The Road to El Dorado

The Road to El Dorado
File:Theroadtoeldorado.jpg The Road to El Dorado DVD Cover
Directed by	Eric Bergeron Don Paul
Written by	Ted Elliott Terry Rossio
Produced by	Bonne Radford Brooke Breton
Starring	Kevin Kline Kenneth Branagh Rosie Perez Armand Assante Edward James Olmos and Jim Cummings
Music by	Hans Zimmer John Powell Tim Rice Elton John
Distributed by	DreamWorks SKG
Release date	March 31,2000
Running time	1 hr. 29 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English
Budget	$95 Million

The Road to El Dorado is an animated comedy film by DreamWorks SKG released in 2000. The soundtrack features songs by Elton John and Tim Rice.

The movie begins in 16th century (1519) Seville (in the south of Spain) and tells about two men named Tulio and Miguel. During a dice game using loaded dice, they win a map that purportedly shows the location of the legendary city of gold in the New World. However, their cheating is soon discovered and as a result, they end up as stowaways on Hernán Cortés' fleet to conquer Mexico. They are discovered, but manage to escape in a boat with Cortés' prize war horse and eventually discover the hidden city of El Dorado where they are mistaken for gods.

El Dorado is portrayed as a Utopian civilization that combines facets of the Aztecs, Maya, Incas, and Atlantis.

The soundtrack was released as the album The Road to El Dorado, and the computer adventure game was named Gold & Glory: The Road to El Dorado.

Production

The creation of The Road to El Dorado was a challenge for the studio because Dreamworks had devoted most of its creative efforts to its previous animated film, The Prince of Egypt. SY-TATION IS NEEDED

Plot

El Dorado's opening includes a song telling the legend of El Dorado. According to the legend, El Dorado was built by two gods, 1000 years ago.

It then cuts to 1519 Spain, where Hernán Cortés is leaving with his troops for the New World. Miguel (Kenneth Branagh) and Tulio (Kevin Kline), two wanted conmen, are nearby swindling sailors with loaded dice. After the sailors run out of money, one insists on a last bet, staking his map portraying El Dorado in the New World. Miguel wants the map and convinces Tulio to go for it. The sailor insists using his own dice. Surprisingly, Miguel and Tulio win; as Tulio is gathering his winnings, the loaded dice fall out of his vest and the sailors discover the con. They begin an improvisational argument where Tulio blames Miguel for giving him loaded dice and Miguel insists that Tulio was the real thief. As their acting escalates, they grab swords and begin a duel which takes them to the top of a nearby building, at which point they jump down to the ground on the other side of the building, effectively escaping. An angry bull takes them by surprise; therefore Tulio and Miguel become the objects of a chase scene which ends at the docks, where they jump in barrels which are loaded onto Cortés' ship.

On the ship, they are discovered and mistaken for stowaways. Cortés will not tolerate stowaways and therefore has them locked in the brig. After failed attempts to break out, Tulio decides their best chance of escape is to steal a longboat and try rowing back to Spain, but is unable to come up with a plan by which to escape their cell. Fortunately, a sailor drops an apple by accident, and Miguel uses it to bribe Cortés' horse (named Altivo, meaning "haughty" in Spanish), who is standing near by, to fetch a pry bar. The horse returns with keys instead. In the night, the duo leave the cell and load up a longboat, but as they lower themselves into the water Altivo neighs for the apple he was promised. Tulio tosses Altivo his apple, but it bounces off various objects on the ship and ends up in the ocean, where the horse follows. Miguel attempts to save him; the boat heels, spilling all of their supplies. After a storm and many famished days, they finally reach the shores of the New World.

Miguel, Tulio, and Altivo are overjoyed until they see skeletons impaled on swords, prompting them to leave. While leaving, Miguel notices a rock having the shape of an eagle and recognizes it as a landmark from the map he had won. He convinces Tulio to go to El Dorado, intending to loot it; therefore they begin their trip through the jungle. After many small adventures, they wander onto the last part of the map, where they find only a rock on which is a picture carved depicting the legendary gods. Mistakenly thinking the rock is El Dorado, they begin to leave when a woman who is being chased by a group of tribal warriors for stealing a golden object emerges from behind the rock and runs into them. The whole group sees Tulio and Miguel - who, mounted on Altivo, resemble the two gods on the rock - and take them through the watery tunnel passage into El Dorado.

