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Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, or simply Walt Disney’s The Three Musketeers is a 2004 American animated direct-to-video musical adventure film based on the film adaptations of the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and the Mickey Mouse film series by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. As the title suggests, it features Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as the three musketeers in their first full-length feature film together. This film was directed by Donovan Cook, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and the Australian office of DisneyToon Studios. It was released directly to VHS and DVD on August 17, 2004, by Walt Disney Home Entertainment, and was later re-released on Blu-ray Disc on August 12, 2014, coinciding with the film's 10th anniversary.
The film received generally mixed reviews from critics, who praised its musical numbers, action sequences, and faithfulness to the original material, but was critical on other aspects.
Plot
After a television show narrator accidentally falls in a hole in the floor, the Trobadour, a French music-loving tortoise, is ushered to tell the audience the tale of The Three Musketeers at the last minute, choosing to read it from his comic book. Then the scene fades to 17th-century France, where street urchins Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey's dog, Pluto are one day harassed by the Beagle Boys, but are saved by royal musketeers, who gift Mickey one of their hats, inspiring him and his friends to follow their example and become musketeers themselves.
Years later, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are employed as janitors at the musketeers' headquarters, headed by Captain Pete, who finds the trio unfit to be musketeers and secretly plots to overthrow Princess Minnie Mouse and become the King of France. After narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt by the Beagle Boys, who work for Pete, Minnie demands that Pete hire musketeer bodyguards for her. Realizing that hiring experienced musketeers would put his plan at risk, Pete decides to give the job to Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, believing that they would be easy to get rid of.
While on a carriage ride, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are ambushed by the Beagle Boys, who incapacitate the three and kidnap Minnie and her lady-in-waiting Daisy Duck. Refusing to give up, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy pursue the Beagle Boys to an abandoned tower, where they engage in another fight, which a frightened Donald quickly backs out of. Mickey and Goofy manage to defeat the Beagle Boys without Donald and rescue Minnie and Daisy. Afterwards, Mickey and Minnie start a relationship.
Having learned of Mickey, Donald and Goofy's success, Pete decides to get rid of them individually. On the night of an opera, Goofy is lured away from the palace by Clarabelle Cow, Pete's lieutenant, while Donald is captured by the Beagle Boys during which he discovers Pete's plot and escapes back to the palace to warn Mickey before fleeing the country. Shortly after, Pete kidnaps Mickey and takes him to Mont Saint-Michel, imprisoning him in a dungeon that begins to flood. Meanwhile, Clarabelle has a change of heart when she and Goofy end up falling in love and she sends him, Pluto, and Donald to rescue Mickey, which they successfully do.
At the theater, Pete and the Beagle Boys capture Minnie and Daisy with one of the Beagle Boys masquerading as Minnie to declare Pete as the new King of France. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy soon arrive and, after an epic battle onstage, manage to defeat Pete and his minions, and rescue Minnie and Daisy, who profess their love to Mickey and Donald, respectively. Minnie later officially dubs Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as royal musketeers, fulfilling their dream.
Voice cast
- Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse[1]
- Tony Anselmo as Donald Duck[1]
- Bill Farmer as Goofy and Pluto
- Russi Taylor as Minnie Mouse[1]
- Tress MacNeille as Daisy Duck[1]
- Jim Cummings as Peg Leg Pete[1]
- April Winchell as Clarabelle Cow[1]
- Jeff Bennett and Maurice LaMarche as The Beagle Boys
- Rob Paulsen as The Troubadour
- Jess Harnell as Major General
- Frank Welker as Additional Voices
Production
An adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as the Musketeers, was planned during the 1980s at Walt Disney Animation Studios. In 1983, storyboard artists Steve Hulett and Pete Young developed the project with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and José Carioca as the Musketeers, but it fell into development hell.[2] In 2002, in honor of Mickey Mouse's 75th anniversary, a featurette entitled The Search of Mickey Mouse was announced. The project was about Mickey who gets kidnapped by unknown forces, forcing Minnie Mouse to enlist Basil of Baker Street to investigate his disappearance, and later encounters one character from Disney's animated film canon such as Alice, Peter Pan, Robin Hood, and Aladdin.[3] The project suffered script problems with the multiple cameos being thought to be too gimmicky.[4] After the cancellation of the latter project, a feature film based on The Three Musketeers with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in the lead roles was greenlit instead, indicating that Hulett and Young's project had been revived but the film did not include José Carioca as in the early development.
Reception
Template:As of, Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers had a rating of 42% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 12 reviews with an average score of 4.84/10.[5]
Release
The film had a limited theatrical screening in El Capitan Theatre.[6] The film was first released on DVD and VHS on August 17, 2004. At the time of release the three main characters appeared as costumed characters in Fantasyland at the Disney parks.[7][8] The DVD was the first to include Disney's FastPlay, which imitates VHS operation by starting play automatically rather than waiting at the main menu for user input.[9] For the film's 10th anniversary, it was released on Blu-ray on August 12, 2014.[1]
Video games
A world named Country of the Musketeers based on the film appears in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.[10][11] This is the first time a world in the Kingdom Hearts series has originated from a direct-to-video feature.[12] Like the Timeless River world in Kingdom Hearts II, it is featured as a period of Mickey Mouse's past. All the characters except Daisy, Clarabelle, and the Troubadour appear.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film, titled Mickey, Donald & Goofy: The Three Musketeers, was released on August 13, 2004, by Walt Disney Records.[8] In addition to seven classical pieces reinterpreted with new comedic lyrics,[13] it also features a rewritten cover of the Schoolhouse Rock classic "Three Is a Magic Number" by Stevie Brock, Greg Raposo and Matt Ballinger.[8] In 2018, Mickey, Donald and Goofy: The Three Musketeers became the first direct-to-video Disney film to have its full musical score, released on CD by Intrada Records. Like the original album, Intrada's release includes all the songs from the film, though in this release, most of them are put together with the respective pieces of Bruce Broughton's background music that leads up to them. Some of the music cues include pieces of the score that ultimately went unused in the film. The "Three is a Magic Number" cover is also omitted this time.
References
External links
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