Disney, Pixar to go separate ways (1 Viewer)

[chris winters]

Ernest, you obviously know your' animation. You are right on with your description of finding nemo as being chuck jones wit with Disney production values. It perfectly explains the dichotomy of how some people describe it as formulaic and others very well told and fresh. Turns out its both. How would you define Dreamworks? What are your thoughts there?

 

[Ernest Rister]

The DreamWorks hand-drawn wing was sadly all production values. No brains in story. They chased Disney, and Disney was running in the wrong direction. Two paths diverged in a wood, and Disney, WB, Fox, and Dreamworks ran down one path, while Pixar quietly walked down another.

See, here is the truth of what killed Fox, DreamWorks, Square Pictures, and Disney. They all marched into the same giant Tiger Trap. They did market research. They realized that American teenage males made up the largest audience of movie-goers. They all bet the farm on trying to make films pitched towards American teenage males.

Problem.

How is animation viewed culturally in America?

Answer: As a children's medium.

What is the most devastating criticism an American male can receive?

He is acting "immature".

Teenage males want to be seen as mature.

Adult.

Competent.

In Control.

Young American males want to be seen as strong leaders able to tackle adult challenges.

They want adult respect.

Problem #2:

Animation is seen in America (and Pokemon sure didn't help) as a kiddie medium.

If a teenage male is watching a cartoon, he quickly turns the channel if an adult walks into the room.

Why?

He doesn't want to be seen watching a "child's" TV show.

These are the facts of life of American culture.

Animation is regarded as a medium for children. TV shows with outrageous sex and violence are considered adult. It is socially unsafe for an American teenage male to be "all about" the next animated film release.

And YET, because the largest market for film is the mass horde of teenage boys, Fox, DreamWorks, and Disney all cut their own throats making films made especially for teenage boys! Who in the hell was giving Disney, Fox, and DreamWorks such asinine marketing advice?

The only animation that teenage boys embrace is "naughty" or "adult" animation, like South Park, because such animation is seen as adult. Animation to teenage boys is like Kool Aid versus Alcoholic Beverages. Children drink Kool Aid. The older kids want to drink the beer...but they can't drink the beer. That's exactly why teenage males love the beer. It's not the content. It's the culture. Beer = adult. Teen males want to appear adult. Hence they try to score beer and shun being seen drinking Kool-Aid.

Same exact thing with animation. Fox made Titan A.E. trying to appeal to the teenage audience. Fox went under. No one wanted to drink the Kool-Aid.

Dreamworks made Sinbad and El Dorado trying to appeal to the teenage audience. Dreamworks hand-drawn animation went under. No one wanted to drink the Kool-Aid.

Disney made the hand-drawn Lilo and Stitch, which appealed to children and adults, and a few teenagers. Big hit. Ignored teens. Outgrossed Minority Report.

Disney then released their own teen-age-male-marketed disaster...Treasure Planet. Giant flop. Disaster. Not only did the kids not want to drink the Kool-Aid, they through the Kool-Aid in Disney's eye.

You know what killed hand drawn animation?

It wasn't the medium or the technology.

It was the fatal attempt at trying to sell hand-drawn animation to teenagers.

Hard cold truth.

Why has PIXAR soared? Their films are in the Chuck Jones model...they aim at adults while hoping kids also get the jokes. Their films are witty and smart. They make Pocahontas look like an enormously expensive after-school special.

Here's the only way any American feature animation outfit is going to survive, minus an endorsemnt by Nickelodeon:

Stop pandering to teens and children, play to the parents and the smart teens. You play to the adults a'la Chuck Jones and Pixar and Disney's Aladdin, you start raking in the dough. You try to play to American teenagers, it's like trying to catch snowflakes in Honduras.

-- Ernest Rister

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Ernest, I'm agreeing with you down the line especially regarding your last few posts and you hit the nail on the head, Warner whit with Disney production, that's really it.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Ernest,

You are dead on as far as teens go.

Except for anime, males from the ages of 14 to 21 are probably the hardest audience to get to watch a 'cartoon', especially if they don't have a girlfriend that decides to drag them.

I remember when a lot of childless adults pooh-poohed theatrical animation as well, but that has changed greatly in the last 15 years.

 

[Ernest Rister]

If teen males are watching a cartoon, they change the channel when an adult walks into the room. Why? The teens don't want to be seen as "kids" anymore. They want to be seen as comptent adults.

Hence, it is absolutely STUPID to produce animated features aimed solely at American male teens, and yet every single major American animation studio did exactly that, like a bunch of leemings marching over a cliff. And who did these people blame? Not the executives! Oh, no! It was hand-drawn animation that failed, not the piss-poor writing.

Idiots. No, I'm not afraid of using such harsh language. It is high time these people have been called onto the carpet.

