Post
by GeorgeC » October 12th, 2010, 12:31 am
Piping in here --
Classic Disney animation has had its ups and downs since Snow White for a variety of reasons.
Snow White was a huge hit because A) it was the first film of its kind (full-color, synchronized sound, lushly animated with characters based on human design instead of anthromorphic characters); B) it hit during the right time in history -- Great Depression, before World War II when the overseas markets (mainly Europe) were still open; and C) it was a great film to boot. By most measures, it's a very well-made film and still one of the best animated films ever produced.
Leap forward a few years and we see the Disney films AREN'T doing that well in spite of better-trained artists, higher-quality animation, and an evolution in story-telling. I'm sorry, but these were NOT formulaic films... They were very different films from one another. You couldn't mistake Pinocchio for Snow White any more than you could say Dumbo, Bambi, or Fantasia were the same film! These were hardly "road/buddy" films (Pixar) OR films done with stunt-casting (every studio is guilty of this) like many of the films today. These films just happened to be finished and released at the worst possible time in history for films of their type -- World War II. They were hugely expensive films that just weren't going to make back their money without overseas receipts (excepting the much cheaper Dumbo) and one film in particular, Fantasia, was so different that it still baffles (or puts to sleep) over half the audience that sees it 70 years later!
The 1950s films, considered the second Golden Era of Disney, were half-successful (Cinderella, Peter Pan) and half-failures (Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty). What is sure about that decade was that Disney management was so nervous about the prospects of future features that they decided to stack the deck as it were and implemented cost-saving measures like Xerox and recycled animation after 1959. For all the good character animation moments in the 1960s and 1970s era features, audience members do get annoyed by the "scratchier, sketchier" look of the finished animation, the reduced detail in the imagery, the all-black or grey inklines, and overly familiar-looking recycled animation.
(As much as I think of myself as not being particularly shallow, I have to admit I HATE the sketchy look of the 1960s/1970s era Disney animated films. I have a few that I like -- Robin Hood being one -- but I can't say I'm sorry to see the "Xerox sketchy" look go.)
Flash-forward to the late 1980s... a new Disney regime comes and some money gets pumped back into feature animation and the general attitude and outlook is better than it's been in about 3 decades. It's reflected in bouncier, brighter-looking films and just a general feel to the pictures that hasn't been witnessed since at least the mid-1950s. Audiences respond to that and the newer films (Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) make tons of money. What's old is new again, and because human beings have notoriously short memories they respond to the films like they're ground-breaking -- which they really aren't... They're picking up from what was left behind in the 1950s for the most part.
Things do downhill from about the mid-1990s onward because people get used to regular doses of spectacle -- I think it was a BIG mistake to do yearly releases myself --, DreamWorks becomes a decent competitor after a few starting stumbles, Disney competes against itself with Pixar, and the post-1994 Disney films generally feel less special and rushed to completion with a certain amount of bloat -- whether that bloat shows up on screen or not.
Chances are that the Disney films will come full-circle again unless too much rot has set in at the top courtesy of the Eisner regime. One fundamental difference between the pre-1980s films (1960s and 1970s era) and the post-1992 films is that the pre-'80s films stayed within budget. A good part of the reason why the newer films haven't been as profitable is their outrageous production costs -- caused in part by managerial interference and rush to go into production without stories fully nailed down. For all the severe criticisms of the Eisner era managerial staff and their tendencies help fudge productions, Walt Disney was also guilty of stopping and restarting productions and going well over budget, too.
He was very lucky his brother was a good money man...
)
