Disney animation thread

Ubiq

By all accounts, Disney actually owns the series along with any potential spinoffs since they bought Jumbo Pictures and Nick just has the rights to the episodes made for them.

I think the story is something along the lines of Nick used to have a system where the rights to a show would revert to the creator if they didn't order enough episodes within a certain time; they basically dragged their feet on a fifth season of Doug for long enough that Jinkins got the rights back and Disney promptly bought his studio.

Satsuki

Does anyone care about Doug anymore?

Nobodyman

@Satsuki said in Disney animation thread:

Does anyone care about Doug anymore?

I mean, it hasn't been on the air for 20 years and it wasn't exactly a huge hit.

But I dunno. I liked it fine. The Nickelodeon run at least.

Satsuki

Oh I liked it fine, it was cute, I'm just surprised it's getting a sequel.

Robby

I'm sure a high quality version will be available later but

Apparently, Tarzan and Jane are separated like that because they're licensed, and the estate says they can't be grouped together with other properties. DUnno if that's true or not but makes some sense.

I do wish there was some sort of rhyme or reason for the layout they picked instead of all the eras being mashed at random. The CG characters all being on side might have been more jarring than helpful though.

They also missed a trick by not putting Robin Hood and Little John next to either Baloo or Zootopia.

And why put in like 50 Dalmations? Either commit and do all 101 or just do a handful.

Ubiq

Taran, Eilownwy, and Gurgi were probably the biggest surprises in that short to me since they were pretty prominently placed in their appearances.

That and they used the Mickey's Christmas Carol version of Scrooge; curious as to whether that was because they thought that the Scrooge McDuck and Money version would just be confused for Ludwig or if it's just that nobody cares about that short.

Also interesting that they picked that particular version of Pete instead of one of his famous incarnations; they could even have used the original version just for the sake of having an Alice Comedies reference in there. I think that was the version actually used as a walkaround at the theme parks so that might be why they chose that particular version.

Nobodyman

Alright, that was charming as hell. Lasted exactly as long as it needed to. Any more would have felt tacky and overstayed its welcome.

And yes, so cool of Disney to finally acknowledge and pay tribute to Black Cauldron. Own your failures along with your successes.

Also, funny how Ed Wynn played the Mad Hatter, then Alan Tudyk did an Ed Wynn impression for his King Candy voice, and now it's come full circle with Alan Tudyk voicing the Mad Hatter.

Ubiq

Unless Disney has changed their mind entirely, the short is also supposed to appear in front of Wish and they've presumably learned their lesson after the backlash to that Olaf short that was, if I recall correctly, roughly eighteen and a half hours long. Or maybe it just felt that way.

Satsuki

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/gargoyles-live-action-tv-show-reboot-1235342849/

It can't get an animated sequel but it gets a FUCKING LIVE ACTION REMAKE?!

Robby

@Satsuki

That rumor has circulated every few months for the last 30 years. There have been dozens of big names and directors and producers attached to it. Six months ago Kenneth Branagh was supposed to be working on it. Before that it was Jordan Peele. Before that the Marvel guys were going to get it. It's also a regular fixture of April Fools jokes.

Nothing ever comes of it. "In development" doesn't mean much until they have a release date and start having casting announcements. It always gets called off because it's niche and too smart and also expensive. It was never a big ratings smash so they're never willing to put resources into it.

Now, Gargs IS exactly old enough to have an audience that grew up on it wanting to do more with it. That's why we're suddenly getting board games and funkos and action figures and brand new comics but Disney themselves have never been all that supportive of it.

That said they could take the budget of one marvel show or one star wars thing and fund like 100 episodes of show but they never will.

Satsuki

I guess that makes me feel a little better. Other than the off-chance this is the time it ACTUALLY happens, and the fact that they won't do anything.

Time Control Magician

Oh boy can’t wait to see the knives come out for that.

pariston_hill

Satsuki

I don't know about her character yet, but I do like her design.

Nobodyman

This article's over two years old, so maybe I'm late for the party, but screw it. This is a really interesting read about the production of Emperor's New Groove with commentary from a bunch of people who worked on it. I definitely recommend reading it even if you've seen The Sweatbox.

https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-the-emperors-new-groove.html

pariston_hill

I didn't expect that a song called "Happy Death Day" would be so catchy. Well done Molly Mcgee.

Robby

This is not a video essay, not a YouTube breakdown. It's a documentary, and one that deserves to win awards. Defunctland manages to tell a story without narration. This one's a work of art.

Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History

Satsuki

Not looking good so far:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wish_2023

Nobodyman

Just got back from seeing Wish and...man, it's kind of hard to articulate my thoughts on this movie, mainly cause I'm not sure what to think.

It's hard for me to hate or even dislike this movie since obviously a lot of love and effort went into it. And yes, it is an absolute love letter to Disney's 100-year history as we all would have expected with a lot of call outs to past Disney movies.

