Summary
Unlike the original fable, the race is a major sporting event, as opposed to a challenge between the hare and the tortoise. Max Hare is the heavy favorite to win. He's cocky, athletic and incredibly fast. His challenger, Toby Tortoise is teased and jeered for being sluggish and clumsy. He does seem to have the ability to stretch, which comes in handy in certain situations. Max tells Toby that he intends to play fair, but is seems obvious that Max is just out to humiliate his competition. The race begins and Max zooms off. It takes an extra nudge from the starter to get Toby going.
Max seems to dominate the race, zooming past everything on the road. At one point, possibly as an homage to the fable, Max pretends to nap under a tree, just to watch Toby's progress. Thinking that Max really is asleep, Toby quietly creeps past him. Not long after, Max gets up and bolts past him again. A little further down the road, Max passes a girls' school. He stops to talk to the bunny girls. As Toby lumbers past, the girls invite him to stop as well, but Toby says no, since he's committed to finishing the race. Max opts to stay for a while, even though Toby is now in the lead, he's so slow, Max will have no trouble catching up. Max uses the girls' sports field to show off his amazing athletic skills in archery, baseball and tennis (even knocking a tennis ball into the camera in the process!).
Just then, Max hears the crowd cheering and sees that Toby is not far from the finish line. He bids the girls farewell and charges off, still confident that he will win easily. Toby sees Max catching up and picks up his pace by stretching his legs. In the end, the race is close. Max crosses the finish line and skids to a rough halt. Once he gets up and dusts himself off, he realizes that he lost by a "neck's length." The crowd rushes to congratulate the winner, Toby Tortoise.
Read more about this topic: The Tortoise And The Hare (film)
Famous quotes containing the word summary:
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)