pixrox1 Review of Planes: Fire & Rescue

Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)

This cartoon is intended to teach our kids that management . . .

[7/10 · 24 July 2014]

. . . represented here by National Park Superintendent Cad Spinner, is bound to get us all killed unless the Card-Carrying Union Folks are able to step in at the last minute to clean up the mess and save the day. After nearly burning down his home airport of Propwash Junction, along with his fawning friends, on one of his "What's in it for me?" ego trips, main character Dusty Crophopper decides to make amends by obtaining a Fire and Rescue Union Card certification. Fire fighters are perhaps the most heavily unionized profession in America, so it is no surprise that the Disney people would select them as an exemplar to the kids of the United States to teach how a band of brothers (and sisters) learns to take care of its own while protecting public safety. Another group of fully-unionized government workers held up as role models in PLANES 2: FIRE AND RESCUE are park rangers, represented here by "Ol' Jammer," the wise "woody" station wagon with a park ranger hat atop its roof. Even the U.S. Secretary of the Interior realizes by the end of the story that the One Per-Centers, such as Spinner, are only out to sacrifice the common good for their personal aggrandizement, and have no place in a civilized society (he's later shown exiled to Death Valley). Ol' Jammer is given a field promotion to put the Union in charge of the park everyone visits (where it should have been all along!).