I wouldn't say this movie scarred me as a child, but rather instilled in me a deep sense of empathy for all living creatures, in a very strong and urgent way. Scriptwriters, movie producers and directors shouldn't underestimate the mind of a child.
thenewguyinred Over the Garden Wall, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Little Prince, Studio Ghibli movies, Kung Fu Panda 2, etc.
I too had lived many years thinking it was just a fucked up fever dream in the early 90's; turns out rats with glowing eyes was indeed a collective audio-visual stimulus that was fed to all of us all along
There is a full lentgth movie on the origin.Showing step buy step what happened to them from the street to jonathans death. I cant find itbut, i remember seeing it as a child. the origin parts of this movies are the key scenes in that movie.
@@eugenepeterson74if you have time look up the rat experiment called NIHN and see how they constructed their society. Then look outside and see it in action with humans
1:39 through 1:50 had terrified me as a kid. I was six years-old at that time, and had no idea that it was supposed to be a representation of the rats' DNA undergoing a brutal mutation. It had a nightmarish, almost lovecraftian quality that was truly scary.
To be completely honest, Nicodemus is a very wise elderly and slender rat. And another thing, he's a very old, very kind, good-hearted, caring, protective, noble and kind of worrisome creature.
Damn I gotta agree with you the but Ncodemus seems more impressive in the book than in the movie. In Don Bluth's version he seems more wise and elderly but in the book he's practically the same as the other rats except he's largest and is missing an eyeball lmao Also he doesn't die in the book which is a huge plus ;;))
@@alstjrqkr689 The theme is that the animals who are supposed to be stupid were treated badly by humans and became smarter and had deeper feelings; my house had many people with mental sickness so we were very afraid of people in places like NIMH that give us drugs and lock us up like the rats. Now I am grown up and I have two pet rats and I have many good times of love with friends. ❤️🙏
Not me. It actually got me interested in the mysteries of the limitations of biology. Although, I felt terrible for the rats. Science is meant to help people, not satisfy sadistic appetites...
Me too. I remember, I was really scared when I watched this part for the first time. My mom didn't like this movie, she said, it's not really for children. But she never forbade me to watch it, although she or my dad were always there when I wanted to watch this awesome movie. And I liked it, I like it even now. But now I understand it more than when I was a child.
Boy, they left out a hugh part of the book, where the rats and mice actually are forced to learn reading. They didn't just 'magically' understood words, they went through a difficult and long learning process.
I never thought the rats and mice magically understood the words in the movie. There were many parts of what happened in the lab left out for simplicity’s sake. Nicodemus said that he looked at the words under his latch and understood them, but never said he didn’t understand other words taught to him before.
Thats true! They were taught to read and furthermore the scientists knew that they could read. But they underestimated their intelligence. And their escape took weeks of careful planning not just one day.
1:13 Um, yeah. About those needles. Those needles would be _way_ too big to inject a rat with without impaling a major organ and killing it. It's pretty likely that this scene was made from the rats' perspective, therefore the needles only appeared that big to them.
Lord Passion Such arrogance and god complex. What did we do exactly to trascend "animals" as you said? Is it because we can make sophisticated tools? A lot of other species can make tools impossinle f or us to reproduce? Is it because we are intelligents? That is irrelevant. No matter how evolved humans will always be part of the animal kingdom. Having bigger brains doesn't give us the right to proclaim ourselves as gods and enslaving/destroying all the other species. Animal testing is completely useless in term of research and can't help any project least of all the nazi atomic nosense you quoted
Well, one alternative to animal testing is the use of human-derived cells, like those taken from tumors. Those can be grown and split infinite times, to be used for toxicity testing, etc. Like HeLa cells, for instance. Commonly used nowadays. There are many more. Also in use but more expensive and time-consuming (yet very valuable) are those derived from human stem cells like bone marrow, which can be differentiated into many different kinds of cells in the human body for more specific kinds of testing and experimentation. We need for these kinds of routes to become more cheaper and reproducible over time, in order to one day hopefully supersede the need for animal testing, which unfortunately is still in use.
Worth noting that many advances in VETERINARY, and not just medical, science have been achieved thanks to animal testing, allowing us to better care for animals as a whole. Food for thought.
hypocritically, no one would turn down health gained via testing on animals. its a necessary evil sometimes. it could probably less than what occurs, but its not unavoidable.
