In 1982 Don Bluth, and 10 other recently ex-Disney animators, singlehandedly put Disney on notice: You're not the only game in town, and your movies have turned to shit.
Late 70's had actually been pretty good for Disney, so far as output goes (Robin Hood, Winnie Pooh, Rescuers, Fox and the Hound, and Black Cauldron) . IMO, only stinker from that era would be The Rescuers. But yeah, working as animator at Disney was never that enjoyable, especially as you couldn't express yourself.
While Robin Hood is still probably my favorite, I think the animators' complaint might have been less that the movies were stinkers and more that they weren't actually doing anything new:
Why the hell are disney movies out of print? I would think that they're the definition of a product that the demand never goes down (since people are always having kids).
They take them out of print so they can charge more for them when they're in print.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Why the hell are disney movies out of print? I would think that they're the definition of a product that the demand never goes down (since people are always having kids).
They take them out of print so they can charge more for them when they're in print.
And so they can make a huge stupid deal about it every time they open the "Disney Vault."
Why the hell are disney movies out of print? I would think that they're the definition of a product that the demand never goes down (since people are always having kids).
They take them out of print so they can charge more for them when they're in print.
And so they can make a huge stupid deal about it every time they open the "Disney Vault."
I'm just glad they're starting to do more traditional animation instead of the pixar/toystory type stuff again. The CGI stuff is all well and good but for a while there I wondered if the next generation of kids was going to grow up with no traditionally animated movies at all.
Exactly. There's just no way to fully replicate the feel of hand-drawn animation in CG, and I've been missing it. Supposedly Disney will release a new hand-drawn movie every two years from now on, which makes me ridiculously happy. And since they'll have zero competition, I imagine they'll do pretty well at the box office.
For those wondering what happened with Eisner and Disney, I'll let you in on the big thing.
Frank Wells died. Wells was Roy to Eisner's Walt. Eisner was the idea man, who came from Paramount with tons of energy, but no focus. Wells was the money guy, who was able to channel that energy into specific processes and enterprises.
Seriously. In 1984 both Eisner and Wells came on as the White Knights to save Disney from hostile takeover and dismantling (which was the style at the time). From there, you started to see the resurgance of Disney. The name change from Walt Disney Productions to Disney Company, the big marketing push for the new Tokyo Disneyland, the bevvy of new films, great new attractions at Disneyland, a new park at Disney World (Disney/MGM Studios- now Disney' Hollywood Studios), the Disney Channel, and a whole new focus on marketing existing properties, releasing old classic films onto VHS. All of this was dubbed by Eisner as the "Disney Decade".
Frank Wells died in a plane crash in 1994. You'll notice that once Eisner took over as CEO and COO, Disney started to go to shit. His big thing is that he loved micromanagement. Suddenly, the whole company became one big management clusterfuck. You couldn't do anything without 5 different suits telling you to change it. Marketing and cashing in became the focus, and creativity and imagination were left to wither on the vine. Eisner and the board put in place people who had no previous knowledge of animation, or theme parks. Hell, he put a retail guru in charge of Disneyland- and then promoted him to head of all the theme parks. Guess what? He focused on shops and vending carts instead of rides and attractions. For this- people died. I'm not even kidding. Check out the number of in-park deaths due to poor maintenance. He killed 2D animation because he thought nobody wanted to see it anymore. He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products. Things started looking up during the last 3 or so years of his tenure, though- at least at Disneyland- thanks to folks like Matt Ouimet.
Around 2002, Roy Disney- Walt's nephew- decided he'd had enough, and tried to get Eisner removed. He tried for 2 years, until Eisner retired, basically naming his protege, Bob Iger CEO. Under Iger, things have improved a bit, the acquisition of Pixar (which Eisner almost fucked up), the positioning of John Lassiter as both head of animation and insipirational head of Imagineering, and a warming up to past relationships with George Lucas and others who were alienated by Eisner.
Yeah, the Disney/Pixar deal a few years ago was hilarious. I really don't know what position Disney thought it had, considering Pixar had made the only really profitable movies Disney had released for over a decade. How they thought denying Pixar a bigger cut and then basically saying "Fine, leave, we don't need you" when Pixar threatened to jump ship was going to work, I'll never know.
Pixar was an independent company for what, a week before Disney capitulated?
