What Disney hasn't done in feature animation yet

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Rumpelstiltskin
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What Disney hasn't done in feature animation yet

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

As far as I know, Disney have not a movie that is really gothic. The Hunchback of Notre Dame contains some classic elements, but I don't see it as really gothic. Walt Disney hinself was not afraid to try something new, which Fantasia shows, and we have already seen a movie where little boys are turned into donkeys and never rescued. So I don't see why a version of for instance Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr hyde or Dracula which was true to the original soruce and not a children's version couldn't have been made after Bambi if Disney had the required ressources available. The only problem is that the novels had already been made into live action movies a few years earlier, but the medium back then was still so young that many well known books still hadn't turned into cliches.

Neither has a film that describes an alien world and society been made yet. and Treasure Planet was a well known classic in a futuristic setting. One thing that's repeated a lot in science fiction is that the tempo is often too high and the action too hectic. Calm stories like the alien Fantastic Planet or the innocent Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet. Or even more in The Time Machine, where the whole society lives in a world very different from ours, and which follows the rythm of nature. There is no weekdays, no annual Academy Award, no Superbowl, no celebrity gossip, news from around the world or Saturday morning cartoons and so on.
A sci-fi movie that shows a world, fauna, flora and society that is alien compared to us is rare even in live action. Perhaps a little risky, but so was many of Disney's movies, and so was Ratatoille and Wall-E. Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race is one classic example that I don't think has been turned into a film yet, and I guess it will most likley take some years before someone gives it a chance as well.

When Bambi was released, it was the most realistic animated film about nature to date. a similar aesthetic movie about nature from the perspective of a mouse or insect sounds pleasing too. With Arthur and the Minimoys, Horton hears a Who and the four upcoming Tinkerbell DVDs, there will be something to choose from, even if I suspect a movie in the Disney canon could turn out more visually impressive.

As Charlie and the Chocolate Factory proves, films about candy and chocolate are always popular. But has it ever been made a movie where the whole world and its inhabitants are made of cookies and candies? There are some shorts around, like The Cookie Carnival and The Hot Choc-late Soldiers, but as far as I know, not a whole feature. If I could choose, I think I would have picked a plot where real world characters ends up in a cookie world, are transformed into living candy and tries to become humans again and find a way home.

Even if I doubt it will ever happen, I wouldn't mind to see a Disney feature containing the elements in one of the examples mentioned above. Maybe are there other catogories not mentioned yet that could be promising too.
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Post by yukitora »

You might say Lilo and Stitch or Chicken Little presented us some pretty solid Alien societies, though not a depiction of an Alien world itself. But hey, they've certainly have touched that area so it wouldn't be a complete gamble on how the audience will respond to them. An adaption of Victor Kelleher's Earthsong novel/trilogy would to beautiful.

Looking at their animated features canon, the 90s displayed a huge collection of various genres based on Greek mythology, Chinese legends, European fairytales, historic people, and adaption of famous texts (including 1000 nights). It seems that John Lasseter is trying to recreate that era with the influx of "grand" or "classic" stories such as the upcoming fairytales, so whose not to say they might tackle the famous gothic texts? :D

Though honestly, I rather Disney keep away from things other studios have been dealing with lately. Van Helsing is still to recent for me.
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Post by rougescrooge »

If they were to try something Gothic, one possibility that bears potential would be a non-tragic adapation of The Niebeliedlung cycle; Siegfried looks like an interesting choice for hero.
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Post by toonaspie »

yukitora wrote: It seems that John Lasseter is trying to recreate that era with the influx of "grand" or "classic" stories such as the upcoming fairytales, so whose not to say they might tackle the famous gothic texts? :D

Though honestly, I rather Disney keep away from things other studios have been dealing with lately. Van Helsing is still to recent for me.
Well the fairytale stuff is obviously for the sole purpose of cashing in on their Disney Princess line by adding more Princesses which is a shame because I thought Lasseter was suppose to be LESS like Eisner.

Disney isnt just about fairytales and the future plans at Animation dont seem to indicate that they know that. I feel it's a bit bland of them to do a feature on Rapunzel...I dunno why. I think it's because the fairytale is WAAAAY too simple to be able to stretch out into a 70-80 minute film. I was impressed with the Barbie version of Rapunzel though and the elements they added into their version to make it more developed and more interesting. I dunno how having pixies and such is going to do it for Disney's version. (They already had fairies with Sleeping Beauty another overly simple fairytale. Are they just trying to cash in on the Disney Fairy franchise as well).