Idiots! Idiots with BFA's and connections in Hollywood, but not a clue as to how American youth culture works. Teenage males are the largest moviegoing audience! Hey! Let's make animated movies for teenage males!

NO! Morons! Sip your Kool-aid and get out of the way...

 

[Seth Paxton]

Actually I meant in terms of it being a major American company to own stock in, seperate from how the stock price might have gone in the last 10 years. Rather that Disney itself is seen as a major American business icon.

Again, my point is that I think its quite possible for Pixar to become the new Disney even though it sounds like you and others are proposing that they are far too big and powerful to fail. They will fail, its only a matter of time.

I have been willing to admit that that time may be ridiculously far out from now, but I can conceptulize of a world in which family/children's entertainment is no longer dominated by Disney and the various offshoots that arose from the animation depts' success.

Surely there is no real reason why Pixar couldn't topple Disney other than the shortsightedness of some business pundits or leaders.

Just look at Enron for example. Not that they were of equal substance to Disney, but rather that the OUTSIDE image of where they were could be wrong. It is possible for a company to be run into the ground, or to be beaten by another company. Microsoft was able to make Apple the #2 option in the computer world behind IBM-compatibles, but in 1982 no investor would have thought it.

And my points of the origination of Disney was to show that Disney themselves were born from the advanced use of a "new" art form and technology (including the planar camera). If Disney could do it with 2-D then I certainly think Pixar COULD do it with 3-D.

Clearly Disney feels threatened (or I should say Eisner does) because they have talked about running to hide behind 3-D as the "future of animation" when we all acknowledge that this is shortsighted.

Eisner COULD run Disney into the ground, such things can be done.


Personally I think the board would boot him long before then and that Roy (or perhaps Jobs) would put Disney back on track. I just think that Eisner is not going to ever be able to put Disney on track himself and that the company is doomed as long as it sticks with him and his limited vision.

The guys running Pixar do have vision, both artistically and business-wise.


Pixar is taking a difficult step, I agree totally and I think Edwin makes good points. But it is the courage and foresight to take such a step that could allow a company like Pixar to become AUTONOMOUS and in that way to grow beyond the limitations of their current arrangement. It is natural for a company to want to grow, a bit more rare that the people running the show have the courage and fortitude to make the tough decisions and take on the tough challenges that allow for that to happen.

Pixar COULD be wrong, but I honestly think their best move is to TRY. I think they see that they have more to offer artistically than Disney does at this point. Why should they continue to limit themselves and think small? That's definitely not how Walt built his company and it could be how Eisner ruins it.

 

[Seth Paxton]

You are correct and I am wrong about the rides that only accomodate children. I was thinking of rides like Dumbo, which work on a lower "safe" scale in which parents are more able to sit and watch. But the ride itself does allow for parents to ride also.


While Walt was dead before World was done, he was a major force behind purchasing the land under false names and clearly had a vision of what was going to go where in the Disneyworld layout, as well as concepts behind future expansion. His whole point with World was to no longer be limited like he had been with Land.

That's not just a guy buying some land who never saw anything other than that even if it physically was true. He wanted the land and he clearly knew WHY he wanted the land, and not just to "build something".

That many of the rides at World (where I was 30 years ago) were the same as were at Land was my motivation for saying "Walt approved". I was wrong in saying that rides like Dumbo were kids only.

But this initiated in your statement that Walt wasn't focused on kids because of his quote that Snow White wasn't for kids. Clearly that's not entirely true. Walt was trying to EXPAND the idea of animation to adults, but almost everything he created was directed at capturing a child's imagination, just without excluding adults.

That gives us rides like Peter Pan, Dumbo and Small World which are extremely child oriented but accomodate adults who want to accompany their child and share their moments of excitement...ie family entertainment.


I would strongly disagree with the idea that Walt ever did anything that was strictly ADULT, which it sounded like you were saying with your Walt quote.

It would seem to be a big misunderstanding, just as the idea that you or someone was saying that Pixar could never touch Disney. It read like some people were, which is why I argued against the idea.

 

[Edwin-S]

I disagree with the contention that American animation companies have tried to make films aimed solely at teenage males and failed because of that decision.

The fact of the matter is that American animation companies have made half-baked attempts at appealing to teenagee males, but never have the guts to actually "go all the way" and really make a movie that appeals to them.

American animation companies start out with the idea of films aimed at teenagers, but somewhere along the way to making those films they suddenly decide that they have to put a "message" in.....preferably a nice moral one. They then proceed further down the path and suddenly decide that the film has to be more "family friendly", so any edge in the film that might appeal to teenagers is ground away.

There are lots of teenage and twenty something male fans of Japanese anime. The last time I looked all those films were animated, but teenage males still watch them. What are Japanese animators doing that American animators aren't. They are actually attempting to create characters and situations that appeal to a teenage audience: both boys and girls.

