Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, an adult-humor film follow-up to the classicChip ‘n Daleanimated cartoons of the 90s, is now available to watch on Disney Plus. LikeReady Player One,Detective Pikachu, and other recent films,Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangersleans heavily into referencing nerd culture. However, it seems that at least one such reference may have deserved some additional vetting. AKingdom Heartsreference shown inChip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangersappears to have been cropped from a fan’s drawing.
During a specific scene inChip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, a wall of evidence is shown. Dozens of plastic bags are attached to the wall, each holding an item related to various cartoon characters. For example,Detective Pikachu’s tail, Jimmy Neutron’s hair, Yosemite Sam’s mustache, and the Pink Panther’s snoot are shown. Viewers have spent a good amount of time sorting through this evidence wall figuring out each reference, but one set of hair labeled “192 C” had fans stumped.
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To be clear, many fans did make a connection between the hair and Sora fromKingdom Heartsfairly quickly. However, the hair didn’t look exactly like any official art fromKingdom Hearts. It was 2D, after all, and not as large asSora’s aggressively anime hairdo. The connection has now been made, however. Twitter user CableTown art was able to connect theChip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangersreference to a piece ofKingdom Artsfan art done by Dutch artist Kimbolie12.
Further, the art shown inChip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangerslooks nearly identical to Kimbolie12’s art, potentially cropped from the art itself before being digitally touched over for the scene’s lighting. And to be clear, there’s no apparent acknowledgment of Kimbolie12 in the film or its credits. Disney’s being accused of swiping the art without permission.
It isn’t clear how this may have happened. Disney clearly has the resources to access a diverse range ofKingdom Heartsart from any of the games or associated media. That likely means that the hair was used by accident, with an artist either mistakenly believing Kimbolie12’s art to be official or not caring one way or another.
How it happened at this point matters less than that it likely did happen, though. A major film produced and distributed byDisney, an incredibly wealthy company, appears to have used a fan’s art. What constitutes an appropriate recourse is unclear, though compensation would seem to be appropriate. The ball is in Disney’s court.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangersis available to watch now on Disney Plus.
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