Tangled (formerly Rapunzel)

[LotsoA113]

Oh and in defense of Ben, Dusterian, Ben was one of the few people who gave Princess and the Frog and Treasure Planet good reviews (Both quality Disney by-and-by) and has given many Disney classics good ratings. Sounds to me like he's voicing an opinion. At least to me that it is!

[Dacey]

Saw the trailer on the big screen before "Toy Story 3." I must say, the 3D did look nice.

Also gotta say that it got a very big reaction from my audience. One of the final gags got a huge laugh from both the kids and the adults. Disney might have a hit here.

[Ben]

Right, you're being very smart about this whole "does it really feel Disney" thing.

Nope, you're being "not smart" about what doesn't feel like Disney. Night At The Museum? More Disney than most of what has come out of the Mouse House in a long while.

And long gone is the time Disney was a closed-up shop, making their own magic. Is A Christmas Carol magical because it has a Disney logo on it, or because Robert Zemeckis came to the Studio? Is Alice In Wonderland a true Disney picture or is it because Tim Burton is a director with some of the same sensibilities? If that's so, then slap the Disney logo on Charlie And The Chocolate Factory...it was made independently from Warners and, if Disney had been the producing studio, would have been the exact same movie.

Yes, the artists are trying to be consistently "Disney" in their films. But they're not the artists that Walt knew, or even the artists that the Nine Old Men trained. Sometimes the younger guys are trying too hard to encompass Disney that they miss it or, more likely, they're not string enough to stand up to the executive meddling, which is REALLY what's been killing Disney's recent movies.

Pixar is making good stuff, it's just different from Disney. Maybe it's so good people call some of it "classic" (I haven't heard anyone say that, classics needed to be proven by time, anyway). But it's still different.

Pixar's stuff, classic or not, feels more like the classic Disney than Bolt or Chicken Little. Up, as I keep saying, feels very much like a 1940s Dumbo kind of film, to me at least, and I wasn't surprised to find it was the director's favorite (but...I already said that). It's different, yes, but then so is Bolt or Chicken Little to Fun And Fancy Free or Make Mine Music.

And I still completely disagree about Lilo & Stitch. Walt would have never made a film that crazy, or violent (well, with a violent protagonist).

So having a villain who wanted nothing less than to KILL a poor young girl, or a puppet master ready to do the wickedest things to young kids, or any number of even more deadly people in other films isn't just as "violent"? And, you have to remember, those films were made in much more subdued days. The Wicked Queen in Snow White was a SHOCKINGLY scary figure, much more so than Stitch, who after all was a cuddly ball of fur, a quirky character in a comedy movie. He had to be so crazy so that his character arc wouldn't feel shallow by the end of the film. And where is it written that Disney can't do sci-fi? If anything, Lilo And Stitch's messages about family are more Disney than many other Disney films.

Home on the Range does not feel Disney (from what I have seen, I didn't watch the thing)

Um...I thought you were a fan?

Good or supposedly bad (and HOTR is actually a fun comedy for what it is), as a fan I at least sit through all the films, including some dire direct to video dross.

Lotso gets it right: Disney is a mark of quality. And sometimes, just as with any other director, producer, studio, artist, etc, they let that quality slip. Not intentionally, but the elements just don't gel and the result is lacklustre. I'm not a big fan of EVERY Pixar movie either: though The Incredibles is fantastic, it's the one film that doesn't "sit" in their row of titles, and I could feel pretty good about never really sitting through A Bug's Life or Cars again.

BUT...they're coming from a place, from people that were Nine Old Men trained, that have gone off and proven themselves by adhering to the Disney mantra that Disney means quality, and they have come back with better quality. The merge was such a natural step I was glad it happened. I'd love to see Disney making better in-house animation films, but we still haven't seen the results of Lasseter yet, Princess And The Frog aside.