Maybe American animation companies like Disney should be seriously looking at why Japanese animation appeals to teenage males. American animators might actually learn something.

If Disney really wanted to make an animated movie aimed at at a teenage demographic, then it has to be a movie that is willing to be dark, violent, and have more sexual undercurrents. Any movie like that should not be released under the Disney banner. It should be released through their Touchstone arm, and it should be treated as a serious movie release with a proper marketing campaign: not a joke release like Miramaxes pathetic effort with Princess Mononoke.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Edwin: I agree with every word...but it'll never happen. Not by Disney at least...someone is going to figure it out, but it won't be Disney.

-Dennis

 

[Ernest Rister]

Edwin, I agree with you to a point. You said:

"The fact of the matter is that American animation companies have made half-baked attempts at appealing to teenagee males."

Half-baked or whole baked, Fox and DreamWorks and Disney and Sony/Square all ran off the cliff together, making films aimed at American teenage males. All of these fims failed. 2-D wasn't the cause -- the execs didn't understand the marketplace.

I'm no fan of Don Bluth on a personal level (I've heard stories that would curl your hair) -- but he was adamant that Fox NOT order him to make a film for teenage boys. He relented because the head of 20th Century Fox (or should I say, former head) ordered him to make a film for 12 to 15 year-old boys. (You guys can look all of this up, it's not hard to find) Bluth fought the decicion, becase he knew there would be no buyers for the product, but relented because he was a studio employee, and he knew he could blame the failure on a suit. The result? Box office flop Titan A.E.. The result of the flop? The elimination of the hand-drawn animation studio of 20th Century Fox.

One by one, the dominoes fell, all making the same damn stupid mistake. Making animation for teenage American boys. Fox. Warner Bros. Square/Sony. DreamWorks. Disney.

It is true that Titan A.E., Hunchback, El Dorado, Atlantis, Sinbad, and Treasure Planet were seriously compromised...but then, the defining characteristic of modern Disney animation (in fact, the defining characteristic of much of modern American animation) is demographic artistic compromise.

That's why I always shake my head in disbelief when someone tries to say the modern films are better than Walt's films. Say what you want about Walt, he didn't interrupt the climactic events of his films with silly anachronistic jokes a'la The Lion King, Hunchback, and Hercules.

"If Disney really wanted to make an animated movie aimed at at a teenage demographic, then it has to be a movie that is willing to be dark, violent, and have more sexual undercurrents."

I know the perfect title...Dracula. A hand-drawn Disney-animated Dracula with no punches pulled would be a thing to see. I suggested this to Don Hanh, and he said that there is absolutely no chance modern Disney executives would let the animators seriously tackle the horror genre, and yet, the horror genre was in some ways born for animation. Some of the greatest moments in all of animation history have been moments of terror. Most character animators single out Vladimir Bill Tytla's work on "Night on Bald Mountain" as the finest character animation ever seen. It is certainly a high-point in Disney history. Hard to merchandise a slavic God of Evil or make a plush doll out of him, but regardless, it is an incredible moment in American animation.

Yeah -- a Disney-animated Dracula. It could be incredible.

Just so long as the Count doesn't sing.

I can hear him now...

Tilt your neck!
Close your eyes!
My three wives
so empathize!
It's been days since
I've had anybody's blood!
And you must die!

By the morn', I'll be gone,
you my dear,
oh, you'll live on!
Try to stop me - it's so futile!
Soon you'll lunch down on a juvenile!

Great big fangs!
My they've grown!
Soon you'll have two of your own!
Excuse me while I lean down to your chest!

Go on and scream for help, you
have no chance, you tramp, you
Tilt Your Neck!
Tilt Your Neck!
Ooh! Your jugular I must peck!

Tilt Your Neck!
Tilt Your Neck!
Tilt Your Neck!

(apologies to fans of good taste everywhere)

 

[Edwin-S]

That tune is a good one. I could see Disney doing something exactly like that. I found this comment to be quite interesting.



I especially agree with the last sentence. I think that some of the modern output from Disney is of good quality; however, none of it even comes close to the quality of the films that had direct influence from Walt Disney. Even less successful films like Alice in Wonderland have a technical and story quality that is missing from a lot of modern Disney output.

I watched Alice in Wonderland yesterday and I was struck by the quality of background art in the film. The background art in all of the old Disney films is on another level from their new stuff. There was a scene where Alice is laying down beside a riverbank, talking to her cat. She is a 2-D flat image, but I was struck by how well they had her registered over the background art. The background art was very detailed and this gave a very good illusion of "depth" to the scene. It is something that is really missing in Disney's modern animated output.

Disney's newer "cel-animated" films always look flat and simplistic to me. The backgrounds never seem to have the kind of detail that creates the illusion of depth like the old films had. Take Home on the Range for example. I was watching the trailer for this film and it struck me just how "flat" and simplistic the film looks. The character animation looks well done, but the whole thing just kind of reminds me of an upscale Hanna-Barbera cartoon, where the characters just seem to lay over a rather boring, featureless, simplified background.

