The Disney Essence Debate

[Super Aurora]

On the contrary, you have and other have not understood what I was talking about or gotten me wrong before. The most recent examples being that you missed how I said Flynn would be a prince who becomes the same thief you know in my version of the story,

No, we have understood you, you (no offense) just suck at arguing your point for anyone to say "Oh, ok. I could see that! ". From the way we see it, it seems this certain role for male character is a mere attempt just to shoe-in the male character to be a prince. Why would a prince want become a thief and abandon his wealth and royal status? You say so he could have adventures and be more freedom or whatever, but why not just have him start off as a thief and become a prince? Is that so bad of a concept to you?

Thief ===> Prince
makes more sense than
Prince ====>Thief====>Prince(?)

To all: First, the money thing. Yes Walt paid attention to money. However, those were not only about money, and they weren't even only about emotion or heart either. His stories also kept a certain amount/kind of class, sophistication, and faithfulness to their sources,and this is what Tangled lacks (mainly the faithfulness).

You're telling me that Jungle Book kept more "certain amount of/kind of" (the one that Walt discarded Bill Peet's ver., and told his men to not read the book) faithfulness than Tangled did?? No wonder you're koo-koo in the head.


I don't get this fascination why you want Flynn be a prince to begin with or Rapunzel as a peasant so bad. They both ended up as prince and Princess in the end anyway.




EDIT

The Disney essence is SA's.. love for Aurora

<img src="http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc4 ... 8eb751.jpg" border="0" alt=""> <img src="http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc4 ... e1e9f8.jpg" border="0" alt="">

Yeah I like peasant Aurora a lot. She so moe.

but the girl in my avatar is not Aurora if that's what you're implying. It's one of my own created character. Her name is Ferrari (yes like the fucking car)

[Christopher_TCUIH]

^ I just used your avatar to show "you" with Aurora lol and good name her after a car!

[Disney Duster]

Hey everyone. A while back I was going to do a big comparison of how different Walt Disney made his past films from their source material to the way Tangled is different from its source material. But I don't think I need to do that (and it would take too long).

I want to say that Walt Disney did change his character backgrounds, so if I never admitted to that, here I am saying it. But the whole being born high or low thing, or being magical or non-magical, that is something he didn't change, but that Tangled changed. The fact is Walt Disney never did change the being royal or magical aspects of characters. That is why I call them un-Disney.

And I know a lot of you said "So what, why does it matter?" And I'm just saying royalty feels kind of special in a way that makes it different from all the other changes. So does being magical. It feels like even more of who the character is than just what occupation they have getting changed.

Also, I think the changing of fairy tales is different because those were passed down and written long ago and we wonder if there's some historical truth to them, while things like 101 Dalmatians or The Jungle Book were written by one author who we know made it up in recent times. So that's why changing things to fairy tales feels a little different from changing things from novels.

If none of you see how going from a farmer's peasant to a princess or a Prince to a thief are the biggest changes Disney's done, then I am done. I wish you could understand why those are the biggest and most un-Disney changes Disney's done and why they're different (similar, but different!)(and they aren't as big as changing the ending to The Little Mermaid from sad to happy but that is a very Disney thing to do, hence no complaint) from what Walt Disney did, but if you don't I give up. So there it all is.

[Semaj]

I'll have to re-read The Art of Tangled, but I think the class swap was made in accordance to Disney's past films.

Sleeping Beauty: Princess kidnapped/taken into exile upon birth (and lives in the forest in her bare feet. =3 )

The Little Mermaid: Lush-haired babe longs for the outside world.

Aladdin: Handsome everyman steals for a living, but seeks a better lifestyle.

As we know, Disney is no stranger to altering story material OR recalling themes and traits from their past films. Even Cinderella touched into a bit of nostalgia for the days of Snow White.

The swap, to me, was a valid choice, and was actually beneficial for Flynn. Disney has kept the lead male in their past fairy tales a born prince, but prior to Beauty and the Beast, has always had trouble making them interesting characters. Not that many male Disney fans aspire to be a prince anyways, but along with their respective princesses, they now need to be more active characters with their own sense of depth than what Sleeping Beauty would've allowed.

