Disney?

[Disney Duster]

Goliath, the mention of getting nominated for Best Picture should have clued you in that I was talking about more than just the three fairy tale films Walt made, as as it was a film that was not made by Walt, but the kind of film he would have made (and tried to make) that got that nomination.

Yes, Walt Disney made three fairy tales. Thinking of them that way, as fairy tale films, that means out of all the different kinds of films he did, he obviously liked one kind of subject, fairy tales, a lot, because he did it three different times. There are theories about him doing it because he knew audiences would like them and they would be successful, and you can have those theories, but it still stands that he obviously liked fairy tales and he still made three of them.

Aside from that, he also obviously had a love for fantasy. All his films involve fantasy somehow, with talking animals or what. But most of them also involve magic somehow, or even fairies. There was a fairy, magic, and even a princess in Peter Pan. In fact, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and even Alice in Wonderland are sometimes collected in fairy tale books and considered fairy tales. The point was Walt liked that kind of thing, and all of his films reflect that. Or did you forget that Bambi was Prince of the forest?

It's just obvious Walt would not approve of a lot of the recent films and changes to his studio. There are some films it's hard to know what he would have thought, but on most of the recent ones it's obvious he wouldn't have allowed them.

Disney can't just be a family friendly studio. That could be any studio. Most animated studios are family friendly. There is an idea of Disney magic and classicalness that is now dying with each film they seem to do next, or each change they make, like changing a classic fairy tale to something called Tangled...

[blackcauldron85]

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... ounds.html

"Ron and John have pitched John Lasseter one feature idea, and they've got another pitch coming up. I don't know if it's a completely different idea or the first idea with changes."

[ajmrowland]

To quote a theme park sign:

"Magic At Work! your patience is much appreciated"

[blackcauldron85]

Apostrophe Excess
http://miceage.micechat.com/allutz/al060110a.htm
(via disneyreport.com)

Meanwhile, with all of this new construction and last-minute changes happening, Disney’s marketing machine let a subtle change slip recently that is actually just the tip of the iceberg. Over on the Disney Parks Blog site, the Disneyland representative Heather Hust Rivera posted a preview last Friday of the new World of Color commercial that mentions the parks new name “Disney California Adventure”, without the possessive apostrophe s added on the end of Disney. It’s that seemingly subtle name change that will have the broadest impact around the rest of the company.

As the marketing group struggles to rebrand this park in the years ahead, and we’ve told you about their dilemma over the long park name that most folks just call DCA, a broader decision about branding all of their products sprang from the ongoing DCA discussions. The result is that many properties within the Disney empire that currently use the phrase “Disney’s” will be changing to the new “Disney” moniker instead.

Here in Anaheim it won’t be that noticeable, as there are only two other properties that use the old title; Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. But out at WDW where there are literally dozens of places with the phrase “Disney’s” slapped on the title, from water parks to hotels to campgrounds to golf courses to theme parks, the proposed changeover is causing a planning headache of epic proportions.

The thought from the marketing gurus is that stripping the title down to just include the word Disney is a sleeker and more modern approach to branding all of these physical properties and intellectual concepts. Just when DCA’s Vice President Mary Niven was making a little headway in trying to ban the use of the acronym DCA and get her troops to say Disney’s California Adventure, the game changes again. It has not yet been decided if DCA managers who have to put a quarter in a jar every time they utter the theme park acronym instead of the full name will be subjected to additional fines if they forget to drop the apostrophe s from their speech.

[SWillie!]

blackcauldron you're just full of awesome articles today huh?

Not that I like the news. That's stupid. "Disney... " sounds so unnatural.

[Escapay]

I bet the removal of 's saves a few pennies somewhere. Like when that airline company removed an olive from the salad.

albert

[SWillie!]

So I'm currently working at Hollywood Studios on the college program in merchandise, and I had a lady come up and buy some stuff yesterday, and used her Disney ID card to get a discount.

I asked her where she worked at, just making conversation, and she said "Over in Burbank."

So that caught my attention. I asked what she did there - "I work at Disney Animation." AWESOME! What exactly do you do? "I'm a storyboard artist."

So with me going into animation and dreaming about working for Disney, I was obviously geeking out at this point. I asked if she was allowed to talk about what she's working on right now, and she said...

"Sorry, not right now... what I'm working on hasn't been announced yet. But the last thing I worked on was Princess and the Frog."

Okay, yeah, I understand. Can you at least tell me if there is anything hand drawn in the works after Winnie the Pooh?

"Oh yeah, there's some stuff coming up."

Then I just told her that I'm going into animation and whatnot and she said good luck and she was on her way. So I don't exactly know how reliable of a source this is, or if the fact that she was in a rush with her kids at Disney World made her just kind of say "yeah, yeah" and blow me off... but she sounded very confident when I asked her about hand drawn stuff in the future.

I was about to ditch my job and follow her around the park all day But I thought some of you would be excited to hear about this!

