that nothing else at all. He also looks VERY out-of-place and looks more like a rejected Power Rangers character/villain then something out of Barney. What's even worse is that the merchandise based on the movie makes him look even cuter. To add insult to injury, he is never seen or heard from again after this movie. Not even in the TV show or any form of Barney media.
- Some plot lines can be seen as kind of rushed, as the whole plot is all about an egg that hatches a creature who visualizes your dreams. That's all it does, making the whole movie and egg search pointless. You can visualize your dreams easily in your imagination, so there's no need for some strange creature to do it for you.
- Pointless moments, such as a running gag involving Baby Bop looking for her blanket with sub-plot, which is nothing but filler.
- On some full screen versions, especially the Hebrew dub, some scenes contain a boom microphone at the very top, even at the ending if one looks closely!
- Misleading title:
- Despite being called Barney's Great Adventure as well as showing Barney taking up most of the Box-Art, the first half of the movie mostly focuses on the kids rather than Barney himself and his pals.
- On the topic of the title, it sounds questionable.
- Also on that note, the background in which Barney appears in a town-like area with a twilight sky also never happens in the film.
- There's actuate toilet humor in a PBS Kids show, such as the scene where Cody steps in cow poop, which is very gross and unfunny.
- Some of the problems listed above would eventually carry over into the series the film is based on, especially starting in Season 9.
- Awful direction by Steve Gomer.
- Terrible special effects, even for late 90's standards as films even 20 years earlier like Blade Runner and The Terminator had very good special effects.
- No real climax/final battle.
- Despite this being one in Barney's biggest adventures, this film barely has any impact on the Barney & Friends series as a whole, as most of its events are ignored in later Barney media and even characters don't even make a re-appearance. You can watch any of the Barney & Friends shows/films skipping Barney's Great Adventure, and anything too important would not be missed.
Super-Dee-Duper Qualities
- Cody, Fig, and the adults are the only likable characters.
- B.J. is also likable, though he is criminally underused. He is the only character who wasn't flanderized.
- The ending is rather heartwarming.
- There is a somewhat chuckle-worthy moment where Marcella suggests the rainbow egg came from a giant chicken, and everyone, even Barney, just stares at her in a confused and sarcastic manner.
- Barney and Cody actually have a meaningful conversation at one point, which shows some chemistry.
- Despite what WIDGOAGA#14 says, the only thing Twinken does, visualizing your dreams, is pretty creative and cute.
- Despite the voice acting of Barney, BJ, and Baby Bop being flawed, the voices of them are still faithful to the TV show, especially from the first six seasons.
Reception
Barney's Great Adventure received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, audiences, and a large amount of anti-Barney fans, owing to it being based on the aforementioned television program which is aimed at young children aged 1–8, the growing popularity of "anti-Barney humor", and the general unpopularity of the Barney series outside of its target audience of preschoolers. While it didn't completely tarnish the popularity of the franchise, the film was the first instance that made people notice that it was beginning to experience a rapid decline in quality despite Seasons 5-8 still being considered okay to good. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 32% with an average score of 5.00/10, based on 25 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Barney's friends are big and small / They come from lots of places / But after this film, their parents / Will be left with pained faces.". On IMDb, the film holds a 3.1/10 and was at one point on IMDb's Bottom 100 list. But, as of right now, it isn't on the list anymore. Film critic David Kronke of the Los Angeles Times stated: "Barney looks both more real and more magical on video; on film, he's clearly a doofus in a felt outfit." However, Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and stated in his review, "If you like him on TV, you'll like him here, too." Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune stated, "Barney doesn't have much of a personality in this story; his character should have been developed in order to hold the big screen for more than a 30-minute program."
Metacritic somewhat scores the film a 44/100 indicating "mixed or average reviews."
Box Office
The film opened up at #11 on its limited weekend with a gross of only $2,203,865. On its wide weekend, it went to #15 and grossed $1,382,373. The film tanked after getting a domestic gross of only $12,218,638 against its $15 million budget.
Awards and nominations
Barney's Great Adventure was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Barney himself for Worst New Star and the Jerry Herman-penned "Barney, the Song" for "Worst Original Song", but lost to Jerry Springer for Ringmaster along with Joe Eszterhas as himself in An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn. The film was also nominated for three Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, including Worst Actor for Barney the Dinosaur.
Videos
Reviews
Trivia
- Trey Parker was offered the chance to direct the film and was, according to Parker himself, offered $1.5 million for the job, but declined - he would create the long-running iconic show South Park (1997) instead with fellow colleague Matt Stone.
- The movie was originally planned out as a direct-to-video production, but Lyrick Studios, the company behind Barney, wanted it to be a theatrical movie because of Barney's popularity, which actually angered PolyGram. This feud actually continued after PolyGram was bought by Universal and after Lyrick Studios was bought by HIT Entertainment. Hit was forced to keep Lyrick's Austin Studio open solely for this reason and was only closed after the conflicts were resolved.
- It was originally going to be distributed worldwide by Geffen Pictures through Warner Bros. and produced by Sheryl Leach and Dennis DeShazer. According to Sheryl Leach, it had a release date for summer 1995. Warner Bros. and Lyons had disagreements over marketing, leading the latter to bring the film (with help from now former producer Geffen) to Polygram.
- This was the third and final film to be produced by Lyrick Studios before it was acquired by and folded into HIT Entertainment on August 31, 2001.
- It is also the only theatrical Barney film as all other Barney films were just direct to video productions, until the new theatrical Barney film produced by Daniel Kaluuya was announced.
- This was the first time when people (during the 1990s) showed their hate towards Barney.
- Stephen White, who was the head writer at the time for Barney & Friends from 1992 to 2005 disowned the film.
- The movie was banned in Malaysia since it was deemed "unsuitable for children". No elaborate reasons were ever given. Despite only being banned in Malaysia, the film was also never released in some other countries, including South Korea and Taiwan.
- It is possible because of Barney in the shower, Barney changing Fig's diaper, Cody's bad behavior towards Barney and the scene where Cody steps in cow poop.
- An early draft of this movie existed and it was possibly slightly better.
- According to writer Stephen White, in the original script, the egg was going to hatch a giant bird who misses its mother, and Baby Bop and BJ were going to have a lot more screen time, appearing in the farmhouse attic, but those scenes were soon scrapped, as director Steve Gomer claimed the scenes to be "unaffordable". Miss. Goldfinch was originally planned to be a comedic character, as opposed to the more subdued character of the final film, the circus scenes and the "Collector" character were not in the original drafts, as well as rather than using a log, Barney and the gang would have built a plane out of cardboard boxes.
External links
Barney's Great Adventure at the Internet Movie Database
great adventure Barney's Great Adventure on Rotten Tomatoes
Barney's Great Adventure on Metacritic
Barney's Great Adventure on Letterboxd- Stephen White on Barney's Great Adventure
Comments
- "It's made for kids"
- 1990s films
- Abusing the mascot
- Abusing the show
- Adventure films
- American films
- Bad movies from good franchises
- Banned films
- Based on television
- Boring films
- Box office bombs
- Canadian films
- Cash grabs
- Comedy films
- Dinosaur films
- Family films
- Fantasy films
- Films aware of how bad they are
- Films for free on YouTube
- Films that were in development hell
- Films with misleading titles
- Independent films
- Live-action films
- Movies that killed their studios
- Musical films
- Obscure films
- PolyGram films
- Bad media
- Terrible grasp on the source material
- Gross-out films