A lot of Disney's newer stuff suffers from the same malady. The CGI used in their newer films does alleviate it somewhat, but CGI background work creates a different feeling of depth from that of highly detailed background paintings. It is kind of hard to describe but modern Disney films lack a certain "reality" to the backgrounds.

You mentioned several modern Disney films that have been "compromised". Out of the entire list, the film that I feel was the most seriously compromised was Hunckback of Notre Dame. This film really was promising to be somewhat of a departure for Disney Feature animation and some of the scenes reflect that departure. One that comes to mind is the scene where Frollo is singing in front of a fire and the fire becomes a metaphor for his obsession with Esmeralda. I thought the scene was one of the best scenes in the film. The other scene was the defense of the cathedral. There was this panoramic shot of the cathedral, where molten metal is pouring off the parapets and spilling down the sides of the building. It was one nice piece of effects work.

It was too bad that the darker undertones of the story were undermined by the addition of the typical Disney sidekicks. I also thought the film had one of the most ill conceived endings I have ever seen. Not only was the ending a cliche "happy ending", it also succeeded in sending a particularly odious message. The message being that beautiful people belong together and ugly people should stand aside, or worse, act as some kind of pathetic matchmakers.

The ending to this film was one of the few endings to a film that have actually angered me. I wanted to throw something at the screen when I saw what a putrid, sickening ending they had created. I would rather have seen the character fall to his death, than see him turned into the pathetic, fawning, lapdog matchmaker that was ultimately displayed.

If Walt Disney had still been alive two things might have happened to this film. Either the ending would have been drastically different or the film wouldn't have been made at all. Personally, I believe the film wouldn't have made it out of the planning stages. Disney would have decided that the subject matter was just too depressing for a family picture.

I have heard that Disney was a difficult man to work for, but I admire the guy for one thing. He never revisited the same subject. He made one film and then moved on to something else. There was never any attempt to create sequels to any of his films. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs was a huge hit for its time. If any film could have had a sequel made it would have been that one, but Disney never even entertained the thought.

I think that is what I despise most about Eisner and his abacus wielding gnomes. The fact that they have shat all over Walt Disney's legacy of work by creating cheap, inferior, junk sequels to films that didn't need any.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Actually, isn't this something Fox was working on for a while? I seem to recall that Joss Whedon was working on the screenplay, and really psyched about it because he wanted to do a musical.

 

[Robert Anthony]

"I seem to recall that Joss Whedon was working on the screenplay, and really psyched about it because he wanted to do a musical."


...


...????

I seriously do not understand the popularity of Joss Whedon. I really don't.

 

[Jason Seaver]

He's better than many in his chosen field and adept enough at selling himself that he gets treated like a star.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Here's a chunk from an article written by Rick Aristotle Munarriz for The Motley Fool in regards to the business side of the Pixar/Disney thing. He's refuting Barron's less rosey outlook on Pixar.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

And of course some of us will have to wonder whether Mr. Munarriz and The Motley Fool organization as a whole can have an unbiased opinion about Pixar as its founder and his boss, David Gardner, has recommended the stock not once but twice in its fee-based newsletter, The Motley Fool Stock Advisor, in the past twelve months.

~Edwin

 

[Edwin-S]

I think Pixar has aquired a strong enough brand name. I do not think they need to remain in a less than satisfactory business relationship with Disney. I think that Pixar has enough exposure in the industry to self finance their own productions.

If Pixar leaves, I feel it is Disney that stands to lose the most. They lose access to the revenue that is generated by ancillary character products. They also lose the ability to add new theme rides based on Pixar's characters.

Pixar's demands may not have been the most reasonable, but in that respect they learned those tactics from Brother Disney. Disney is complaining that they stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars that they feel they are entitled to, but that loss could be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money they stand to lose over the long term because they can no longer exploit Pixar characters.

Frankly, Pixar is just doing to Disney what Disney did to the distributor of the Original Oswald cartoons. Disney wanted a better deal out of his distributor. He didn't get what he wanted so he left. He lost the rights to that character, but he went on and built a better mousetrap.

The shoe is on the other foot now. Disney is the bad ass distributor unwilling to give in, so Pixar is going to walk. They may give up the rights to their older characters, but it may turn out to be the best thing for them.

 

[Sean Laughter]

Interesting:

 

[Michael St. Clair]

I think Marvel is going to oversaturate, and pay for it.

The success of Spider-Man and X-Men will not be repeated for all of their franchises, and even those two can be milked dry if not approached correctly.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

I want to see that. And the song was surprisingly good. I found myself singing it as I read it.

(NOTE - This does not mean I want to see a singing Dracula. I do want to see an animated Dracula though.)