AURORA PRESENTS A DON BLUTH PRODUCTION

    Timid field mouse Mrs. Brisby (ELIZABETH HARTMAN) has big problems: her baby son Timmy (IAN FRIED) has pneumonia and cannot be moved from their cinderblock home which lies in Farmer Fitzgibbons' field.  However, it is spring and The Plow will soon come.  If Mrs. Brisby doesn't move her four children, they'll all be crushed.
    As she scurries home with some medicine from the threshing machine laboratory of chemist mouse Mr. Ages (ARTHUR MALET), Brisby runs headlong into clumsy Jeremy the crow (DOM DeLUISE), whose loud proclamations that he is searching for Miss Right brings on Dragon, the farmer's cat who savagely lunges at both of them.
    After a harrowing escape over a waterfall and into an old mill, Mrs., Brisby discovers she's lost Timmy's medicine but Jeremy reappears and presents it to her, also asking for advice on finding a sweetheart.  Mrs. Brisby runs home, where busybody neighbor Auntie Shrew (HERMIONE BADDELEY) has had a tussle with Brisby's other children Teresa (SHANNEN (sic) DOHERTY), Martin (WIL (sic) WHEATON) and Cynthia (JODI HICKS).  Shrew stalks out, warning Brisby that Moving Day is near.
    The sound of a tractor breaks through the chill dawn.  The alarm spreads throughout the field that Moving Day has come!  Brisby pleads with Shrew to take the three children away; she'll stay

behind with Timmy.   Shrew and the children refuse to leave. Panicked, Brisby attacks the behemoth tractor and is paralyzed with fear.  Shrew arrives and disengages the fuel line, halting the tractor, if only for a while.
    Jeremy takes Brisby to see the Great owl (JOHN  CARRADINE).  Brisby quakes but asks for the Owl's help.  When he   discovers she is the widow of Jonathan Brisby, he advises her to go to the rats living under the farmer's rosebush.  They will help move the cinderblock to the safe side of a large rock, where the Plow can't Crush it, he says.
    As she enters the rosebush, she is greeted by centurion Brutus, who attacks her.  She narrowly escapes and runs into Mr. Ages, who now has a broken leg and who is confounded by the fact that she is here and has managed to see the owl.  He reluctantly takes her for an audience with Nicodemus (DEREK JACOBI),  the leader of the rats.
    Nicodemus tells her of NIMH, the National institute of Mental Health, where his rats and some mice were subjects of experiments which increased their intelligence.  Using their new cunning,  they escaped and made their way to this rosebush, where they built an underground civilization complete with lights and wiring.
They "tap" the farmer's electricity.  But they are, he says, Preparing to move to Thorn Valley to implement the plan,  whereby they will be entirely self-sufficient, not stealing anything.

    Mr. Ages, Nicodemus says, was one of the mice.  So was Brisby's late husband, Jonathan.  Nicodemus gives her an amulet which he promises will exhibit mysterious powers when worn by a person with a courageous heart.  Timid Mrs. Brisby puts it on.
    Accompanied by Justin (PETER STRAUSS), the captain of the guard and Nicodemus' loyal  young follower, Brisby volunteers to drug the farmer's cat so the rats can move the, house without interference.  She squeezes through a small hole into the farmer's kitchen where Mrs. Fitzgibbons (LUCILLE BLISS) is busily preparing the cat's food.  As Brisby dashes back from the bowl, the farmer's son Bill (JOSH LAWRENCE) captures her and throws her into a bird cage.  Justin leaves to join the others in moving the cinderblock, and Brisby overhears Farmer Fitzgibbons (TOM HATTEN) telling his wife that NIMH will arrive the next day to exterminate the rats.  Brisby struggles to get free and warn the others.
    In the meantime Nicodemus oversees the moving of the cinderblock in the rain.  Dastardly Jenner (PAUL SHENAR), prime opponent of The Plan, and his henchman Sullivan (ALDO RAY) cut the support rope and the block crushes Nicodemus.  Brisby arrives with news of NIMH and Justin announces that the rats must leave for Thorn Valley as soon as possible.  Jenner argues with him, and he and Sullivan are killed in the fight with Justin.

But...the block is sinking!  Brisby hears the anguished cries of her children, who are trapped inside.  The amulet falls from her neck and sinks in the mud, then mystically levitates.  As she touches it, Nicodemus's voice says, "Courage of the heart is very rare, the stone has a power when it's there."  Brisby's hands are burned from the amulet's heat.  Soon, she and the amulet are one, glowing with the magic stone's force.  The amulet gently falls around her neck and she picks up the rope that is tied around the block.  It too begins to glow.  Slowly, slowly the cinderblock surfaces, levitates and moves to the safe side of the large rock.  Brisby, her hands singed, collapses in an exhausted heap.
    The next day, Jeremy arrives at the new homesite where Timmy is begging his mother to be allowed outside to play.  Jeremy arrives and is crestfallen to learn that the block has already been moved.  He turns away when a black ball from the sky strikes him and pushes him into a clump of high grass.    It is, of course, Miss Right, and as a confident Brisby and her children discuss their future trip to Thorn Valley, Jeremy and his sweetheart wing their way into  the sunset.
    The end... and  the beginning.