50 years ago....

[Semaj]

Today is a milestone of sorts.

On the morning of December 15th, 1966 was the day that Walt Disney died, only 10 days after his 65th birthday.

Many at the time of his passing were left wondering how the Disney studio would survive without him. The studio would be haunted with that question throughout the 70s as they tentatively completed works leftover from Walt's lifetime, and struggled to come up with their own ideas. Surely, no one would've predicted from the erosion of others whom had once worked with Walt, or thru changes in both staff and management, or from surviving takeover threats in its darkest hours that the Disney studio would still be running 50 years later.

It would be difficult to guess what if Walt had lived longer. The one certainty is that he would be glad the company is still going. There are a lot of things he would be disappointed in, and many things he would've done differently. But it seemed how in keeping his illness secret from everyone, and coming from the fact that he was still hypothesizing EPCOT in his final hours, that Walt did not want his company to die with him.

This year's Christmas miracle is that we still look forward to the latest animated Disney movie, take trips to theme parks, and watch their latest TV shows, all against the notion at the moment its founder drew his final breath of a world without Disney.

[milojthatch]

Personally, I feel that 50 years later, Walt's company is dead, or at least on sever life support. It was replaced with a soulless, dime a dozen, American corporation. There seems to be less and less within the company that is genuinely "Disney." There is a very strong and growing feeling that the 2016 company is almost ashamed of it's 20th Century past, as more and more of it is swept under the rug and purposefully forgotten. It would be easy to lay all the blame on Marvel or LucasFilm or even the Muppets, but it goes much deeper than those acquisitions. There is very little honest creativity left in new projects with more and more reboots, reimaginings and blatant rip-offs of a tiny concentration of projects from the past, otherwise known as the few past films Disney is willing to admit is theirs still.

When I was younger, I used to be excited for the newest Disney film, now I cringe. In an effort to be more "hip and modern and PC," Disney the company has lost the values Walt himself put into each and every project that bore his name. I sometimes wonder if the 100% authentic Disney brand has a place in 21st Century America. Each year I start to doubt that it does a little more. And each year the company seems more distant from where they left off on December 15, 1966.

[DisneyFan09]

It's hard to believe that it's been fifty years ago since he died. Regardless of what person Walt was personally, it's fair to admire what he managed to accomplish during his short lifetime. He was an icon, an innovator and a force of nature. Due to me actually preferring Walt's film as a kid, I used to ponder of what would've happened if he actually lived longer and made more animated features. But one thing is for certain; He's made his mark on the world with his films and way of storytelling and components.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

If Disney hadn't become ill, he would have moved forward with his plans, which included Mineral King Ski Resort and his original vision for EPCOT. It would have been extremely expensive, and nobody knows what the end of the story would be.

He did start to lose interest in animation as he got older, but during the production of The Jungle Book, he apparently said "I had forgotten how fun it was". Still, he rejected Bill Peet's version of the movie. It could have been better, or not.

The best legacy to leave behind is a vision, not a formula. Take Lasseter for instance. He helped making Pixar into what it is, but it would probably benefit the studio if he stepped back a little and allowed new blood to try their own things. In their own way, Pixar movies are becoming predictable.

[DisneyFan09]

The best legacy to leave behind is a vision, not a formula. Take Lasseter for instance. He helped making Pixar into what it is, but it would probably benefit the studio if he stepped back a little and allowed new blood to try their own things. In their own way, Pixar movies are becoming predictable.

Exactly, but that's what the naysayers has refused to see. Pixar's formula (at least in their golden era and the short-lived comeback of Inside Out) has been praised for being so inventive, foolproof and flawless to a degree that it seems as it's formula is flawless and perfect. Regardless of the Disney vs. Pixar debate, the praise Pixar has gotten it's almost sickening. Disney has been criticized for recycling their formula and components and while Pixar shall have praise for at least being more varying, it's still Pixar who has been labeled as the mastermind, not Disney. And even when Disney were getting better at the expense of Pixar, the Pixar fanboys still blamed Disney for Pixar's decline.

And yeah, due to this being first and foremost a Disney board, it's not as Disney gets bashed at the expense of Pixar here (fortunately). Fortunately the majority seem to prefer Disney here, which is the reason why Lasseter gets so much flack here (though fortunately I'm not as biased in the sense that I would deny Pixar any credit). But regardless of which company who has the biggest fanbase, it's clear that the purists and critics overall label Pixar for being the perfect company, when Disney has actually expanded their horizons lately

But I know I'm repeating myself.

