The story is based around the Chinese mythology of Chang'e, the goddess of the moon and the namesake for China's lunar exploration spacecraft. The country's Long March rocket, Chang'e lander and Yutu rover make appearances.

There is a Disney-like quality to the movie, which is understandable given that director Glen Keane was a Disney animator who worked on many of the late 1980s, early 1990s Disney films. The soundtrack was scored by Steven Price, who also composed the music for Alfonso Cuarón's 2013 film, "Gravity."

China's real lunar rover rolls 'Over the Moon' in Netflix animated film

China's lunar rover helped animators add what Walt Disney once called the "plausible impossible" to the new animated film "Over the Moon."

The Yutu rover and its Chang'e lander make brief appearances in the Netflix and Pearl Studio movie, which follows the adventures of a young Chinese girl, Fei Fei, who builds a rocket ship to to the moon to prove the existence of a moon goddess. The rover and lander's namesakes were taken from a traditional Chinese legend about the immortal Chang'e and her Jade Rabbit ("Yutu" in Chinese) — the same mythology on which "Over the Moon" is based.

"We did not have the lunar rover [in the movie] until about half, maybe about a third of the way through making the film," director Glen Keane said in an interview with collectSPACE. "The idea of putting the lunar rover there seemed like it was a pretty wonderful thing, if we could have it integrated into the story. And that was the challenge."