The Future of Disney Animation

[Super Aurora]

I wish this forum could be a drama free zone...who the hell has the energy to argue with complete strangers over this trivial bs. Every thread on this forum turns into this back and forth between several members and it is exhausting. Does anybody get anything out of it?Does it make anyone feel better about themselves? Why can't anyone just let it go? Sometimes the best thing to do is just walk away (click away)! All I'm saying is give peace a chance and be the bigger person! Fake it 'til you make it!

Because this is the INTERNET. You should know this by now.

[Wonderlicious]

Repeating the same few lines posted in the original controversial post? Somebody's got a bee in their bonnet...





I've spent about an hour on this reply, and it may be a bit belated (damn you all in the States for being in a different time zone ). I'm not going to really repeat myself for the umpteenth time about the topic of Joe Jump/Reboot Ralph, as I really won't get very far, and this is about the Future of Disney Animation, not about whether Walt would make movies about robots or video games. And, sorry to stir the pot even more, if he wouldn't make a film about a video game or a robot (if we're referring to WALL-E by "robot", I should add that said character is a fantasy vision of a robot), why would he make one about other synthetic things? Why would he have allowed the crew working on Alice in Wonderland to add a talking doorknob or a bunch of woodland creatures half made out of random objects? Or have made so many Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts about things coming to life? Or have optioned the Pooh stories, a child's fantasy about his toys coming to life? And dare I say it, why would he have chosen a story like Pinocchio, when it's basically about an inanimate object coming to life? Heck, if robots, video games etc aren't organic, why would he allow fairies and elves and talking animals and the like, none of which exist in real life? WALL-E, Lilo and Stitch and the upcoming/potential Joe Jump/Reboot Ralph are basically all fantasies, and are suited for animation no matter what; it's the impossible being made plausible.

Now, really read this, Duster. It may sound blunt, it's not intended to be bitchy, it's just a head's up.

Basically, you can like or dislike what you want. However, I have to say that you've basically been digging a hole with a good deal of your arguments. You can't simply claim to be able to read people's minds, to make up your own interpretations of things with somewhat far-fetched ideas, to proudly state whether a person, maybe one dead for 40+ years, would approve or disapprove of something, and more importantly (and this goes hand in hand with the previous points), ignore certain glaring aspects of a large subject when writing any argument. You wouldn't do such things in an academic paper (at least I never would if I was hoping for a good grade), so why do it here? The quote "I laugh at you comparing watching TV to making an animated film about a video game" basically says a lot about your skills in constructing a valid argument. What we're basically saying is that Walt expressed a lot of interest in the future and science fiction as much as the nostalgic past, as evidenced in some of the Disneyland/Walt Disney Presents episodes of the 50s (and of course, in Disneyland's Tomorrowland). We're not trying to compare the average, trashy TV programme to a Disney animated feature, or any film of high calibre (the Disneyland TV series was a decent enough programme as far as I'm concerned, and it wasn't just churned out like a lot of the Disney Channel stuff today).

And while we're on the subject, I dread to make even a passing reference to Cinderella now, as I fear that I may get a complete rambling analysis of any type of comment or criticism (positive, negative or neutral) I make (complete with far-fetched comments such as "well, they all live in a fantasy kingdom where they have their own costumes", "oh, the book probably forgot to mention it, it wasn't ignoring the fact about Cinderella's name like Tangled is doing with Rapunzel's name").

Again, feel free to have your own opinions on a subject. For all we care, you could really want Disney to produce John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding as an animated film, and we'd probably at the very least see where you were coming from if you wrote a well structured and well thought-out argument. But if you were ignoring certain aspects of a bigger picture, making up silly claims based on what you expect us or anybody else to think, then we'd probably not think so positively about what you're saying. Nobody expects Harvard-standard essays from anyone here, but please do at least take some of my considerations concerning your style and structure into consideration. Then we wouldn't have comments such as this...

You are so one-track and narrow-minded in what your conception of Disney is. You turn the idea of "Disney" into what you want it to be, not what it was, what it is, and what it has the potential to be.

...which at the moment I have to agree with.

[Elladorine]

Word. Pass me the milk buds, luvvy.

Here you go. And by the way, I've also done a consultation with Miss Cleo to confirm what Walt would not have wanted in his films.



^^I really hope this is an accurate depiction. I'd have asked Dionne Warwick but she has disassociated herself with the Psychic Friends Network; I'd have loved to have consulted Dr. Facilier as well, but unfortunately he has already joined his friends on the other side.

