The Best Decade for Disney Animation?

[Tangela]

In 1990 it started with The Rescuers Down Under...

[/quote]

What a stinking way to start a new decade, with a stupid sequel as an "animated classic"...

[Disney Guru]

I agree with you completely Tangela. People are way to picky!

[Sotiris]

The '90s for me too. I include TLM in that even though it's technically an '80s film. The combination of quality animation with great music, characters and storytelling is still unparalleled.

[Farerb]

The 90's.

[Vlad]

The '30s - the animated shorts they released up to that point were pretty great and entertaining, and then along came Snow White, which changed everything, and that alone makes the '30s one of their best and most impressive time period.

The '50s - starting off with Cinderella and finishing with Sleeping Beauty, I think that the studio did some of its best work during the '50s.

The '90s - The Disney Renaissance. These were the movies that defined my childhood. Not only are they great movies, but I fondly and nostalgically remember them. I decide to include The Little Mermaid here as well, even though it came out in 1989.

[thedisneyspirit]

The 90s as well. It proved to the world at large that Disney could manage well on their own without Walt, and despite having issues towards the end, it brought a lot of new ideas, characters, concepts and music to the canon at large. Frollo, Beast, Quasimodo, Ariel, Megara...All entirely new characters to the canon which hadn't seen before.

I honestly don't care if people claim the 90s films to be "formulaic", since really, almost all Disney films share elements in common. (and let's not even talk how homogenous the films have turned since they were Lasseterized).

[JeanGreyForever]

The 90s for sure although I might be biased here thanks to nostalgia but people seem to be mostly in agreement over this.

The 50s would be my choice for runner-up.

[DisneyFan09]

The 90s for me too. I include TLM in that even though it's technically an 80s film. The combination of quality animation with great music, characters and storytelling is still unparalleled.

It's completely fair to do so. After all Mermaid was the one who started the Renaissance and therefore a legit member of that group.

Otherwise, I did like the forties, fifties and the nineties, though each genre has their treasures.

[Farerb]

I don't think it's only nostalgia. The 90's produced really great films which were critically acclaimed even back then. The proved to the film industry that animation can be taken seriously. They knew how to create stories about complex characters, but that would still have a classical feeling to them, something which I cannot say about films today.

[Disney's Divinity]

Based on my personal interest in the films per decade, I'd rank them:

1. '90s (Mermaid through Fantasia 2000) ~ LOVE the Fab Four + Hercules/Mulan. While I'm not as attached to Pocahontas, Tarzan, and Hunchback, they have phenomenal music and some good to great characters. TLM and B&tB have animation that is spotty, but Aladdin onwards, the animation is fantastic.
2. 40's (Snow White through Ichabod and Mr. Toad)
3. 60's (Dalmatians, TSitS, TJB) ~ Dalmatians and TSitS are two of my absolute favorites. While TJB isn't one of my top favorites, it's a classic with some great characters, songs, and animation.
4. '00s (Dinosaur through TP&TF) ~ Although nearly all of these films have flaws, I enjoy most of them. TP&TF, Treasure Planet, Atlantis, TENG, Meet the Robinsons, and Lilo & Stitch.
5. '50s ~ Not my favorite decade, but I do love Cinderella. Lady and the Tramp is good, too, and Sleeping Beauty is a gorgeous film. I like several characters in Alice (including Alice herself) although the film is kind of dull, but I don't care for Peter Pan much at all outside of Hook/Smee's antics.
6. '10s ~ Frozen is the only film I love. Moana and Zootopia are decent, and Tangled has grown on me over time in large thanks to the TV series.
7. '80s ~ Enjoy all of TGMD, TF&tH, and TBC. Oliver has some good music, that's about it.
8. '70s ~ I love The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I never had a great deal of fondness for Robin Hood, The Rescuers, and The Aristocats, but they're decent movies.

[Disney Duster]

1989-1994 - holds the greatest Disney film, Beauty and the Beast, which was the first nominated for Best Picture, telling their best, most exciting and classic story with the best moral and has the most complex characters of the most classic films, with sweeping animation and interesting, beautiful designs, and has The Little Mermaid, the next best-told story to me with the fiery yearning of a fantastic character and her just as fantastic delicious villain, The Lion King, a deep-feeling classic, and Aladdin, a fun and magical romp with a truly lovely romance and awesome villain. Even The Rescuers Down Under is still relatively good.

