A film about guinea pig commandos? That's their July tentpole?
Something tells me Bob Iger is wishing he could shift The Princess and the Frog, The Lone Ranger and Tron 2 to this summer. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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It still shocks me that Disney releases so many animated features a year. I remember when you got one fully animated feature per year, and they were mostly excellent releases. Now they churn out a ton of garbage. They need to go back to developing good stories, not churning out a bunch of crummy stories because with pixar the animation doesn't take as long. I hope that the Princess and the Frog is good, and does well, so that Disney will remember what the animation studios used to be. Not that pixar needs to be dropped, but that there are a lot of people who don't pay to see disney movies anymore because they feel the quality has left the company.
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quote:Originally posted by andi330: It still shocks me that Disney releases so many animated features a year. I remember when you got one fully animated feature per year, and they were mostly excellent releases.
To be fair, andi, Disney (speaking here of the Walt Disney Animation Studio and not Pixar) hasn't released more than one animated feature per year since 2002.
(That was the year that the so-called potboiler, Lilo and Stitch made a profit during its initial theatrical run, while the major tentpole flick Treasure Planet became one of the biggest bombs in the studio's history.)
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They need to go back to starting with great stories before they'll be able to make a great film. The classic stuff that was coming out when I was a kid in the 80's and 90's was excellent, even if the animation wasn't always top notch, especially by today's high standards. But they survive the test of time because the stories are great, and they're memorable.
Where's my Lion King? Beauty and the Beast? Sleeping Beauty?
I think they've traded substance for flash in recent years (on average), and it hasn't worked.
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You're saying the animation on Lion King and Beauty and the Beast wasn't particularly good? *blink*
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Well, the songwriting on Lion King for sure wasn't up to scratch (except maybe one song.)
You don't like the Lion King songs?!
Disney is simply not coming up with many good concepts for films, not attracting good writers. On top of that Disney has developed a very poor reputation for delivering good films, so it would take a lot to bring back people who "left" watching Disney for Pixar.
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I might see G-Force, but only because my uncle always has guinea pigs for pets. Also, I never realized you could make that pun on the phrase "g-force".
I suppose the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aren't popular enough now for one to accuse Disney of jumping on a bandwagon.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I actually liked Treasure Planet a lot. I'm not sure why it got such a bad rap.
quote:Well, the songwriting on Lion King for sure wasn't up to scratch (except maybe one song.)
Them's fighting words. (And I seriously haven't heard anyone else complain about the Lion King songs before.)
I loved Treasure Planet and also have no idea why it bombed so bad at the theaters.
And I am another who *despises* The Lion King for its music. The story's not bad, it's got some decent 1-liners, and I *love* Jeremy Irons' sense of irony that comes through as he does Scar... but the music sucks so bad I really can't stand the movie overall.
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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And I am another who *despises* The Lion King for its music. The story's not bad, it's got some decent 1-liners, and I *love* Jeremy Irons' sense of irony that comes through as he does Scar... but the music sucks so bad I really can't stand the movie overall.
I agree that, as sung in the movie, the Lion King songs aren't that great. Do you find the Elton John versions of the songs better or worse? I think the Elton John versions both sound better and have better lyrics. (The lyrics are still by Tim Rice, but they have less to do with the story.)
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The Circle of Life earns a changed radio station.
The love song isn't bad on the radio, but it's so unmemorable overall that I can't even remember what it's called right now.
If I could somehow destroy every copy of Hakuna Matata that exists, I would. Something about that song just gives me the willies, and not just the stupid message about how being lazy and ignoring everything is the best way to live. Just. . .. ick.
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Several of the songs have dumb messages, but that's because the characters are (or were at the time) kinda dumb. I still found them all incredibly catchy and fun to sing. (I particularly love Be Prepared).
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My memory of The Lion King the movie has been entirely obscured by memories of "The Lion King" the Sega Genesis game. I think it might have been a net loss.
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The only thing that is really actually interesting about Treasure Planet is that it is an example of a movie that started out with honor roll potential and then got milled down to a C+ the second the design-by-committee folks from Management got their hands on the storyboards.
NEEDS MORE WACKY SIDEKICKS, CAN WE HAVE THE MAIN STAR BE "RADICAL" WE HEAR KIDS LIKE THAT THESE DAYS. HOW ABOUT SURFING, THAT IS "COOL" THESE DAYS YES?
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See, I don't think any of those things actually detracted from the movie. Made it different yes. And perhaps unnecessarily. But honestly, Jim Hawkins in the actual book is not all that interesting a character. I thought making him a troubled teen who was dealing with father-abandonment issues was better than leaving him the generic kid he was in the novel. I actually cried at the montage in the middle of the movie comparing his old father to John Silver.
Apart from that, the movie was just plain really really cool. I've wanted to see a movie with those kinds of pseudo-magical space ships that look like sailing ships for a long time.
