Will Disney buy DWA? No! Universal did!

[droosan]

Funny, I just watched Sinbad again a couple of weeks ago, my first viewing since it first hit DVD. I concur with much of what Vi said.

I "kinda" like it, but more for what it could have been than for what it delivered. It really is a weird sort of story, with the half-explained McGuffin, weakly motivated villain, and of course the romance that really shouldn't have happened.

Why does the girl fall in love with SInbad? Well, because his name is in the title, of course! Never mind that he was a huge jerk to her, and she was engaged to a really nice dude already. Okay, that may be true to life at times , but it sure felt odd in the movie.

The tradigital look is certainly of its time. It held great promise and is cool at times, but does look dated now. Yes, I'll take Harryhausen films any day!

Sinbad does have -- by far -- my favorite of Gregson-Williams' many DW scores. Very remniscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, as Dacey says .. but with a classic 'Korngoldian' flair in its themes.

And the entire 'sailing off the edge of the world' sequence is fantastic. Really wish more of the movie was like those 2 or 3 minutes.

[Vernadyn]

Sinbad does have -- by far -- my favorite of Gregson-Williams' many DW scores. Very remniscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, as Dacey says .. but with a classic 'Korngoldian' flair in its themes.

Yes, this. In fact, I much prefer Sinbad's score to anything Hans and Company came up with for Pirates of the Caribbean. (At World's End is the only score in that series that I really enjoy.)

Chicken Run and Antz have sublime scores as well, but those were dual Gregson-Williams/Powell efforts. But other than the Shrek series, I believe the only other DWA film Gregson-Williams did was Flushed Away.

[Ben]

It's interesting to note Sinbad's place in the DWs lexicon. The promise of tradigital in Prince Of Egypt and El Dorado was astonishing, and as good as anything Disney was achieving with Deep Canvas on Tarzan, but you can see in Spirit - a brave film that I still admire and defend - the slight move to more CG elements, not least the horses themselves in some shots/scenes.

By Sinbad the balance is truly in question, and the prevalence of CG in that film does start to feel uneasy, hence why it does look the more dated of all four of those films. There *are* some fantastic visuals in there, as I said in my first comment above, and I agree that I like the film for the promise it had rather than the end result.

In fact, I just sent back to my original review of the film for DVD, where it seemed I noticed the difference between the hand-drawn work and the CGI even back then:

http://animatedviews.com/2003/sinbad-le ... even-seas/

You can see the progression to full CG for the studio: since these kind of films were not making enough money to be viable (arguably because they weren't great films) and it was getting that more than half of their productIon was CG anyway, why not go the whole hog? Yes, DWs actually started with a CG picture anyway, in Antz, but it didn't really take a lot to nudge them fully into CG with the way these films were going.

[ShyViolet]

Gosh I can't believe I forgot to put Antz on my list!! I'd probably rank it between POE and Chicken Run. . It was funny, exciting, romantic, witty, and its big star voices were all perfect for their roles! If only every DWA film had been like this. But no one bats a thousand I guess.

[Ben]

If every DWA film had been like Antz then I don't think we would be holding Prince Of Egypt in such high regard, Vi!

[ShyViolet]

Good point Ben. That's a great movie but I really think DWA could have topped themselves if they really wanted to and didn't go the comedy route with Road to El Dorado as well as their subsequent string of CGI comedies. As we've been saying, so much wasted potential.

[EricJ]

Good point Ben. That's a great movie but I really think DWA could have topped themselves if they really wanted to and didn't go the comedy route with Road to El Dorado as well as their subsequent string of CGI comedies. As we've been saying, so much wasted potential.

While we're digging up early pre-Shrek Katzenberg, there's another good point I've never been successfully convinced of (or if the explanation ever did turn up here, it must have been years ago and I forgot):
The Lion King=Hamlet thing, we know, was goofy, and yeah, we'll get Ben's traditional defense, but that was years ago. I'm asking, why did JK try so hard to also convince us that El Dorado was "a tribute to Hope & Crosby"--'cause, like, it had "Road to" in the name, and had two funny con men--when, y'know...it wasn't?