There, some of the soldiers notify Chief Tannabok (Edward James Olmos) and high priest Tzekel-Kan (Armand Assante) of the arrival. Tulio and Miguel are led to a large courtyard where Tzekel-Kan addresses a crowd, telling them the gods have arrived. The pair realize that they have been mistaken for deities, and encourage the ruse. Chief Tannabok asks them why they have chosen now to arrive and Tzekel-Kan warns him not to question the gods. Miguel warns that he will unleash his power if they do. Taking Miguel aside, Tulio scolds him for pushing their luck, and they begin to argue over how to get out of the situation. As Tulio gets angrier and talks faster, a volcano begins to erupt, coincidentally stopping when Tulio yells "stop". The city accepts them as gods and they are taken to a temple, where they are offered a feast that night and a ceremony at dawn.

The pair begin celebrating that they have found this "whole city of suckers" and plan how to loot it. The woman they saw by the rock overhears them, and she, Chel (Rosie Perez), says she wants to join the con. She offers to help them pretend to be gods. The men are hesitant, but have little choice but to accept, as they do not know the customs of the city. After she leaves, Tulio and Miguel agree that neither should attempt to seduce her, as it interrupts their plan. Afterward they have fun at the feast, singing "It's Tough To Be a God", which is the only song in the movie that is not sung by Elton John. The next dawn, when Tzekel-Kan offers a human sacrifice, they are quick to stop the killing, instead accepting the Chief's tribute of gold. Hoping to leave with the loot, they ask the Chief to build them a boat, but are told that the construction will require three days. Meanwhile, Cortés lands on the beach and begins to follow the pair's trail to El Dorado.

Worried that they will be unable to keep up the falsehood, Tulio tells Miguel to lie low, but Chel persuades him to explore the city so that she can seduce Tulio in his absence. Miguel has fun teaching the locals to play the mandolin and learning their version of a Mesoamerican ballgame. Tzekel-Kan, unhappy that the gods are not as violent and destructive as he had foretold, goes to the temple to convince Tulio of the importance of human sacrifice; when Tulio hears that Miguel is playing with the locals they both leave to find him. Tzekel-Kan initiates a much more serious Mesoamerican ballgame, pitting the protagonists against a team of bulky warriors. Tulio and Miguel barely win by using, against the rules, an armadillo as a ball. Miguel objects to sacrificing the losing team, thus disobeying Tzekel-Kan; but Tzekel-Kan, seeing blood seep from a small cut above Miguel's right eyebrow, realizes that Miguel and Tulio are mortals. He then cuts himself saying 'gods don't bleed' then healing, revealing he's a sorcerer.

Soon after, Tulio admits to Chel that he wants her to come back to Spain with him and that they should 'forget Miguel'. Miguel overhears this, and, infuriated, decides that he will stay in El Dorado. As the night's celebrations begin, Tzekel-Kan magically brings a gigantic stone statue of a jaguar to life and uses it as a weapon by having its actions correspond to his own. Miguel and Tulio are chased to the edge of a whirlpool (where the failed human sacrifice was attempted earlier), and, seeming to argue as in the beginning of the movie, manage to knock both priest and statue into the whirlpool. It quickly becomes apparent to both that this argument was very real; Tulio prepares to leave for Spain with Chel, and Miguel begins to settle for his new life in the city of gold. Though nothing is said, it is obvious that the two friends are hurt to have to say goodbye to each other. Meanwhile, Tzekel-Kan, who somehow survived the whirlpool, is found by Cortés, whose appearance and behavior remind the priest of the bloodthirsty gods he desired to meet. Believing he has found his true gods, Tzekel-Kan begins to lead Cortés to El Dorado.

As Tulio and Chel board the boat, Altivo sees smoke rising over the horizon and warns Miguel, and a scout returns to tell the Chief that Tzekel-Kan guides Cortés. Miguel insists that the native warriors cannot fight the invaders; Tulio, by a stroke of luck, comes up with a plan to stop them. Fulfilling this plan, they cause the tunnel entrance to the city to cave in by smashing their boat into the pillars that support it. As they put this plan into action, the boat's sail becomes stuck. Seeing that his friend is in danger, Miguel jumps onto the boat, opening the sail as he lands and thereby making a decision to come with Tulio rather than stay in the city forever. They (Miguel, Tulio, Altivo, and Chel) succeed in crashing the boat into the pillars and cutting off the city from the outside world; in the process, they lose their ship and all the gold in it. Cortés approaches at that moment; seeing no entrance, he dismisses Tzekel-Kan as a liar and leaves, taking the priest with him. Miguel and Tulio reconcile, and the three of them hop on Altivo (who is wearing golden horseshoes) to set off for the adventure they expect to be awaiting them.

