Watch The Lorax For Free

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Let's compare this to the 2012 movie, shall we:Budget: 1972 version: Probably under $1,0002012 version: $70 millionRuntime: 1972 version: 25 mins2012 version: 1 hour 35 minsAnimation: 1972 Version: Hand-drawn2012 version: Computer animatedWell, strangely enough, with enough effort, a movie with 1/70,000th the budget of a kid's sellout movie, surpasses it in every way imaginable. The 1972 version really has a message. While the 2012 version seems to avoid the actual 'we need to help the environment' theme, the 1972 version shows that we are not doing enough to do so. It has a meaning, and therefore gives everyone a reason to watch it. Watching it did not make you feel like you were being subjected to an advertising sellout and made you really think about the environment as a whole. I think the 1972 version is a brilliant masterpiece, that did justice to Dr Seuss' work. The 2012 version however, stuck the Lorax on a Mazda advertisement. This just shows how much the 1972 version respected the source material compared to the 2012 version, and why it remains a masterpiece.

The story is the strength here. Dr. Seuss message here is more that there has to be balance in everything that you do. You can't just make the needs that everyone, everyone needs without considering the price of making it, that everyone must pay. A lot of folks now go over board trying to go too far in one direction. A bonus here is the talented Eddie Albert singing & narrating the story. That drew me to this story as I always loved Albert as Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres. This is a book, that is exactly mirrored in this animated special. I loved reading this book to my kids, & suggest to all parents this book to read to the kiddies at bedtime when they are small. It is as enjoyable to read as it is to watch here. Pure message & entertainment, par excel-lance.

Since I was a small child I have always enjoyed this little political message about the fallacy of not having a suitable rights-enforcement body ensuring property rights of individuals in their jurisdictional area are upheld. The Lorax was clearly the sole caretaker/maintainer/improver of the land, fauna and flora and therefore the proper owner of the idyllic setting the Onceler came across. Rather than attempting to negotiate agreeable use of the land and resources in exchange for recompense, the Onceler just moved his gang in to systematically steal and destroy the Lorax's property (this is revealed in the first 5 minutes of the film). Clearly this was an anarchic state with no specific judiciary or security forces to enforce property rights. The Lorax, lacking independent power to protect his property had to resort to negotiation, which the Onceler - with greater numbers, finances, and physical resources, and in the absence of any property rights enforcement bodies - was able to safely ignore. My children love this story. They can appreciate that human rights include property rights, and they see that things would have been better for both the Lorax and the Onceler if a properly constructed rights-enforcing framework had been in place at the outset. Alternately the Lorax could merely have been in possession of a semi-automatic weapon.

A Dr Seuss relatively unknown gem. A narrator (never identified) tells a story of how a person discovered a crop that could be used for anything. Soon all the trees where this crop grew were cut down and factories were built along with houses and highways while all the while a creature in the forest gives warning, saying he speaks for the trees. Unfortunately the warning goes unheeded and the wildlife that lives there make a fateful decision. A cautionary tale that was ahead of its time but seems very on point today. It warns us to be careful not to become to obsessed with our needs for consumer items and not to be suckered in by commercialism at expense of nature and the wonderful world around us. A Dr Seuss that should be shown on televison much more often than it is - some Logging companies in the west wanted it banned because of the ecological message - but now it is available to all. A must see and one to watch and discuss with your children. On a scale of one to ten...8