Babar: King of the Elephants (2001)

The elephant king with the upright stance and smashing wardrobe finally has a movie to tell his story from the scampering days of his youth through his adventures in Paris to his days as husband, father, and king. Based on the popular HBO series--which in turn is based on the books of Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff--this 75-minute film features pleasant animation, a quasi-adult contemporary soundtrack, and adventures culled from several of the classic books, including "The Story of Babar" and "Babar and his Children." Celeste and the triplets, as well as Arthur, Cornelius, and Madame, all figure prominently. The resilient elephants face a series of mishaps, including fires, illness, and the battle with the rival rhinos. All tends to end well, except for the initial death of Babar's mother, which happens Bambi's-mother-style about 10 minutes into the movie. (Ages 2 and up) --Kimberly Heinrichs Amazon.com

There are so many other good movies!

My advice: either rent this movie or check it out from the library, do not buy it, and I would recommend do not even watch it as there are so many other better movies! The only redeeming part of the movie is the soundtrack. The movie version of Babar follows the book, originally written in the 1930s. The general plot revolves around Babar's life, which is very happy until suddenly his mom is killed by a hunter with a shotgun, he gets lost, and somehow wanders into a city in Europe (from Africa!?!?!?) where he is adopted by a rich old white woman who pays for his new clothes and teaches him to read, do math, etc, ("civilzes" him). He then goes back to the jungle, becomes king, and proceeds to build a city and society similar to what he had experienced. I felt the message here was that white western civilization is superior, and that by adopting the characteristics of the West you become civilzed. The whole story is very similar to the prevailing thinking of the time, that by educating the elites from developing countries they would then go back and created "enlightened" societies. What actually happened, of course, was failed experiments in development as these leaders often became despots. As I watched the Rhinos rampaging through the jungle destroying everything in their path as they waged war against the elephants, I could not help but think about how endangered they currently are, and how misunderstood they were at the time the Babar book was written. It also disturbed me that the death of Babar's mother is never examined again: that her head or tusks was likely mounted in someone's parlor in that very civilization that Babar was trying to copy. December 21, 2008

Kids love this!

I'm a music teacher and used this to help prepare the kids for a Poulenc concert. The story follows the original quite closely and the music, though not the Poulenc, is very good. The students really enjoyed it. October 31, 2008

Spoiler Alert

This is a wonderful, gentle, sweet video of young Babar. It starts out calm and beautiful. The music and voice over is wonderful. But then, there's the shotgun death of his mother while he's riding on her back. The hunter then trains his gun on Babar, who manages to escape. My almost-3-year-old keeps asks, where's his mother? What happened to his mother? Other than this scene, and references to how when Babar thinks of his mother he's sad, I love the video. But I don't think the killing scene and reference is appropriate in a video aimed at such young kids. September 11, 2008

Both pleasant and unpleasant surprises

Since our daughter loves her Babar books, we decided to buy her this DVD.
I often find even DVDs for kids too hectic and fast-moving, but this one is a pleasant surprise: The animation is very well crafted, the story moves along smoothly without too much "action" and dialogue which can easily overwhelm smaller kids. My daughter enjoys especially the songs that are beautifully integrated.

However, the scene in which Babar's mother dies and the war with the rhinos are so drawn out, that my daughter asked to turn the TV off. I have no idea, why these upsetting scenes were given so much more importance than they have in the book.

The other disappointment was that the movie entirely skips Babar's travels with his new wife Celeste! This is my daughter's favored part of the story, and I'm sure she's not the only one. January 16, 2008

Babar - Always the King

As children, both my daughter and I loved the Babar books, and I was delighted to find this video for my 2-1/2 year old granddaughter. It is absolutely the books brought to life, and she never tires of watching it.
I would highly recommend this video to anyone with children 2 years old or more. December 1, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...