This scene intrigued as a kid. I even shared this in elementary school, but everyone in class never understood it. They were indifferent. They just thought this movie was weird and didn't appreciate the animation effort. They wanted Shrek like 3d films. They wanted to laugh rather than think.
For some reason the line “ One night I looked upon the words written on the side of the cage, and understood them” it’s almost like the story of Muhammad being shown how to read by an angel and he begins his story “in the beginning” As well as persecuted race escaping imprisonment by a messiah character I’m not a religious person by nature but I do love how the histories of these religions can inspire such compelling forms of story telling
I agree. It's so simple, and yet ominous because of the choice of words being said. He's explaining it to Mrs. Brisby in a way that she could understand, yet the gravitas is still there. I may be a man of faith, so I may be biased, but it's comforting to know that there is still some appeal in how works of art can be derived from religion without resorting to preachiness. It makes sense too in a historical context because we as a species used to be really connected through shared religions in our earliest of histories. Even Homo Sapiens were said to have flowers decorating their caves or cavern walls of their deceased, indicating that they held some sort of spiritual belief.
I know so many like this book, but I really like the book better. The scientist at Nimh was NOT cruel to the rats and mice (in the book), and also there wasn't any mumbo-jumbo mystic quality. The fact that rats were made intelligent is wonderous enough!
It is intense but I always loved it so much, one of my favorite movies of all time and always was, I watched it the first time extremely early in my life and many times over and it's just soo good!
Upon first watching this, I was just..caught off guard. this movie has to be one of my favorites..it's dark, it doesn't sugarcoat the world we live in, it's masterfully told.
I think in the book and movie they hint at trying to get electricity through means other than stealing from the farm house. I always sort of thought if they were so intelligent they may be smarter than even people do you think they were going to build a nuclear reactor of some sort?
When I was a child, the movie scared me. This scene was probably the last drop that allows the movie to be my MOST traumatizing film ever of my childhood.
My mom wouldn't buy us this movie when we were little because of this scene. I don't use animal tested products because it makes me sick to think that this happens to poor animals.
I watched this as a kid. It was the first time I was confronted with animal testing, this scene and the fact that this is still going on breaks my heart.
Thanks Don Bluth for making me afraid of syringes through my whole childhood and beyond. I'm still not over this nightmare and getting fuzzy feelings while donating blood.
I don’t think I realized, despite the dialogue, that the story was implying the rats were much stronger against the winds than mice, making our two boys, Mr. Ages and Jonathan, beefcakes.
0:29 In the beginning, we were ordinary street rats... stealing our daily bread and living off the efforts of man's work. We were captured, put in cages and sent to a place called NIMH. There were many animals there... in cages. They were put through the most unspeakable tortures to satisfy some scientific curiosity. Often at night I would hear them crying out in anguish. Twenty rats and eleven mice were given injections. our world began changing... 1:51 Then, one night, I looked upon the words under the cage door... and understood them. We had become intelligent. We could read. The miracle was kept secret from the scientists. And in the quiet of the night, we escaped through the ventilation system. The mice were blown away... sucked down dark air-shafts to their deaths. All, except two... Jonathan, and Mr. Ages. We were trapped by a locked door on the roof. It was Jonathan who made possible the unlocking of the door.
This movie MIGHT have scared me when I was a kid, but someone had already taken me to see Alien at the drive-in theatre with a bunch of my cousins when I was 5, so I was HARD CORE.
I heard it's supposed to be a prequel and it's back in the hands of the studio that made the original. It would be interesting to see how the rats went on to create their world, and also give us more about Jonathan who's always built up as the hero of the rats.
Look at the rotating device at 0:09. I noticed these types of things in various media back in the 80s.. In 1987's Snow White, there's a magic mirror with a white face and a rotating mirror (spins to magically activate and show scenes upon request). Then there's creatures with multiple faces in NeverEnding Story 1&2 that are of the same style as the devices and other creatures. Is there a name to this type of style?
Nicodemus was only showing all of us alongside Mrs Frisby the horrors and awful truth of what the rats and her kind went through at the hands of Nimh, that's all sure awhile it was scary to watch and to see nobody ever said that learning the truth over everything that those poor rats and field mice went through was going to be easy you know.
Given the fact there is a lot of implied back-story regarding Jonathan, even the great owl acknowledges him, he must have been some well renowned hero in the animal kingdom around the farm. I'm just speculating here, but maybe you're touched because you are aware of this fact (but don't really think about it, perhaps) and this scene embodies the beginning of a pure, heroic heart from something horrible as the experimentations made upon him. I'd like to see a prequel detailing Jonathan's life.
