Rasputin (Don Bluth)



Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, better known as Rasputin, is the main antagonist of the 1997 Don Bluth feature film Anastasia by 20th Century Fox. He is based loosely on the real-life psychic Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin: however, in the film, he is depicted as a far more malevolent and manipulative being of black magic than the real-life Rasputin, though the two share the common title of "Mad Monk".

He was voiced by Christopher Lloyd, who also played Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Reggie Shand in Walk Like a Man, The Hacker in Cyberchase, Merlock in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, Lord Imaru in The Secret Treasure of Machu Picchu by Golden Films, Mr. Clipboard in Foodfight!, Bill Crowley in I Am Not A Serial Killer, Dr. Heep in Baby Geniuses, and Kruge in the Star Trek universe. However, his singing voice was provided by Jim Cummings, who also played Razoul in Disney's Aladdin, Ed the Hyena in Disney's The Lion King, and Long John Silver in The Pagemaster by 20th Century Fox, and Steele in Balto by Universal Pictures, and was also half of the singing voice of Scar in Disney's The Lion King.

First Death
Rasputin was banished for treason by the Russian Tsar Nicholas Romanov.

Eager for revenge for his then banishment, Rasputin plans on destroying the Russian royalty. He sold his soul to the otherworldly forces of darkness in exchange for his Reliquary and for the power to destroy the czar Nicholas II and his family, in the process becoming a lich (a type of undead creature with magical powers). He then returns to the Russian palace and inflicts on the czar's family with the Romanov curse. All of the royals are killed by Rasputin and the Russian soldiers, except for the czar's mother, Marie Romanov, and his daughter, Anastasia. Rasputin eventually attempts to murder Anastasia himself after hearing of her escape. While chasing her across a frozen pond, he loses his amulet when he uses both hands to grab the girl’s foot. He nearly succeeded in crushing her between his grip until the ice beneath him breaks. Anastasia wretches her ankle free from his massive hands; leaving Rasputin to drown and he is unable to die until he completes his curse.

Return and Ultimate Death 10 years after
10 years later, Rasputin is trapped in limbo, then his amulet is back in his hands thanks to Bartok. Driven more by his intense and malevolent desire for revenge, he wishes to finish off what he started before he rests in peace by killing Anastasia. Putting his demonic minions to work on finding and destroying her but failing, he is accompanied throughout the film by his reluctant minion Bartok, who is a white bat.

Rasputin summons his army of green demons to kill Anya and completes his revenge. He has the demons sabotage the train Anya, Dimitri and Vlad are on, by separating the train with an engine and baggage car from the dining car and coaches in Poland. But Anya, Vladimir, and Dimitri jump off the train to avoid falling to their deaths, to Rasputin's fury.

Later, Anya, Dimitri and Vlad arrive in from Stralsund, Germany and board a ship to Paris. That night, as Anya sleeps, Rasputin invades her dreams, and causes her to sleepwalk to the edge of hte ship. Luckily, Dimitri (alerted by Pooka) awakens and rescues Anya at the last second.

Enraged at the failure, Rasputin throws a childish tantrum. Recomposing himself, he tells Bartok that he will go to Paris himself and kill Anastasia in person. Bartok tries to talk him out of it, but to no avail.

Later, Rasputin takes advantage of Pooka leading Anastasia into a garden maze and traps her there to reveal himself. He then tries to kill her on the Alexander Bridge over an icy Seine River; mimicking the same tragic night on the ice they once shared before. Dimitri returns to save her but is injured and knocked unconscious of the Black Pegasus.

Anastasia survives and is filled with rage. She attacks Rasputin and they both wrestle body to body. Pooka snatches the reliquary and it rolls to Anastasia's feet. Anastasia stomps on the reliquary, causing it to explode. With the reliquary gone, Rasputin is unable to keep his end of the devil's contract, so his gargoyle minions turn on him, causing his flesh to be liquefied, his cloak dissolving, and his skeletal body then crumbles away to dust, which the wind then blows away.

Appearance
Rasputin is a tall, scary-looking man. He wears a brown robe (however, in the books it has a gold interior) with black shoes, (Which appear to be high heeled). He wears some sort of purple clothing beneath his robe, but the only part of this that is shown is the sleeves. His robe trails along the ground. He has black hair that is tied back into a ponytail and has a black mustache that connects to his long black beard going below his waist. His skin is a rotting, pale green color and he has skeletally long fingers and fingernails. He has a hood that hangs off of the back of the neck of the robe. Around his waist is a gold rope sash with three beads. The rope is tied around his Reliquary which hang at his shins. His sleeves go as long as his waist. Another noticeable feature is that he appears to be wearing nothing under his robe yet he has a strange purple clothing at the neck and sleeves.

After selling his soul, Rasputin is thus transformed into an undead being with supernatural powers (especially skillful evocation of strange green demons), resulting from a Reliquary made ​​of glass, which he is linked to. Being undead for almost 10 years, his body is now rotten and unstable; it follows that on numerous occasions Rasputin loses one or more pieces of his body, though can still put himself back together.

Trivia

 * It was because of Rasputin that Anastasia almost received a PG rating by the MPAA.
 * Rasputin is very similar to Jafar from Disney's Aladdin, they're both sorcerers, they're both men of vengeance, and they're both political advisors.
 * Rasputin in Anastasia is one of several fictionalized versions of Rasputin being portrayed as villain. The others being Rasputin from the Hellboy franchise as an agent of Ogdru Jahad, Rasputin from Red Dwarf series, Rasputin from Shadow Hearts, Ivanovic from Dance in the Vampire Bund, and Rasputin from Drifters.
 * The real-life Rasputin (while very unpopular with the Russian people) was actually very close with the family of Tsar Nicholas, particularly the Tsarina and her daughters. Contrary to his reputation, he was not an evil sorcerer; he was an eccentric monk, mystic, and healer. Neither was Rasputin the cause of the Romanov family's death. He had been killed more than a year and a half before the Bolshevik Communists overthrew the government and executed the Romanovs.
 * Rasputin was among the most popular non-Disney villains along with Grundel Toad and Mr. Mole from Thumbelina and Rothbart from The Swan Princess until Disney started owning most of 21st Century Fox (including 20th Century Fox, including the rights of both Anastasia and Thumbelina), making all three main antagonists unofficial Disney villains.