Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

When Rainbow Brite (Bettina Bush) and her magical horse Starlite (Andre Stojka), go to Earth to start spring, they meet Stormy (Marissa Mendenhall), another magical girl who controls the season of winter with her horse Skydancer (Peter Cullen). Stormy, however, doesn’t want to end her winter fun, so Rainbow battles her for control over the season. Stormy proves to be no match for Rainbow and Starlite, who outrun her and head off to Earth. When they arrive, they meet up with Brian (Scott Menville), the only boy on Earth who can “see” Rainbow and Starlite.

Once Rainbow tries to start spring, however, her power weakens and winter remains. Brian becomes worried that spring will never come and senses that all of humanity is losing hope. Even Stormy is confused. Reassuring Brian that they will do what they can to return spring, Rainbow and Starlite return to Rainbowland.

Rainbow is paid a visit by a strange robotic horse with rockets for legs named On-X (Pat Fraley). He presents an urgent message from a legendary Sprite named Orin (Les Tremayne) who explains the luminous and magical planet Spectra, a planet of pure diamond that “all light in the universe has to pass through,” has grown dark. If it dims completely, all life in the universe will die.

Rainbow takes the mission to find Orin and later learns that Spectra is dimming as the result of a massive net being woven around the surface. The net is being made so that a selfish princess (Rhonda Aldrich), known only as the “Dark Princess,” can steal Spectra, “the greatest diamond in all the universe,” for herself, and tow it back to her world with her massive spaceship. The native Sprites of Spectra, enslaved by Glitterbots under the Princess’s control, are being forced to weave the net. Now Rainbow has to stop the Princess’s plan before all life on Earth is frozen solid by an endless winter.

Helping Rainbow and Starlite is Krys (David Mendenhall), a boy from Spectra. Krys believes he can take on the evil Princess and save his home world himself without the help of a “dumb girl.” When they meet Orin, the wise Sprite tries to make the two children get along and work together to stop the evil Princess. Orin tells them that they can only destroy her by combining their own powers against her.

Getting in the way of their mission is the sinister Murky Dismal (Peter Cullen) and his bumbling assistant Lurky (Pat Fraley) who, as usual, are lavishing in the new gloom created by the darkening of Spectra, as well as trying to steal Rainbow’s magical color belt.

After dodging Murky, Rainbow and Krys enter the Dark Princess’s castle and try to convince her that what she is doing will destroy the universe, but the spoiled and uncaring Princess is determined to have the diamond planet for herself and traps the children instead. Working together, Rainbow and Krys escape and use their powers to destroy the Princess’ spaceship, which extends an array of robotic claws to grab the net around Spectra. (It is often assumed that Princess herself is also destroyed in this scene, but she actually returns in the Rainbow Brite animated series’ 1986 episode “The Queen of the Sprites”.)

Once the Princess is defeated, the enslaved Sprites are freed and immediately destroy the net so that Spectra radiates its magical light once again. On Earth, a warm spring finally arrives as life returns to the planet and Rainbow returns to Rainbowland finding her friends are back to normal.

REVIEW:

Growing up in the 80s, it was nigh impossible to escape the barrage of Rainbow Brite commercials that aired. Strangely enough, though, I don’t think there were any during little girl cartoons like Jem or My Little Pony. I was not planning on watching this, even in my wildest dreams, but a certain person in this house insisted on watching Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer.

What is this about?

The dark princess is up to no good! She’s snatched the Spectra — the universe’s sole source of light. Without Spectra in its rightful place, all will be plunged into gloom and dreariness unless Rainbow Brite and her friends can defeat the princess. In an animated cosmos of enchanted worlds, spunky Rainbow Brite and her magical horse, Starlite, confront evil by using color, magic, cleverness and joy as ammunition.

What did I like?

Nostalgia. The animation and voices brought back lots of memory from my childhood, as the company that produced this is responsible for many of the hit cartoons of the 80s, and the voices are some of the most popular and recognizable of the time, including Peter Cullen.

Happy. Let’s see here, we have little girls, shiny things, and rainbows. The default recipe for supposed happiness, something that has been sorely missing from any and everything anymore these days. Yeah, it could be construed as too sugary sweet, but that is the point on Rainbow Brite, from what I can tell.

What didn’t I like?

Princess. From what I gather, Murky and Lurky are actually Rainbow Brite’s arch-nesmeses, but here they are nothing more than a couple of second-rate stooges trying to appear as if they’ve accomplished an evil feat of grand proportions. For some reason, whenever a cartoon in the 80s got a movie, it barely resembled the show, going so far as to introduce new characters and downplay old ones. This is how we get Princess, who has to be one of the most annoying antagonists I’ve ever come across in my lifetime!

On-X. This is one cool looking horse, definitely an upgrade from Starlite. For all the props I give to his design and powers, his stuttering/short circuit thing didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps there is something I missed or don’t know in Rainbow Brite lore, but this ended up being nothing more than a distraction for me.

Music. This is an 80s film, so the music isn’t going to be the greatest in world, but it should be at least entertaining, and cheesy. However, I wasn’t feeling these songs. I bring to mind that episode of Family Guy where Brian and Stewie are in the multiverse and end up in a world that resembles a Disney cartoon. That 20 second song was better than the 2 or 3 that populate this soundtrack.

Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer obviously was not meant for male viewers, even though they tried to force that boy, Krys down our throats. This is a cartoon just for the girls, and they can have it. I think my gender severely biased me against this film from the beginning and I just couldn’t get over it, but I just didn’t find this film entertaining, even for an 80s cartoon. If you were a fan of the cartoon as a child, then that would be the only reason to watch this, otherwise it is best to forget this even exists, if you know what’s good for you, that is.

2 1/3 out of 5 stars