That is probably one of the weaker parts of the whole movie. In the book, if I remember correctly, there was no magic. The rats learned a lot about human technology in a library after their escape and combined with their intelligence they build their society beneath the rose bush. I think the magical element in the movie is just a weak way of keeping many chapters from the book shorter or leaving them out completely. Nikodemus wasn't even this old wizard guy but rather a strong leader and he didn't die at the end of the book (it is implied that Justin did though).
I just watched this first time since I was about 5. Back then I had only seen it dubbed in danish, but even then I didn't understand it as well as this time. I URGE everyone who saw this as a child to rewatch it. It was a total emotional rollercoaster.
Don Bluth is a genius! Crazy how he got the jump on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by like 5 years (that TV cartoon series didn't drop until 1987) with this G.M.A.(genetically modified animals) concept applying it to rodents way before kick-ass rat Splinter (a.k.a. Yoshi Hamato) jumped on the scene to take down his Japanese rival Shredder from their Foot Clan days. LOL! =)
This movie was epic. I loved it as a kid. I read the book and the movie while it had its differences was still amazing. I wish the sequel could have been as good :/
I wasn't born yet when this was released in theaters, but I'm super bummed that I never got to see this on VHS as a kid. This would have been perfect for me at 8 and 9 years old when I had a huge fetish for animated rodents.
I haven't seen this movie when I was a kid, but I have seen many animation cartoons of same type: teaching children to care about animals and environment, learning to cope with disappointments, to stand against greediness and taking a side of good, even if it costed more to you ...and things like that. The question is: is it so that there just really isn't "clever" children cartoons that handle darker things of life anymore? Or am I just too old and not knowing today's children cartoons well enough (thus them looking too superficial to me)?
***** Thank you for answer. Yea, well in my opinion it's good that movie industry ie. are concerned about what children will watch. But at some point, it might be so that the "censorship" becomes too strong and children get used to nothing but endless mindless "marshmallow parties". Also for me, the best films from my childhood were those which were at times also a little bit frightening. Those films that made one think about life and things. Yet, I think age limits really are important they shouldn't be passed by :)
Researchers implanted immature human brain cells in mouse pups, which then grew and replaced nearly half the mice's own cells. And thus, we have experimented by implanting human brain cells into baby mice to create animals with slightly higher reasoning and problem-solving skills. Of course the mice still aren't sapient, but it's a start. Once we start splicing our neurons... watch out. Likelihood is high of not being able to pass on any intelligence to children though (Just like Jonathans children weren't born super smart), so I suppose that's good or whatever.
jonathans four kids aren't smart but its likely they've inherited his other abilities like his longevity (if he hadn't of died before the story stared). but genetics are always a gamble. some things skip whole generations but others are constant. grandfather was stubborn as a mule, though she won't admit it my mother gets it from him and i get it to a lesser extent from her.
Scientists don't keep rats in cages that are so easy to escape. Rats aren't stupid and when it comes to escape or infiltration, they are exceptionally clever. You don't need to be able to read to escape from those cages.
Instead of that awful excuse for a sequel; I wish that we got a prequel movie that focuses on the story of the rats & N.I.M.H. It has enough material to be it's own movie, and it would've helped get to know Jonathan more. And maybe, we would've got to know what Mrs. Brisby's first name is.
I watched this again yesterday for the first time since 1986 or so. As a kid this was a scary fantasy epic and I didn't understand all of it. I'm surprised today to know what NIMH really means. It's a great tie in to the story but it does take some of the medeival fantasy out of it.
People saying this scared them when they were little. So I find it odd now that I was fascinated with this scene just the whole idea of them being able to by just an injection and the flashing lights and stuff it just peaked my interest
So I dont get how the other mice and rats are also smart now, like Mrs. Birsby for instance should be a dumb field mouse not wearing clothes and able to communicate with them and know how to stop a tractor or whatever.
I wouldn't say this movie scarred me as a child, but rather instilled in me a deep sense of empathy for all living creatures, in a very strong and urgent way. Scriptwriters, movie producers and directors shouldn't underestimate the mind of a child.
Sonoko Sian yes
They shouldn't.
you are a good person
I saved a mouse at my work. 3 days later I got fired.
