3. Story Line
The story for Kroyer’s Ferngully,
was adapted from the book Ferngully
written by Diana Young. The story line
for the movie is pretty much the same
as the books. Whereas many times, the
translation of book to film means
cutting out important parts of the story,
the creator of the film, Ferngully was
fairly accurate in keeping the story true
to form.
5. Beginning
The film Ferngully beings with the story of a fairy named Crysta.
Crysta is a naïve fairy who believes in the existence of humans and
that they are long lost friends of the forest. In spite of the warnings
from her teacher and the protector of Ferngully, Magi, Crysta decides
to venture to Mt. Warning in search of humans. On her way, she
meets a bat, Batty, who behaves erratically and warns her of the
dangers of humans. The bat proceeds to tell his story of how he was
captured by humans and how they conducted numerous experiments
on him without regard to his safety or wellbeing. He tells Crysta not
to go in search of the humans but Crysta pays him no attention.
Continuing her journey, Crysta finally sees a human, Zak and
accidently shrinks him to match her size. Still unable to fully control
her powers, she tries to return Zak to his original size but fails and so
she heads back to Ferngully along with Zak and Batty in order to ask
Magi for help.
6. Middle
Crysta and Zak get to know about each other‟s lives,
but Zak makes a point to not mention why he was in
the forest in the first place which was for the purpose
of cutting down trees. They become friends, and
even start to show signs of becoming more than just
friends. In the meantime the crew with which Zak
worked, accidently cut down the tree into which the
antagonist of the story, Hexus, was imprisoned by
Magi, many years ago. Hexus, then takes control of
the machine was being used to cut down trees and
leads it toward Ferngully in order to exact his revenge
on the fairies.
7. End
Eventually, Zak tells the truth about the real nature of
humans and the reason for him being in the forest. Crysta then
realizes that her beliefs of the goodness of humans were untrue
and no longer trusts Zak. The fairies then gather in a tree and
Magi gives up her life in order to protect everyone inside of it. Zak
manages to get to the machine cutting down trees and is able to
turn it off before it is able to cut down the tree that the fairies are all
in. Hexus, who had been feeding off of the smoke and pollution
cause by the machine, then appears in a giant skeletal form out of
themachine. Seeing this Crysta makes a choice to be swallowed
by Nexus in order to plant a seed inside of him which she then
helps grow in order to entrap him and the machine and a tree once
again. After Hexus had been defeated, Crysta who now had
control over her powers, was able to return Zak to his original size.
The movie ends with Zak walking with his coworkers and sharing
his newfound perspective of the importance of nature and the
importance of preserving it.
9. Crysta
Crysta‟s character in the film, is almost that of a child. She believe in the
existence of humans when no one else does, and believes that they are the
friends of fairs in spite of having no evidence of that being true. Even when
she meets someone, Batty, who tells her that humans do exist but that they
are bad creatures, she refuses to listen and still continues to look for humans.
It is only when she catches Zak carving her name onto a tree, that she
realizes that humans are unaware of the harm they cause trees and becomes
disillusioned. In spite of this however, she still believes Zak when he tells her
that friends are friends of the forest and doesn‟t doubt his original intentions
for being there. Crysta‟s final realization of the true nature of humans
happens almost near the end of the film and only when Zak finally tells her
the truth, just before Hexus comes upon them. She is then able to use her
fairy powers to stop Nexus, something which would have been impossible for
her in the beginning of the film. Crysta‟s character is one that represents
child-like innocence and the eventual realization of reality that comes with
experiencing life and growing up.
10. Zak
In the film, Zak‟s character is one
that resembles many teenagers who
live in modern nations today. In the
beginning of the film, Zak is oblivious
to the harm he causes and is worried
only about his own interests. When
he meets Crysta, he decides to lie to
her and not tell her about his reason Zak‟s ability to feel the pain of the tree
for being in the forest, which was to is associated with his newfound
cut down trees. When Crysta appreciation for the forest. Zak
explains to him about how trees feel
plain, Zak is initially unable to feel the represents the average person living
pain that Crysta can feel when she in a developed nation, who isn‟t really
puts her hand to the tree. It is only aware or concerned with the well-
later in the film, after having been being of the forest. It is only after
taught by Crysta the importance of being taught about the wonders of the
nature, that Zak is able to also feel forest, that Zak is really able to
the pain of a tree that has been cut understand why conserving it is
down. important and inspires him to change
is life in order to better nature
11. Batty‟s role in the film is that of someone who has been hurt and
completely stereotypes others based on his experience. When
Batty meets Zak, he is immediately wary of him and refuses to
accept Zak‟s friendship, in spite of Zak being nothing but nice to him
and never wronging him. This is related to people‟s basic nature to
lump everyone into groups and to treat them the same due to an
experience they had with only one of that group. Although Batty is
correct when he tells Crysta about the bad things humans do, he
doesn‟t even consider the fact that all humans may not be like that.
It isn‟t until the end of the movie, when Zak is trying to stop the
machine cutting down trees, that Batty seems to accept Zak and see
him as his own person who is merely trying to help. Batty‟s change
in attitude is meant to inspire the audience to not be so close
minded and to persuade them to not judge people at first glance but
instead, get to know them.
12. Hexxus
Hexxus is a magical creature that is never
seen by the humans in the movie and yet the
humans are strongly influenced by him.
Hexxus discreetly command the humans to
become overly destructive in a very sneaky
manner so the humans do not think to
question what they are told to do. Hexxus
embodies filth, pollution, destruction, chaos,
and also embodies greed and selfishness
because he only looks out for himself and
his own needs, he does not care about
destroying the environment or destroying
other creature’s homes. This destructive
creature takes the form of a dark gooey
substance that resembles oil, gum, and smog
who takes refuge in man made machinery.