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel from a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
He meant that it went from a premium channel like HBO that showed the classic cartoons and movies to basically a stop for kids between Nickelodeon and MTV.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel from a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
He meant that it went from a premium channel like HBO that showed the classic cartoons and movies to basically a stop for kids between Nickelodeon and MTV.
Much as it pains me to say it, the current incarnation of Disney Channel is vastly more profitable than the cartoon version ever was.
Even though I loved that version, and it pains me at how infrequently classic Disney cartoons are shown on TV nowadays.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel from a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
He meant that it went from a premium channel like HBO that showed the classic cartoons and movies to basically a stop for kids between Nickelodeon and MTV.
Much as it pains me to say it, the current incarnation of Disney Channel is vastly more profitable than the cartoon version ever was.
Even though I loved that version, and it pains me at how infrequently classic Disney cartoons are shown on TV nowadays.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel from a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
He meant that it went from a premium channel like HBO that showed the classic cartoons and movies to basically a stop for kids between Nickelodeon and MTV.
Much as it pains me to say it, the current incarnation of Disney Channel is vastly more profitable than the cartoon version ever was.
Even though I loved that version, and it pains me at how infrequently classic Disney cartoons are shown on TV nowadays.
That's the problem people had with Eisner though, it was all about money. The direction he took Disney in was pretty much diametrically opposed to how Walt Disney had helmed the company.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
Or the Jonas Brothers or High School Musical. Coincidentally, they have all been parodied by Southpark.
Disney himself knew what people wanted, really. I mean, hell- he pushed tween/teen actor/singers onto the public with the Mouseketeers, but it was done subtly and with some semblance of style.
He wasn't really a shrewd businessman, that's what his brother was. Walt was the idea guy- the pie in the sky dreamer. Any time he had a new idea or project, Roy was the one who had to either try to find the financing, or to get Walt to reign it in.
It was a good balance. When the company has that balance, it produces great things. When that balance is out of whack, we get crap and pay through the nose for it.
For those wondering what happened with Eisner and Disney, I'll let you in on the big thing.
Frank Wells died. Wells was Roy to Eisner's Walt. Eisner was the idea man, who came from Paramount with tons of energy, but no focus. Wells was the money guy, who was able to channel that energy into specific processes and enterprises.
Seriously. In 1984 both Eisner and Wells came on as the White Knights to save Disney from hostile takeover and dismantling (which was the style at the time). From there, you started to see the resurgance of Disney. The name change from Walt Disney Productions to Disney Company, the big marketing push for the new Tokyo Disneyland, the bevvy of new films, great new attractions at Disneyland, a new park at Disney World (Disney/MGM Studios- now Disney' Hollywood Studios), the Disney Channel, and a whole new focus on marketing existing properties, releasing old classic films onto VHS. All of this was dubbed by Eisner as the "Disney Decade".
Frank Wells died in a plane crash in 1994. You'll notice that once Eisner took over as CEO and COO, Disney started to go to shit. His big thing is that he loved micromanagement. Suddenly, the whole company became one big management clusterfuck. You couldn't do anything without 5 different suits telling you to change it. Marketing and cashing in became the focus, and creativity and imagination were left to wither on the vine. Eisner and the board put in place people who had no previous knowledge of animation, or theme parks. Hell, he put a retail guru in charge of Disneyland- and then promoted him to head of all the theme parks. Guess what? He focused on shops and vending carts instead of rides and attractions. For this- people died. I'm not even kidding. Check out the number of in-park deaths due to poor maintenance. He killed 2D animation because he thought nobody wanted to see it anymore. He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products. Things started looking up during the last 3 or so years of his tenure, though- at least at Disneyland- thanks to folks like Matt Ouimet.
Around 2002, Roy Disney- Walt's nephew- decided he'd had enough, and tried to get Eisner removed. He tried for 2 years, until Eisner retired, basically naming his protege, Bob Iger CEO. Under Iger, things have improved a bit, the acquisition of Pixar (which Eisner almost fucked up), the positioning of John Lassiter as both head of animation and insipirational head of Imagineering, and a warming up to past relationships with George Lucas and others who were alienated by Eisner.
Damn. The sordid history of Disney.
Also, I guess the whole tween thing is that it was kind of an untapped market. When I was growing up you had the stuff for little kids, and the stuff for teenagers, with the assumption that everyone basically fell into one of those two categories. When really, I guess your "tween" years (what are they, like 5th-9th grade or something?) are as distinct as what comes before and after it. It's no wonder they made a killing when somebody finally realized that there's a transition period from "action figures" to "titties 'n' beer".
