Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is a 2012 American computer-animated 3D musical comedy film based on Dr. Seuss' children's book of the same name. It was produced by Illumination Entertainment and was released by Universal Pictures on March 2, 2012, the 108th anniversary of Seuss' birth.

The film is the fourth feature film based on a book by Dr. Seuss, the second Dr. Seuss adaptation fully computer-animated after Horton Hears a Who!, and the first released in 3-D. The Lorax was Illumination Entertainment's first film presented in IMAX 3D (known as "IMAX Tree-D" in publicity for the film).^[3] It was also the third Dr. Seuss feature film released by Universal, after How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat, whereas Horton Hears a Who! was released by 20th Century Fox.

It is the second film adaptation of the book, after the 1972 animated musical television special. It builds on the book by expanding the story of Ted, the boy who visits the Once-ler and was unnamed in the book and television special. The main cast includes Danny DeVito as the Lorax, Zac Efron as Ted, and Ed Helms as the Once-ler. New characters introduced in the film are Audrey, who is voiced by Taylor Swift, Aloysius O'Hare, voiced by Rob Riggle, and Grammy Norma, voiced by Betty White.

Plot[link]

Ted Wiggins (Zac Efron), an idealistic 12-year-old boy, lives in "Thneed-Ville", a walled city that, aside from the citizens, is completely, perfectly, artificial: everything is made of plastic, metal, or synthetics. Ted sets out to find the one thing that will win him the affection of Audrey (Taylor Swift), the girl of his dreams, who wishes to see a real tree. Ted's energetic grandmother suggests he speak with the Once-ler (Ed Helms) on the matter, and he discovers that their city has been closed off from the outside world, which is a contaminated and empty wasteland. The Once-ler agrees to tell Ted about the trees if he listens to his story over multiple visits. Ted agrees, even after the mayor of Thneed-Ville, Aloysius O'Hare (Rob Riggle), who is also the greedy proprietor of a bottled oxygen company, confronts the boy and pressures him to stay in town. Over the course of the movie, Ted, with the encouragement of his grandmother, continues to sneak out of O'Hare's sight and learns more of the history of the trees.

Over the visits, the Once-ler recounts the story of how he met The Lorax (Danny DeVito), a grumpy yet charming orange creature who served as guardian of the land he arrived in. He pleaded for the trees, which were the key in the Once-ler's invention, not to be logged until the Once-ler agrees to desist. When the young businessman introduces a revolutionary invention from the native Truffula Tree's tufts, the thneed, it eventually becomes a major success and the Once-ler's family is brought in to participate in the business. Keeping his promise at first, the Once-ler continues thneed production by harvesting the tufts themselves in a sustainable manner. Unfortunately, his greedy and lazy relatives convinced him to resume logging as a more efficient gathering method, and the destruction of the forest spirals into a mass overproduction. Flush with wealth, the Once-ler rationalized his short sighted needs into arrogant self-righteousness that even co-opted the helpless protests of The Lorax for his own ends. As a result, he became mean-spirited, and even rebuffed The Lorax when he returned to confront him. At that moment, the last Truffula Tree fell outside, and the Once-ler realizes he had completely depleted the forest while making the region uninhabitable with his business' pollution. With that, the Once-ler was left ruined and abandoned by his own family and became a recluse with the creation and isolation of Ted's town that came under young Mr. O'Hare's control, giving him the plan to sell fresh air with the absence of trees. Eventually, The Lorax sends the wildlife (and Melvin the Once-ler's horse) away before departing himself into the sky, leaving a stonecut word, "Unless."

At the end of the story, the Once-ler realizes the meaning behind The Lorax's last message, and gives Ted a gift of the last Truffula Seed in hopes of planting it to regrow the forest. And what began as Ted's desire to impress Audrey becomes a personal mission to remind his town of the importance of nature. Unfortunately, O'Hare is determined to not have trees undercut his business and takes heavy handed steps such as destroying Audrey's nature paintings, closing off the door that Ted uses to see the Once-ler, and forcibly searching Ted's room for the seed. Ted is undeterred and enlists his family and Audrey to help plant the seed, which has begun to germinate after coming into contact with water. O'Hare and his employees pursue the dissidents until they manage to elude him and reach the town center. Unfortunately, their attempt to plant the seed is interrupted by O'Hare who rallies the population to stop them. To convince them otherwise, Ted takes an earthmover and rams down a section of the city wall to reveal the environmental destruction outside. Horrified at the sight and inspired by Ted's conviction, the crowd defies O'Hare with his own henchmen expelling him from the town. The seed is planted, and Audrey kisses Ted on the cheek. Time passes and the land is starting to recover; the trees are regrowing, the animals are returning, and the Once-ler is happily reunited with The Lorax.

Cast[link]

• Zac Efron as Ted Wiggins, an idealistic 12-year-old boy and the main protagonist. He is named after Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss's real name.^[4]
• Taylor Swift as Audrey,^[1] Ted's love interest. She is named after Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss' wife.^[4]
• Danny DeVito as The Lorax, a grumpy yet charming orange creature with an amazing moustache.
• Ed Helms as the Once-ler, a man who recounts how his discovery of the Truffula Forest as a younger man led to its depletion. In the film, he is portrayed as a human, while the original book and television special left his species ambiguous and his face hidden.
• Rob Riggle as Aloysius O'Hare, the mayor of Thneed-Ville, the main antagonist, and head of the "O'Hare Air" company that supplies fresh air to Thneed-Ville residents.
• Betty White as Grammy Norma, Ted's grandmother^[1]
• Jenny Slate as Mrs. Wiggins, Ted's mother^[5]
• Stephen Tobolowsky as Uncle Ubb, the Once-ler's uncle.
• Nasim Pedrad as the Once-ler's mother.
• Danny Cooksey as Brett and Chet, the Once-ler's brothers.
• Additional voices were provided by Jack Angel, Bob Bergen, John Cygan, Debi Derryberry, Bill Farmer, Jess Harnell, Sherry Lynn, Danny Mann, Mona Marshall, Mickie McGowan, Laraine Newman, Jan Rabson, Claira Nicole Titman, and Jim Ward.