In fact, I kinda wanna go see it again now that I'm thinking about it.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I actually liked Treasure Planet a lot. I'm not sure why it got such a bad rap.
I knew I'd see someone post a remark like this. To which I say: Saying that Treasure Planet bombed is a reference to its box office performance. It's not a statement on the content or quality of the film. Personally, I kind of liked it. Parts of it, anyway. Okay, only David Hyde Pierce's character.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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The Muppets did Treasure Island better, but there's nothing particularlly wrong with Treasure Planet. Compared to Lilo and Stitch that year, I think it looked worse than it was.
I think a lot of it was that it felt like the bottom of a long slide. Little Mermaid to Lion King was a time of glory. Pocahontas to Tarzan were all solid with the exception of the annoying gargoyles in the otherwise glorious Hunchback. (Frollo's Piata Maria is my all-time favorite Disney musical number.)
I loved New Groove and Atlantis, but the first was heavy on the zany comedy and closing message and the second was a bit out there for most people. I mean, it was basically Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Stargate. That's a bit weird for folks. To follow that up with another sci-fi movie was probably a tactical error.
Though Stitch was an alien being hunted by aliens and that did fine. Maybe I'm misinterpreting.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You're saying the animation on Lion King and Beauty and the Beast wasn't particularly good? *blink*
No, that's not what I said.
I said that on the whole back then, it may not always have been top notch, especially when compared to today. Lion King and Beauty and the Beast I think were quite beautifully done. Older stuff, even compared to LK and B&B looks weak by comparison. Maybe it was all new and shiny back when it first came out, but I'm not particularly impressed by a lot of it now. I bet Fantasia was pretty amazing when it first came out, but compared to Fantasia 2000, I'm not really super impressed (though I do have a soft sport in my heart for some original Fantasia pieces). Speaking of which, they need to bring Fantasia back! 2000 only got made because Roy Disney pushed for years to have it made, but a lot of ideas were still left on the drawing boards. It's really a shame.
Again, it's all relative since when they first came out they were probably pretty amazing, but even when I was a kid in the 80's, I wasn't visually impressed by stuff like Snow White, Bambi, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady in the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, and such. But the stories were all excellent, and despite the fact that they aren't all visual masterpieces, I still watch them today as a twentysomething. I do remember being extremely impressed by movies like the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas because they were such a leap forward visually.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: See, I don't think any of those things actually detracted from the movie.
The movie absolutely would have been better.
Imagine you are on the animation and story writing teams; you are a creative director as opposed to the top brass at Disney. You have made an excellent movie, in this case, what Treasure Planet would have been.
Then, Disney management comes down and states, essentially, that you have to write in no less than three (3) characters that can be turned into Happy Meal toys and make sure that they feature prominently throughout the movie, and that one of them has to "resonate" with kids in the 3-7 year bracket.
"You want me to change the entire movie specifically to put in characters that have nothing to do with the cohesiveness of the story, but rather are there only to make good happy meal toys?"
"Yes," says Management, obliquely. Their only concern is greater formulaic marketability. "Also, we need you to redesign the main protagonist based on what our committee assumes is cool these days."
So you are forced to take A-grade Treasure Planet and ham-fistedly insert characters like Morph and B.E.N. and refit the main character to become a Poochie based on their tenuous concepts of focus group study.
Congratulations, as a creative director, you've discovered how Disney's creative mismanagement in an attempt to derive greater profit from an artistic project is going to be at least dropping the quality of the work one letter grade (another example of this was Disney's Atlantis, which was going to be excellent but was turned into a sub-par offering by 'focus group/committee design') and furthering the approaching extinction of your animation studio.
This is what Disney was doing to itself for years. It was ruinous. And the worst part is that Pixar succeeds tremendously by vetoing this process and protecting their creative integrity, but Disney's trying to do it to them too: they're grousing that Up has no characters in it that translate readily into marketable toys!
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I agree with KQ, the stories have been lacking. Disney moved away from feature films and started putting out direct to DVD sequels. Most, if not all, were horrible, but it made Disney money.
Since Lassiter took over Disney animation, he has canceled the direct to DVD sequels. This takes away the cash cow that was Disney Studios. Pixar works because they have great stories. If Disney can come up with good stories again, they may be able to get back on top. I'm sorry, G-force and the Chihuahua movie is not going to cut it.
Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: See, I don't think any of those things actually detracted from the movie.
The movie absolutely would have been better.
Imagine you are on the animation and story writing teams; you are a creative director as opposed to the top brass at Disney. You have made an excellent movie, in this case, what Treasure Planet would have been.
Then, Disney management comes down and states, essentially, that you have to write in no less than three (3) characters that can be turned into Happy Meal toys and make sure that they feature prominently throughout the movie, and that one of them has to "resonate" with kids in the 3-7 year bracket.