13. Magi
Magi is the elder of the Fern Gully fairies. She is wise,
good-natured, spiritual and is a teacher to all of the
Fern Gully folk. Magi is primarily Crysta’s mentor; Magi
teaches Crysta how to use magic in order to help plant
life grow. She emphasizes being kind to one’s
environment because we all need each other in order to
live. It is implied that Magi is what Crysta becomes in
the future: a spiritual leader and the wise elder of Fern
Gully. Symbol: emphasizes seeds, planting the seed of
consciousness so that one can care for their
environment. Magi would be the antithesis of Hexxus
because unlike Hexxus, Magi creates life.
15. Even though FernGully is about fairies it also contains a
bit of history in which the movie was based off of. The
movie takes place in Australia near Mt Warning; this
mountain has a lot of legends and cultural significance to
the Aboriginal people. The natives of the land believe in
the balance of nature and in these Gods/spirits that help
regulate the impact of humanity on the environment.
17. Although Australians encourage tourists to climb
Mount Warning the indigenous population
strongly discourages it because it is a sacred
place for them. Many years ago the natives of
the land used to perform rituals in this mountain
but they are no longer allowed to.
18. The early settlers of Mount Warning heavily
destroyed the wildlife around there for many
years and continued to do so until the
government decided to turn Mount Warning and
the land around it into a national park.
19. The settlers that began to inhabit Australia caused a lot of
destruction to the environment. The settlers started to cut off
the wildlife which affected the ecosystem and limited the
resources for the indigenous people.
Not only were the Aborigines limited in resources
but they had to resist being colonized. Colonization
greatly impacted their culture, religion and beliefs.
20. Parallels between legend
and Film
As one can see there are many parallels between
Australia‟s history and the film FernGully.
FernGully uses humans to portray the destructive
settlers of Australia. And speaks of greed and how
humans tend to focus on their own wants and needs
and do not care if they destroy their ecosystem or the
lives of other living beings. The fairies represent the
indigenous population living in Australia who were too
naïve as to think that the settlers (humans) would
lead them to destruction.
This film is also based off of Aboriginal beliefs. The
film is based upon an Aboriginal legend that deals
with a spirit that is destructive but regulates the
balance of nature.
21. In the behind the scenes of Fern Gully the actors and filmmakers speak
about the inspiration of the Hexxus character and how they based him off
an Aboriginal legend. The legend said that this spirit came from Mt
Warning, which used to be an active volcano, this is why in the movie
Hexxus takes the form of lava. The spirit in which Hexxus was based off of
was known as a spirit that caused natural disasters. These disasters were
not essentially bad because they helped regulate the balance of nature.
Unfortunately this spirit does not know when to stop. Humans now a days
cause so much harm to the environment that this spirit no longer needs to
cause destruction, instead it only further tiptoes the balance and causes
chaos. This is why they portray Hexxus as this spirit of pollution and
destruction. He inhabits the man made machine that cuts down trees in
order to represent that us humans are the ones responsible for the
destruction of ourselves.
23. Environment
FernGully centers around an environmental theme.
“FernGully appeared during the environmentalist movement of
the early 1990s.” (Dances with FernGully)
Through its environmental theme it conveys a lesson relating
to the importance of preservation of nature and also the need
to recognize that we, the humans, are villains in terms of the
relationship between nature and mankind.
The theme, importance of environment, is explained by
depicting the beauty of nature through the animation in the
film. Also the plot itself describes nature‟s importance;
mankind is destructive, but in a way where we do not
comprehend our destructive actions, not until we are shrunk
down and learn that the forest houses a community of fairies,
life and love.
Through beautiful visual elements, and a fictional story, the
real life theme is brought to attention, nature is important, we
need to love it and be conscious of our actions. This theme in
FernGully relates to the current events and thoughts of the
time period in which it was released.
24. Love and
Understanding
Is an important theme in FernGully, the movie
explains love as something that counteracts
destruction because through love, understanding is
found.
Zak realizes the harm he is unknowingly inflicting on
the forest through his relationship with Crysta. Love
grants an understanding that helps preserve the
forest from mankind‟s destruction.
The love relationship is represented both through
Zach‟s relationship with Crysta and also through the
Fairies relationship to the forest.
Love and understanding is a secondary theme in the
animated film and used as a method of explaining
how to protect nature (Main theme) by caring and
understanding.
26. The animation in FernGully uses hand drawn animation
and also computer animation.
Computer animation was a technology that was becoming
more relied upon in the early 90s. The combination of the
two in FernGully is used in a way that helps to improve the
film rather than if it had simply relied on one method of
animation.
“Computer-generated images of the logging machines
contrast nicely with the more organic-looking drawn
characters.” (Ecological Message)
The landscapes and characters were created using hand
drawn animation, the characters were simple and
„cartoonish‟ and the landscapes are lush and detailed.
The computer animation was used to create the logging
machine and Hexxus, the two styles help to further
separate the films „good‟ and „bad‟ through the two very
different styles of animation, hand drawn used for the
natural rainforest and characters and computer animation
used to create the destructive mechanical machines and
Hexxus.
27. In FernGully two styles of
animation were merged
successfully in a way that
helped add to the stories
themes and message by
dividing the natural and
unnatural through visual
styles.
This is an example of how
computer animation was used
to show Hexxus‟s
transformation. Combined
with hand drawn animation it
creates a creepy unnatural
feeling that further separates
Hexxus from nature.