[MutantEnemy]

I wish this forum could be a drama free zone...who the hell has the energy to argue with complete strangers over this trivial bs. Every thread on this forum turns into this back and forth between several members and it is exhausting. Does anybody get anything out of it?Does it make anyone feel better about themselves? Why can't anyone just let it go? Sometimes the best thing to do is just walk away (click away)! All I'm saying is give peace a chance and be the bigger person! Fake it 'til you make it!

Because this is the INTERNET. You should know this by now.

You're pleasant.

[Disney Duster]

None of you have gotten what I was saying, yet again.

Okay, first of all, I know Walt made so many things.

Second of all, I am trying to figure out what kinds of things Walt made. But aside from that, all I had to do was grow up learning more about him and what he did to get a feeling of what he was like and what he would make.

One thing you can't deny is that by viewing and learning about many works of a person, you do get feelings and senses of who they are, their style, and the kinds of things they would make.

Anyway, Walt chose, time after time, classic stories, legends, and books for his films. He chose romantic things, sentimental things, organic things.

The fact that all of you are like "well what's the difference between a toy and a robot or virtual life", it simply shows you are ignoring tiny differences that you still know are there.

But I will still explain. Walt Disney made films where toys and inanimate objects magically came to life. They gained life, and often in ways that were not just magical but had an air of spirituality. Like getting a soul.

But video games and robots are fake life, virtual life with artificial emotions, nothing like reality or spirituality. Such a thing may strongly go against Walt Disney core important beliefs.

His animatronics were supposed to seem like they really were alive, just like animation, you were supposed to make believe they had real life in them.

But movies about video games and robots may suggest fake or artificial life is the same as real life, which goes against all the past Disney has done and may go against Walt's core beliefs he would never let his studio do if only he were alive to do it.

I hope you all stop thinking Disney can do and be anything, because if it can be anything, that it can be just like any studio, that means it has know identity. So many other animation studios make good quality family friendly films. Disney has to have it's own essence and identity, make the Disney name mean something, so that know one wonders if they should really just change their name to A Company that Makes Good Stuff. Are they're going to stop caring about Walt Disney, but still use his name?

And Wonderlicious, if you've missed my Harvard essay posts, that's your loss, but don't think I don't try to make those kinds. Not that it matters. I thoroughly try to explain what I mean about things, my theories, and yes, that includes the book opening Cinderella theory. I tried to explain it as best I could but you just called it not good enough. Fine. Then the world is at a loss because it means some ideas people genuinely have and genuinely try to explain may never come across. Woe is our exhange of ideas.

[DisneyAnimation88]

I find it mind-boggling that most fans of Disney animation appear to want more originality in new projects yet some can't get their heads around the company basing a new film on a computer game.

If Ron Clements and John Musker are pitching "Reboot Ralph", I hope the film is made as long as the story is good. It was Clements and Musker who finally found a way to make "The Little Mermaid" work as an animated feature, a task that Walt Disney himself could not find a solution to as far back as the 1930's. Storymen such as Bill Peet were as vital to the success of the first golden age of Disney Animation as Walt in many ways and Clements and Musker's track record is as good as almost anyone in animation.

As far as the video game aspect is concerned, it is ludicrous to think that Walt Disney, the entertainment industry's greatest innovator, would disapprove of an animated film based on a video game. In the 1980's, when John Lasseter tried to convince Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg that computer-generated 3D imagery would be a huge part of the future of animation, his persistance got him fired from Disney. Had Walt been alive in that era, he would have welcomed Lasseter's suggestions and implimented computer-generated animation until Disney were the dominant force in that field. He welcomed new ideas and originality and valued those who didn't want to simply repeat the tried-and-tested formulas of the past. Since his death, the company has been stifled in some ways by their hesitance to do things that seem to be risky but using a video game as inspiration for an animated feature would be something I think the famously innovative and forward-thinking Walt would have approved of.

At the moment, no one knows anything about "Reboot Ralph" except that the story involves a video game and that is no reason to dismiss the film already. Today, when so many of the major blockbuster films are being filmed and shown in 3D, I would think it is obvious Disney especially needs to keep up with the technological advancements of the moment and look towards other mediums for inspiration for their animated projects while they maintain the traditions that have helped the company to be sucessful for over 80 years.

[Disney Duster]

Disney Animation88 you quite obviously didn't read or pay attention to all I just wrote. Because I that I said completely brings up issues you do not address and disproves thinking Walt's love of technological advancement has anything to do with this.