I think for Tangled, being the studio's first CGI fairy tale, they were simply continuing the tradition of marrying old elements with the new, but this time for a different visual medium.

Again, I'll have to re-read The Art of Tangled, but this was the impression I got before I bought the book.

[Disney Duster]

Well I get how it is like some past Disney movies, but not in the way I'm talking about, a way which would be even closer/more accurate to how Walt made his classic adapations.

[Semaj]

Doesn't that seem a bit irrelevant?

If Walt was still more devoted to making animated films in the 1960's, he probably would've stuck with the screenplay Bill Peet submitted for The Jungle Book. Disney has overhauled some of his films before, but that time, he specifically instructed his writers NOT to read the original novel. They still worked according to Walt's directives, but rather than studying the source material more closely as they've done before, they were deliberately working with a much looser interpretation of the story and its characters. But this much lighter story was likely influenced by how much attention Walt was giving animation at the time, dealing with a reduced production staff, a streamlined visual style, and Walt's devotion to Disneyland, his TV show, and EPCOT.

There are many conditions with creating a motion picture, as well as outside circumstances that makes it impossible to determine how the final film will turn out. This was no exception for Walt; all of his 1950s animated features could've come out quite differently had they not been delayed by WWII during the 1940s. Not to mention, his attention to other projects effected the final outcome of Sleeping Beauty.

[Disney Duster]

I agree with all you have said except the irrelevant comment. I feel like, as little as everyone says it is and I admit it seems it is, I feel like those aspects of faithfulness are important. I think they would make the film feel more like who Disney is and that their magic never left. You're right it seems tiny, but Disney movies are in the details, too. I don't mean to be annoying with this, but this is the right thread to discuss such a thing. I wish I could get more people to realize the difference and why, though it seems tiny, it may be important.

[DisneyAnimation88]

I wish I could get more people to realize the difference and why, though it seems tiny, it may be important.

I don't want to re-involve myself too much in this debate but I think this quote is a big reason pf why people sometimes become angry with you Disney Duster. When you say things like this, you make it sound like the rest of us are ignorant or missing something that is really clear, something that only you can see. Looking back over this thread, it is something you do when people disagree with you and is something that can be frustrating. Sometimes it is difficult to debate with you because, instead of simply sharing and discussing our opinions, it becomes you speaking as if you're trying to educate us or change our opinions to correspond with your own. To be clear, I'm not attacking you here, on the contrary I like and enjoy debating with you but I just wanted to point out that sometimes when you word yourself like this it can be misconstrued and lead to arguments so I hope I haven't offended you because that isn't my intention.

I feel like, as little as everyone says it is and I admit it seems it is, I feel like those aspects of faithfulness are important.

They are important and I don't think anyone would disagree with you there, I just think that the changes that Disney makes are done because they are necessary. I think the Disney adaptations always retain a fairly strong faithfulness to the source material but that some stories, The Little Mermaid and Rapunzel for example, don't necessarily lend themselves to the Disney formula so they have to be altered, sometimes significantly. But in the broader picture, I personally think that Disney have always remained faithful enough to the stories that they've adapted.

[Disney Duster]

I don't always understand other people, and people don't always understand me. That is all I mean by saying I wish I could explain something to you guys. Everyone knows something other people don't know, and I don't even know if I "know"it, I just want to explain it and you judge for yourselves if it's true or matters.

Thanks for what you said in the end. I just feel like there must be a way they could have stayed as faithful as Walt was in making Rapunzel. I might be wrong about that, but I do know one thing. I know they made Flynn a thief because they said princes had been done too much before. That means they didn't do it for the story to work, they just did it because they didn't want to do something over again, even though the prince could have kept the same personality as Flynn had so it wouldn't have been the same thing over again.

[DisneyAnimation88]

That means they didn't do it for the story to work, they just did it because they didn't want to do something over again, even though the prince could have kept the same personality as Flynn had so it wouldn't have been the same thing over again.