@@nicoblaytherealflamingo445 why?
I miss the good old days when people weren't so obsessed with keeping children blind to the world around them.
There are still dark themes to be found in animation today.
Like what?
thenewguyinred Over the Garden Wall, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Little Prince, Studio Ghibli movies, Kung Fu Panda 2, etc.
But all of those pale in comparison to this level of story telling.
@ranakin, how many of those have you actually watched?
This scene gave me nightmares back then. Many years I thought this movie was just a fever dream.
I too had lived many years thinking it was just a fucked up fever dream in the early 90's; turns out rats with glowing eyes was indeed a collective audio-visual stimulus that was fed to all of us all along
"We had become intelligent..." and no other line in any other movie has ever made me shiver...
This was a touching scene when she realises that her deceased husband was a hero
There is a full lentgth movie on the origin.Showing step buy step what happened to them from the street to jonathans death. I cant find itbut, i remember seeing it as a child. the origin parts of this movies are the key scenes in that movie.
@@eugenepeterson74if you have time look up the rat experiment called NIHN and see how they constructed their society. Then look outside and see it in action with humans
1:39 through 1:50 had terrified me as a kid. I was six years-old at that time, and had no idea that it was supposed to be a representation of the rats' DNA undergoing a brutal mutation. It had a nightmarish, almost lovecraftian quality that was truly scary.
AlexDraco same lol
yeah the 80s knew how to traumatize kids good!
It’s not supposed to be anything but crazy visuals meant to simulate tripping out on drugs lol.
To be completely honest, Nicodemus is a very wise elderly and slender rat.
And another thing, he's a very old, very kind, good-hearted, caring, protective, noble and kind of worrisome creature.
Damn I gotta agree with you the but Ncodemus seems more impressive in the book than in the movie. In Don Bluth's version he seems more wise and elderly but in the book he's practically the same as the other rats except he's largest and is missing an eyeball lmao
Also he doesn't die in the book which is a huge plus ;;))
Gg
Treena Turtle What do you mean?
and then he dies
@@TheAllSeeingEye2468 Yeah. It’s because of that insolent fool Jenner.
The shots of the needles always gives me a heart attack
yeah even more in 2021
It makes me feel queasy.
I hate needles. They freak me out.
@@qwertykeyboard5901 Same here. I used to have panic attacks whenever I had to get one when I was a kid.
Needles hurt. Alot 😣
This scene changed my whole life….
How?
@@alstjrqkr689
The theme is that the animals who are supposed to be stupid were treated badly by humans and became smarter and had deeper feelings; my house had many people with mental sickness so we were very afraid of people in places like NIMH that give us drugs and lock us up like the rats. Now I am grown up and I have two pet rats and I have many good times of love with friends. ❤️🙏
This movie scarred me as a child. Definitely the injection part, it gave me nightmares for years and i still retain a fear of syringes.
Not me. It actually got me interested in the mysteries of the limitations of biology. Although, I felt terrible for the rats. Science is meant to help people, not satisfy sadistic appetites...
Me too!!
+Sera Sadly many Scientist in Humans History were Sadist(like all the Nazi Doctors Dr.Mengele and Co).
if conducted ethically, science can help everyone. including rats and mice :)
It'll be a fine day when we are able to grow pork chops in a lab.
Me too. I remember, I was really scared when I watched this part for the first time. My mom didn't like this movie, she said, it's not really for children. But she never forbade me to watch it, although she or my dad were always there when I wanted to watch this awesome movie. And I liked it, I like it even now. But now I understand it more than when I was a child.
*"They were put through the most unspeakable tortures...."*
Really highlights how cruel testing on animals really is.
The Plague Dogs came out a few months after The Secret of NIMH, a cool double whammy of how horrific animal testing is
@@aceshighdueceslow I’m actually reading the book that this is based on in this laboratory scene is actually chilling
@@thomashuffman3237That was until GOTG Vol. 3 brought that to a whole other level.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
+Mistah Young Oh, man you are right! It is definitely an indictment of the behavioral and medicalized model of the psyche.
+abc def I am sure they did a LOT of mean stuff to animals back in the day
And it's a real place.
yeah. they did. don't believe me? need proof? go watch plague dogs. educate yourself in the flaws of humanity.
Do you know who John B. Calhoun is.... look him up with nimh MIND BLOW
Dam, back then as a child and now as an adult this is stil one of my most favourite scenes in cinematography until this day.
