The Troll King rules the land, and the Troll Queen - Gnorga rules the Troll King!   She loves everything bad and desolate, and hates flowers!   Unfortunately for Stanley his flower collection is discovered, and the Queen banishes him to New York - a place the queen believes to be a lifeless place of concrete.   However, Stanley arrives in Central Park where he immediately feels at home!

Two children are in the park and have wandered away from their parents to play with a toy boat.   Gus (voiced by Phillip Glasser - Fievel in "An American Tail") and his little sister Rosie meet Stanley after Rosie falls into a water channel in the park.   Rosie is enchanted, but Gus is less impressed by Stanley and his 'green thumb'.

The Queen eventually checks up on Stanley with her long distance viewscreen to make sure he's having a miserable time, and is not happy when she sees him in the park!   She is impressed with Gus though - his surly temprement makes him ideal troll material!   The Queen sets out for New York herself to sort out Stanley and to make Gus into one of her own kind!...

This isn't one of my favourite Don Bluth films, but I'm not going to say its a bad film.   It still contains very high quality artwork, a little humour, and I suppose its own 'character', which help (as much as possible) to save it, but I don't think it'll be thought of as one of Bluth's better works by many, although some who saw it as young children may remember it kindly.   I think this film's biggest fault is that it has been made to be cute - and has ended up a little overbearingly so.   The characters themselves are drawn with heavily reddened cheeks, and to my eyes at least, the intention is lost by becoming too obvious.   My mother once saw an advert for "Cabbage Patch Kids" dolls and remarked that there was a point where ugliness became cute... unfortunately I think the reverse applies, and regretably it applies to the characters in this film.   I think it was films like Troll that doomed Don Bluth productions.   It's such a shame, as you can tell that the makers of this film worked their socks off to save it from itself.

This is another of Bluth's films for the very VERY young, and that kind of counts me out!   The trouble is it probably counts out a lot of other people too, even older children, which isn't really good business for an animated film.   I'd like to see the Bluth group making films with a wider appeal than this.   You can make films for the very young to the exclusion of older children, but when going to the cinema, families - older and younger members - usually go together, and there aught to be something in the film for everyone.   You never feel too old for the story at a modern Disney film!