[bradhig]

It was his fault. If he hadn't smoked like a chimney most of his life he might have lived to make his EPCOT dram a reality. Why didn't his relatives take the cigarettes away? When my dad's health due to heavy smoking mom wouldn't stop him from smoking cause she said he would just get some more and he dad from several strokes that left him a vegetable.

[Will Barks]

It was his fault. If he hadn't smoked like a chimney most of his life he might have lived to make his EPCOT dram a reality. Why didn't his relatives take the cigarettes away? When my dad's health due to heavy smoking mom wouldn't stop him from smoking cause she said he would just get some more and he dad from several strokes that left him a vegetable.

It's easy to judge. For most of Walt's life cigarettes weren't even deemed dangerous to your health. There was a time when doctors even promoted cigarettes. In addition to the high addictiveness of nicotine, they are are huge stress reliever. And someone in the position of Walt probably couldn't do without some kind of compensation. Who knows? He may have gotten a burnout at 40 and stopped making films altogether.

That being said I'm a non smoker myself and actually cannot understand why people are still smoking today.

[milojthatch]

It was his fault. If he hadn't smoked like a chimney most of his life he might have lived to make his EPCOT dram a reality. Why didn't his relatives take the cigarettes away? When my dad's health due to heavy smoking mom wouldn't stop him from smoking cause she said he would just get some more and he dad from several strokes that left him a vegetable.

It's easy to judge. For most of Walt's life cigarettes weren't even deemed dangerous to your health. There was a time when doctors even promoted cigarettes. In addition to the high addictiveness of nicotine, they are are huge stress reliever. And someone in the position of Walt probably couldn't do without some kind of compensation. Who knows? He may have gotten a burnout at 40 and stopped making films altogether.

That being said I'm a non smoker myself and actually cannot understand why people are still smoking today.

I agree with both points. Walt did choose to smoke, and it has to be said that he still has some responsibility to his actions, as we all do. However, the understanding of what smoking would/could do to a person was not as well understood in the old days of Hollywood as today. If you look at the death of a lot of people from the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were a number of deaths related to smoking. It makes one wonder why anyone smokes today now that we have the information that we do, but that's kind of a separate discussion.

I was thinking about it even more. I kind of feel that last serious nail in the Disney coffin was when Roy E. Disney died. No one in the company that has any serious power today cares about the classic brand or the values Walt stood for.

[D82]

Richard Sherman gives a nice tribute to Walt Disney in this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bwl4MuYsQs[/youtube]

[Disney Duster]

Personally, I feel that 50 years later, Walt's company is dead, or at least on sever life support. It was replaced with a soulless, dime a dozen, American corporation. There seems to be less and less within the company that is genuinely "Disney." There is a very strong and growing feeling that the 2016 company is almost ashamed of it's 20th Century past, as more and more of it is swept under the rug and purposefully forgotten. It would be easy to lay all the blame on Marvel or LucasFilm or even the Muppets, but it goes much deeper than those acquisitions. There is very little honest creativity left in new projects with more and more reboots, reimaginings and blatant rip-offs of a tiny concentration of projects from the past, otherwise known as the few past films Disney is willing to admit is theirs still.

When I was younger, I used to be excited for the newest Disney film, now I cringe. In an effort to be more "hip and modern and PC," Disney the company has lost the values Walt himself put into each and every project that bore his name. I sometimes wonder if the 100% authentic Disney brand has a place in 21st Century America. Each year I start to doubt that it does a little more. And each year the company seems more distant from where they left off on December 15, 1966.

For the most part, I agree. But I like films like Frozen and the live-action version of Cinderella so I differ somewhat.

In addition to the high addictiveness of nicotine, they are are huge stress reliever.

Actually I learned in Physchology at college that cigarettes create a fake sense of stress to relieve yourself from with smoking.

[milojthatch]

Personally, I feel that 50 years later, Walt's company is dead, or at least on sever life support. It was replaced with a soulless, dime a dozen, American corporation. There seems to be less and less within the company that is genuinely "Disney." There is a very strong and growing feeling that the 2016 company is almost ashamed of it's 20th Century past, as more and more of it is swept under the rug and purposefully forgotten. It would be easy to lay all the blame on Marvel or LucasFilm or even the Muppets, but it goes much deeper than those acquisitions. There is very little honest creativity left in new projects with more and more reboots, reimaginings and blatant rip-offs of a tiny concentration of projects from the past, otherwise known as the few past films Disney is willing to admit is theirs still.

When I was younger, I used to be excited for the newest Disney film, now I cringe. In an effort to be more "hip and modern and PC," Disney the company has lost the values Walt himself put into each and every project that bore his name. I sometimes wonder if the 100% authentic Disney brand has a place in 21st Century America. Each year I start to doubt that it does a little more. And each year the company seems more distant from where they left off on December 15, 1966.