[UmbrellaFish]

That's quite an interesting exchange SWillie! I hope whatever hand-drawn (love that word!) feature she's working on makes it through the pipeline!

[blackcauldron85]

The state of WDFA right now:

http://blueskydisney.blogspot.com/2010/ ... eners.html

[blackcauldron85]

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... aught.html

So it's okay to move Monsters, Inc., but not Tangled or Pooh? Doesn't help calm down the conspiracy theory...

[nilyvn]

Hello,
Nice post about disney.
Disney has used the word "classics" at various times to describe three types of feature-length films which include animation.

[blackcauldron85]

John Carter of Mars vs. Brave?
http://pixarplanet.com/blog/john-carter ... s-vs-brave
(via disneyreport.com)

[estefan]

They will probably move them farther apart. Studios don't typically pit their own films so close to one another (well, there was Avatar and Alvin, but that was because Alvin was likely their back-up plan, in case Avatar bombed hard as well as FOX's evil plan to take down The Princess and the Frog. I still stand by that theory).

It's also why I think they will move the release dates of Cars 2 and Winnie the Pooh further away. Heck, if Cars 2 continues to have production issues (while Pooh is apparently going smoothly), they may push it back to Christmas of 2011. They haven't released any advertising, so there's not going to be any confusion from the general public.

[blackcauldron85]

http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief ... mouse.aspx

Just remember that Disney can't spend money on theme parks, hand drawn animation, etc if they don't have any money. And money from Disney channel offerings, princess stuff, etc is still money.

Someone said something similar in the Planes thread, I think, too...

Jim, you said in a recent column that this is the new reality for Disney because it makes them money and that we all just might as well accept it. Well, I don't accept it. When Walt was in charge, he was a visionary leader who kept the bar raised high, encouraging the general public to rise to that level. Under his guidance, Walt Disney Productions created a legacy in film and music with timeless appeal. But now in 2010, Bob Iger and his fellow execs are content to create the same bland, mediocre drivel for kids that everybody else is generating as well.

Thoughts?

[blackcauldron85]

Why Disney Pictures Could Soon Look a Lot Like Procter & Gamble
http://www.laughingplace.com/Latest-ID-75483.asp

[Sotiris]

Animation Updates
http://progresscityusa.com/2010/10/28/a ... n-updates/

Animation gossips have claimed for a while now that directors Ron Clements and John Musker were at work preparing a new traditionally animated project to pitch. I’m started hearing rumors that are truly unexpected – that the project they’re boarding is an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s 1987 novel Mort. The book is the fourth in Pratchett’s beloved Discworld series of comedic fantasies, and follows a young man looking for a job who gets an apprenticeship working for Death. Is this really what Ron & John are working on? We shall see. Consider it rumor for now. But if so I know a lot of people who will be pleasantly surprised.

[UmbrellaFish]

Animation Updates
http://progresscityusa.com/2010/10/28/a ... n-updates/

Animation gossips have claimed for a while now that directors Ron Clements and John Musker were at work preparing a new traditionally animated project to pitch. I’m started hearing rumors that are truly unexpected – that the project they’re boarding is an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s 1987 novel Mort. The book is the fourth in Pratchett’s beloved Discworld series of comedic fantasies, and follows a young man looking for a job who gets an apprenticeship working for Death. Is this really what Ron & John are working on? We shall see. Consider it rumor for now. But if so I know a lot of people who will be pleasantly surprised.

Wow, if that's true, it sounds awesome, if not a bit heavy for a usual Disney flick. But I think that's what we need right now, anyway, is something unusual.

[thedisneyspirit]

Interesting to read these things years later.

[blackcauldron85]

Interesting to read these things years later.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so! One of my favorite things is reading old Disney news...I just think it's super-interesting, either in a nostalgic way or a "this movie/idea never happened, that's so interesting" way.

[thedisneyspirit]

If you are saying that to think something is the best just because it has things in it you like (magic, castles) like a comic book hero buff thinks a superhero movie is best because it's about superheros, then I will agree with you. But I certianly hope you're not calling me an idiot for my favorite movies being princess movies just because they are princess movies. Liking a movie because it has things in it you like doesn't make you an idiot.

I only meant that simply liking a movie because it's a "princess" film rather than because you enjoy its story/characters is idiotic. I mean, if all we wanted is a princess film, we'd all be satisfied with the Barbie CGI movies that've been churning out lately.

I know of some people like that. Needless to say they didn't even watch Ralph 2, but spent countless hours on their blogs and youtube channel making fics, headcanons and the like of the little scene. (like making a Aurora a college student enrolled in politics?) Maybe seeing Barbie movies would be better for them.

Meh, I dunno, they also found most of the non-princess Disney films to be "pretentious", "edgy", "promote satanism" and just "bad". There's something about princess fans that just hate the fuck out of anything like Treasure Planet/Hunchback/Lilo just because there aren't any sparkles in them. And I'm still wondering how the heck something like "Great Mouse Detective" is satanic.