It's official...

Post by **Plightyear** » February 8th, 2007, 4:53 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070208/fil ... imation_dc

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co plans to bring back hand-drawn animated films at its Feature Animation studio, a Disney-Pixar executive told investors on Thursday.

"At Disney (Feature Animation) we will be making 3D films, we will be bringing back hand-drawn (two-dimensional) films," said Disney-Pixar President Ed Catmull.

Post by **Ben** » February 8th, 2007, 5:15 pm

Hey Plightyear...I thought you asked for your account to be deleted?

What gives?

Nice to see Disney will continue on the CGI bandwagon too. Hopefully they can keep away from the Pixar mold and make more edgier fare.

Post by **Plightyear** » February 8th, 2007, 5:27 pm

Actually I thought this was a story that was already posted on here, like last time...

I still want to have my account deleted, so this might be seen as a post calling for that to happen, presuming anyone beyond you even sees it.

Have a good day.

Post by **Plightyear** » February 8th, 2007, 5:29 pm

sorry, this was a double post

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 8th, 2007, 6:58 pm

"Pixar is still Pixar -- nobody left," Catmull said. "At Disney, you have these remarkable artists there ... they were not kneaded together in the right way. At the heart of it there has to be a director and the director has to have a vision."

I find this statement, in light of recent events, a bit....weird.

Post by **Ben** » February 9th, 2007, 11:04 am

I don't understand Plightyear's reply at all...

On "the right way", read "the Pixar way".

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 9th, 2007, 5:38 pm

On "the right way", read "the Pixar way". Wink

Exactly!

From Variety

Lasseter said, "The greatest thing about the merger of the two companies is that the creators of 'Toy Story' 1 and 2 can make 3 with the story that we wanted."

From Bloomberg:

"We are not merging the two animation studios together,'' Catmull said today. "That goes hand in hand with our principle that there is local ownership and people feel pride in what they are doing.''

The biggest thing I'm picking up from this is is that Pixar has stayed exactly the same as it was before, and the best thing for Pixar about the merger is that no one's going to mess with Toy Story and that their own guys are going to handle it. But what about what the merger was supposed to do for WDFA?

(Well, at least they are bringing back traditional animation...

)

Post by **Meg** » February 10th, 2007, 10:25 am

(Well, at least they are bringing back traditional animation... )

And getting rid of stupid executives...And putting creative people back in charge of creative projects...And putting an end to those crappy DTV sequels...etc., etc.

Sorry, but I don't get why Lasseter is so evil for wanting the animation unit to be run like it was when Walt was still around!

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 10th, 2007, 11:44 am

Sorry, but I don't get why Lasseter is so evil for wanting the animation unit to be run like it was when Walt was still around!

He's not evil but why are they saying that the power should go back to the directors when they just axed a director from his own project because they didn't agree with his vision, and forced several other directors to radically overhaul their films, etc....

And Pixar gets to stay Pixar...not Disney. So how was this a "merger"? Like they said, the best thing about it for them was that no one is going to mess with Toy Story. Pixar got all the advantages out of the deal, and on top of it they weren't the ones to shell out all those billions of dollars....

If Walt was truly around he wouldn't let them stay separate, he'd merge them under ONE roof or at least one legal/creative roof. I really don't think Walt would agree to Pixar staying a separate entity (and separate culture) while they re-make Disney into Pixar 2.0, but with none of the job security....

Trust me, it's not good for them to stay separate at all....it creates division, hostility and loss of morale.....

(Walt was Walt because he had a SINGLE VISION and everyone was in his camp, not in his own company three hours away with his own people and him calling the shots for some other studio but with none of the accountablity.)

That's why we're never going to see a Mickey/Lamp logo.....

***********************************************************

But I'm so desperate to finally see some beautiful 2d animation, that I'm glad they're at least brining that back...

Post by **Meg** » February 10th, 2007, 12:29 pm

I don't see why it's horrible that Pixar and Disney didn't smush together...I want Pixar to make Pixar movies and Disney to make Disney movies (somethig that they haven't been doing lately - or at least not very good.)

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 10th, 2007, 2:35 pm

Then they shouldn't have merged in the first place--just renewed their partnership the way everyone was expecting them to do.

The problem is not that they each still get to make "Disney" and "Pixar" movies, but that regardless of what some piece of paper says they are still separate entities with different interests and different goals. And that's not good for any business to be split like that, but particularly a business whose very raison d'etre is togetherness.

The most disruptive thing here is that JL calls the shots on one studio but his focus and interest seems to be very much with another studio--and yet the two are somehow both supposed to represent "the same company."