Disney produced a lot of forgotten shit. The Littlest Outlaw, the extremely popular Davy Crockett TV show, Shaggy Dog, and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.
Yeah, they've done MORE than enough stuff to have a "Disney Classics" channel, with a mix of live-action and animated. Shame it'll probably never happen.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
I'm not clear on the Hannah Montana plot but I think it's about is a teen singing sensation has a double life as a normal girl much like Clark Kent/ Superman. But I've heard this is ripping off a number of Japanese shows aimed at Japanese teens. Is this accurate or are otakus making stuff up?
Disney produced a lot of forgotten shit. The Littlest Outlaw, the extremely popular Davy Crockett TV show, Shaggy Dog, and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.
Also, what exactly is "unsettling" about the tween stuff? I'll admit I don't really know much about it (all my little cousins/friend's kids except for one are like seven or under) but isn't it basically nickelodeon plus a few years?
Also, what exactly is "unsettling" about the tween stuff? I'll admit I don't really know much about it (all my little cousins/friend's kids except for one are like seven or under) but isn't it basically nickelodeon plus a few years?
It's conditioning. They're started on Nickelodeon, weaned to Disney, then pimped to MTV.
He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products.
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
I'm not clear on the Hannah Montana plot but I think it's about is a teen singing sensation has a double life as a normal girl much like Clark Kent/ Superman. But I've heard this is ripping off a number of Japanese shows aimed at Japanese teens. Is this accurate or are otakus making stuff up?
Honestly, I haven't a clue where they took the plot from, my paper was for a freshman academic writing class and was basically: this is dumb, look how dumb this is.
I got an A on it, so that was nice.
EDIT:
Rereading the paper, it was pretty bad, but my major point was that Disney has something pretty new on their hands. They were taking the style of merchandising they use for their big name animated characters and applying it to a person. They basically entirely constructed Miley Cyrus from the ground up as a corporate sensation, and while she's tween based she actually gets a fair amount of creep into older and younger demographics. I was basically just pointing out how heavily the girl is marketed and entrenched in these kids lives, which isn't necessarily unique for a Disney product or unique for a celebrity, but in this occasion it's a celebrity who is a Disney product. It's like a whole new level of market domination.
Didn't they do the same thing with Lizzie Maguire a few years prior?
Yeah, she's considered the proto-Montana, but Disney let her slip out of their grasp. I think their ideal for Hannah Montana is that they'll be able to hold onto her, make the girl into a human Mickey Mouse. That may be some sort of paranoia, though. Anyway, the Hannah Montana brand is wildly more successful than Lizzie McGuire, I'm pretty sure.
But, yeah, my point was that it is blurring the line between "person" and "product" something fierce.
Didn't they do the same thing with Lizzie Maguire a few years prior?
Yeah, she's considered the proto-Montana, but Disney let her slip out of their grasp. I think their ideal for Hannah Montana is that they'll be able to hold onto her, make the girl into a human Mickey Mouse. That may be some sort of paranoia, though. Anyway, the Hannah Montana brand is wildly more successful than Lizzie McGuire, I'm pretty sure.
But, yeah, my point was that it is blurring the line between "person" and "product" something fierce.
They're giving Miley Cyrus a HUGE amount of creative freedom in order to keep her in Disney's stable long after Hannah Montana is retired. The concert movie allowed her to perform as Hannah AND Miley, and the latest movie gave her more opportunities to sing country.
Didn't they do the same thing with Annette Funaciello a few decades prior?
Guys, Disney has produced teen triple threats for years. It's only within the last decade or so that they've perfected the synergy to push it company wide.
Hailey Mills, Jodie Foster, Kurt Russell. All teen Disney stars back in the day- who were also pushed into horrible attempts at singing- in some instances.
In a March 1966 episode of CBS's Lost in Space entitled "The Challenge", he played Quano, the son of a planetary ruler. The young actor was soon signed to a ten-year contract with the Walt Disney Company, where he became, according to Robert Osborne, the "studio's top star of the '70s."[3] Russell starred in many Disney films, such as Follow Me, Boys! (1966), The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968) with newcomer Goldie Hawn, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975). He auditioned for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars (1977) but lost the role to Harrison Ford.
