jazzflower92 wrote:RyGuy wrote:
Actually, I was like this LONG before the Internet came along. For instance, I bought the soundtrack for Beauty and the Beast (on cassette - lol) and memorized it probably a month before the movie came out.
And I would scour the newspaper and magazines looking for any info about upcoming films, their casts, their plot, etc.
I'm still surprised . . . I just like my surprises early
Maybe this is just a Disney fan thing. Did Disney fans back then had anything to say about those changes from the original fairy tale?
I can't say I was any part of a huge network of Disney fans back in the day, and I often think about how different it was back before I was able to join any online communities such as this one. And maybe it's why I can take so many harsh criticisms I've been seeing with a grain of salt.
I had cassettes of Oliver & Co., The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, Toy Story, etc. all months before the films themselves were released, and thus I already had the songs memorized by the time I finally got to see them in the theater. In fact, we were running late for Beauty and the Beast, so I recited the prologue for everyone in the car in case we missed it upon entering!
And I'm not so sure about the timing of Oliver & Co. as I never actually got to see it in the theaters, but I did have that original soundtrack back in 1988 as well as some dialog from a read-along storybook. I'd also pour over the any art books as well as children's books whenever I could at the mall, which was a little more difficult before I had a driver's license.
I occasionally had a friend that was interested in Disney as well, but they were never nearly as interested as I was. I got to go to Disneyland in the late summer/early fall of 1995 and was the only person who actually knew who that Woody character was that they had walking around!
I actually got a major spoiler about the ending of Pocahontas through Entertainment Weekly months before it was in theaters, and sat in the Border's bookstore in downtown Chicago and read the junior novelization around the same time. I also read some harsh criticisms against Disney through EW (the supposed subliminal messages) in a later issue shortly before Hunchback was released, along with some spoilers from that film. It was around the time of Hunchback that I started interacting with more Disney fans through snail-mail (I wasn't cool enough for internet yet), and I don't recall anyone being overly-critical of new material; we were just happy to share whatever slim pickings we could get our hands on and talked about what our likes and dislikes whenever we finally got to see any new films. A hot topic for discussion was the mystery behind The Black Cauldron, since it hadn't had any home video release yet! Most of us migrated over to using the internet as our main discussion area about ten years ago, around the time a lot of us were losing enthusiasm since Disney was reportedly closing down its hand-drawn department and the films were less exciting in general anyway.
I can only imagine what it might be like had The Little Mermaid been released in this day and age, with fans pouring over every little leaked detail, making up conspiracy theories and reading too much into plot points. I was 13 when it was released, and aside from the soundtrack and the children's books/merchandise, all I can remember finding is a teeny little article from an issue of Newsweek that my mom wouldn't let me buy.
I personally don't mind most spoilers of the latest films, which is why I still browse through this thread. I'm not pointing any fingers as I completely understand the excitement, but in general I think there are a lot of fans who don't even post here that have way too many expectations riding on this film. To be fair I felt the same about both Tangled and Brave, and to be honest I was personally more excited about Tangled than any other recent film in memory (as much I love Princess and the Frog). I'm really looking forward to Frozen though and just plan on sitting back and enjoying; it's likely the very last film I'll see before I have my baby, and the first film I'll buy once he's here.
And I guess that doesn't have much to do with anything else I've been typing in the past few minutes, but it's the very beginning of another generation of Disney fans. I can only wonder what the world of Disney will have in store for him and the rest of us in the next few decades.