But at the end of the day, the movie is just sort of bland. Not bad, I guess, just nothing particularly exciting. Asha is kind of a generic Disney heroine and King Magnifico, while menacing at times, feels kind of vague and underdeveloped in terms of his motives. As sidekicks, Valentino and the Star are kind of whatever. Honestly, the Seven Dwarf homages were probably among the more interesting and fun characters, though that's not saying too much. And the songs are nice in the moment, but mostly pretty forgettable.

Really, I want to like this movie more than I do since there's really nothing egregiously wrong with it, it's just...kind of a fluff movie. And I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Disney is entitled to a fluff movie now and then, but even still I feel like they've made better fluff movies and I was hoping for just a little more for the 100th anniversary movie.

Still, I'd say it's worth at least one watch, especially for diehard Disney fans. Just don't feel too bad if you don't get to see it in theaters.

And there were a bunch of kids in my audience who seemed to enjoy it, so good for them.

Ubiq

I saw it, and, yeah, pretty much what Nobodyman said. Asha's likable enough but doesn't really stand out amongst recent Disney heroines. The songs are okay but the film doesn't really have one that just reaches out and grabs the viewer like Frozen or Encanto, which I think is one thing that hurts her.

Points for not dragging things out with a twist villain though; even from the start, there's a disturbing undercurrent present, it's just that the people there can't see it for reasons that make sense in universe.

Satsuki

Feeling all Christmas-y and Nutcracker-y lately made me think of this:

God I love Fantasia.

Sano

Happy Public Domain Day! Steamboat Willie is now public domain.

Satsuki

The Disney bigwigs are probably drinking themselves into stupors right now.

Shiebs

I’m surprised they didn’t work there magic to somehow extend there rights over it for longer

Haven’t they been doing that for years now?

Nobodyman

I doubt they're losing too much sleep over the very first B&W iteration of Mickey Mouse, which, public domain or not, I doubt they stand to gain too much money off of.

Shiebs

@Nobodyman said in Disney animation thread:

I doubt they're losing too much sleep over the very first B&W iteration of Mickey Mouse, which, public domain or not, I doubt they stand to gain too much money off of.

You think when they start losing stuff like Marvel or Star Wars they’ll start trying to extend copyright laws?

Nobodyman

@Shiebs said in Disney animation thread:

You think when they start losing stuff like Marvel or Star Wars they’ll start trying to extend copyright laws?

That's about 50 years from now and I'm really not keen on anticipating that far ahead. But, in the case of Marvel, I assume it will be a fairly similar situation as with Mickey Mouse and one on a character-by-character basis. With Star Wars though, I have no idea how it'll work with a live action movie.

Of course, it all depends on whether Marvel and Star Wars are still culturally relevant in 50 years.

Ubiq

A big part of acquiring Star Wars and Marvel in the first place was futureproofing themselves against their oldest material lapsing into the public domain.

That said, they still hold trademarks on Steamboat Willy and have plenty of precedent to point to when it comes to people zealously defending trademarks on public domain characters like Tarzan and Zorro.

pariston_hill

And that was the end of The Ghost and Molly Mcgee, a truly enhappifying show.

pariston_hill

Whatever happened to the Darkwing Duck remake that was going to happen after the newer Ducktales?

Stuck in production limbo? Got written as tax offs? Is being aired in another dimension?

Nobodyman

@pariston_hill Forgot that was even happening

A quick Google search suggests that it's still in development, but beyond that my guess is as good as yours.

Gizmo

Moana 2 coming this November apparently. Guess they’re converting what was gonna be a tv series into a sequel.

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/moana-2-disney-2024-release-date-1235901329/amp/

Satsuki

I mean, I guess I'd prefer Moana 2 as opposed to live-action Moana . . .

Gizmo

@Satsuki said in Disney animation thread:

I mean, I guess I'd prefer Moana 2 as opposed to live-action Moana . . .

It’s wild given both are apparently going to happen, and that the live action Moana will occur in 2025. Dunno if the sequel release changes any of those plans but that’s the latest live action news as of right now.

Lots of little news being released at the moment from Disney due to a shareholder meeting I think. Zootopia 2 is getting a 2025 release. Frozen 3 and Toy Story 5 coming out in 2026.
https://thedisinsider.com/2024/02/07/frozen-zootopia-and-toy-story-sequels-get-release-dates/

Wish there’s news about some original releases coming up…but with their past year and continued direction I’ll guessing we’re still in that low point for Disney and won’t be out of it for a bit.

Satsuki

Sadly their latest release didn't do well at all, so they'll be even more nervous about making more. But even they know they can't live on sequels and live-action remakes forever.

Time Control Magician

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Ubiq

Apparently Disney is just now talking to Dwayne Johnson and Auli’i Cravalho about reprising their roles.

I can understand recasting for a Disney+ show but you'd think bringing back the original cast would be something they'd hammer out first before announcing it as a theatrical release.

