It's a Small World

**It's a Small World** is an American adventure comedy film co-produced by Loonarin-Sanchez Productions and Walt Disney Animation Pictures. It is based on both the renowned and somewhat infamous Disney ride and the unused film adaptation pitch for said ride. The film is set during the Cold War, and it follows the children of the United Nations ambassadors, all of whom attend the UN school, who fake their own kidnapping in an attempt to unify their parents and prevent nuclear war. In doing so, they attract the attention of and get chased by the evil munitions despot Alexander Bashillion, who will stop at nothing to profit from war.

## Plot

1975 is a hectic year, with the constantly escalating tensions of the world raised to fever pitch. One little slip-up, and World War Three could start. It almost does.

The boy who starts it all is Aleksei, the eleven-year old son of the Russian Consul General, currently in Paris. Full of curiosity and the stories that he's heard about the "evil" Chinese, the boy ventures across the boulevard and over the fence to the Consulate of Communist China -- where he is caught by Chinese security guards who take him into custody. When the Russians learn of Aleksai's capture and detention, they demand his immediate release and, naturally, are refused. The rankled tempers become a shouting match of spying and kidnapping accusations.

When the story of Aleksai, dubbed the “Aleksei Affair,” hits the media, millions of people hear about it. And the resulting media firestorm brings Red China and the U.S.S.R. to the very brink of war. One by one, the other nations of the world are also lit ablaze by suspicion and rage. It’s a very urgent matter for the United Nations all of a sudden. However, it quickly becomes clear that, while there may be calmer heads here, there is fuel being thrown on the fire. There are people in the world who want to take advantage of the tension. Particularly Alexander Bashillian, the despotic ruler of the backwater island country of Estijan, which only has one major industry: munitions.

This travesty also reaches the ears of our unlikely kid heroes; the children of the U.N. ambassadors: Coleman, Kunewal, Valha, Abdul, Rin, Joaquin, and Gosrely. They attend the United Nations school, a special educational facility specifically for kids like them. Although they all share one classroom, they are anything but friends because they think they’re just too different in backgrounds and personalities to get along. That is, until the eight ambassador child begins attending. His name is Hedwig, and he’s from Switzerland. He’s a big sweetie and an all-rounder, having come from a country not known for engaging in conflict. Of course, in the same timeframe, he later meets his bully: Ling, the Chinese Consul’s haughty daughter who has a crush on Aleksei.

As we follow Hedwig afterschool, he lets on a little more about himself to his pet ibex Latte, as he has his own problems. War is his greatest fear, and he wishes he could find Aleksei himself. That way his dad could sleep at night, instead of staying up trying to help ease the tensions between the big red nations. Advised by Latte, Hedwig befriends his classmates and invites him to his house. It’s then that they realize through Hedwig, that their differences don’t matter as much as their similarities. If they can remind their parents of this, it just might stop the war. But what can the children of the U.N. Ambassadors do to keep the world from blowing itself up?

They all have the same crazy idea: **Disappear**.

When they do, in a faked mass kidnapping plot hatched by Coleman and Valha, the "Aleksai Affair" is instantly old news. Forgotten by everyone ... except for Bashillian. He sees right through their hoax. He has no mind for diplomacy; the way of the warrior is all he knows. If the kids don't stay ahead, they’ll be kidnapped for real. Or worse, *killed*. With the hope of making a bad situation worse. So Hedwig and his friends are forced to run from civilization, and Ling follows them. If the kids are gonna stop Bashillian, they have to destroy his factory. But they dont know where on the planet Estijan is. Fortunately, on the New York Coast, they obtain a map with Estijan, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. They ride a boat and sail away from the States.

Meanwhile, Hedwig’s dad Ruben is heavily distraught by the disappearance of his son. The U.S. government refuses to help find Hedwig, considering what they’re already dealing with. However, when he hires a private investigator named Irene, who also happens to be the kids’ teacher, she doesn't hesitate to take the case, using her own ingenuity to look into the disappearance. The results are horrifying, and Ruben catches on to the hoax. However he is equally surprised that the Chinese Consul Yuhan is experiencing the same thing with her daughter. It's the one thing that they agree on. Immediately, they alert the rest of the U.N. of this threat, and the nations begin searching for the missing kids.