If they had kept the character of Flynn Rider as a prince I think it would have been very, very similar to Sleeping Beauty in that a prince comes across a princess who's been hidden away for years. Aren't Rapunzel and Aurora both sixteen? If not they're similar in age. You can say "the personality could have stayed the same" but at the end of the day, there are indelible expectations of princes in Disney films and the character of Flynn Rider simply didn't conform to them.

Princes are always nice guys but sometimes there is not much there. There is not a lot to do with them. So when you start with a guy on the wrong side of the tracks and you give him a little bit of an edge like, a smart-aleck or the smartest person in the room attitude, it gives you more of a place to go.

We were looking for a type, because we knew we didn’t want him to be a prince; we wanted him to be a thief. We wanted to flip it and we needed a personality that would be charming yet sort of confident. He’s got to have a suave self-confidence about him, which can so easily go to an unlikeable place.

Those characteristics don't exactly lend themselves to a prince-type character. You are correct in that the character was changed because the directors wanted to do something that Disney hadn't done before but that wasn't the only reason and it wasn't done on a whim. In the eyes of the directors it was a necessity if they were to tell the story and portray the characters in the way that they wanted. I understand you have complaints about that but such choices are a director's perogative and in my opinion the change doesn't detract from the film but enhances it and does set Tangled apart while retaining the key things that we expect from a Disney film.

[Super Aurora]

Rapunzel was 18 when Flynn found her.

[Disney's Divinity]

@DisneyAnimation: I don't necessarily agree with that. TP&TF and B&tB both feature princes who are not "nice" to begin with and still have "a place to go" as the directors would say. I don't care that Flynn is a thief, tbh, but I don't think the reasons they gave for changing him are legitimate.

Thinking about it, I would say the only reason the princes of the older films aren't interesting is that they aren't treated as equal characters to the heroines. SW, TLM and Cinderella are more about the girl's struggles; they seem to have no interest in giving the prince an arc or story of any kind (I don't include SB because I don't think they care about Aurora either in that one). Eric and Phillip are the only real examples of princes who are bland despite being given something to do (and even Phillip doesn't seem exactly "nice" to me, though he's not a character that changes during the film). I mean, I think a princess can just as easily be boring if not given any attention (Jasmine, Aurora).

[Semaj]

@DisneyAnimation: I don't necessarily agree with that. TP&TF and B&tB both feature princes who are not "nice" to begin with and still have "a place to go" as the directors would say. I don't care that Flynn is a thief, tbh, but I don't think the reasons they gave for changing him are legitimate.

My question is, how could they have made Flynn an interesting character if he was already a prince?

With Naveen, it made sense; his parents sent him to live on his own. Something people in their 20s can relate to. All I can imagine with Flynn is his being bored with royalty and running away from home, which they already did with Jasmine from the princess' perspective.
So then, what would Prince Flynn gain from meeting a Pauper Rapunzel? Assuming she retains her multi-talented persona, it would pretty much fall in line with The Princess and the Frog, but then you have two back-to-back films doing the exact same thing: The Prince venturing out on his own and bringing the talented but poor heroine into royalty.

[DisneyAnimation88]

I don't necessarily agree with that. TP&TF and B&tB both feature princes who are not "nice" to begin with and still have "a place to go" as the directors would say. I don't care that Flynn is a thief, tbh, but I don't think the reasons they gave for changing him are legitimate.

Fair enough, I can see you point about those two characters but I can still understand the directors' reasoning behind the changes they made to the character. My main thought in the debate over the change of the character's role is whether or not it affects the quality of the film and I don't think it does. If it did then I might think differently but for me Flynn is definitely one of the more entertaining and interesting male characters that Disney has created, along with Naveen who you mentioned. Maybe it just shows that change from the norm can be good for Disney but I wouldn't class those changes as "un-Disney" or anything like that.

