The Secret of NIMH
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The Secret of NIMH is an animated movie from director Don Bluth's studio, released in 1982 by United Artists.
Tagline: Right before your eyes and beyond your wildest dreams.
In Bluth's first movie, a widowed mouse named Mrs. Brisby does what she can to move her home, a stone block, before humans invade her place with a tractor. To do that, she must find help from a comic, love-seeking crow and a group of very smart rats from NIMH, the National Institute of Mental Health. In order to get the task done, she must see the leader of the rats, an old magician named Nicodemus, for a glowing red amulet that could rescue her home and her children (Martin, Teresa, Cynthia and a sick Timothy). She also learns, from him, a secret about his group that could forever change her life.
The movie was based on Robert C. O'Brien's children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. (The main character's name was changed to "Brisby", so that its audiences would not take its sound for the Frisbee toy.)
In spite of its critical success, NIMH gained mediocre attention at the box office, because of a much bigger rival, Steven Spielberg's E. T. (Ironically, Spielberg saw the Bluth movie and asked its director to work on An American Tail, which would come out in 1986.)
Many fans and critics have called NIMH Don Bluth's most important work. Yet An American Tail and 1997's Anastasia would become, business-wise, his most successful works in later years.
A 1998 direct-to-video sequel, Timmy to the Rescue, has been avoided seriously by fans of the first one, due to its clichés and familiar story. Another one, The Beginning, has been rumoured to come out in 2001; no such movie, however, exists yet.