It was Kipling's "The Man Who Would be King", nothing wrong with that, it's a good story, it's public domain, and it was the kind of literary Great-Book other animation studios were looking at if they wanted to make Important stories with all-human characters around that time in the post-Disney knockoff late 90's (ahemhunchback). Kevin Kline was Sean Connery, Kenneth Branagh was Michael Caine, the helpful scheming native girl who ultimately breaks them up was the scheming native girl, so...what's the problem? Did he have to persuade us it was a comedy, or was there some other reason he couldn't let us figure out why it was an Important Animated Story, or I don't know, was at some point some other studio trying to figure out an Aztec story and had plans to use Kipling as a framework, or...?

(does bad Columbo impression: ) I mean, why would a guy go to so much trouble to DO that?--I've been working on making sense out of that one, but y'see my problem in putting this together, sir?

[droosan]

According to Steve Hulett in chapter 16 of his book Mouse in Transition, he'd pitched an animated adaptation of Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King to JK, in the early days of the Eisner takeover. He was let go from the Disney studio soon after (for a multitude of unrelated reasons).

I'm NOT saying that's why JK might have played down any connection .. if any. Besides -- as you'd noted -- it's a work that was fully in the 'public' domain'.

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It definitely would've added to the fun if Miguel & Tulio had been caricatures of Bob Hope & Bing Crosby, though..!

[ShyViolet]

The film went through many iterations. I know that originally it was much more serious and at one point even involved Miguel dying (I think). Plus the "sex scenes" with Chel were much franker. Doesn't sound very Disney-esque to me, no matter how serious Kingdom of the Sun was originally planned to be before that movie was scrapped into a comedy as well. (New Groove of course.)


When El Dorado came out JK basically said that the point was to take two sidekicks from what had been traditionally made animated films (at the time) and send them off on their own adventure. He also brought up the Hope and Crosby thing, (he didn't emphasize it all that much to my knowledge) but stressed that the main objective was to make a fun comedy. Which they did. I don't see why it's so important to tie it in to New Groove because all they have in common is the central America theme. Why is that such a big deal?

[droosan]

*ctrl+F = "new groove"*, anywhere before ShyViolet's post ..

no results.

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Oh! You mean, at the time of the movies' release.

Well, we see how much of a 'big deal' it was 15 years later, I suppose .. that I'd even forgotten there was such a 'controversy'.

[ShyViolet]

LOL. I know it's been mentioned at times but I always thought it was silly to compare the two when they are so obviously completely different.

[Ben]

Interesting is that they were also both serious-mixed dramas that became broad comedies.

Don't know what the "Ben's defence/Lion King" is about but as for the Road connection, Hollywood has always seemed to come back to this notion that pairing a couple of comedy players will equal Hope & Crosby style laughs, especially if there's a travel element in the script.

I think that's as much as there is to it. I do remember JK making the comparisons and then not really seeing them myself, but the same had been said (by others, natch) of films in the 70s, and then such titles as Spies Like Us (supposedly ready to start a series of Chase/Aykroyd' comedies), Ishtar, and the like. They all were sold as Road style films with comedy teams that would make more movies together.

Of course, all these films all tanked, El Dorado included, and those series never happened. But it seems that the Hope & Crosby touch is an elusive mix that Hollywood likes to try and tap into once in a while. I don't think there's anything more to JK's comments than that, in that he was trying to find some brand recognition for an audience to try and connect to this rather odd-looking adventure and sell it more attractively...

[EricJ]

The Hope & Crosby movies were just the two stars playing themselves, and winking at both the audience and Paramount. (In one movie, they're trekking through the African jungle, and "Look, there's Humphrey Bogart!...And here's his Oscar!" Bing picks it up and Bob grabs it--"Gimme that, you've already got one!" )
Dan & Chevy was just John Landis's attempt to paste Film Lore on a standard 80's-buddy comedy, and Warren & Dustin were just sad. Nobody seemed to get the joke, by trying too hard.

As for JK's comments, it was more to the point of very suspicious timing in that it was in development so soon after JK got his own studio and denied that Hulett had ever pitched anything at the old place. Standard Hollywood BS if it was an isolated incident, but coming so soon after denying that Disney had ever made failed negotiations with a Japanese studio over one of their well-known anime titles, and then had developed a sudden interest in Shakespeare out of thin air, things started to add up...

[Dacey]

[Ben]