Hijotee's The Elephant is a series of three movies about a group from San Francisco who are attacked by a giant robot elephant and must then try to stop the elephant from reaching and destroying the city that they live in. However, the series later expands into a broader focus that eventually leads to space exploration. The elephant itself is very large, as seen in the first movie where a small city is present inside with still enough space left to fit sewer lines, storage areas and even a transportation network. The purpose of the elephant is a complete mystery to the characters in the first two movies and even though it's not revealed until the final movie, various hints throughout the series give viewers an easy guess before everything is finally explained. The first movie is the oldest animated movie ever created by Hijotee, easily noticeable through the low quality animation and frame rate. The second movie was produced in a later time when Hijotee was more experienced with animation, so this movie is more cinematic with much higher frame rates and a longer runtime. Overall, the series as a whole is the longest original story that Hijotee has ever created, but the second longest may come very close (both series are very similar in story; mystery, space action, origin story). Below is a full breakdown of the entire movie series, all the way from movie statistics, plot summaries, character descriptions, and production history.
Plot[]
The Elephant[]
A small group in San Francisco must try to stop a giant robot elephant from reaching and destroying their city. In their search for the elephant, one of their members gets captured by it and the team must then try to rescue him. Once they find the elephant however, they are instantly sucked in by the elephant's nose and soon discover a vast city inside the elephant filled with slaves working every night to power the elephant. The team soon find their lost member, but must now see if and how they can all escape from the elephant. They later get help from a local man and former slave who has been studying everything about the giant robot since he first got in. He tells them that the best way to escape is to blow up the elephant and free everyone inside. With a careful guided plan and pure teamwork, together they all manage to kill the elephant's main power supply and shut it down for good. Everyone except the main female character escapes before the explosion, but as the elephant is destroyed, she still manages to escape too as she flies out of the elephant and lands in a small nearly lake. With the elephant now destroyed, all seems good and the city is safe, for now.
Elephant 2[]
With the elephant now destroyed, all the pieces from the debris are then launched outward into space and are then collected by a space station orbiting Mars. The pieces are then put back together and the elephant is rebuilt, this time more powerful. The elephant is then launched back into space and towards Earth, giving the team little to no warning that it is back for its revenge. One week later the main character is watching the news and soon it breaks when the Elephant lands in Los Angeles and starts destroying the city. The team is then notified and they all head for LA, only to see that the elephant is more powerful, has gained the power of flight and also bears weapons. It seems that the elephant is too fast to be chased down by fighter jets and too quick to be taken down by missiles so the team go meet a local who has a prototype spaceplane that can outrun the elephant and take it down with its advanced weaponry. The elephant, instantly notices the threat and soon flies outward into space. The team then chases it to wherever it goes, and soon the movie leads into an epic space adventure filled with all kinds of challenges and unexpected obstacles for the team. The elephant then manages to run away but rather than coming back and taking the team down, it hides into the farthest reaches of the cosmos. To make it worse, one of their members also gets lost so now the team must find both the elephant and their team member at the same time. In the end, once the team manages to find and rescue their lost member and then the elephant, they have one last battle with it, they take it down, and then head back home. As soon as they arrive back to Earth, everyone in LA cheers for the team as they fly over the destroyed city and soon land to help rebuild.
3lephants[]
All seems well as the team celebrates in their hometown now that the elephant is destroyed and the people in California are left in peace. However, as the damage starts to get rebuilt, the blown up elephant in space sends a signal to its headquarters in Mars. Once the signal reaches its destination, its creators find out that their elephant has been destroyed once again but that now it's located too far for the debris to get picked up and rebuilt. Therefore, instead of creating a more powerful elephant, the creators realize that adding more power to a single instrument will never outmatch the power of several instruments put together. So the creators decide to build not one, but one hundred new smaller elephants. These high-tech elephants replace all of their internal manual operated components with remote-controlled hardware, so with no longer a need for a full city to house a slave army that powers the elephant, this allows a drastic reduction in size while still keeping all of the original elephant's capabilities like laser powered eyes and the power of flight, therefore creating an army of flying space traveling robot elephants guaranteed to cause far more mayhem than the biggest elephant that they could build alone. Throughout the movie, the team is faced with the most horrible outcomes they have ever seen involving a full-on aerial battle, more city destruction, and even orbital space battles. This eventually makes the team realize that no matter how many elephants they destroy, the matters will only get worse. So in the end, after finding the location of the elephant's origin in one of the destroyed smaller robots, they set a course for Mars where the ultimate battle to end it all awaits.
