Happy 25th Anniversary THE ROAD TO EL DORADO-The memetic majesty of DreamWorks SKG's Cult Classic Second Animated Feature

I'd never thought I'd finally cover this film in a blogpost but it's happening...

This film, released on March 31 2000, is a culmination of a film that fought a bad box-office clout and has since become a cult classic in it's own right, especially for us late Millennials and early Gen Zers.

So in celebration of the film's 25th Anniversary, I dedicate this blogpost to the one film that fought everything from rewrites, to Box-Office Clouts, to memes, etc.

It all started back at Disney Animation Studios.....

sort of.

It was originally one of said pitches that was advertised internally as one of the ideas that would be made into a movie by the MOUSE HOUSE.

The title would be called "THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING."

NO!!!! This is not a ONE PIECE REFERECE. In fact, this story idea predates ONE PIECE by almost 3 years.

However in 1994, Jeffery Katzenberg had a big fight with Michael Eisner.

Without the mediation from Frank Wells, who died in a Helicopter crash that year, Katzenberg gave Eisner the finger and left Disney, taking this film's idea alongside others with him while also leaving behind films about Lions, Indigenous Americans, Catholic Hunchbacks, Greek Heroes, A Chinese Heroine, etc.

Can you guess what film opened in the Summer of 1994 that topped the BOX OFFICE and got acclaim from Critics?

Anyway, shortly after forming DreamWorks SKG in October 1994 with help of both Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, 

Katzenberg met with two Screenwriters who go by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, both who promptly gave Katzenberg a copy of HUGH THOMAS' 

CONQUEST: MONTEZUMA, CORTES, AND THE FALL OF OLD MEXICO.

While the rights could not be secured to make a literal or Disneyfied adaptation of HUGH's book, the three decided that a movie inspired by the book would be a perfect concept to make for the newly christened studio.

By Spring of 1995, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio wrote a story treatment, inspired by all those classic BOB HOPE and BING CROSBY "ROAD TO" films,

about two comedic anti-heroes who set out to find the lost city of Gold after acquiring a Map.

Sounds like our film we have today but what's interesting is that EL DORADO was originally meant to be a DRAMA instead of a Buddy-Comedy.

Sort of similar in tone to Disney's KINGDOM OF THE SUN concept which at the time was also in active development... 

Before that got retooled into THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE.

The retool is just right.....(Makes a  JUST RIGHT gesture to prove his point)

If you want to read about the development of THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE, 

here's the link to said blogpost:

https://maverickmartinezarchive.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-sweatbox-trudie-stylers-true-story.html

But unlike with KINGDOM OF THE SUN, 

EL DORADO was meant to be a LARGE-SCALE DRAMA, 

Kind of like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS(1956)

In fact, one of the story ideas initially had MIGUEL conceived as a raunchy SANCHO-PANZA styled character who died but came back to life to a point that the natives assumed he was a god.

And fan-favorite CHEL would have had a much raunchier role in the film where she wore nothing but a Poncho.

But shortly while THE PRINCE OF EGYPT was in production, Katzenberg decided to discard whatever he was working on and demanded that EL DORADO ditch the serious ADULT approach for the film and instead aim for a family-friendly ADVENTURE COMEDY.... but still have hints of ADULT INNUENDO as to differentiate DreamWorks away from DISNEY or their competitors.

So multiple changes were made at the behest of Katzenberg to appeal to a PG-rated audience.

Miguel and Tulio were rewritten as Petty Swindlers.

The City of El Dorado was remade to be more of a paradise than what was dissimilar to the 1950s epic films of that time period.

Amongst one of the changes Katzenberg forced upon the crew was to change Chel's wardrobe.

Shown below is the original PONCHO CHEL.

I've read on TV TROPES that this design was rejected because as it turns out, Chel is practically naked underneath that Poncho....

For example. If Chel bent over or did a handstand, her breasts and privates would have been exposed to the masses. Including towards our Favorite loveable Con-Men Miguel and Tulio.

And despite the original PG-13 approach that filmmakers were going for in the initial drafts back in the late 90s, Katzenberg wanted a more family friendly approach and a PG rating was about as high as he can allow for an animated film...

Yes.... A PG Rating.

as if THE BLACK CAULDRON was any indication 15 years prior.

Katzenberg may have cut almost a quarter of THE BLACK CAULDRON's runtime

 but it still didn't fluence his views on how high of an age rating his 

DreamWorks animated films would be.

So Poncho Chel was written out...

But instead, 

what we got would become a beloved Sex Symbol for many a Late Millennial and Early Gen Z'er.

"Barring a few controversial comments from critics back in 2000 regarding my portrayal and wardrobe but thank the gods that Late Millennials and Early Gen Zers don't give a crap what those critics say about Sex Symbols.."

If we like our Sexy Chel the way she was approved and voiced by Rosie Perez, we stick with it.

Don't ask me or Rosie Perez how this design managed to get Katzenberg's approval. 

I think this is still one of the best designs for Chel in early 2000s animation.

The digital Ink and Paint Animation is pretty spot-on though that's par for the course especially with 2D animation made in the late-90s where it's virtually required to use computers to color the animation cels.