For the most part, I agree. But I like films like Frozen and the live-action version of Cinderella so I differ somewhat.

Those two films kind of represent two different issues within the company right now. And please, understand what I'm about to say is not commenting on how good either film is per say, nor do I expect everyone to agree with me. If you like modern Disney, I'm very happy for you. As a fan or the classic brand however, I'm not happy with most of what I see and often find myself down right frustrated with what has happened to Walt's company. If I started a company and instilled in it a set of values that were dear to me, I'd rather know that it would cease to exists after I'm gone then find out it would completely drift from those values I original instilled.

I can't see Walt making either of these films, at least as they turned out. In the case of Frozen, maybe Walt would have made something based on The Snow Queen at some point, I have no idea, and the CG side to it is a whole other issue. What I'm talking about is more the political narrative of the film. Really, the whole film is one giant rejection of the kind of films Walt made and the values he stood for. Films like Frozen or Zootopia try too hard to distance themselves from classic Disney fare, and a lot of that is modern Disney pandering to certain kinds of people that place PC thinking as the most important focus in their lives. I can't see Walt pandering to these people; people that want to hold on to their modern political narratives and still feel like they are Disney fans. They want to change the messages Disney sends out to fit their world view and thankfully for them, most of the people running the company fully agree with them and are happy to oblige. But by doing so, you loose the values that made Disney "Disney" in the first place. I'm not interested in a political discussion per say, but the fact is the classic Disney brand is more conservative to a large part becuase Walt was more conservative, which the modern company is not. I find each individual will find this change good or not based on their own world view, but regardless the modern company does not hold the same values Walt's version of the company did. So that is what it is.

As for the live-action Cinderella, that is a whole different topic. When it came to stories, Walt rarely retread stories he had tacked already, and the idea of a reboot or re-imagining of a film the company made really feels very un-Walt like. Walt Disney would have made films based on new stories, regardless if they came from real life events or a novel. A rare example of that kind of film making that harkens back to the Walt era style film making would be Queen of Katwe. It was an original film based on a true story, but it didn't do as well at the box office sadly. Everything has to be an "event film" these days, and while there were certainly films made in the Walt era that would have qualified as that kind of film making, most of the the films the Disney Studio produced in it's first few decades were original for the studio and not as grandiose. They were simple family films meant to instill (often) conservative values to the next generation. You looks at the DIsney slate of up-coming films, and the majority of it is "event films." Films like the next Star Wars, Marvel, PIXAR or Pirates film. Every so often a film like Queen of Katwe might slip by, but it's more and more rare. And I say this even though I LOVE Marvel, PIXAR and Pirates movies, and even in Walt's day there was a place for "event films." Certainly films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Marry Poppins would count as such, but there were not the standard each year, and even his "event films" were one and done kinds of things.

To me, the live-action reboots of the animated films feels like modern Disney pretending to be pandering to classic fans. But as a classic fan, I don't want, nor do I need to see a new version of a film the studio has made already. Just release the original film on DVD or whatever and I'm good. What I want to see is the studio making more original stories with the same kinds of values the company used to stand for. How many original scripts were rejected so that Disney could make the zillionth version of Cinderella? And yet becuase it's based on a classic, Walt-era film, I'm supposed to give the modern company a pass and see them as still holding true to their roots? No, just no. But I can see these films for what they real are: the reformation of the Disney brand. A film like Disney's 1950 animated classic Cinderella might not fit modern world views, so let's remake it as a 21st Century film and eventually we'll see less and less of the 1950 film and more and more of the 2015 film, which eventually will be the only version the company claims publicly. The whole time still holding on to the copyright of the 1950 film so they can ultimately bury it and it's unenlightened values. I use Cinderella as the example, but you can fill in any title here. Then of course there are some films that are not even worth the remake like Song of the South and just go straight to burying it.

There are certainly other issues not covered here, but these comments cover a lot of the bigger and more public ones. I guess the only other thing I'd bring up is the increasing challenge in being able to access classic Disney films or TV shows, but again this is directly connected to issues I've covered already. I predict in so many years Steamboat Willie will just be a cute 5 second company bumper and the original short will be lost in the studio vault somewhere, never to be seen again. In fact whole generations will never know that Mickey was ever hand drawn, give it enough time.

[Disney Duster]

Well milojthatch, I read all you said and am not offended, and I agree with a lot of it. But not all. And for the rest, I can just see "hm, you made good points."

