Dr. Seuss’s movie, The
Lorax, is about a twelve year old boy named Ted Wiggins who lives in a
walled-in town called Thneedville. Everything in Thneedville, except for the
people, is either made out of plastic, metal, or synthetics. Ted sets out to
find a real tree for his friend Audrey, who he has a major crush on. His
grandmother tells him if he wants to know what happened to the trees he should
talk to the Once-ler. Ted discovers that outside the city, is a barren, contaminated
wasteland. The Once-ler agrees to tell Ted about trees if he comes back over a
period of three visits. The mayor of Thneedville, Aloysius O'Hare, who has made millions off of bottling
fresh air, threatens Ted and tells him to stay in town. With the help of his
grandma, he slips out of town without Mr. O’Hare knowing.
Over the three visits, the Once-ler tells Ted of how he left his home in
search of the perfect material to make his Thneed invention with. He comes
across a forest filled with Truffula Trees. At first he cuts down one of the
trees, this signals the Lorax, guardian of the land, to come out. The Once-ler
makes a deal with the Lorax, vowing to never cut down another tree ever again. Soon
the Thneed invention becomes a huge success and the Once-ler agrees to start
cutting down trees in order to speed up production. The Lorax warns him not to,
but the Once-ler becomes blind sited by greed and fame, and he ignores the
Lorax’s warning. Soon almost every Truffula Tree was chopped down, and he had
polluted the sky, water, and landscape. Finally the last tree was cut down and
the Once-ler had realized what he had done but it was too late. Eventually the
Lorax sends the animals that were in the forest away because they could no
longer survive there. The Once-ler watches as the Lorax disappears into the sky
leaving the word “Unless” cut into a stone.
In the end of the movie, the Once-ler realizes why the Lorax left that
word, because unless someone like Ted cared an awful lot about the trees,
nothing was going to change. The Once-ler ends up giving Ted the last Truffula
seed and tells him to plant it in the middle of town where everyone can see it.
However, Mr. O’Hare will do anything in his power to not let that happen
because if trees are planted they give fresh air for free, which would ruin his
business. Ted, his mother and grandmother, and Audrey all set out to help get
the seed planted. When they get to the center of town, O’ Hare tries to stop
them by starting a protest. Ted decides to show them what is on the other side
of the wall by taking a bulldozer and ramming it until it falls. Horrified at
what they see, the townspeople agree that the seed needed to be planted. After
the seed is planted and time passes, the land starts to recover, the trees are
re-growing, and the animals are returning. The movie ends with the Lorax coming
down from the sky and landing on the stone that said “Unless”. The Once-ler
wraps him up in a hug for he has redeemed himself.
I think the word "Unless" represents the most important component in the movie because unless someone cares a tremendous amount about the environment, nothing is going to change. The environmental state will only get worse from here if this generation does not act fast.
In my opinion, this movie gave an educational lesson to all ages. However it was especially geared towards getting through to kids ages five, six, and seven to teach them about what will happen if you do not take care of the environment. I would rate this work as excellent because it gave a simple to understand message to kids about taking care of the world they live in. It was easy to grasp what the message was they were trying to send when watching The Lorax.
I think this movie could have been improved if the producers had taken more time to build up the characters and given them more time to fully develop. The characters depth gets sacrificed sometimes due to how much money it cost to to produce that movie.