By the way, just because The Little Mermaid wasn't made at one time in Walt's day doesn't mean he could never find how it worked and gave up. They wanted to do lots of things that didn't get made, but they just didn't get made, it didn't mean they necessarily didn't work. And by the way, when Walt "If I ever go back" to animation, he said he wanted to do Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.

[DisneyAnimation88]

[/quote]Anyway, Walt chose, time after time, classic stories, legends, and books for his films. He chose romantic things, sentimental things, organic things.

The fact that all of you are like "well what's the difference between a toy and a robot or virtual life", it simply shows you are ignoring tiny differences that you still know are there. [quote]

I think I undertand the point your trying to make, that Disney's "Golden Ages" of animation relied on strong stories adapted in a way that was unique to the studio.

I think one of the issues people have with this is that Walt Disney passed away almost forty-four years ago. If you read anything written about some of the most important individuals in the history of the company, the likes of Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, Marc Davis and Frank Thomas, they all say that the reason the fortunes of Disney went into decline in the years after his death was because of the "what would Walt have done?" attitude of the people in charge. While Walt's impact and legacy will last forever, the film industry has changed massively and Disney has had to keep up.

In recent years the company has still tried to keep to the tradition of basing animated features on classic stories such as "Treasure Island", "Tarzan", and "The Frog Princess" and are now working on an adaptation of "Rapunzel". Unfortunately, the fact is audiences now would probably not sit through films like "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" if they were released in cinemas today, which is a testament to the quality of the films produced under Walt's guidance that they are still held in the highest esteem by millions of people.

All in all, while I understand the point you want to make I agree with those who say that it is impossible to still make decision over what is best for the company based on what a man who has been gone for over four decades might think if he were still alive. I for one am happy that John Lasseter, the one man who has probably done almost as much for animation as Walt Disney and someone who grew up wanting to be a Disney animator, is in charge and I believe he more than anyone is capable of reversing the fortunes of Disney animation.[/quote]

[DisneyAnimation88]

Disney Duster, why do take people disagreeing with you or saying something that doesn't relate to you so personally? That particular post had nothing to do with anything you wrote in particular and was simply putting my opinions on record on a board I started by asking the question of what people thought the future had in store for Disney animtion.

The point about "The Little Mermaid" was that Disney animation did not end with his death. The "Disney Renaissance" came about when files were found in the archives concerning projects Walt had abandoned. Among them were "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" with notes that Walt had written that he found both stories too dark to adapt as animated features. It was Clements and Musker who found a way to make that story work so I was simply saying it is unwise to write off anything they might be planning before we learn more about it.

Also, when did Walt Disney leave animation? He was integral in planning "The Jungle Book" before his death and many of those who worked on it attribute the film's success to Walt's decision to not faithfully adapt Kipling's story and rather do it in a "Disney way" for lack of a better term.
While his attention might have drifted to Disneyland and live-action films, he was still heavily involved in animation until his death.

[Disney Duster]

That is a really, really good point. That was good.

However, I have thought about how Disney's slump happened with films like Robin Hood (the classic tale...but changed to animals) and The Rescuers which was kind of modern, and it's so weird how the renaissance happened with three fairy tales and a remake of Bambi (which also had magic and royalty).

I think Tarzan, Hercules, and Hunchback were all good, but I have to admit they went and did something different and that's when audiences didn't seem to like them as much.

The Princess and the Frog I feel flopped because it was actually so different, it was a fairy tale in the premise but all the rest of it was changed. I think people actually will go see Disney films if they are much more true to their classic roots, not trying to put a twist on everything and be so different. Trying to make their films modern seems to be a problem, too, like changing a fairy tale kingdom to New Orleans or the setting of Oliver Twist to New York.

Anyway, even though you had a good point, I am worried of them destroying the things that really do make Disney what they are. The other things I said about the concept of life, magic, spirituality, and organic reality verses fake virtual reality still stands.

[DisneyAnimation88]

I understand the final point as your overall argument, that Disney have always been successful at telling certain kinds of stories and that they seem to be going in a different direction than the one Walt kept them on. In some ways I agree with you, but on the other hand I'm curious as to what direction Lasseter wants to take. I think in many ways, Disney has stuck to more conventional stories while Pixar has undertaken the "riskier" projects like "WALL-E" and "Up". Maybe the lines between the two are becoming more blurred now that the same man is in charge of both companies?