Yeah, they've done MORE than enough stuff to have a "Disney Classics" channel, with a mix of live-action and animated. Shame it'll probably never happen.
When you mention the live-action, do you imagine them using the first few Disney Channel Movies they made as well? I'm not talking about High School Musical or anything past that ... fuck no. But there were a few good ones back then I remember.
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Didn't they do the same thing with Lizzie Maguire a few years prior?
Yeah, she's considered the proto-Montana, but Disney let her slip out of their grasp. I think their ideal for Hannah Montana is that they'll be able to hold onto her, make the girl into a human Mickey Mouse. That may be some sort of paranoia, though. Anyway, the Hannah Montana brand is wildly more successful than Lizzie McGuire, I'm pretty sure.
But, yeah, my point was that it is blurring the line between "person" and "product" something fierce.
They're giving Miley Cyrus a HUGE amount of creative freedom in order to keep her in Disney's stable long after Hannah Montana is retired. The concert movie allowed her to perform as Hannah AND Miley, and the latest movie gave her more opportunities to sing country.
Yes, because when I think artistic merit, I think Cyrus.
Anyone ever seen Follow Me Boys? Another Fred McMurray disney classic. I remember staying up late as a kid and watching the old stuff that I guess they didn't want people to see unless they were up at 12 AM. Guess nobody likes classics or they're too busy pushing a lot of this newer BS during the day.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited April 2009
That's like the fifth time, and I still don't care.
Why the hell are disney movies out of print? I would think that they're the definition of a product that the demand never goes down (since people are always having kids).
Already sort of covered, but I thought I'd chime in as well: of course demand never goes down, which is why arbitrarily restricting supply leads to "it prints money." The only thing better than arbitrarily keeping things out of print to increase demand and gouge prices was doing so to works that should have entered public domain a generation ago anyway.Snow White was made in what, 1935 or so?
This seems to be getting better, though. Poking around on amazon.com (and given that we regularly check the shelves of Wal-Mart/Target just to see what might be on sale), it seems like they're keeping more of their titles in print nowadays, and for longer and/or larger runs. They appear to be depending on new editions and new formats for their rape dollars now (Blu-Ray and "ZOMG EIGHT DISC ADAMANTIUM EDITION OF LITTLE MERMAID!").
I also think digital formats have eaten into their vault strategy, since they hold value much more easily and don't naturally "wear out" like VHS did. Seems I can jump online and find used copies of OOP Disney movies, at least the ones I'm looking at, for pretty reasonable prices in good condition.
Anyway, the wife has a huge collection of Disney VHS movies. I think she actually had all of them, literally, before we started replacing them with DVDs. She lived a couple miles down the street from Disneyland, had a season pass every year, was basically a huge Disney kid. Like I said, we hit the rack at Wal-Mart and Target all the time just to see what they might have on sale. We've picked up most of our Disney DVDs for $10-$15 or so.
As for my favorite, not counting Pixar, I'd have to go with Emperor's New Groove. At least, for something that I would watch today. It's something that I can watch as an adult and still find absolutely hilarious, with no need for nostalgia. For my favorites as a kid, I've got to go with Sword in the Stone and Black Cauldron.
And Little Mermaid, because apparently I'm a gigantic girl. Shut up.
That's the third (or more I may have missed it) time it get posted. I think it was on this page or the one before and in the OP.
Less Hannah Montana, more anything else by disney talk!
I went to Disney World this summer for the second time (first one I was 6 years old) and I was really impressed at how the parks are managed. I took my time and did everything I wanted to do while my friend power-visited everything. I still was a bit sad that the character were hard to see, and I had so much trouble finding Alice (and when I did, the girl playing her had a cheshire cat smile. my picture are creepy)
I think my favorite part are mickey's phillarmagic (I went like 3 time and was still "aaaaw" all along) and the show in Hollywood Disney.... Fantasmic! I cried when I saw SO MANY PRINCESSES OMG THATS LIKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE.
Thinking about it I cried so much during this one week trip. At least I wasn't hysterical ^.^
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOIrXGd51jE
They take them out of print so they can charge more for them when they're in print.
And so they can make a huge stupid deal about it every time they open the "Disney Vault."
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DISNEY
Exactly. There's just no way to fully replicate the feel of hand-drawn animation in CG, and I've been missing it. Supposedly Disney will release a new hand-drawn movie every two years from now on, which makes me ridiculously happy. And since they'll have zero competition, I imagine they'll do pretty well at the box office.
