The Lorax

Dr. Suess’s “The Lorax” is a phenomenal motion picture that captures the fantastical world of Thneedville with enticing adventure and wholesome characters. The movie is based solely off of Dr. Suess’s children's book The Lorax which grasps the idea of essentially “going green.” In this rhyming tale, we learn of the Once-ler, who comes across a valley of Truffula trees, which are trees that are “soft as silk, and smell like butterfly milk” and look like colorful cotton balls. The Oncer-ler also finds “Brown Bar-ba-loots” which are adorable teddy-bear looking forest animals who feed off the fruit of the Truffula trees. Throughout the tale the Once-ler learns how his harvesting of the tufted trees changes the landscape forever. With the classic tale and release of the film version, the Lorax has educated all kinds of readers not only about the importance of seeing the beauty in the world around us, but also about our responsibility to protect it.

The characters in this film range from a suburban adolescent boy to singing fish who climb trees. The main character is Ted, a young boy who lives in the plastic town of Thneedville. In this enclosed town there are no trees or nature whatsoever, which means the citizens of Thneedville can’t survive off the natural air and instead buy processed air. The town is completely run by O’hare Air Company. This company sells and delivers air which comes in big plastic bottles like water does in our world. Thneedville is filled with inflatable trees, different seasons in separate parts of town, chemicals in swimming pools that makes your skin glow, and is barricaded up with giant metal walls that make it almost impossible to leave. Other characters in this city include; Ted’s neighbor, a beautiful young girl named Audrey who has a love for real trees, Grammy Norma who is Ted’s mischievous, yet helpful, grandma, Ted’s mom who is comfortable with the plastic, fake lifestyle because she doesn’t understand real nature, Mr. O’hare who is smitten with greed and does everything he can to stop Ted’s quest, The Once-ler a mysterious man to Ted who knows what happened to the trees, and the Lorax, the guardian of the forest.

The film opens up with the happy citizens of Thneedville singing about their town and explaining how their world works. We then focus on Ted who purposely flies his new remote control airplane into his neighbor, Audrey’s back yard. He knocks on her door and she opens all “baywatch” style leaving him speechless. She leads him to her backyard where she shows Ted her paintings of trees on the side of her house. He doesn’t understand what they are, so she explains that many years ago the beautiful Truffula trees were everywhere, but she doesn’t know what happened to them. He asks Audrey “hypothetically” what she would do if a guy brought her a real Truffula tree, she responds with “marry him right on the spot!” hencing forth Ted’s quest to find a Truffula tree. Ted hurries home to ask his mom and Grammy Norma where he can find a real tree. Grammy Norma who remembers when real trees were everywhere tells Ted to venture outside of town to find the Once-ler and bring him fifteen cents, the shell of a great-grandfather snail, and a nail and he will tell him how to get a tree.

Ted sneaks out of town, upsetting Mr. O’hare, and discovers that the outside world is dark, gross, and scary. He finds the Once-ler’s unwelcoming house and is almost kicked out but gives the Once-ler his items and sits down to listen to his story of what happened to the trees. The story begins with the Once-ler as just a young man who had the ambition to sell his invention of the “Thneed”, a basically wear-any-way-sweater thing. He leaves home to follow his dreams and finally comes across a beautiful valley of Truffula trees, which produce the perfect material for his thneed. He sets up shop and makes friends with the happy, singing, forest animals by giving them excessive amounts of marshmallows. He cuts down his first tree and awakes the Lorax. The Lorax is very upset with him for disturbing the peace and forces him to promise to never cut down another tree. The Once-ler promises and instead just plucks the tree for material. He goes into town to sell the Thneed but it is not a success until a hot girl comes across it and wears it as a hat. All of the sudden Thneeds are in very high demand so the Once-ler takes initiative and decides to mass-produce making him rich beyond his wildest dreams but at the same time, destroying the forest he promised to protect.
The Once-ler is blinded by his greed for more money and ignores the struggling forest creatures by continuing to cut down the trees. The Lorax is powerless against the machines, and with one tree after another being destroyed the animals have no choice but to leave the land. Finally, the last Truffula tree is cut down and the Lorax disappears forcing the Once-ler to face the devastating world he created. The Once-ler has one last Truffula tree seed he’s been keeping over all this time and he gives it to Ted. He tells him “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” It is now up to Ted to fix the world the Once-ler destroyed and bring back nature’s peace. Will the town of Thneedville agree to let it grow?
This amazing motion picture illustrated the ideals of friendship and respect while keeping an upbeat emphasis on the importance of nature. It was the next best thing after the “Shrek” series but does not compare to “Tangled” or “Frozen” because those are on a completely different level. Overall, this was a near perfect animated motion picture and is a must-see no matter your age.