This is not a good dynamic, to say the least.

Walt's Disney was very different from Eisner's Disney, but one important thing they both had in common was one vision/one voice/one company. Everyone is on board or no one is.

How can the WDFA artists possibly feel valued if they see the Pixar guys--also Disney artists-- coddled and protected while they can lose their jobs at any time? What does that do to their motivation and morale?

**************************************************

(somethig that they haven't been doing lately - or at least not very good.)

Maybe but didn't everyone always say that everything would fall back into place if only the execs let guys like Glenn Keane, Ron, Jon and Chris Sanders do what they do best? So why isn't Lassetter letting them do that??

(Even Tom Schumacker, of all people, respected Sanders and gave him mostly free reign with Lilo...

)

***************************************************

Also, this was an interesting column by Harry McCracken from about a year ago about the possible implications of the merger, which wasn't official yet.

http://www.harrymccracken.com/blog/arch ... pixar.html

What I found provocative about it was that he (unlike many other blogger/writers from a year ago) actually asked questions about how a deal like that would affect WDFA, not just the other way around.

If you look up other articles from that time, it seems like everyone was asking ad infinitum: What will this do to Pixar? but never what it might do to Disney--the implication was that it went without saying that Pixar's presence would be a positive influence.

Post by **Daniel** » February 10th, 2007, 4:00 pm

Meg wrote:And getting rid of stupid executives...And putting creative people back in charge of creative projects...And putting an end to those crappy DTV sequels...etc., etc.

Sure, you keep thinking that.

Post by **Meg** » February 11th, 2007, 8:45 am

Sorry, Dan, I know you really like them (there's a few I quite enjoy myself), but when it comes down to it, these DTVs have lost A LOT of respect for the company - there are handful of fans of them, like yourself, but the majority of consumers out there do NOT like Disney sequels much at all – they’re considered kid stuff (though again, there are a few great ones).

Post by **Daniel** » February 11th, 2007, 7:03 pm

No problem, Meg.

Even though I consider myself a HUGE sequel fan, even I will admit that your statement is somewhat true. However, with "lost of respect for the company", I believe its only a few DTV's that have caused this, not all.

And, many might say they are kid-stuff, but I wager, they - the consumer - have only seen handful of them. That's not to say their opinion doesn't matter, but you can't right off all DTV's from one or two experiences.

Again, there are a few sequels, that even I don't like. So I understand why Disney gets the rep it does. Its just sad, that some of the best DTV's go unaknowledged, because of the small majority of inferior ones.

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 11th, 2007, 8:11 pm

I REALLY want to watch Cindy III, especially after reading Ben and Dan's individual takes on it!

There's a bunch of other DTV's I've got to watch to....the good ones of course...

Also, here's an interesting excerpt from an interview last summer with Lassetter, right before Cars came out:

CS: How did the merger with Disney change things?
Lasseter: First of all, the merger isn't going to change Pixar at all, because that was one of the parts of the deal. Bob Iger recognizes how special Pixar is and it's culture, and it's really protected. It's going to stay exactly the same. Ed Catmull and myself are going to go down for two days every week and I'm going to have my meetings down there. So then, I'll be doing two days there, three days at Pixar, and we'll just be going back and forth and I'll be overseeing the projects down at Disney as well.

CS: Except for Toy Story, there has never been a sequel to a Pixar movie. Was that something that Pixar has deliberately tried to avoid or is it possible that a director like Brad Bird could do another "Incredibles" movie if he wanted?
Lasseter: Frankly, for us, it's less of a business decision to do sequels, it's more of a creative one. If we have a great story, we'll do a sequel, but then frankly, after "Toy Story 2", it was a bit of a business thing, because we had a deal with Disney for 5 movies and sequels didn't count, so we wanted to make these films. So now, it's like we'll see. Now that we have this new deal, now that limitation is taken off of us. For us, it's about telling a great story and entertaining our audience and making the movie just as great as possible.

CS: How do you see carrying that Pixar director-driven attitude over to Disney animation?
Lasseter: Disney has been sort of an executive-driven studio for a long time, and I believe in having the stories come from [the directors], whether it's something they wrote and they like and it comes from their heart, and surrounding them and being honest with them when things are working and not working. That's our plan, is to take that aspect of what we've been developing at Pixar and bringing it over and working with the great artists down there, and they are terrific artists.

CS: And how's that going so far?
Lasseter: Terrific. It's fantastic, and I'm really loving working with the guys.

Here's the whole interview:

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14741