You gotta admit, the movie wasn't perfect but what Illumination did achieve is the visuals of this movie of how the previous Thneedville looked. It actually looks like the apocalypse, tree stumps that look like grave stones, machines and buildings just slowly decaying and coming down, a purple/indigo and black atmosphere, fogs and thunderstorms happening, and the only inhabitants of this apocalypses is a lonely old man of how it used to thrive.
Was I the only one who was terrified of this scene as a child? Just the way the chorus adds up to Ted’s reaction of what he sees of the town’s secret, the tombstone-like stumps in the background, the fog, random lightning and thunder happening at every turn, the torn down poster of the Once-Ler as Ted drives by and not to mention, the scary-looking broken down tree-chopping machines that come right at the audience. Just proves that you don’t need any traumatizing monsters, gory scenes, psychotic killers, or anything related to put spine-chilling fear into people. All you need is a good composer like John Powell and the right director to build up a terrifying but world-building scene that shows you what the leader of the town is actually hiding.
This movie may not be perfect, but my favorite part of the whole movie starts at 1:03, especially with the music. Also 1:29… this always gives me chills.
I love how smart Ted is in this movie and he always finds a way, when O’Hare tried to stop him from leaving town a third time and finally get the truffala seed from the Once-Ler needed to plant the truffala tree to restore the town and world’s trees, animals and nature, by removing the handle to the device that creates the stairway to the secret passaway in the wall that leads out of town Ted rather than give up just found another way to escape town by driving up and across the wall unscratched.
Ted seeked the Once-Ler for two reasons: After his girlfriend Audrey showed him the paintings of truffala trees it got him interested in nature, trees and animals and wanted to learn more about them and find a way to get the town to have them and care about them again. To plant a tree to also impress Audrey. He showed no interest in the Once-Ler’s backstory at first only wanting to get to the part where he could get the truffala tree seed to plant to get the residents of town to care about nature again and impress Audrey but hearing it over time helped him understand the negative sides to how businessmen and their money greed disregarding nature can create devastasing effects for nature which lead to him and Audrey and his mom and grandma stopping O'Hare's schemes.
I wish this shows Ted's friends Sharon, Jim, Julie and Ronald Schuck interrupting Ted's leaving Town, and wondering where he's going, Ted asks his friends about meeting the onceler outside town and tells them to keep it a secret. Ted's friends keep that promise, but if they did they tell them not to tell anyone about his secret