Frank Wells died. Wells was Roy to Eisner's Walt. Eisner was the idea man, who came from Paramount with tons of energy, but no focus. Wells was the money guy, who was able to channel that energy into specific processes and enterprises.
Seriously. In 1984 both Eisner and Wells came on as the White Knights to save Disney from hostile takeover and dismantling (which was the style at the time). From there, you started to see the resurgance of Disney. The name change from Walt Disney Productions to Disney Company, the big marketing push for the new Tokyo Disneyland, the bevvy of new films, great new attractions at Disneyland, a new park at Disney World (Disney/MGM Studios- now Disney' Hollywood Studios), the Disney Channel, and a whole new focus on marketing existing properties, releasing old classic films onto VHS. All of this was dubbed by Eisner as the "Disney Decade".
Frank Wells died in a plane crash in 1994. You'll notice that once Eisner took over as CEO and COO, Disney started to go to shit. His big thing is that he loved micromanagement. Suddenly, the whole company became one big management clusterfuck. You couldn't do anything without 5 different suits telling you to change it. Marketing and cashing in became the focus, and creativity and imagination were left to wither on the vine. Eisner and the board put in place people who had no previous knowledge of animation, or theme parks. Hell, he put a retail guru in charge of Disneyland- and then promoted him to head of all the theme parks. Guess what? He focused on shops and vending carts instead of rides and attractions. For this- people died. I'm not even kidding. Check out the number of in-park deaths due to poor maintenance. He killed 2D animation because he thought nobody wanted to see it anymore. He supported the decision to switch Disney Channel to a pay service that showcased classic Disney productions into a free basic channel that promoted it's Tween products. Things started looking up during the last 3 or so years of his tenure, though- at least at Disneyland- thanks to folks like Matt Ouimet.
Around 2002, Roy Disney- Walt's nephew- decided he'd had enough, and tried to get Eisner removed. He tried for 2 years, until Eisner retired, basically naming his protege, Bob Iger CEO. Under Iger, things have improved a bit, the acquisition of Pixar (which Eisner almost fucked up), the positioning of John Lassiter as both head of animation and insipirational head of Imagineering, and a warming up to past relationships with George Lucas and others who were alienated by Eisner.
Pixar was an independent company for what, a week before Disney capitulated?
Um...Have you seen Hannah Montana? Disney is making killing on the tween crowd. It's the smartest business decision they've made in years.
It's also highly unsettling. Seriously, I wrote a paper about it.
Much as it pains me to say it, the current incarnation of Disney Channel is vastly more profitable than the cartoon version ever was.
Even though I loved that version, and it pains me at how infrequently classic Disney cartoons are shown on TV nowadays.
Or the Jonas Brothers or High School Musical. Coincidentally, they have all been parodied by Southpark.
He wasn't really a shrewd businessman, that's what his brother was. Walt was the idea guy- the pie in the sky dreamer. Any time he had a new idea or project, Roy was the one who had to either try to find the financing, or to get Walt to reign it in.
It was a good balance. When the company has that balance, it produces great things. When that balance is out of whack, we get crap and pay through the nose for it.
Also, I guess the whole tween thing is that it was kind of an untapped market. When I was growing up you had the stuff for little kids, and the stuff for teenagers, with the assumption that everyone basically fell into one of those two categories. When really, I guess your "tween" years (what are they, like 5th-9th grade or something?) are as distinct as what comes before and after it. It's no wonder they made a killing when somebody finally realized that there's a transition period from "action figures" to "titties 'n' beer".
I'm not clear on the Hannah Montana plot but I think it's about is a teen singing sensation has a double life as a normal girl much like Clark Kent/ Superman. But I've heard this is ripping off a number of Japanese shows aimed at Japanese teens. Is this accurate or are otakus making stuff up?
!add Absent Minded Professor
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Honestly, I haven't a clue where they took the plot from, my paper was for a freshman academic writing class and was basically: this is dumb, look how dumb this is.
I got an A on it, so that was nice.