In fact, compared to Disney's work which uses Proprietary software written by engineers within the Mouse House, DREAMWORKS opted for the much preferred OFF-THE-SHELF software from CAMBRIDGE ANIMATION and Toon Boom Animation.

Half of the animation was outsourced to STARDUST in London, England but most of the animation was done in my hometown of VANCOUVER.

The studio?

BARDEL ENTERTAINMENT.

Yes, truly it was a golden age for 2D Digital Animation.

Like I said, at the Turn of the Millennium, all the animation studios in AMERICA were required to make the switch to Off-The-Shelf Digital Animation Software regardless if it's SGI or HP Workstations.

Unless you were working for JUMBO PICTURES back in the mid to late-90s and despite working with Disney at the time, DOUG still refused to use off-the-shelf Digital Ink and Paint software from Cambridge or Toon Boom even with their theatrical film which premiered in theaters exactly about a year prior to El Dorado.

Seriously, DOUG's 1ST MOVIE doesn't even use Digital Ink & Paint, despite saying so in the credits. Just like with PRINCESS MONONOKE from 2 years prior, DOUG only ever used Computers for Color Correction of the cels & the AVID MEDIA COMPOSER Final Edits before sending the digital film files to both Technicolor and EASTMAN for the 35MM filmstock to be shown in theaters in 1999.

But back to El Dorado and DreamWorks from before COMCAST bought them.

El-Dorado's Digital Ink and Paint Animation is pretty spot on.

You can see the attention to detail was made on those Pencil Drawings before they were scanned into them Animator's SGI Workstations.

And then they also had to color the Outlines, Paint the insides of the cels with the Paint Bucket Tool, add diffused shading, etc.

This is referring to an Age-Old technique in 2D Animation called TRADIGITAL ANIMATION where it's still hand-drawn on paper but the characters and props are colored and manipulated in the Computer once they're scanned into the computer with one of them expensive photo scanners.

And it depends on what software was used.

For the 2D Animation, I'm going to guess it's TOONBOOM which ,Surprise Surprise, is the exact software that I use for 2D Animation.

When done right, the results can be amazing even for theatrical animation.

Such as this scene of a determined Miguel and the closeup of his bleeding forehead

But the CGI is also a real standout.

CGI in 2D ANIMATION? 

A marriage that's elicited mixed reactions from the community with many complaining that it's seen as  rather lazy to integrate the two instead of drawing in Perspective like Richard Williams.

But deadlines are there and you have no choice but to use CGI for things like:

ships, 

barrels, 

waves and splashes, 

background characters for crowd shots, 

First comes the animation of said CG Background Character...

Then comes the Test Animation to check the keyframes, Cel Shading, etc.....

Final Rendered Scene

and yes, even with GOLD.

Yes, you could elect to draw all the gold traditionally on paper, scan it into the computer, and add a gold filter onto the digital cels which certainly was the case for several scenes in the film...

But DREAMWORKS wanted to use actual CGI Gold instead of shades of Yellow, even with diffusion. So they actually wrote a piece of software that generates GOLD on the CG models.

Just like with how memetic THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE is,

El Dorado is not short on scenes that prove to be memetic.

Many include:

"On one hand...."

"GOLD!!!"

"On the other hand...."

"PAINFUL..."

"AGONIZING...."

"FAILURE!!!!"

here's another:

"And so dawns the age of the Jaguar..."

"Happy New Year."

Another:

"Holy Ship!!!"

The rather inappropriate joke about ascending horizontally:

Even Miguel finds the joke rather humorous if somewhat ribald.

The reference to Jaws:

and my personal favorite:

"You fight like my sister!!!"

"I fought your sister, that's a compliment!!!"

There are so many memetic scenes out there but listing them all would have caused this blogpost to run too long so I'll leave it here until I'm ready to update it more.

Screenshots are from my December 2000 DVD....

As a matter of fact, I still have this DVD in my collection for the past 25+ Years.

This here is my Original Special Edition DVD from the early 2000s

 and it's still in my collection to this day.

This film sort of holds a special place in my heart because it may as well be my absolute first DVD I've ever owned.

The DVD player I used those many years ago is long gone, but the DVD is still in my collection with no scratches.

My Current Disc players I have are my PS5 and my LG Blu-Ray burner that’s Mounted in my PC's FRACTAL POP AIR Case and that's being used to get my VLC screenshots.

I had some issue with VLC Player crashing during DVD Playback and Screenshots so I decided SCREW IT and just straight up Ripped the DVD Contents into my PC using VLC's Convert tool so I at least have something to use.

That's one of the reasons I demand to have an ATX Case that has an Optical Drive Bay so I can mount a Blu-Ray Player to the case.

An external solution is nice but not what I call reliable for my needs due to issues like using Laptop Components.

That's why I chose the Fractal Design POP Air case in the first place.....

Though I wished I went with the Fractal Define 7 XL instead.....

Oh well, what you gonna do?

So a majority of my screenshots are from the Ripped MP4 file but the Behind the Scenes Documentary is still from the DVD Through and Through.