You are right that Disney is trying to be different from its past. It should instead make original films or films based on existing stories but still keep the values, messages, and storytelling Walt did, right? Basically. But Walt's film's changed with the times. In Sleeping Beauty he had rebellious teens. In 101 Dalmatians he let the animation look change, but told the crew he would have liked it different or like his past films were, a sign that he was going to let go of the company and let it be its own thing, but hope it would stay classic. In The Jungle Book he had modern musical references. He edited out Sunflower from Fantasia. I can't name something specific, but I feel like Walt would have changed with the times and his films would, too. If you disagree, I can also see why for that, too.

And you are right that Walt would probably not remake any of his classics. I simply like the remakes. I don't think the originals will be replaced, though. The 1996 101 Dalmatians has not overtaken the original at all. I actually wish both the 1950 and 2015 Cinderellas would be kept in the public's eye forever, but I must admit it is probably only the 1950 one that will be...but I still hope and believe the 2015 can keep getting released forever, too. Anyway, I don't feel the new remakes wil bury the old films. And even though I call these remakes, I don't consider them remakes. I consider them different versions. Would Walt ever do different versions of a story he'd done before? Well, who knows. Especially if he thought he could do something new, or improve it. But I'll admit, most likely he wouldn't. It's just that, well, I could believe he might do it in time.

Walt also may not have been everything you thought he was. He swore. I don't think he went to church all the time, if at all, or even had a specific religion. He decided against the stained-glass windows look depicting, I think, the virgin Mary and baby Jesus, out of trees in the "Ave Maria" segment of Fantasia because he deemed it "too religious". And when he found out that Bobby Driscoll, I believe, was gay, I heard he did not care. He merely fired him because that gay actor picked up a gay high school boy and that boy's mother complained about it.

Also, the world is changing. And it's changing liberally. The word conservative means to conserve. We will conserve things forever as long as humanity is conserved forever, but change is liberal, and change will probably almost always happen too. I doubt we'd ever come to a point where humanity says "Ok, let's not change anything any more." I feel not changing anything would be like nothing new happening. I feel we'd get bored and die.

And finally, I must say things should change, including some, not all, but some of Disney. Improving themselves on old messages and values I see as ok. Not everything, but some things. Like I think keeping close to the original source material and titles should be kept, but then having the main and "good" characters be better role models and have more self-actualization in girls. I think civil rights and freedom should be allowed into Disney as it is allowed in the world. And by the way, I believe in God, but I think his book, being written by men, even though they were inspired by God, did have some of man's, and not all God's, word in it. It says you can sell your daughter into slavery, but not have same-sex acts. And in the same book that it says there can't be gay love, it says you can't eat certain things - things I'm sure you have eaten and never considered a sin. I believe God wants us to think with our brains and love with our hearts and follow the golden rule and use them to see what is the actual word of God in that book. To see that the true word may say nothing against gay love and instead follows the golden rule. What I use, my brain and heart, to believe God is real and loves me, are the same things I use to believe what I think is right, including that gay love is right. In fact, it has actually hurt my brain to think against gay love as it hurt to think against God's existence.

Well, that's what I have to say. Do with it what you will.

[Disney Duster]

I forgot to say, Walt Disney did The Ugly Duckling in a 1931 Silly Symphony. Then he did a version more faithful to the original story in a 1939 Silly Symphony also called The Ugly Duckling. And he did the Cinderella Laugh-O-Gram before doing a version more faithful to the original story the in 1950 full-length feature. So Disney doing remakes...or other versions of the same story...well, it may be ok. Maybe they improve on some things like Walt improved on things... But I don't consider the 2015 live-action Cinderella a remake or a complete improvement. Just a different version. With some improvements. And also the 1950 original in live-action. Yea, I can think of it all as one.

[Disney Duster]

I also forgot to say, Walt Disney didn't want the stained-glass windows in Fantasia because he thought it would be too religious.

[Elladorine]

It's easy to judge. For most of Walt's life cigarettes weren't even deemed dangerous to your health. There was a time when doctors even promoted cigarettes. In addition to the high addictiveness of nicotine, they are are huge stress reliever. And someone in the position of Walt probably couldn't do without some kind of compensation. Who knows? He may have gotten a burnout at 40 and stopped making films altogether.

Ok, so I know this was posted nearly a year ago, but I feel the need to chime in. You are exactly right! So I'd like to post an extremely brief history lesson to those that may have a hard time understanding how the views of smoking have changed so dramatically since the days of Walt.