Tangled looks again like Disney is the commercial studio hunting for a hit, while Pixar does the risky, arty, successful thing. Hopefully the Lasseter influence will mean that it gets closer to bringing the Disney name back the luster that has been missing (a bit) of late.

[Dusterian]

I'm a fan of what is good in Disney. I am a fan of...the Disney movies I like, or think are so good they get my respect.

Look...I still don't think you're getting what I'm saying.

It can't just be quality, cleanliness, fantasy, and family sensibilities. That could be many studios. Don Bluth even did that.

Have you heard of the phrase "Je ne sais quoi"?

Basically, I believe in something that only Disney has and can do, perhaps a kind of magic and art that only exists when you try purposely to tap into it and be Disney. If you are working for some place not called Disney, you wouldn't do it. But if you were drawing a Disney character, you would.

I'm saying Pixar and Disney can both be very good, but they are different, Their films feel very different from me and I can just tell by the trailers and designs and even the subject matter.

And it was the way Lilo & Stitch did the violence of the protagonist, it was a protagonist who was being violent, and rude, not a villain, and it was the way they did the wackiness and the way they did the sci-fi. And Walt would have strived for something more classic. The story of Lilo & Stitch isn't so classical. But French kittens trying to get back their inheritence is more so. Though for the record, Walt was on his last legs as he made that and Jungle Book, and I find those lacking in a lot of ways. But The Jungle Book still seems magical and is a classic of at least good feeling.

It's hard to explain. That's why other companies can't copy what they have. It's hard to find or figure out. It's just...each studio has it's own qualities to itself. Otherwise, what the heck, what the heck is the reason for having different studios if they can make the same things?

[Ben]

Have you heard of the phrase "Je ne sais quoi"?

Yes, but I don't know what you mean.

As for the rest of it, I really do think you're being lead by that old placebo effect. Basically, if it had "Walt Disney" on the credits, you're taking that to mean it had a certain magic or charm. Essentially you're right, of course...Walt would never let anything through that didn't reach a particular level of quality, but you also have to remember that there was a LOT of "Walt" Disney output that he also had very little to do with. And in those cases, the difference between what came out and the kinds of things that came out after hi death, are so negliagble as to be redundant.

Example: Is Winnie The Pooh And The Blustery Day or Winnie The Pooh And Tigger Too any different from Winnie The Pooh And The Honey Tree? No, as their later seamless integration into The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh goes to show.

You also have to remember that the films we have after Walt - albeit after a short spell where they tried to continue the same approach - started to move with the times. Walt himself always pushed for the future...I believe we would have had CGI movies long before 1995 had he lived, maybe back as the late 1970s or early 80s. So the Disney films of today have to remain appealing to today's audiences while encapsulating the essence of "Disney". And most of them do that...Lilo And Stitch included!

And if you want to talk about the other studios, well, they have a lack of being able to use the benchmark Disney name on their product. But are seriously telling me that The Prince Of Egypt, made by much of the same crew as The Lion King, isn't anything other than "Disney does Moses"? For in tone and quality, that's what it is. Or that Night In The Museum, with Van Dyke and Rooney for pete's sake, couldn't have been based on a script from 1960s Disney? Because that's what it felt like to me.

The magic was there in those films - more so, in fact than the majority of Chicken Little, Meet The Robinsons or Bolt, which are "Disney" in name only. But I have the feeling, going on previous conversations, that you like everything to be safe and labelled and put in the right box. If so, then great for you, but that's a very narrow minded view, and doesn't exactly say "fan" either.

[Randall]

If Disney had died in 1950, we'd have people today saying "Walt never would have allowed Xeroxing of cells in Dalmatians!!!"

Walt kept with the times, and was always an innovator. If anything, he might have shied away from what became the 1990s hits, since they were in some ways just hipper versions of what he'd done before. If Walt were still around, his movies may have become even less "Disney-like" over time, though of course he would have kept it clean and positive.