The Lion King is the most succesful Disney animated film out of the entire cannon and it was based on a original source. I think the folks over at animation should relax and not worry so much about finding a source material to cover (book, legend, fairytale, whatev). I fear with the new "rennaisance" that the story people will no longer be thinking outside the box like they use to and instead focus on getting more pirates and princesses in Disney's animation cannon that Disney can cash in on.
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Post by PeterPanfan »

I'd really like to see Disney tackle an animated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.. :P

Other ideas:

The Wizard of Oz
Hansel and Gretel
Rumplestilsken

If they use the original Wizard of Oz source material, it could be a dark film. As coud Hansel and Gretel, and maybe even Rumplestilken. Definitly Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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Post by yukitora »

toonaspie wrote: The Lion King is the most succesful Disney animated film out of the entire cannon and it was based on a original source. I think the folks over at animation should relax and not worry so much about finding a source material to cover (book, legend, fairytale, whatev). I fear with the new "rennaisance" that the story people will no longer be thinking outside the box like they use to and instead focus on getting more pirates and princesses in Disney's animation cannon that Disney can cash in on.
The Lion King was the highest grossing, but adjusted for inflation, I think Snow White/101 Dalmatians/Fantasia/The Jungle Book were more successful...
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Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

I must admit I'm not too familiar with The Niebeliedlung cycle or The Earthsong trilogy, but maybe it could work.

Lilo & Stitch and Chicken Little had nothing to do with alien (with "alien" here I mean not extraterrestrial, but something different and unfamiliar) societies and worlds. Even if the apperaenses of some of the characters were not from earth, their personalities were typical earthlike. Alien on the outside, earthling on the inside, even if Stitch was a bit eccentric.

Van Helsing was not a gothic movie as I see it, the atmosphere were totally absent, instead it was an action movie with elements taken from the Gothic tradition. Dracula and Frankenstein were just examples on what could have worked at Disney back in the days with Snow White and Pinocchio. I'm not sure how successful such choices would have been today.

Kong of the Elves, which is said to be fantasy, could perhaps be seen as an attempt to try new directions away from the fairytale tradition. Not that I have anything at all against movies based on fairytales, it is only exciting to see them try something new now and thing. Yet I understand that sometimes they have to play it safe to make sure they earn enough money to be able to make something more risky once in a while.

I'm sure there is a lot of interesting material hiding in the weird fiction magazines from the old days. A film taking place in a decaying old fictional New England village between 1900 and 1930, as something from Lovecraft Country, is another example. Maybe with some aliens hiding in the deep forests, arriving on earth not in spaceships, but flying her on their own with huge leathery wings. And not walking around in spacesuits, but lurking naked between the trees, like in Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness. Thos may sound too scary for children, but it doesn't need to be that way at all. Since when was a different landscape and creatures with a different appearance any obsticle from creating an entertaining movie for the whole family? In Beauty and the Beast, we have a cursed monster living in a castle, a girl originally taken as a prisoner, and a mob who wants to kill the beast. That didn't stop Disney and other studios to make a good film. Snow White has always been concidered as a great movie also for children, even if I have heard that the youngest ones who saw the movie in 1937-1938 were so scared of the witch that they literally wet their pants and seats.
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Post by REINIER »

Dracula, I've said it before and I'll say it again!
Should make for some ineresting material if done right!
Also, people please check out the book by Terryl Witlatch
(Star Wars designer) it's called The Katurran Odyssee, it's to die for :D
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Post by REINIER »

Image

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(tree of life revisited :lol: )

Nice aren'nt they!

The Story's great too, it's about this lemur called Katuk and he's destined for greater things, that's all I'll reveal for now!
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Post by Harbinger »

yukitora wrote: The Lion King is the most succesful Disney animated film out of the entire cannon and it was based on a original source. I think the folks over at animation should relax and not worry so much about finding a source material to cover (book, legend, fairytale, whatev). I fear with the new "rennaisance" that the story people will no longer be thinking outside the box like they use to and instead focus on getting more pirates and princesses in Disney's animation cannon that Disney can cash in on.
technically, The Lion King was loosely based off of Hamlet. :P
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Post by toonaspie »

Harbinger wrote:
yukitora wrote: The Lion King is the most succesful Disney animated film out of the entire cannon and it was based on a original source. I think the folks over at animation should relax and not worry so much about finding a source material to cover (book, legend, fairytale, whatev). I fear with the new "rennaisance" that the story people will no longer be thinking outside the box like they use to and instead focus on getting more pirates and princesses in Disney's animation cannon that Disney can cash in on.
technically, The Lion King was loosely based off of Hamlet. :P
While I have nothing to back it up, I dont think their first intention for TLK was "hey let's do Hamlet with animals". I think the Hamlet references/comparisons just appeared as the story developed and people were thinking "hey, there's a lot of Hamlet in this". That is just my opinion unless people can prove that they wanted to do an African animals version of Hamlet from the start.