Characters[]
Team Members[]
Mike[]
He is one of the main characters in the series and Ariel's boyfriend. Mike is a Hispanic male with black hair and brown eyes who wears a green shirt and blue jeans and is leader of the team in The Elephant. However, in Elephant 2, Johanna takes over as leader for the first half of the film, but as Matty joins the team, he and Mike become the leaders again for the second half, and then the third film. Mike is the only character to be team leader in every movie.
Ariel[]
She is one of the main characters of the series and Mike's girlfriend. Ariel is a Caucasian female with blonde hair and blue eyes who wears a pink shirt and a white skirt and is the co-leader of the team in The Elephant. She has a crucial role in the first film and her dedication to the team's plan is the reason why the elephant successfully blew up in the end. Despite this however, she does not contribute that much in the second and third films, so her role as co-leader is eventually taken over by the new member, Matty.
Matty[]
Matty first appears in Elephant 2 and instantly becomes a main character and team leader. He is a Caucasian male with blonde hair and black eyes who wears a white shirt and light blue jeans. Matty contributes a lot during his role in the second film by solving all of the team's problems as soon as they come up, even when the problem may be his own team members. He remains team leader throughout his entire role in the series.
Johanna[]
She is a bus driver from San Francisco who loans the team a custom bus used to travel to Los Angeles. From there on, she is known as the bus driver, even though she never drives a bus again after they arrive at LA. Johanna becomes the team leader for the first half of Elephant 2 until she later recruits Matty as the team leader. In Elephants, she is still a big decision maker for the team and many times tells Matty and Mike what to do, somewhat making her the leader again.
Johnny[]
He is an African American male with black hair and brown eyes who wears a purple shirt and black jeans. He is one of the supporting characters in the team and is Justin's best friend.
Jennifer[]
She is an Asian female with black hair and black eyes who wears a purple shirt and a blue skirt. She is one of the supporting characters in the team and is Tiffany's best friend.
Justin[]
He is a Caucasian male with blonde hair and blue eyes who wears a white shirt and blue shorts. He is one of the supporting characters on the team and is Johnny's best friend.
Tiffany[]
She is a Native American female with brown hair and brown eyes who wears a blue sweater and grey pants. She is one of the supporting characters of the team and is Jennifer's best friend.
William[]
William is a Caucasian male with black hair and blue eyes who wears a white shirt and blue pants. He is Johanna's nephew who's parents (his mom is Johanna's older sister) are out for vacation and is mostly there with the team to be babysitted.
Villains[]
The Elephant[]
Since the robot elephant is not a living thing, the real masterminds behind the elephant's operation may be considered the true villains of the series, but since they are never revealed until the end of the last film, the elephant itself is considered the main villain for the entire series. All the other elephants in the third movie are considered minor villains since all they do is continue to perform the original's objective.
Recurring[]
The King[]
The King is mentioned multiple times throughout the second movie and even though he was never seen onscreen, his palace was visited by the team where a special map was located that was very crucial to finding and destroying the elephant.
Alien[]
In the middle of Elephant 2, an alien helps the team with navigation for finding the lost elephant in space.
Prisoner[]
An escaped prisoner and a former slave explains to the team everything he knows about the elephant and helps the team navigate their way out of the elephant and also gives them instructions on how to destroy the elephant.
Military[]
The U.S. Army and Air Force are seen firing and launching missiles towards the flying elephant in Elephant 2. They are also seen converting Los Angeles into an army base. The creators also have their own army used for the final space battle in the Mars base.
Guards[]
Various guards try to stop the team from escaping the elephant but they are unsuccessful. Guards are also seen guarding the King's palace. The guards once again fail to stop the team from achieving their goals in the Mars station. They were the last line of defense before the team were able to raid the station and capture the alien masterminds.
News Man[]
The anchorman is seen throughout the three movies whenever the elephant returns or something bad happens.
Bus Driver[]
A bus driver takes the team to Yosemite National Park in search for the elephant. Note that this is not the bus driver that takes the team from San Francisco to Los Angeles; see the Johanna section for the other driver who ends up being a crucial member to the team.
Other[]
Various people, aliens and other creatures are seen throughout the series that are only there as background characters.