Bashillian sees an opportunity to end this, and he sends out a team of assassins to take out the kids before they can get to his factory in Estijan. But the kids's differences turn out to be a great asset, and the nine work together to defeat the assassins and conquer Estijan's harsh biomes, from the predator-filled jungles to the cliffside fossil zone. When they finally find Bashillian's lair, they discover that he's built his main factory right on top of the volcano, the heat from which he uses to make his munitions. The kids manage to pull through, and they find out something else. Bashillian has been *deliberately* increasing the tensions of the war not just to make more money, but to rebuild and rule the world after it destroys itself.

As the kids are planning their sabotage, Bashillian catches wind of their arrival and locks Hedwig in with Aleksei, while the rest are chained in the laboratory. Hedwig despairs at failing his friends and the rest of the world, but Aleksei snaps him out of it, regretting not listening to his father's words. The Swiss boy comforts and assured him that they were brave in breaking barriers and doing the right thing, even when everyone says otherwise. Then, Latte arrives, having secretly followed his owner the whole way, and breaks the kids out using only his appetite and a Pepsi can Gosrely had hidden in her afro. Hedwig also picks up a miner’s pickaxe to use as a weapon. Now a 10-children-and-a-goat band and a hundredfold more determined to stop Bashillian, they face the despot in combat and ultimately defeat him. Before going unconsious, Bashillian accidentally causes the volcano to awaken in the middle of the action. Fortunately, the kids escape with their lives along with Alexander's motionless body, and the factory falls into the molten lava, along with his munitions stockpile, destroying all of his work.

The group emerges onto the beach, alive but in rough shape. The kids reuinite with their parents, who welcome them back to civilization, forgiving them for their actions. Alexander comes to consciousness just as he is arrested and put permanently out of commission. Ling and Aleksei kiss, prompting their fathers to reconcile, officially ending the war. As a parting gesture, Alexander tells the kids that he'll never get into another war again. All of the nations agree to cooperate more than ever with each other, and they return home with smiles on their faces.

A month or two after the adventure, Ling and Aleksei have begun dating, and the kids have a nice celebratory barbeque with their parents, siblings, and other friends. They remember how they got together, and how they wouldn't have had it any other way. Because of both their differences *and* similarities, they learned how to really love each other, proving that a smile truly means friendship to everyone, and that people can become more than what they believe they are if they just try. The credits roll with an ensemble remix of the eponymous song with new lyrics about how they changed the world for the better.

## Characters

**Hedwig Schall** - The Swiss, kind-hearted leader of the kid group, willing to risk his life for the world’s safety.

**Ruben Schall** - Hedwig’s father and the U.N. Ambassador of Switzerland.

**Coleman Buckner** - The American, low-spoken, quickwitted boy who has a knack for gadgetry and is always willing to question. Easily the brains of the group.

**Kunewal Marabe** - The Tahitian, flirtatious troublemaker who loves to mess with the other kids and get on the teachers' nerves.

**Valha Sjöholm** - The strong, Swedish athletic girl who prides herself in her Viking lineage and is always ready for sports or friendly competition.

**Abdul Qayyoom el-Bagheri** - The articulate and by-the-book Arabian boy who tries to keep his classmates on the straight and narrow.

**Kagawa Rin** - The silly, energetic Japanese girl who loves to make others laugh and sees the fun in everything. Plus she's a black belt.

**Joaquin Castillero** - The studious yet hot-headed Mexican boy who who wants to make his parents proud and becomes unstoppable when enraged.

**Gosrely Jennings** - The shy, Kenyan nervous girl who struggles to socially interact but is always listening and very observant.

**Xiao Ling** - A Chinese, pompous, musically-talented girl. She claims she can play any instrument and bullies Hedwig (at first) on the basis that their fathers can’t agree on anything.

**Melnikov Aleksei Semyonovich** - The Russian, well-meaning, scatterbrained if not ditzy boy who started it all, and Ling’s love interest.

**Alexander Bashillian** - The villain, the ruler of Estijan and a massive munitions despot bent on becoming the richest man in the world, perhaps even ruling it.

**Melnikov Ustin Semyonovich** - Aleksei’s father, the Russian Consul General, who is very serious and sharp about his jobs and duty to his country.

**Xiao Yuhan** - Ling’s father, extremely committed to his duties as a diplomat with a wife overbearing on their only daughter.

**Beatrix Schall** - Hedwig’s big sister who is also athletic like Valha.

**Julie Schall** - Hedwig and Beatrix’s fussy mother, whose stress comes from the life of being the wife of an ambassador.

**Irene Cleary** - The kid’s Italian teacher and a top-of-the-line undercover detective.