[EricJ]

I don't think Walt would have QUITE made his Museum hero that much of an irredeemably unsympathetic jerk (at least as much as Stiller wanted to), but thanks for aiming.
(In fact, no one's quite sure whether Disney's own night-at-the-museum project, "Unnatural History", was competition-claim-jumped by Fox, as Fox bought the title rights to their book with suspicious speed and and lack of fanfare...)

And while we're getting way...way...WAY off onto overreacting to one poster's default-snub, some of us can at least recognize that Bolt, Robinsons and Rapunzel (you can't make me call it anything else, you can't make me!) all came out of the "Pretend David Stainton never existed" phase to clean up and rehabilitate ruins of the previous regime--And that Rapunzel and Frog are probably the closest projects to seeing what Disney would have been making if left unmolested by Eisner's brief mental breakdown.

(Even Frog still bore panicky traces of "What? Princess??--No, no, she likes to work for a living, and she doesn't like lazy guys, she's a role model!"
Having a princess who likes to iron-pan handsome guys that Smolder, is only continuing the phase for the time being.)

[ShyViolet]

I also agree that Walt would have loved Stitch. Even Mickey and Donald had their moments of selfishness and rudeness, despite their basic goodness. (Especially early Mickey) Much of their appeal came from their very human nature; Pinocchio is probably the best example in this case. He makes mistakes through much of the film and sometimes behaves selfishly and foolishly, but despite that the audience is always with him.
As Ben said, L & S actually had a very Disney feel to it: the loneliness of the protagonist (s) and their need to fit in and be loved, dead parents, and the essential goodness of the characters.

[Randall]

Very good point, Vi. I'm remembering the Donald Duck cartoon where he stuffed cigars into his nephews' mouths, or the one where he gleefully destroyed their snowman. Or in Plane Crazy, where Mickey dumped Minnie out of a plane because she wouldn't give in to his advances!

What people think of as "Disney" hasn't always been the case.

[Dusterian]

Walt actually didn't like the Xeroxing at all. He wished they didn't have to do it. I don't like it either, but it does suit a few pictures. But one example of turning a non-Disney thing like Xeroxing into a Disney thing, they used it's sketchiness to make a style and feel in 101 Dalmatians and other films.

I've read what everyone's said.

And all I can really say is I don't know, I don't know if those things are true.

But I do know that I know, I believe Disney magic can only be made at Disney.

I'm not talking just general good feeling. Any studio can make that. I'm saying what's the point of having different studios if they can make the same thing? Disney had it's own kind of feelings, it's own kind of magic. Only they can make it.

One must ask, what's the point of labels if they mean nothing. They might not mean as much today with Disney being slapped on crap, but they meant something when Walt put his label on it, and it meant something for a while after he died...but now... But the point is you call it Disney for a reason. It's not just anyone's magic or quality. It's Disney magic and Disney quality.

[Macaluso]

What's the point of labels

[droosan]

They help to prevent your medications from getting mixed-up ..

[Ben]

But conversely, Dusty, if Disney's magic isn't always real Disney magic (as in Bolt, or even Lilo And Stich if you want to keep saying that doesn't feel like a Disney film to you), doesn't that go to show that Disney-ish magic can be created outside of the Mouse House?

Okay...a random example: Flight Of The Navigator. Is that a Disney magic movie to you?

[Dacey]

Well, to add another point here...

When "The Chronicles of Narnia" came out five years ago, I was very impressed by it. So impressed, in fact, that I felt that it had "Disney Magic" so to speak.

But..."The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" looks to be in the exact same tone...even though it's coming from Fox now.

Not sure if that's the best way to make my point or not, but I think you know what I'm saying.

[EricJ]

When "The Chronicles of Narnia" came out five years ago, I was very impressed by it. So impressed, in fact, that I felt that it had "Disney Magic" so to speak.
But..."The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" looks to be in the exact same tone...even though it's coming from Fox now.
Not sure if that's the best way to make my point or not, but I think you know what I'm saying.

...That Walden made both pictures themselves, you mean?