If you're anything like me, you were likely one of those horse crazy gals in the early 2000s. And you never “outgrew” your phase either. At least, I never did.
Back then, if you were a horse obsessed kid then you were required to watch this and the 1994 adapatation of Black Beauty. You also likely watch The Black Stallion and Flicka. You get the picture.
Out of all those pieces of horse media, Spirit still stands out the most to me. Not only did it inspire me to draw horses, it also.got me to look into how horse coat genetics so that I could come up with my own OCs (that were of course foals belonging to Rain and Spirit). I even remember watching the early 2000s fandom discourse, mainly with people getting mad whenever they'd invent a new mare to be the dam of non-paint foals for the sake of OCs.
Yup. Spirit OCs were serious business back then.
The animation is still just as beautiful looking now as it was in 2002. The nice thing about the blending of 2D with 3D is that it tends to age a lot better than CGI does. That being said, there were times in the film when I could tell that the background characters were CG animated, such as the background horses and the cavalrymen in a few shots. It’s hard to articulate without showing examples:
You can see it in the first four seconds:
Pay attention to the background horses:
These are admittedly minor examples, blink and you’ll miss it kind. It doesn’t take away from the overall experience of this film. Just like all late 90s to early 2000s Dreamworks movies in this style, it has aged quite well. It made me wish that we’d see more films animated in this style.
As for the story, it’s pretty simple: It takes place at some point between the 1860s and 1870s (give or take), and a wild horse called Spirit is captured by the United States Army. The army tries to break him in, but they fail. He is eventually freed by a Lakota man named Little Creek, who was being held prisoner by the US Army. Little Creek then captures Spirit, but not before introducing him to a sassy mare named Rain. Spirit and Rain bond over the course of a couple(?) months. Then, the US army attacks the Lakotas, which leads to Rain getting severely injured during the conflict. Despite Spirit’s desire to stay by Rain, he is captured once again to pull a locomotive. He then breaks out, frees the other horses and is reunited with Little Creek shortly before the final chase scene from the US Army. By the end of the chase, the Colonel decides to no longer pursue Spirit and Little Creek, having accepted that both of them will never be “tamed”. The film ends off with Spirit being freed, reunited with Rain and then reunited with his herd.
That’s the short version of the film’s synopsis, anyway. I may have missed some details, but I think you (the reader) got the gist of the story. The story itself is engaging and serviceable. There might be a few historical inaccuracies here and there, but unless you’re a history nerd, chances are you might not pick up on them.
When it comes to indigenous representation, I have to say that this movie does it better than most. I shouldn’t have to put it this way, but I liked how the indigenous people were portrayed as being regular people rather than the tired old “noble savage” trope we see too often. They’re just living their lives, cracking jokes here and there and just being regular people. I’ve read a few sources that say this is because there was consultation from a few Lakota folks. I’m not sure if this is true, so feel free to correct me on that one in the comments.
Anyhow, let’s move on to the aftermath of the film.
I confess that I was always low key jealous of the girls who had Spirit merch. Especially if they had either the poshmark plushies or the Breyer sets released. Up until around late 2003-early 2004, Spirit merch was being sold at every Toys R Us and Walmart, or so I remember.
I remember in late 2002, I was looking up information regarding the porcelain figures of Soirit, Little Creek, Rain and Esperanza (Spirit’s mom). I didn’t have a credit card back then, but if I did I would have pre ordered them. To my recollection, they were $50 a piece.
As an aside, I used to have dreams about riding a horse that looked either like Esperanza or Rain. When I wasn’t doing that, I was creating OCs and attempting to recreate the Spirit Art style (only to stop when other artists were being accused of tracing screencaps).
For me at least, the film still holds up after twenty two years. It still remains a comfort movie for me. I have not seen nor checked out “running free” outside of a few clips that my friend’s daughter was watching while I helped set up gaming night.
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