I spent a couple nights trying to process this movie when I was 3.
Boy, they left out a hugh part of the book, where the rats and mice actually are forced to learn reading. They didn't just 'magically' understood words, they went through a difficult and long learning process.
I want to read the book, but it was never translated to Hungarian. I know the movie isn't like the book, that's why I'd like to read it.
THEY MADE A MOVIE THAT TELLS ALL OF THAT STUFF. WE NEED TO FIND IT
The book is way different than the movie from what I've seen so far. I definitely prefer the book but that might be because I grew up with it
I never thought the rats and mice magically understood the words in the movie. There were many parts of what happened in the lab left out for simplicity’s sake. Nicodemus said that he looked at the words under his latch and understood them, but never said he didn’t understand other words taught to him before.
Thats true! They were taught to read and furthermore the scientists knew that they could read. But they underestimated their intelligence. And their escape took weeks of careful planning not just one day.
0:52 the rabbits here remind me of the Watership Down rabbits
maybe the same artist.
Brecconable Same, omg
El-ahrairah agrees with this post.
same artists
Speaking of creepy kids movies...
1:13
Um, yeah. About those needles.
Those needles would be _way_ too big to inject a rat with without impaling a major organ and killing it. It's pretty likely that this scene was made from the rats' perspective, therefore the needles only appeared that big to them.
This movie show the terrible, cruel and especially unnecessary reality of animal testing
***** Humans are animals too. I said animal testing
Lord Passion Such arrogance and god complex. What did we do exactly to trascend "animals" as you said? Is it because we can make sophisticated tools? A lot of other species can make tools impossinle f or us to reproduce? Is it because we are intelligents? That is irrelevant. No matter how evolved humans will always be part of the animal kingdom. Having bigger brains doesn't give us the right to proclaim ourselves as gods and enslaving/destroying all the other species. Animal testing is completely useless in term of research and can't help any project least of all the nazi atomic nosense you quoted
Well, one alternative to animal testing is the use of human-derived cells, like those taken from tumors. Those can be grown and split infinite times, to be used for toxicity testing, etc. Like HeLa cells, for instance. Commonly used nowadays. There are many more. Also in use but more expensive and time-consuming (yet very valuable) are those derived from human stem cells like bone marrow, which can be differentiated into many different kinds of cells in the human body for more specific kinds of testing and experimentation. We need for these kinds of routes to become more cheaper and reproducible over time, in order to one day hopefully supersede the need for animal testing, which unfortunately is still in use.
Worth noting that many advances in VETERINARY, and not just medical, science have been achieved thanks to animal testing, allowing us to better care for animals as a whole. Food for thought.
hypocritically, no one would turn down health gained via testing on animals. its a necessary evil sometimes. it could probably less than what occurs, but its not unavoidable.
NIMH is a real place. National Institute of Mental Health.
This scene intrigued as a kid. I even shared this in elementary school, but everyone in class never understood it. They were indifferent. They just thought this movie was weird and didn't appreciate the animation effort. They wanted Shrek like 3d films. They wanted to laugh rather than think.
That's so terribly sad.😞
This movie has only Jeremy for comedic humor, but the true art in this is the dark gritty world the rats lived in and what they became by enduring it
For some reason the line “ One night I looked upon the words written on the side of the cage, and understood them”
it’s almost like the story of Muhammad being shown how to read by an angel
and he begins his story “in the beginning”
As well as persecuted race escaping imprisonment by a messiah character
I’m not a religious person by nature but I do love how the histories of these religions can inspire such compelling forms of story telling
I agree. It's so simple, and yet ominous because of the choice of words being said. He's explaining it to Mrs. Brisby in a way that she could understand, yet the gravitas is still there.
I may be a man of faith, so I may be biased, but it's comforting to know that there is still some appeal in how works of art can be derived from religion without resorting to preachiness. It makes sense too in a historical context because we as a species used to be really connected through shared religions in our earliest of histories. Even Homo Sapiens were said to have flowers decorating their caves or cavern walls of their deceased, indicating that they held some sort of spiritual belief.
These kinds of exchanges right here actually have me longing for the day of the old Internet lol
@@tylertigno5443 lol glad to hear it then! I love hearing people explain WHY a thing is good in great detail. I crave it every so often.
I'm reading the books. Second one gave me the feels and I was crying a lot.