"You want me to change the entire movie specifically to put in characters that have nothing to do with the cohesiveness of the story, but rather are there only to make good happy meal toys?"
"Yes," says Management, obliquely. Their only concern is greater formulaic marketability. "Also, we need you to redesign the main protagonist based on what our committee assumes is cool these days."
So you are forced to take A-grade Treasure Planet and ham-fistedly insert characters like Morph and B.E.N. and refit the main character to become a Poochie based on their tenuous concepts of focus group study.
Congratulations, as a creative director, you've discovered how Disney's creative mismanagement in an attempt to derive greater profit from an artistic project is going to be at least dropping the quality of the work one letter grade (another example of this was Disney's Atlantis, which was going to be excellent but was turned into a sub-par offering by 'focus group/committee design') and furthering the approaching extinction of your animation studio.
This is what Disney was doing to itself for years. It was ruinous. And the worst part is that Pixar succeeds tremendously by vetoing this process and protecting their creative integrity, but Disney's trying to do it to them too: they're grousing that Up has no characters in it that translate readily into marketable toys!
I think this mostly comes down to just disagreeing. But I must say that, first of all, Ben and Morph were both characters in the original story. Morph was a Parrot with a different name I can't remember, but he was there. In both the original and the movie he was not crucial to the plot but he did add flavor, they simply modified that flavor to fit the magic-space setting. I liked him a lot.
I actually did think Ben was a little annoying, but for all the reasons he was originally supposed to be. He was a random crazy person in the book, he's a random crazy person in the movie. Disney On High may have come down and said "make him a little cuter," and I think he probably could have been executed better, but if he was not originally in the script then the creative director was doing a disservice to Treasure Island.
As for Jim... I just plain loved the character. The whole movie was structured around him. I don't for a moment believe he was not created that way intentionally.
I don't doubt that Disney is run by soulless corporate types trying to maximize profit and preserve the disney image, but I think it's been that way for such a long time that it's less of a creative clash and more of a design restriction. Pixar movies have the the plastic look to their animation. Warner Brother Cartoons have elongated main characters. Disney has cute wacky animal friends. If you didn't want to include those in your movie you should be working at a different company.
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quote:Disney has cute wacky animal friends. If you didn't want to include those in your movie you should be working at a different company.
But what we're talking about isn't just about "oh, that's just the way Disney does stuff." Doing stuff the way Disney was doing stuff ensures that they won't be doing it that way for very long (because it loses a gajillion dollars) and if you don't want to include those things in your movie it implies you want to still be making movies in a year.
It's about Disney's animation studios becoming a complete failure and that Treasure Planet is emblematic (and a case study!) in why they failed!
Mind you, I am not saying Treasure Planet was bad. It was pretty good. It could have been better by an order of magnitude, though. It was merely hampered, not torn apart as thoroughly as other Disney offerings. Either way, Disney's corporate culture had produced and entrenched a dysfunction so complete that they had completely lost their ability to produce movies that we would care about for more than a single movie season, despite the fact that not too long ago they were pulling gems out like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.
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quote:Doing stuff the way Disney was doing stuff ensures that they won't be doing it that way for very long (because it loses a gajillion dollars)
The Disney Formula (songs, cute animation style, funny animals, rip-off of traditional story that typically castrates the original message) has been followed from Day One. Long after people realized Disney was being formulaic, it continued to make them money and critical acclaim. Beauty and the Beast is one of the best examples of the Disney Formula and it's held as one of the classics.
It's possible that by the time they hit Treasure Planet they had simply oversaturated the market. I suppose that there's only so many films you need for kids between the ages of 3 and 12. But I don't believe that's the whole answer. I think there will always be a sizable market for the Disney genre just as there will always be a market for romantic comedies and slasher movies.
Disney started sucking because they started focusing on quantity over quality at a time when CGI was just becoming popular. People began associating Disney with crappy sequels and bland stories. The movies preceding Treasure Planet weren't necessarily bad (IMO Atlantis was, but I liked both Emperor's New Groove and Lilo and Stitch). But they were a little schizophrenic in style. People weren't sure what exactly they were expecting to get out of a Disney movie. It was also the third sci-fi film in a row. I'm not sure how big a problem that was.
The prominence of CG gave Disney something to blame other than their own ineptitude, leading them to take measures that exacerbated the problem, firing the animators, devoting a lot of money/resources to CG instead of fixing the bland stories that were the actual problem.
I think Princess and the Frog is going to be pretty successful. It looks like it's aiming to capture the feel of the iconic Disney movies, with all the traditional cute animals and what-not as well as the genuine passion that went into the earlier films. John Laceter is heading the project and he seems to really care about it. I hope it pans out and Disney gets its act together.
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