Spoliers! Don Bluth crapped on a wonderful story! Spoliers!
What's with the glowing eyes??
Nicodemus as a wizard of magick??
A (magick) sparkly pendant thingie??
Brutus attacking Mrs. Frisby with electricity, thunder and lightning??
A plot to stay in the valley and go to war with Man??
Murderous Jenner??
Why is lightning barf coming from Nicodemus's room??
Why are books floating up and opening themselves??
Swordfighting??
The Magick pendant floats around and whispers??
It bestows super power Magick??
Don Bluth is the spoiler, he has created a visual masterpiece but he sure shat all over this story.
The wrongs Bluth has committed are so egregious, I really wish he'd have started from scratch and refrained from using any hint of the book's characters and names.. In fact, if you have read the book (especially as a child) and pay special attention to all the basic changes that were made, you can pretty well come away with a concise list of how storytelling --- for children and adults --- has gone downhill, even as technology has improved.
Above all, the story deserved telling without Magick crap clumsily injected into it. The rats had no need of magick, just as we humans do not. They had knowledge and technology and cleverness. When I read the book as a child I was completely unprepared for Mrs. Frisby's journey into the thornbush. The feeling of wonder had me saying out loud, "This is great!" Even though all the technological marvels were known to me the novelty of seeing the rats' applied industry allowed me to re-experience my own modern world as if for the first time. What we have achieved is amazing.
I think that is partly what O'Brien intended to do in his story, show us all the good things we have become. Secret of NIMH is pretty, but that sentiment not merely absent, something evil has taken its place. Mrs. Frisby is attacked by a staff shooting electricity? Don't tase me, bro!
Her arrival at the thornbush (in the book) was a civilized affair because O'Brien's rats are civilized people. The story deserved telling without all the Jenner crap. Whether made for children or adults, it was pure crap crap crap. When watching THIS NIMH I said "crap" aloud every time I saw Jenner.
The relocation of Mrs. Frisby's home (in the book) was accomplished in a simple act of good will, technology and teamwork. One of the points I took from the story is that the ultimate objective of Frisby's whole incredible and exhausting journey, to save her house and family --- was finally accomplished quickly and matter-of-factly with muscle and know-how, just as we'd do it. Made me feel glad to be a person.
So when the Secret of NIMH pendant thingie started glowing (after the Jenner crap) and the day was saved by Magick, it was a true abomination, like something I would gladly unwatch if I could. I don't expect the people who skunk-spray Magick all over stories that do not contain any at all to understand, but it felt like someone was giving modern human technology the middle finger. "See? We can take any story that makes you proud and ruin it because we want children to believe that nothing is possible without make-believe tripe. Which when they grow up becomes, simply --- nothing is possible."
If you love your children, give them the book and don't even mention the existence of this thing until they're forty.