Episodes[]
| Movie | Title | Length | Production | Description | Release | FPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Elephant | 95 mins. | 2005 | The team gets trapped inside a giant elephant | May 2005 | 12–24 fps. |
| 2 | Elephant 2 | 93 mins. | 2007–2008 | The team chases the giant elephant in space | March 2008 | 15–30 fps. |
| 3 | Elephants | 116 mins. | 2008–2009 | The team fights multiple smaller elephants | January 2009 | 30–60 fps. |
Production[]
Hijotee first came up with the idea for The Elephant in early 2005 and soon thought that it would be a cool idea to make a cartoon out of it, especially since Hijotee was very interested in learning animation by then. The movie was originally planned to be a short cartoon but as the story expanded Hijotee later decided to try to make a full feature length film which would allow him to create multiple settings and characters. Hijotee was already very good at drawing but he however was not very experienced with animation so he rather preferred to focus more in creating better looking backgrounds and characters than use animation with a high frame rate. Therefore, the movie originally starts with a low 12 fps rate but he later moves to a faster and more standard 24 fps for the later scenes of the film. Overall, this was the biggest project that Hijotee has ever embarked with the movie taking over 3 months to produce, a personal record for a project at the time. Even though the quality of animation is very bad compared to all his later films, Hijotee gained a lot of experience with his first animated movie, which is clearly visible throughout the film. The first movie was completed around May 2005 and was originally meant to only be shown to his family and friends, but it soon went online in 2006 on his new YouTube channel, as the first movie that he created. Hijotee later on created various other movies throughout the following year until in late 2007 when he finally started production on its sequel, Elephant 2. This movie took about 5 months to create with a short break in between and features more advanced animation and special effects, thanks to the experience Hijotee has gained over the past 2 years. Hijotee also used a much higher frame rate and used more cinematic scenes throughout the film compared to the first. Once this movie was completed in May 2008, Hijotee released the movie and screened it to all his friends in school, with a YouTube release shortly after. That same year, Hijotee went ahead and began production on the third and final movie of the series, when Hijotee later decided that this movie would be the last part of a trilogy that will conclude all of the team's conflicts in the series, and also reveal the origins of the elephant. This third and final movie combines various elements from the first two films; for example, it takes place back in the orignal location as the first film, but also still features various sci-fi space action scenes used in the second. The third movie is the longest movie of the series and the second longest by Hijotee which was also animated only in the higher frame rates and even features HFR animation for high action scenes like the space battles. However, the pace of the movie is much slower and consists of lot's of dialogue scenes and explanations on the purpose of the elephant. Overall, this series is the one that has taken the longest to produce, with the first movie starting production in February 2005 and the last movie being completed in January 2009, for a grand total of 4 years if you include brainstorming for the first film. However, by the time the third film was fully uploaded and shared online, it was only a few months later when Hijotee's original channel was taken down, making the third film the least watched movie Hijotee has made. Hijotee has not yet uploaded The Elephant series to YouTube since, but he plans to share it once his new channel gains more activity since he prefers to wait so he can have new content to share for future subscribers once his new channel grows.
Trivia[]
- This is the longest running series that Hijotee has ever created.
- Since the first movie started production to the time the last movie was completed, it has been a total of 4 years that has spanned.
- The series has many similarities to his other series, The Unknown.
- Just like The Unknown, this series also has the first movie take place in a small town, the second movie in the farthest reaches of space, and the third movie back in the original setting as the first.
- Both series are very similar in length; The Elephant still wins as the longest series though.
- Both series feature a "team" that includes all the main and supporting characters, who all endeavour through the series' conflicts and challenges.
- Both series' main villain has the ability to fly in space and both series' second movies feature the team searching for the villain in a rocketship.
- The team consists of 5 men and 4 women as of the end of the series.
- In the original team however, the male / female ratio is even with 3 from each gender.
- Various goofs and inaccuracies are noticeable in Elephant 2; for example the time the rocket takes to reach areas and the distance between objects in space. These statistics are corrected and are far more accurate in the third and final film.
- The elephant itself is very large; about 100 meters high and 200 meters long.
- However, the smaller elephants in the third film are only about 50 meters long.
- In Earth, the entire series takes place in the state of California.
- It is also portrayed that only people in California know about the elephant.
- However, since the U.S. Army and Air Force are seen battling against the elephants, the attacks are probably known nationwide.
- The series totals over 5 hours long.
- It is the only series to have a number in the title for its sequels.