Time Control Magician

Given the shit Rock pulled with Warner Bros. I can understand their reservations if they had any.

But otherwise that is a weird lapse.

Satsuki

Very odd that they wouldn't get them back before deciding anything.

And how is this coming out in November if they don't even have the voices yet?

Ubiq

They used a different cast for the show and are redubbing it for the theatrical release.

Not the first time they've done something like this; the VHS release of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command had Tim Allen while the same movie as individual episodes had Patrick Warburton.

Ubiq

Amphibia is getting an artbook for those of you who like collecting such things.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Amphibia-Matthew-Braly/dp/142787560X/

Robby

This video just kept popping up in my feed and I just kept ignoring the clickbait title but then my cursor hovered over the thing and I realized it was about Carl Barks.

It's really weird to me that this video is pitched as the anonymous lost legend cartoonist when Carl Barks since he's so well known now and it really plays up that conceit.... it's easy to forget that the Duck comics were uncredited for a very long time.

Ubiq

The notion that Disney tried to erase him really does seem clickbaity; ]pretty much all of the Disney comics in the era when Barks was active gave credit to Walt because that was largely how things were done in comics at the time. I have several DC Showcases that just attribute certain stories to the staff because nobody putting the collections together was really certain who did what and a lot of other publishers in the '40s and '50s either just credited the editor or didn't have any credits at all besides on the cover art.

Sure, it was up to the fans to recognize Carl as The Good Duck Artist but, again, that was a flaw of the industry itself back then and not something intrinsic to Disney like the thumbnail suggests. "Erased" really implies something more along the lines of Archie Comics spitefully altering dialogue to remove DeCarlo's joking self-references while Barks was given the status of Disney Legend pretty early on and, I'm pretty sure, was the first Legend not mainly known for film or working in the parks, which is a lot more than a lot of artists got.

puffing.cinema

X-men 97'' is quite a good surprise. I've liked most of it, and the action sequences are quite dynamic

Robby

Finally saw WISH now that it's on streaming.

Wow that one was bad.

I didn't care about the characters, the comic relief wasn't funny, the animation style direction was misguided, the songs were awful, and the villain was 100% in the right until his completely forced not even his choice evil turn in the last act.

Like, the music was REALLY bad. I'd heard people joke about "it was written by AI" and I had assumed it was just a joke... I kind of believe it. Super repetitive very unclever lyrics, no hooks, no emotion, just.... oof.

100th anniversary film... they could have gotten Richard Sherman to do one last song... bring back in Alan Menkin and Lin Manuel and anyone else they could that done at least one Disney film and get them to do a song. I'm sure Elton John would have been happy to do something.

Them putting all the classic movies in the end credits didn't help either, I just felt like "I could have watched one of those instead!" ANd felt more insulted when I realized they skipped both Rescuers movies, the Black Cauldron and Meet the Robinsons, along with most of the package features? I knew they were going to skip Song of the South but...they included Home on the Range and Chicken Little? What was the qualification here? There was PLENTY of time in the credits to do one from everything. Was it because those were based on not-public domain books and they couldn't get the estates to agree to the 2 second end credit still?

i know people complained about them not doing a return to 2D for their 100 anniversary film... but I'm glad they didn't. It would have just tainted 2D and doomed it forever.

Raya, Elemental, Strange World, Lighyear, all of the recent batch have been bad, but at least those I felt like "well this is just someone not skilled enough to make it great, they took a wrong step somewhere, but the bones are there, this could have been good with a little more time to develop, more film time to breathe, or a slightly better director." This one just felt like there was no possible way to save it except to change literally everything.

Shiebs

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought the villain was in the right

And his wife just totally gave up on him, she literally didn’t even try to save him

Like it was the magic that was making him evil you think they’d try and separate him from it

Instead he’s trapped in a mirror for eternity and she doesn’t give 2 shits

Nobodyman

Makes it all the more frustrating when you look at the concept art and imagine what we could've gotten.

spoiler

I mean, obviously a lot of it comes down to the writing, but Star's original design just seems inherently better than the dopey plushy toy we got.

Robby

When it comes to convept sketches versus the final product, nothing is ever going to be more a betrayal than what happened to American Dog on its way to becoming Bolt.

Yes maybe Chris Sanders with full control was going to be too off the rails, because his film was going to include mobsters, and oversized radiactive rabbit, zombie girl scounts, circus performers and knife throwing gorrillas and maybe that's all just TOO MUCH... but. Bolt was just so unbelievably bland and rushed and a complete opposite direction.

But hey, Sanders then went on to do How to Train Your Dragon which is one of my all time favorites so that's a win.

Ubiq

Wish feels like a film that was made entirely by what executives thought a focus group of Disney fans would want but they just never bothered to show it to any of those fans to see if their ideas were accurate before finishing it.

Time Control Magician

To be fair sometimes you should just note focus groups. Since half the time they can be a bit too finicky about things.