I really like the books better than the movie
@@SJHFotoJane Conley ruining a great book by making mediocre sequels to it.
@@qwertykeyboard5901 I liked the sequels personally. Yes, I did like the original better, but I liked the 2 sequels a lot
That’s scary scene gives me the heart attack because of those short needles to those poor rats
I know so many like this book, but I really like the book better. The scientist at Nimh was NOT cruel to the rats and mice (in the book), and also there wasn't any mumbo-jumbo mystic quality. The fact that rats were made intelligent is wonderous enough!
I feel like testing them and changing them completely is still cruel to an extent
As a child when I saw this scene, specifically 1:35 it scarred me realizing they were in pain and being tortured
dude this gave me nightmares as a kid. its so intense for a kid movie.
It is intense but I always loved it so much, one of my favorite movies of all time and always was, I watched it the first time extremely early in my life and many times over and it's just soo good!
Upon first watching this, I was just..caught off guard. this movie has to be one of my favorites..it's dark, it doesn't sugarcoat the world we live in, it's masterfully told.
I think in the book and movie they hint at trying to get electricity through means other than stealing from the farm house. I always sort of thought if they were so intelligent they may be smarter than even people do you think they were going to build a nuclear reactor of some sort?
I don't think they're that advanced. I'm thinking maybe like hydro-power or something.
I was born in 1983, a year after this was made.
This movie taught me what it means to be scared shitless.
0:10 when your half asleep and get a message so open a laptop or phone at night
I loved the movie when I first saw it in my early 20's. Now, now, 40 years later, I think about the lessons it taught, comparing it with AI.
I thought this movies was a fever dream, holy guacamole on tacos with beef from a holy cow with a halo.
How can people be so inhumane, people like that deserve the treatment they were giving to those defenseless animals.
When I was a child, the movie scared me. This scene was probably the last drop that allows the movie to be my MOST traumatizing film ever of my childhood.
My mom wouldn't buy us this movie when we were little because of this scene. I don't use animal tested products because it makes me sick to think that this happens to poor animals.
Both movies were released at the same time.
The Secret of NIMH (1982)
The Plague Dogs (1982)
I watched this as a kid. It was the first time I was confronted with animal testing, this scene and the fact that this is still going on breaks my heart.
Thanks Don Bluth for making me afraid of syringes through my whole childhood and beyond. I'm still not over this nightmare and getting fuzzy feelings while donating blood.
I love how viscerally terrifying this is
I don’t think I realized, despite the dialogue, that the story was implying the rats were much stronger against the winds than mice, making our two boys, Mr. Ages and Jonathan, beefcakes.
they just don't make shit like this anymore
+adj789 amen
Those poor animals.
I hope their alright.
World OF Art Love Artwork Amen.
The sad truth is that they're probably not.
Hate to break it to you but those animals never existed to begin with.
Yeah and probably most likely mutated too as well of course.
This scene made me understand that other animals feel pain at the hands of humans.
Basicly I was born on the Year of the Rats
Oh the mirical
This movie was so important for me to see as a kid. Also I notice now how much all her kids resemble their father
0:29 In the beginning, we were ordinary street rats... stealing our daily bread and living off the efforts of man's work. We were captured, put in cages and sent to a place called NIMH. There were many animals there... in cages. They were put through the most unspeakable tortures to satisfy some scientific curiosity. Often at night I would hear them crying out in anguish. Twenty rats and eleven mice were given injections. our world began changing...
1:51 Then, one night, I looked upon the words under the cage door... and understood them. We had become intelligent. We could read. The miracle was kept secret from the scientists. And in the quiet of the night, we escaped through the ventilation system. The mice were blown away... sucked down dark air-shafts to their deaths. All, except two... Jonathan, and Mr. Ages. We were trapped by a locked door on the roof. It was Jonathan who made possible the unlocking of the door.
For some reason I would always rewatch when the rat was getting bigger and fatter. Idk why. I liked it LOL
Somehow the scientists in the lab need printed instructions telling them how to open the cage latches?
+Sporkmaker5150 Not all cages work the same. It better thank having to ask.
Sporkmaker5150 they needed it incase Thurgood Jenkins showed up at this lab high as hell somehow.
Push/Pull signs nuff said
In the book is it implied the scientists wanted them to escape to prove their experiments successful.
This movie is brilliant. You don't see anything like this nowadays.