EDIT: I should have said the 90's. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is excellent and Hercules is pretty good.

[DisneyFan09]

The 90s for me too. I include TLM in that even though it's technically an 80s film. The combination of quality animation with great music, characters and storytelling is still unparalleled.

I noticed that when I've previously asked you about your favorites, you mentioned few from Walt's era. So you're not so fond of them? I don't mind if you don't.

1989-1994 - holds the greatest Disney film, Beauty and the Beast, which was the first nominated for Best Picture, telling their best, most exciting and classic story with the best moral and has the most complex characters of the most classic films, with sweeping animation and interesting, beautiful designs, and has The Little Mermaid, the next best-told story to me with the fiery yearning of a fantastic character and her just as fantastic delicious villain, The Lion King, a deep-feeling classic, and Aladdin, a fun and magical romp with a truly lovely romance and awesome villain. Even The Rescuers Down Under is still relatively good.

You don't like the following films from the post-Renaissance, DisneyDuster?

[Sotiris]

I noticed that when I've previously asked you about your favorites, you mentioned few from Walt's era. So you're not so fond of them?

My favorite Walt-era films are Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty but I like most of them in varying degrees.

[DisneyFan09]

OK. And I also recall that you mentioned Fantasia as well.

[Disney Duster]

DisneyFan09, I should have included all of the 90's, because this is about the whole decade, but I don't really think the rest of the 90's was as good as the Renaissance and all of Walt's eras, or even the Revival era we're in now, so I consider them lesser. I love The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it has great story, amazing music, and an adorable and great hero, soI love it despite the way they did the gargoyles, and I like Hercules, it has a cute hero and is fun and cool, I just wish they had done it without the things many people complain about and be a more objectively good movie. So I guess I consider Hunchback almost as good as the Renaissance films.

[DisneyFan09]

Oh, so you like Hunchback too? Thumbs up! You have a great taste

[ProfessorRatigan]

For me:
1. The Renaissance (The Little Mermaid-Tarzan) - Film for film, the best and most consistently great decade. Stylistically and musically each film is unique enough that the "formulaic" criticism doesn't hold water to me. These films are certainly no more formulaic than Pixar's typical fare. Nostalgia does play a heavy role here, but, even if it didn't, it's hard to argue that the quality of this period is unmatched by any studio EXCEPT Disney itself!

2. The Golden Age (Snow White-Bambi) - The most daring and most ambitious period of animation. This is when Walt and co. pushed the boundaries of cartooning and made the world sit up and pay attention to animation as an art form. The influence and importance of these five films cannot be debated.

3. The Dark Age (The Aristocats-Oliver & Company) - The so-called Dark Age of Disney Animation nevertheless produced several of the studios most charming films (Robin Hood, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, The Great Mouse Detective). I'll take these films over the more placid, whitebread 50s output...

4. The Sketchy Period (101 Dalmatians-The Jungle Book) - Artistically very unique and winning. These three are really unlike any of the others in the canon.

5. The Silver Age (Cinderella-Sleeping Beauty) - While it is bookmarked by two unequovicable masterpieces, I find this decade rather stale and bland. Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp all bore me terribly.

6. The Modern Age (Meet the Robinsons-Moana) - Typical family films for the most part. Very little that's truly inspiring. The only reason I rank this lower than the 50s is because it doesn't have any bonafide masterpieces on the level of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty (though I do love Moana a lot).

7. The post-Renaissance (Fantasia 2000-Chicken Little) - With the exceptions of Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis and Lilo & Stitch and bits of Treasure Planet... Terrible stuff here.

8. The Package Features (Saludos Amigos-The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad) - They're fine, but they're hardly FILMS.

[blackcauldron85]

I know I'm in the minority, but I've always really gravitated towards the '80s films. {I know this thread is about animated films, but Return to Oz and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids are favorites, too. And even if some '80s live action films aren't favorites of mine, I can absolutely appreciate their innovation [Tron, The Watcher in the Woods/Something Wicked This Way Comes)}.

I've always liked The Fox and the Hound for being a bittersweet story. While it has its silly moments with Dinky and Boomer (while not my favorite secondary characters, I've never disliked them, as some Disney fans do), it has the amazing Big Mama- who wouldn't want a "guidance counselor" figure like her in their lives? And I really like Widow Tweed- she's sweet but tough, and such a good mama to Tod. The msongs have always been the only downfall about this movie to me- except for "Best of Friends," obviously, even though "Goodbye May Seem Forever," while not a songy-song, has absolutely grown on me as a film moment as I've gotten older.