I agree that it's easy to judge, especially given what we know now about smoking is taken for granted. And yes, throughout most of Walt's lifetime cigarettes weren't even considered dangerous, and some cigarettes were indeed promoted by doctors through magazine ads and television commercials. And if you want to hear something even worse, menthol cigarettes were given to nose and throat specialists to hand out to their patients suffering from colds because it was believed to be beneficial! At its very worst, some considered smoking "immoral," akin to the sins of gambling and drinking, but for decades the general public simply had no way of knowing just how dangerous of an addiction it is.

It wasn't until 1964 that the very first Surgeon General's report on the possible dangers of smoking was made, and I quote: "Cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men; [...] The data for women, though less extensive, points in the same direction." At that time, an astonishing 53% of all American males were smokers, as well as one-third of all women. It was widely accepted as the norm in homes and public places of all kinds, including restaurants, commercial flights, even medical conferences and hospitals! Even non-smokers typically kept ashtrays available just in case they had smoking guests show up; no one in their right mind would be rude enough to tell a guest not to smoke in their home! Famous television personalities regularly endorsed cigarette brands by smoking them on air, ranging from Lucille Ball & Desi Arnez to Fred & Wilma Flintstone! So most were incredulous at this report, and many pointed at correlation rather than causation when it came to the growing link between smoking and cancer. Interestingly, back then most previously known diseases researched were based on infection, so determining the potential causes of such illnesses as cardiovascular disease and cancer was uncharted territory and remained largely misunderstood (and debated) without being able to run the same type of familiar clinical studies. And despite the fact that lung cancer was clearly on the rise, even the medical community remained skeptical of the role cigarettes played and argued it was possible to be just an artifact of better technology, medical advancement, and diagnoses (i.e., how many people that died of "old age" in the previous years really died of cancer without having the knowledge and technology to be properly diagnosed?).

And at the time of the 1964 report, the tobacco industry was extremely powerful and at the peak of its wealth, and had already internally acknowledged the links to cancer, yet did its best to minimize the impact of the Surgeon General's findings. It's worth mentioning here that it's now well-documented how the industry founded their own "research" organization in order to cherry-pick favorable findings in an attempt to discredit actual scientific evidence, because they shifted their advertising toward being "healthier" by touting lower tar and nicotine in their brands. It wasn't until 1965 that the very first Surgeon General's warnings were required to be printed directly on the cigarette packaging, the first of which stated: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to your Health." it wasn't until 1967 that the FCC required television networks to counter paid cigarette ads with an equal time of anti-smoking advertisements, which painfully gave away millions of dollars' worth of free airtime from the networks; this back and forth did not end until 1971 when all cigarette commercials were banned from being broadcast entirely. And despite all this, it was not until the 1970s that the majority of Americans finally believed that smoking was indeed the cause of lung cancer. Up through the 1980s, many high schools had smoking areas for the students. And it may be difficult to fathom now, but it wasn't until 1988 that nicotine was acknowledged as more than just a habit, that it was actually addicting. I also recall my parents being able to smoke while we were shopping in the mall or at a Kmart, as they had tall, standing ashtrays spread throughout the halls and stores for your convenience (this was also in the 1980s)! A restaurant I used to work had a smoking section and didn't outright ban it until 2001 (which was a corporate decision the local manager fought against).

Anyway, I'm getting off track, so here's a quick timeline to put things into perspective:

First part of the 20th century: Cigarettes are a growing industry with unregulated advertising, is widely accepted and even considered healthy as it endorsed by doctors
1950s: The medical community begins to see a correlation between smoking and the increase in lung cancer, but cannot prove causation beyond a doubt; none of this is known by the general public
1964: Very first Surgeon General's report, met with skepticism by not only the general population, but by the medical community as there is still no hardcore proof
1965: Very first Surgeon General's warning: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to your Health." Not that it is hazardous, but that it may be.
1966: Walt dies of lung cancer
1967: The first anti-smoking television ads are required to air
1970s: For the first time, the majority of Americans finally believe that smoking indeed causes cancer
1971: Cigarette commercials are banned from television
1988: For the first time, cigarettes are deemed addictive and not just a habit by medical experts

So to expect that Walt should have known better or that his family should have stepped in is kind of ridiculous, as it's a modern viewpoint that doesn't take any historical context into consideration. There are only 2 short years between the very first Surgeon General's report (which was questioned even by the medical community) and Walt's untimely death; back in his day, smoking was simply part of the norm and no one thought anything of it other than maybe it was a little "immoral." Walt clearly held an extremely stressful position for decades and his smoking habit/addiction helped ease that burden; he had no reason to even suspect it was harmful beyond causing an aggravating cough until potentially the last year or two of his life, but even that is a stretch; in 1966, most Americans still didn't recognize or have much reason to believe in the connection between smoking and cancer.

Just sayin.'