[Disney Duster]

Semaj, I already wrote how much sense it makes for Flynn as a prince to run away from home, and though it sounds like Aladdin, its not, as this time the character actually gets to be out there doing stuff that the likes of Jasmine never did. Everything he does in the film would set him apart from Jasmine or other characters whether he was a prince or not.

DisneyAnimation, I've said already, it's not that the changes effect the quality, its that they go against how traditional Disney used to be and how that is who they should be.

But the changes they made were actually on a whim. You said yourself it was "to tell the story and portray the characters in the way that they wanted". First of all, it wasn't their story, it was Glen Keane's, and second, even though people at Disney getting to do what they want to do is important, the most important thing is not what story some people want to tell but what story can Disney tell. If you want to go against Disney('s past), then don't work at Disney!

And like Disney's Divinity thankfully already sort of said, all of the things you thought couldn't fit a prince actually could.

[DisneyAnimation88]

If you want to go against Disney('s past), then don't work at Disney!

It is comments like this that make me angry because I find them very disrespectful so forgive me this little rant. Nathan Greno and Byron Howard worked very hard for a long time to become animators at Disney, then spent many, many hours working their way towards the director's chair by training under the likes of Glen Keane and Aaron Blaise, men who were in turn taught by the likes of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston who were in turn trained by men like Freddie Moore so if anyone understands what "Disney" is, I think it is people like Nathan Greno and Byron Howard who (unlike you and I) have spent nearly twenty years working at the studio, having it's tradition and heritage ingrained in them by some of the most legendary figures to pass through The Walt Disney Company. They've probably forgotten more about Disney than you and I could ever know so don't accuse them of effectively turning their backs on that legacy or say they should go and work somewhere else. If you want to save the Disney "essence" that you believe is being lost, do what Nathan Greno and Byron Howard did: work your ass off to become one of the lucky few who get the chance to work at WDAS and then you'll get your opportunity to tell them to their faces that unless they can make a film that falls under the umbrella of what you and you alone decide is "Disney" or "un-Disney" they should look for jobs elsewhere.

And like Disney's Divinity thankfully already basically said, all of the things you thought couldn't fit a prince actually could.

He made a very good point which I acknowleged but like I said, I still believe that the directors' reasoning behind the changes that they made is fair and understandable. I'm not saying I'm right by thinking that, it is just my opinion. At the end of the day, I think Tangled is a film that fits perfectly within the Disney tradition and I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with the character of Flynn Rider, you think otherwise and nothing is going to change either of our minds.

[Disney Duster]

Sorry. And some things have happened to me over the years that would prevent me from being able to get very far at Disney, I think. But also I work very slowly so maybe even if things didn't happen to me I still couldn't do it.

But I'm just voicing what I think and you are the one taking it in a very negative way. I see a problem, you don't, don't get all like this over a mean interpretation of what I have said. And it's not just me alone thinking what I think, you just assume it is.

[DisneyAnimation88]

But I'm just voicing what I think and you are the one taking it in a very negative way. I see a problem, you don't, don't get all like this over a mean interpretation of what I have said.

There's not really a positive way to interpret you suggesting that people who have worked at WDAS for nearly twenty years and been trained by some of the very best to walk through the door at Disney should find work elsewhere because you don't like certain elements of a film that they directed. I really don't think I'm being mean in the slightest, like I said I found that particular comment to be disrespectful. And I am not assuming anything, I responded to what I saw which was a comment that you made.

[Disney Duster]

Don't give me that. It's not that I don't like what they did, its that it goes against Disney and what they should be doing. If we're just going to get in a fight with you being mad at me, then let's not continue this. I have explained myself as best I could, I think I'm done. I only wish you all got it. I know you'll probably take that in a bad way too but I just don't care anymore.

[DisneyAnimation88]

I only wish you all got it. I know you'll probably take that in a bad way too but I just don't care anymore.

I won't speak for anyone else but I understand what you're saying and I really don't think you're as misunderstood as you portray yourself. I just don't agree with most of the "Disney essence" and "un-Disney" stuff you come up with.

Don't give me that. It's not that I don't like what they did, its that it goes against Disney and what they should be doing.

Once again ...