Obviously The Black Cauldron is my favorite; it's still unique in the Disney catalog (even though Atlantis & Treasure Planet are kind of similar in many ways). I still think the backgrounds are fabulous, and I love the designs of the characters, the animation. Gurgi is still my favorite Disney character. I think that Taran, Eilonwy, Fflewddur, and Gurgi make a captivating team to journey together. I've always liked the Horned King- I still wish we knew more about him, but in some ways not knowing kind of makes him scarier. I appreciate Creeper even more as an adult. I feel like he's got some anguish/mental health issues going on- I mean, really, who wouldn't, taking all the abuse that he does. I wish that we knew more about his background- did he just get in with the wrong crowd and he could've been a good guy? Besides Alan Menken scores (he's still my favorite), I never paid too much attention to scores when I was younger. Now that I'm older, I do appreciate the scores; I think that Elmer Bernstein did a fantastic job with this score. I don't dislike any DAC at all- I genuinely like them all; saying that, though, I think it's very refreshing to have a "journey"-type film that, while it has comedic moments, is a drama, it can be pretty serious in tone.

The Great Mouse Detective is one that I didn't see in entirety until I was a late-teenager. I always liked it, but I appreciate it more now. It's definitely exciting- the stakes are pretty high, and you're just rooting for Ratigan to be defeated. As delightfully evil as he is! Like I just said in another thread, while Basil isn't always the most likeable character, I really like the whole team of Basil, Dawson, Olivia, and Toby. As I do with TBC, I really like the character designs, backgrounds, and animation- it's a great-looking film. While it's not the most groundbreaking film, besides the awesome Big Ben sequence, it really paved the way for the Renaissance- it's a pretty-lighthearted, fun film, and I think it is a very enjoyable, exciting film.

Oliver & Company, is one that I've always liked. I've always been obsessed with the music in it since I was a kid. I've always liked it, but I appreciate it on a different level as an adult, as a dog owner. Whether I'm watching it or listening to the song, "Once Upon a Time in New York City" just makes me bawl my eyes. I really feel for Oliver- he came into this world without love, but he had hope. He had a rough early life! And then to find Jenny and lose her again, and with such high stakes. I just really like going on his journey. I've always liked Dodger- Billy Joel did such a great job voicing him, giving him the "savoire faire" that makes him such a charming character. I appreciate Georgette more as an adult- I like that she has an internal transformation, and her relationship with Tito is funny. I appreciate all of the dogs, and their relationships with Oliver, giving him real-world advise. I never really had thoughts about Fagin- he was just *there*- but as an adult, I really feel for him, having his dogs be his only family, and just the love he has for them. I think it's a great cast of characters. And it's refreshing to have a modern-day Disney movie (besides 101D)- as a kid, I thought it was neat seeing logos such as Coca-Cola; as an adult, it really puts you in the time and place. I think this is an underrated film, with great relationships between the characters.

Ever since I was 4 years old, The Little Mermaid has been a favorite of mine. What more can be said about this film? I do appreciate Ursula more as an adult, even though she's always been one of my favorite villains. She's so conniving, and obviously Pat Carroll did such a fabulous job voicing her. I appreciate even her design more as an adult. She's just a great character. I like Ariel's spirit, her curiousity, and her bravery; while many see her intentions as selfish, I think one has to admit that it took amazing courage for her to go on the journey that she did. I love the music, the character designs/animation, the story...it's just a pretty perfect film to me.

I think that all the '80s animated Disney films are different from each other in significant ways that makes taking them as a collective whole is a very enjoyable mix.

(And I know Muppets' '80s films weren't Disney, but their films in the '80s [The Muppet Movie in 1979 was *almost* the '80s!] {The Great Muppet Caper, Muppets Take Manhattan, A Muppet Family Christmas}, are amazing and a huge part of my childhood/now... & I know Don Bluth isn't Disney, but Banjo, the Woodpile Cat (1979 was *almost* the '80s!), The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven- same! Some amazing family films came out in the '80s.)

[Disney Duster]

Well blackcauldron85, you gave quite a good case for why the 80's actually was a good era!

[blackcauldron85]

Thank you! I totally forgot to add Who Framed Roger Rabbit!