I also love how a lot of sources say that The Lion King was the first Disney animated film in the cannon that was an original story...hardly the case. I think the first original story film was Lady & the Tramp (an original crossover between a failed Disney short concept and a publish short story found in a magazine). There is also The Aristocats which has no indication of a book or story source that the film was based off of.

Just sharing some fun acts :) If I am wrong I am wrong
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Post by Siren »

Raptor Red by Robert T Bakker. Not gothic, but more in lines I guess with Bambi and Dinosaur. Naturalistic. He did a great job writing about the life of one female Utahraptor without anthropomorphizing the dinosaurs. A lot of death going on in it too. Right near the beginning, Raptor Red watches as her mate gets stuck under the dying body of a dinosaur they just attacked and he slowly suffocates and drowns in the mud. And that's how it starts. I would love to see Disney or any animation study do justice by the story. Not make it hokey and cute.
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Post by Harbinger »

toonaspie wrote:
Harbinger wrote: technically, The Lion King was loosely based off of Hamlet. :P
While I have nothing to back it up, I dont think their first intention for TLK was "hey let's do Hamlet with animals". I think the Hamlet references/comparisons just appeared as the story developed and people were thinking "hey, there's a lot of Hamlet in this". That is just my opinion unless people can prove that they wanted to do an African animals version of Hamlet from the start.
i'm pretty sure the writers were influenced by Hamlet. Considering the many parallels of characters. Also The Lion Kind 1 1/2 was like Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead" which is about two minor characters viewpoints on the story of Hamlet, just like Timon and Pumbaa. maybe it wasn't their first intention when creating the idea for the movie, but for the story i'm pretty sure they turned to shakespeare. google it, you'll learn a lot. :)
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Post by Siren »

The name Timon...that was a Shakespearian character too right?

So yeah, IMO, TLK is not original work. It was based loosely on Hamlet. I know I have heard the writers refer to Hamlet on several occasions.

But don't ever compare it to Kimba...OMG... :lol:
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Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

The Katurran Odyssee? Looks like a world without humans (or before humans) with its own mythology.

I remember good old Bob Bakker and his programs from Discovery Channel. Making a movie from his book could maybe work, but it sounds a bit like the computer animated "docu dramas" about dinosaurs they have showed from time to time on National Geographic and Discovery Channel. I don't think Disney have done many animated movie without anthropomorphic animals, which were present even in Pocahontas, but probably not in Lilo & Stitch. Maybe some day the studio even decide to make a movie without anthropomorphic animals, magic or sci-fi. Not that I have any strong wish to see such a movie, it would only be a first.
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Post by yukitora »

lol, someone messed up the quotes :lol:

Anyhow, it was mentioned on the platinum release that they purposefully took some elements from Hamlet to make the film more dramatic, but it can be argued that it's basically their own story, with their own original characters and such.

Otherwise you could say that every movie regarding to people in love from enemy families are adaptions of Romeo and Juliet... or any revenge movie is based of Othello...
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Post by BelleGirl »

I could mention some definite stories Disney/Pixar could adapt, but instead I like to list some story -elements that I've never seen before in a Disney Animated feature, but I would like to see (but probably never will):

- A (strong) mother-daughter relationship
- Hero(in) dies tragically in the end
- Villain commits suicide
- Human couple gets a child halfway the movie (and I mean the main protagonists, before you refer to TENG)
- Story takes place in ancient Rome or Egypt

Most of them probabably not very child-friendly, but you guys mentioned Frankenstein, Dracula and other scary stories...

Somebody else wants to mention story-elements they want to see and never been included before?
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Post by reyquila »

BelleGirl wrote:I could mention some definite stories Disney/Pixar could adapt, but instead I like to list some story -elements that I've never seen before in a Disney Animated feature, but I would like to see (but probably never will):

- A (strong) mother-daughter relationship
- Hero(in) dies tragically in the end
- Villain commits suicide
- Human couple gets a child halfway the movie (and I mean the main protagonists, before you refer to TENG)
- Story takes place in ancient Rome or Egypt

Most of them probabably not very child-friendly, but you guys mentioned Frankenstein, Dracula and other scary stories...

Somebody else wants to mention story-elements they want to see and never been included before?
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Post by REINIER »

[quote="BelleGirl"]I could mention some definite stories Disney/Pixar could adapt, but instead I like to list some story -elements that I've never seen before in a Disney Animated feature, but I would like to see (but probably never will):

- Story takes place in ancient Rome or Egypt

Ancient Egypt coming up.....

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Check out Ishanti (french comic)....

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Post by BelleGirl »

We may never see gay or lesbian relations
Not until it's totally accepted by soceity, and THAT may take a long time.

Disney, after all, is hardly a company you expect to break taboos or critique society with their films. They play it safe.
Which doesn't stop certain groups of people from accusing Disney that it is infecting children with ' wrong ideas'.
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