EDIT:
Rereading the paper, it was pretty bad, but my major point was that Disney has something pretty new on their hands. They were taking the style of merchandising they use for their big name animated characters and applying it to a person. They basically entirely constructed Miley Cyrus from the ground up as a corporate sensation, and while she's tween based she actually gets a fair amount of creep into older and younger demographics. I was basically just pointing out how heavily the girl is marketed and entrenched in these kids lives, which isn't necessarily unique for a Disney product or unique for a celebrity, but in this occasion it's a celebrity who is a Disney product. It's like a whole new level of market domination.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Funicello#Biography_and_career
Yeah, she's considered the proto-Montana, but Disney let her slip out of their grasp. I think their ideal for Hannah Montana is that they'll be able to hold onto her, make the girl into a human Mickey Mouse. That may be some sort of paranoia, though. Anyway, the Hannah Montana brand is wildly more successful than Lizzie McGuire, I'm pretty sure.
But, yeah, my point was that it is blurring the line between "person" and "product" something fierce.
They're giving Miley Cyrus a HUGE amount of creative freedom in order to keep her in Disney's stable long after Hannah Montana is retired. The concert movie allowed her to perform as Hannah AND Miley, and the latest movie gave her more opportunities to sing country.
Hailey Mills, Jodie Foster, Kurt Russell. All teen Disney stars back in the day- who were also pushed into horrible attempts at singing- in some instances.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
When you mention the live-action, do you imagine them using the first few Disney Channel Movies they made as well? I'm not talking about High School Musical or anything past that ... fuck no. But there were a few good ones back then I remember.
3DS FC: 4699-5714-8940 Playing Pokemon, add me! Ho, SATAN!
Kurt Russel in Star Wars would have been fucking awesome. Big Trouble on Little Endor?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Yes, because when I think artistic merit, I think Cyrus.
The disney template. Ever notice the repetitions between movies and how it looks like they just spliced stories between it?
And some Hungarian dwarf singing to add some spice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOIrXGd51jE
Anyone ever seen Follow Me Boys? Another Fred McMurray disney classic. I remember staying up late as a kid and watching the old stuff that I guess they didn't want people to see unless they were up at 12 AM. Guess nobody likes classics or they're too busy pushing a lot of this newer BS during the day.
Already sort of covered, but I thought I'd chime in as well: of course demand never goes down, which is why arbitrarily restricting supply leads to "it prints money." The only thing better than arbitrarily keeping things out of print to increase demand and gouge prices was doing so to works that should have entered public domain a generation ago anyway. Snow White was made in what, 1935 or so?
This seems to be getting better, though. Poking around on amazon.com (and given that we regularly check the shelves of Wal-Mart/Target just to see what might be on sale), it seems like they're keeping more of their titles in print nowadays, and for longer and/or larger runs. They appear to be depending on new editions and new formats for their rape dollars now (Blu-Ray and "ZOMG EIGHT DISC ADAMANTIUM EDITION OF LITTLE MERMAID!").
I also think digital formats have eaten into their vault strategy, since they hold value much more easily and don't naturally "wear out" like VHS did. Seems I can jump online and find used copies of OOP Disney movies, at least the ones I'm looking at, for pretty reasonable prices in good condition.
Anyway, the wife has a huge collection of Disney VHS movies. I think she actually had all of them, literally, before we started replacing them with DVDs. She lived a couple miles down the street from Disneyland, had a season pass every year, was basically a huge Disney kid. Like I said, we hit the rack at Wal-Mart and Target all the time just to see what they might have on sale. We've picked up most of our Disney DVDs for $10-$15 or so.
As for my favorite, not counting Pixar, I'd have to go with Emperor's New Groove. At least, for something that I would watch today. It's something that I can watch as an adult and still find absolutely hilarious, with no need for nostalgia. For my favorites as a kid, I've got to go with Sword in the Stone and Black Cauldron.
Less Hannah Montana, more anything else by disney talk!
I went to Disney World this summer for the second time (first one I was 6 years old) and I was really impressed at how the parks are managed. I took my time and did everything I wanted to do while my friend power-visited everything. I still was a bit sad that the character were hard to see, and I had so much trouble finding Alice (and when I did, the girl playing her had a cheshire cat smile. my picture are creepy)
I think my favorite part are mickey's phillarmagic (I went like 3 time and was still "aaaaw" all along) and the show in Hollywood Disney.... Fantasmic! I cried when I saw SO MANY PRINCESSES OMG THATS LIKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE.
Thinking about it I cried so much during this one week trip. At least I wasn't hysterical ^.^
Ahh, me too. That and the sequel (or whatever), "Now You See Him, Now You Don't," where he invents spray-invisibility.