This movie MIGHT have scared me when I was a kid, but someone had already taken me to see Alien at the drive-in theatre with a bunch of my cousins when I was 5, so I was HARD CORE.
Not my level of hardcore. I've seen movies at age 5 that would make a kid piss him self for months.
As a child this part scared the shit outta me
I was feeling a bit nostalgic and found this clip. I also learned a CGI/live action reboot is in the works. (shakes head in disgust)
I heard it's supposed to be a prequel and it's back in the hands of the studio that made the original. It would be interesting to see how the rats went on to create their world, and also give us more about Jonathan who's always built up as the hero of the rats.
Look at the rotating device at 0:09. I noticed these types of things in various media back in the 80s.. In 1987's Snow White, there's a magic mirror with a white face and a rotating mirror (spins to magically activate and show scenes upon request). Then there's creatures with multiple faces in NeverEnding Story 1&2 that are of the same style as the devices and other creatures. Is there a name to this type of style?
Beautiful! One of the most real and adult pieces of storytelling I have ever seen in a Movie, Especially an animated kids movie!
The books were good too.
Man, I never realized how dark this movie was growing up. Why are so many older kids movies like this lol?
Don Bluth movies, WAY WAY better then todays
1:03 - No matter how old I get, that scene always breaks my heart.
When Nicodemus shows Mrs. Brisby the history of NIMH, he made me quite scared, see the evolution of those poor rodents.
Frisby*
Frisby*
+SirGNeon she was called Frisby in the book , in this movie she is called Brisby !
Nicodemus was only showing all of us alongside Mrs Frisby the horrors and awful truth of what the rats and her kind went through at the hands of Nimh, that's all sure awhile it was scary to watch and to see nobody ever said that learning the truth over everything that those poor rats and field mice went through was going to be easy you know.
Or Mrs Brisby, as the mouse is known, as in the movie. I never read the book except for that one time on fanfiction net many years ago as a young kid.
That small red dot blinking inside a rat, was the most nightmarish thing back then when I was a kid 🫣
I love it! This is back when movies still had a soul.
This has to be one of the best movies ever
Given the fact there is a lot of implied back-story regarding Jonathan, even the great owl acknowledges him, he must have been some well renowned hero in the animal kingdom around the farm.
I'm just speculating here, but maybe you're touched because you are aware of this fact (but don't really think about it, perhaps) and this scene embodies the beginning of a pure, heroic heart from something horrible as the experimentations made upon him.
I'd like to see a prequel detailing Jonathan's life.
It never explains where they got that magic amulet.
That is probably one of the weaker parts of the whole movie. In the book, if I remember correctly, there was no magic. The rats learned a lot about human technology in a library after their escape and combined with their intelligence they build their society beneath the rose bush.
I think the magical element in the movie is just a weak way of keeping many chapters from the book shorter or leaving them out completely. Nikodemus wasn't even this old wizard guy but rather a strong leader and he didn't die at the end of the book (it is implied that Justin did though).
I just watched this first time since I was about 5. Back then I had only seen it dubbed in danish, but even then I didn't understand it as well as this time.
I URGE everyone who saw this as a child to rewatch it. It was a total emotional rollercoaster.
I remember seeing this as a kid of 8 - was totally freaked out by it. I honestly didn't realise just how horrid human beings were until I saw it.
Don Bluth is a genius! Crazy how he got the jump on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by like 5 years (that TV cartoon series didn't drop until 1987) with this G.M.A.(genetically modified animals) concept applying it to rodents way before kick-ass rat Splinter (a.k.a. Yoshi Hamato) jumped on the scene to take down his Japanese rival Shredder from their Foot Clan days. LOL! =)
Off topic but I love how much Jonathan’s children all look so much like him.
I was born in 1980 and watched this movie a lot when I was little. It's still epic.
This movie was epic. I loved it as a kid. I read the book and the movie while it had its differences was still amazing. I wish the sequel could have been as good :/
I had remembered seeing this when I was in 2nd or 1st grade. Didn't know what the movie was till now, still creeps me out to this day.
Yeah, the hypos being jabbed into the animals was pretty damn scary, GREAT use of sound!
Such a DOPE slept on movie... Classic shit right here brings back memories!!!
The fucked up things we humans do to animals. We got plenty of pedophiles to experiment on
I wasn't born yet when this was released in theaters, but I'm super bummed that I never got to see this on VHS as a kid. This would have been perfect for me at 8 and 9 years old when I had a huge fetish for animated rodents.