[Super Aurora]

But I will still explain. Walt Disney made films where toys and inanimate objects magically came to life. They gained life, and often in ways that were not just magical but had an air of spirituality. Like getting a soul.

That's basically what this movie have: a video game character coming to life and discovers he's in an old game and wants to explore the new technological era gaming...

that whole premise of Joe Jump fits what you just described above.

But video games and robots are fake life, virtual life with artificial emotions, nothing like reality or spirituality. Such a thing may strongly go against Walt Disney core important beliefs.

WALL-E.





btw duster, Berserk anime will be made. I'm fucking excited. PM if want talk more about it.

[Disney Duster]

Um...well I'm still not sure if you are getting all of my post, but I think Ron Clements and Jon Musker and Bryon Howard and Nathan Greno and probably other directors are much more into fun and doing whatever they want to do than considering "if I'm at Disney, we should make something Disney, not just whatever we want to make".

If they want to make something they like specifically, they can make it a private project that they do themselves. But they are not private directors, they are making films for a studio that has it's own legacy and style they need to keep.

[DisneyAnimation88]

It is worth remembering that Ron Clements and John Musker were Disney animators before they became directors, trained by the Nine Old Men and well versed in history of the company and Walt himself. The same can be said for the likes of John Lasseter while Byron Howard became a Disney animator in 1994. I think these people are Disney through-and-through and have the best interests of the company and the Disney name at heart.

I think your point is a good one and applies to directors like Chris Sanders who, although he directed the successful "Lilo & Stitch", ended up leaving when his vision of "Bolt" did not match that of Lasseter's. Ultimately, I think if your vision or idea doesn't comply with that of the Disney tradition, it is best to walk away as Sanders did.

[Goliath]

To anyone saying against this, Walt never made films about things that weren't of flesh and blood. Or puppets that wanted to be.

Er... have you NOT seen Pinocchio?

I don't start fights, but I sure as hell don't mind finishing them. I think that's the lure of not letting go and wanting to have that last word. But sometimes, yes, it is easier to just walk away and let the other side keep on trying to fight the good fight.

I'm reminded of this one:

[estefan]

Not that I want to participate in this "break wall" conversation, but you know how when you're younger, you have this feeling of animated characters being somewhat real and existing in some Toontown universe (or maybe that was just me). Well, when I was younger, I felt Super Mario was real, to an extent. But, maybe that's just me.

[Super Aurora]

To anyone saying against this, Walt never made films about things that weren't of flesh and blood. Or puppets that wanted to be.

Er... have you NOT seen Pinocchio?

bUtt hed ba cAmE a rAel BOY!!!

[Disney Duster]

DisneyAnimation88, well, they said they want to twist the classics. Ron and Jon said they wanted to do The Princess and the Frog, but in a modern setting. That's twisting Disney's classic tradition, just like Treasure Planet.

Super Aurora, if they make it clear that Joe or Ralph came to life because of magic (that can be taken as spirituality aka Blue Fairy gift of life) then I may be okay with that.

I do not accept Wall-E as Disney, in fact, it isn't, it's Pixar. I have to believe he gained a soul somehow to even be okay with that movie.

Goliath, I guess I didn't word that right, I meant that Pinocchio was an example of a puppet that gained life (as opposed to fake virtual life) and became flesh and blood.

My bottom line is still this: making a Disney film about fake virtual life and treating it like it's the same as real life, not Disney. Making that character gain "real life" through some kind of magic/spirituality, Disney.

But I can't help but feel that Disney is about...more organic, romantic things than a whole movie about technology.

[Super Aurora]

Super Aurora, if they make it clear that Joe or Ralph came to life because of magic (that can be taken as spirituality aka Blue Fairy gift of life) then I may be okay with that.

Why does it have to have magic somewhere in it for you to like it?

would you accept it if Disney made this into a movie because of "Magic"?

I do not accept Wall-E as Disney, in fact, it isn't, it's Pixar. I have to believe he gained a soul somehow to even be okay with that movie.

And Pixar is under Disney. Therefore it's Disney.











I think this sum up Duster's argument:

[DisneyAnimation88]

So if "Reboot Ralph" was about a real boy somehow being magically transported into a video game would you approve Disney Duster?

In terms of Clements and Musker twisting stories, sometimes that has to be done to make the film more appropriate for an animated film. "Treasure Planet" was probably changed from the original story as Disney had already made a very good live-action version of "Treasure Island" in the 1950's. I personally liked the changes they made for "The Princess and the Frog" in terms of the setting but obviously some people had their problems with it.