Cast

• Kevin Kline as Tulio
• Kenneth Branagh as Miguel
• Rosie Perez as Chel
• Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan
• Edward James Olmos as Chief Tannabok
• Frank Welker as Altivo
• Jim Cummings as Cortes
• Tobin Bell as Zaragoza
• Duncan Marjoribanks as Acolyte

Crew

Crew Position
Directed by	Eric Bergeron Don Paul
Produced by	Bonne Radford Brooke Breton
Written by	Ted Elliott Terry Rossio
Executive Producer	Jeffrey Katzenberg
Songs by	Sir Elton John Tim Rice
Original Score by	Hans Zimmer John Powell
Co-Executive Producer	Bill Damaschke
Production Designer	Christian Schellewald
Art Directors	Raymond Zibach Paul Lasaine Wendell Luebbe
Film Editor	John Carnochan Dan Molina
Artistic Supervisors	Ronnie Del Carmen & Jeff Snow (Story supervisors) Lorenzo Martinez & Damon O'Bierne (Layout supervisors) Kevin Turcotte (Background supervisors) Kristof Serrand (Animation/Final Line supervisor) Dan Phillips (Digital supervisor) Bud Myrick (3D Effects supervisor) Stephen Wood (2D Effects supervisor) Jane Gotts (2D Digital Effects supervisor)
Character Designers	Carlos Grangel Nicholas Marlet Tony Siruno
Senior Supervising Animators	James Baxter (Tulio) David Brewster (Miguel)
Supervising Animators	William Salazar (Tulio) Serguei Kouchnerov & Bob Scott (Miguel) Rodolphe Guenoden (Chel) Kathy Zielinski (Tzekel-Kan) Frans Vischer (Chief) Kristof Serrand (Altivo & Cortes) Nicholas Marlet (Armadillo) Sylvain Deboissy (Jaguar) Patrick Mate (Sailors & Ball Players) Erik Schmidt (Miscellaneous)
Additional Sequences Directed by	David Silverman Will Finn
Production Manager	Jill Hooper Mark Swift

Annie Awards

Result	Award	Winner/Nominee Recipient(s)
NOMINATED	Animated Theatrical Feature
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Storyboarding	Jeff Snow (Story supervisor)
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Production Design	Christian Schellewald (Production Designer)
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Character Animation	David Brewster (Senior Supervising Animator - Miguel)
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Character Animation	Rodolphe Guendonen (Supervising Animator - Chel)
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Effects Animation	Doug Ikeler (Effects Lead - Crashing the Gate)
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Voice Acting	Armand Assante ("Tzekel-Kan")
NOMINATED	Individual Achievement in Music	Hans Zimmer (Music) John Powell (Music)

Trivia

• When Tzekel-Kan (the priest) is flipping through the pages of a spell book one of the illustrations resembles the DreamWorks logo of a boy sitting in the arc of a crescent moon fishing.
• The name of the armadillo that is seen throughout the film (and used in the game that Miguel and Tulio play) is Bibo. Bibo is actually the nickname of Eric Bergeron, the French director of the movie.
• The film is an homage to the classic "buddy" films of the 1940s starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Those films were always titled "The Road to..." (Morocco, Utopia, Zanzibar, etc.), involved two friends who accidentally find themselves en route to an exotic location, and a highly sexualized love interest (usually played by Dorothy Lamour). At one point in The Road to El Dorado, the reflections of Tulio and Miguel in running water briefly form caricatures of Crosby and Hope.
• Originally in the script, the relationship between the main characters (Tulio and Miguel) was supposed to have more of an implication, with each calling the other by pet names like "darling." This would have heightened the tension when Chel came between them and when they argued about splitting up. The producers and other executives had the pet names and other references cut, but in some versions of the subtitles (which are often taken from original scripts), the pet names can still be seen.
• The giant whirlpool that the jaguar fell in at the end was a cenote, or sacrificial inground well.
• Tim Rice, Elton John, and Hans Zimmer previously worked together wrote songs and composed music for the 1994 movie, The Lion King.

External links

• Official Website
• Template:Bcdb title
• The Road to El Dorado at IMDb
• The Road to El Dorado at Rottentomatoes.com