The Shots give me a Heart Attack 1:15
Riley Andersen Why do the shots give you a heart attack?
+Will Robinson He's speaking metaphorically, saying the scene frightened him.
Mateo vazquez An understandable choice of words.
Not meee bro
I wish they made a spinoff of the origins of NIMH.
This movie scared me as a kid ....I saw it on tv 2 days ago and realized what a great story it is
I haven't seen this movie when I was a kid, but I have seen many animation cartoons of same type: teaching children to care about animals and environment, learning to cope with disappointments, to stand against greediness and taking a side of good, even if it costed more to you ...and things like that. The question is: is it so that there just really isn't "clever" children cartoons that handle darker things of life anymore? Or am I just too old and not knowing today's children cartoons well enough (thus them looking too superficial to me)?
***** Thank you for answer. Yea, well in my opinion it's good that movie industry ie. are concerned about what children will watch. But at some point, it might be so that the "censorship" becomes too strong and children get used to nothing but endless mindless "marshmallow parties". Also for me, the best films from my childhood were those which were at times also a little bit frightening. Those films that made one think about life and things. Yet, I think age limits really are important they shouldn't be passed by :)
+XLBrand The plow got me too. The intensity of that scene is permanently burned into my memory. Glad for it, though.
The syringe part may have been proper disturbing but it was the mice being blown away in the vents that terrified me as a kid.
That was the scariest scene in the whole movie for me.
Arise Skaven Empire!
MummRaGoa Praised be the Horned Rat
+MummRaGoa fuck yaa!
@@Seneca_zero Nikodemus would have nothing to do with that demon!
Researchers implanted immature human brain cells in mouse pups, which then grew and replaced nearly half the mice's own cells. And thus, we have experimented by implanting human brain cells into baby mice to create animals with slightly higher reasoning and problem-solving skills. Of course the mice still aren't sapient, but it's a start. Once we start splicing our neurons... watch out. Likelihood is high of not being able to pass on any intelligence to children though (Just like Jonathans children weren't born super smart), so I suppose that's good or whatever.
jonathans four kids aren't smart but its likely they've inherited his other abilities like his longevity (if he hadn't of died before the story stared). but genetics are always a gamble. some things skip whole generations but others are constant. grandfather was stubborn as a mule, though she won't admit it my mother gets it from him and i get it to a lesser extent from her.
stubborn is not a genetic trait, it is a social one. but the rest makes sense.
Are those the NIAID beagles?
This movie used to scare me so much as a kid. It just freaked me out. Reading the book didn't help either. It's just as dark.
"Then, one night, I looked upon the words under the cage door...and understood them!"
I always will remember this.
Scientists don't keep rats in cages that are so easy to escape. Rats aren't stupid and when it comes to escape or infiltration, they are exceptionally clever. You don't need to be able to read to escape from those cages.
I'm NOT worthless! And I DON'T have fleas!
Dakln1 That’s what Aladdin said in the 1st film.
Except for that whole part where the brother goes mad and runs mental experiments on the humans and then goes after his own brother....
Instead of that awful excuse for a sequel; I wish that we got a prequel movie that focuses on the story of the rats & N.I.M.H.
It has enough material to be it's own movie, and it would've helped get to know Jonathan more.
And maybe, we would've got to know what Mrs. Brisby's first name is.
One of the best movies ever made!
I hate animal testing. Do you think they created this to show how bad it was?
Absolutely.
That part were they we're changing with that scary music was a big lipped alligator moment
I watched this again yesterday for the first time since 1986 or so. As a kid this was a scary fantasy epic and I didn't understand all of it. I'm surprised today to know what NIMH really means. It's a great tie in to the story but it does take some of the medeival fantasy out of it.
thhis scene is so inspiring its amazing what they can do to animals to be so smart its kinda scary to think about.. i mean if you think...
the kind of scientist that doesn't have any lab rats so he gets wild ones
People saying this scared them when they were little. So I find it odd now that I was fascinated with this scene just the whole idea of them being able to by just an injection and the flashing lights and stuff it just peaked my interest
well,the book did imply that he didn't need tamed rats to do the experiments.
So I dont get how the other mice and rats are also smart now, like Mrs. Birsby for instance should be a dumb field mouse not wearing clothes and able to communicate with them and know how to stop a tractor or whatever.
This is the coolest scene ever!
Back in the day when people knew how to draw. Great art. =)