Production[link]

A movie based on the original Lorax had been in preparation since July 2009 by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment.^[6] In 2010, it was announced that Danny DeVito would be voicing the main title character.^[7] The trailer debut in Australia in November 2011.^[8]

The film was directed by Chris Renaud, and co-directed by Kyle Balda. It was written by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the duo who also wrote the script for Blue Sky's Horton Hears a Who!. Audrey Geisel, Seuss's wife, was executive producer, and Chris Meledandri, who managed Horton Hears a Who! at Fox Animation, produced the film.^[9]

The film was fully fabricated in the French studio "Illumination Mac Guff", which was the animation department of Mac Guff which has been acquired by Illumination Entertainment in Summer 2011.^[10]

Danny DeVito reprised his role in five different languages, including the original English audio, and also for the Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian language dub editions.^[11]

The Lorax received a PG rating "for brief mild language."^[12] It is the third PG-rated Dr. Seuss film, following How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat.

It was also the first Universal Pictures film to include the 2012 "100th Anniversary" logo with a new version of the 1997 theme by Jerry Goldsmith, reorchestrated by Brian Tyler.^[13]

Universal added an environmental message to the film's website after a fourth-grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts launched a successful petition through Change.org.^[14]

Release[link]

The film was released on March 2, 2012 in the United States and Canada and will be released on July 27, 2012 in the United Kingdom.

Marketing[link]

Mazda used the likeness of The Lorax's setting and characters in an advertisement for their CX-5 SUV.^[15] This was seen by some as the complete opposite of the work's original meaning.^[16] The film has also been used to sell Seventh Generation disposable diapers.^[17] In total, Illumination Entertainment struck more than 70 different product integration deals for the film.^[18]

Home media[link]

The film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 7, 2012.^[19]

Reception[link]

Critical response[link]

The film received mixed reviews from critics, with criticism directed towards the film and its marketing as betraying the original message of the book. The film earned a "rotten" rating of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 118 reviews and an average rating of 6.1/10, with the critical consensus saying, "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is cute and funny enough, but the moral simplicity of the book gets lost with the zany Hollywood production values."^[20] It also has a score of 47 on Metacritic based on 28 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[21]

New York magazine film critic David Edelstein on NPR's All Things Considered strongly objected to the movie, arguing that the Hollywood animation and writing formulas washed out the spirit of the book.^[22] "This kind of studio 3-D feature animation is all wrong for the material," he wrote. Demonstrating the poor way the book's text was used in the movie -- how modern cultural styles were pasted over the text -- in this excerpt from the review Edelstein shows Audrey describing the truffula trees to Ted:

"the touch of their tufts was much softer than silk and they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk" -- and [in the movie] Ted says, "Wow, what does that even mean?" and Audrey says, "I know, right?" So one of the only lines that is from the book, that does have Dr. Seuss' sublime whimsy, is basically made fun of, or at least, dragged down to Earth."

Some conservatives have criticized the film for having a strong environmentalist message. Lou Dobbs, the host of Lou Dobbs Tonight on the Fox Business Network, has criticized the film as being "insidious nonsense from Hollywood," and accused "Hollywood of trying to indoctrinate children."^[23]

Box office[link]

The film has grossed $211,145,660 in North America, and $94,124,480 in other countries, as of May 31, 2012, for a worldwide total of $305,270,140.^[2]

The film topped the North American box office with $17.53 million on its opening day (Friday, March 2, 2012).^[24] During the weekend, it grossed $70.22 million easily beating the other new nationwide release, Project X, and all other films.^[25] This was the biggest opening for an Illumination Entertainment film,^[26] and for a feature film adaptation of a book by Dr. Seuss,^[27] as well as the second largest for an environmentalist film.^[28] It also scored the third-best debut for a film opening in March,^[29] and the eighth-best of all time for an animated film.^[30] The Lorax stayed at #1 the following weekend, dropping 45% to $38.8 million and beating all new nationwide releases, including Disney's John Carter (second place).^[31] On April 11, 2012, it became the first animated film, in nearly a year, to gross more than $200 million in North America, since Disney's Tangled.^[32]

On May 6, 2012, it surpassed Horton Hears a Who! to become the highest-grossing animated Dr. Seuss film, and the second overall just behind How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Music[link]

All songs written and composed by John Powell^[33]. 

All songs written and composed by John Powell and Cinco Paul^[34]. 

Future Dr. Seuss book adaptation[link]

After the success of The Lorax, Universal and Illumination announced plans to produce a CGI adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book The Cat in the Hat.^[35]

See also[link]

• List of films based on Dr. Seuss books

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

• Official website
• The Lorax at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lorax at AllRovi
• The Lorax at Box Office Mojo
• The Lorax at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Lorax at Metacritic