Disney Duster wrote:Yes, and then they did The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, three fairy tales just like Walt did...and The Lion King was like Bambi...and..they were huge hits among the best the studio has done!
You do realize that Walt Disney, in his days, would never have executed those films the way Disney did in the 1990's? Having a main character making references to
Taxi Driver, Jack Nicholson, Thanksgiving parades etc.? I don't think so.
Besides, I'm convinced that
The Rescuers was *a lot* closer to what 'Walt would have done' than the 1990's films. That's why Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston called it "the best film we made without Walt" on their website. And, contrary to what Rudy Matt said, it was a very popular film, the highest grossing Disney film at that time. Disney even thought it was good enough to use it for their first sequel.
mawnck wrote:[...] His scripted TV speeches and ghostwritten "quotes" are evidence of absolutely nothing but how easily the public can be manipulated by a well-focused, long running ad campaign.
Please try to get this through your heads: Walt's marketing people wrote that stuff for him. His homespun quotes often contradicted his own working practices, the historic record, and each other. He said what his staff told him he should say to promote the latest project, just like every other good public figure does. It was all marketing, not a basis for operating a real-life movie studio. [...]
I'm not in any way denigrating Walt Disney's achievements. I truly do think the man was a storytelling genius. But I don't think you can have a serious discussion of his work or his legacy if you insist on deifying the guy.
Game, set, and match!!! THANK YOU!
Prepare to be flamed into pieces, though, because a lot of people wearing pink glasses, living on clouds, will feel offended. Reality-based posts are often tricky when it comes to these subjects. To not deïfy Walt Disney is considered a serious crime on UD. But nonetheless, you're dead on about the marketing. I'm still surprised that even more than 40 years after his death, people *still* think the carefully created and marketed image of 'Uncle Walt' is 100% authentic. People who don't see that, like you said, his tv appearances were all scripted by others. Those people must think the president writes his speeches himself, too! They must've read a hundred biographies on Walt Disney, but don't realize most of them are for 90% not true (or at least not complete). There's so much false information out there about Walt, and that's because the Disney wants to carefully sustain the 'kind Uncle Walt' image.
mawnck wrote:Besides, he was born in 1901. If he were alive today, he'd still be dead.
