Is the World of Disney about to see it's Armageddon?

[Captin "Hank" Murphy]

After talking to others, I see now that I'm not the only one who thinks Disney today not only lost the magic but just plain sold out. You can see it in their media, poorly made Disney Channel made movies,(predictable plot twists and plot holes, and the only REAL start they ever had was "Malcom in the Middle" kid.) unneeded sequals to classic Disney Movies, poor choices on animated series(like Walt would have chosen Pepper Ann, Teacher's Pet and Teamo Supreamo), and the list goes on.

Their buissness is doing so poor, that they used to have plenty of employes for part-time jobs and maybe even os stand-by, but now are in need of as many workers they can get. Even the long-time-Disney-stock-holders, the Bass Brothers sold like 2 Billion dollars worth of their Disney stock.

It's obvious that that the people who are currently running Disney don't give a damn about the magic that made it so great in the first place and only care about the money. Unless action is taken to give it back the magic(of course I don't mean real magic, I mean what made Disney a sucess in the first place) it once had, the next big news about Disney will have the word BANKRUPTCY in the headline.

[langden alger]

hey, leave pepper ann out of this.

[Joe Wagner]

Disney is in no way fearing Bankruptcy but I think you are right - a lot of the magic that was Disney has gone, or at least lost its luster. Disney has created a lot of junk that should never have been considered esp Teamo Supremo and Teacher's Pet, as well as marching their animated classics out to the slaughter - cashing in on a lot of very poor sequels and the few 'good' sequels. Personally I think Disney needs to follow a couple of steps to get back to where they once were.

Step 1: Do an external analysis with their Press Reps and find out what the public thinks about all of these bogus sequels. A lot of the reviews have come back very negative on a lot of these and Disney should heed the warning - they could be killing their classics by associating them with these sequels.

Step 2: Spend the money for quality, not quantity. For years Disney has held the Saturday Morning Block on ABC and I think there have only been two to three shows I could ever watch esp when it went up against the once great Fox Kids line-up. These shows consisted of Recess, Doug and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles. This second one is where I'll make my point - I was a huge fan of Gargoyles and have probably seen about every episode three times a piece or so but this series was not even close to the greatness of the first two seasons. The show was rushed and the budget was pretty much cut. The shows creator wasn't able to be thouroghly involved and the show suffered, mainly because Disney waited till the last second before they ordered the show - giving them only 5-6 months or so to come up with 13 episodes. The animation in most of these episodes was decent but nowhere near the original, Eliza became a figurehead and very weak - always running to Goliath for protection and hugging him at every opportunity, in fact her entire character was changed in one episode - looking almost exactly like Ariel in the Little Mermaid.

If it takes Disney doubling the budget of a show to make a good one as compared to paying the same amount and having two bad ones they should definetely pay the extra cost and make a series great.

3) The animated features need to become creative again. This area actually looks like it might have hope, and not just solely from Pixars endaevors. "Lilo and Stitch" and "Treasure Planet" both look like they could be masterpieces and there are a couple of films on their current schedule that I'm really looking forward to (noteably "The Bears" in 2004 or so and "Finding Nemo" in 2003). I thought, and hope, that Atlantis will be the start of a new age. I truly thought Atlantis was a great film and fairly well thought out. The departure from the singing was nice to as it was refreshing to know that they all don't break out into song at one given time. This isn't to say that they should do this with all of their films but for this one - it just fit the story better to not have the characters singing.

4) Their live action stuff has for the most part been horrible, esp their made for TV movies. It seems to be called their "formula" - use the same plot and different characters. There have been a couple I've enjoyed but for the most part I really, really hate when the story betrays itself and the enemy and friend apologize in the last second to become 'best friends' - a) through out the story there is no reason given for this change and b) because I'm fairly certain that this would almost never happen in real life. The last good live-action movie Disney made - "The Princess Diaries". No seriously, I mean it - enjoyable movie and Anne Hathaway is hot.

Just my two cents.

-Joe

[RogueMartian]

The Facts:

Disney Doesn't Care.

They don't give a damn, because they don't have to. Give one good reason why they should care? Producing a decent animated film like "The Lion King" or "Mulan" costs lots of money, you have to higher high priced talent for the voices and for the music, and then you have to hire animators to make the cel and computer animation. Not to mention finding a good story that won't piss off all of super religious soccer moms around the country.

All that time and money to spend on a cartoon in a country where animation is a kids thing, won't be respected, and will make the same amount of money whether its made expensively or cheaply. It may make some money in the box office, but Peter Pan 2 made lots of money in the box office and it required none of the nice things I listed above. The kids will never know the difference, ask any 6 year old, "Peter Pan was cool".

The crappy shows are also loved by the kids, and its loved by the soccer moms who think that bugs bunny cartoons are too violent. So why would disney change? More profit, less spending...Sounds like a great business.

[ButteredToast]

The Age of Disney is very close to its end. A sad thing, yes, but they're digging their own grave with all these "Cheapquels."

When it finally dies, we will start to see fresh companies with new ideas finally getting out from underneath their shadow.

[RogueMartian]

Personally, I am eagerly awaiting the next renaissance of animation in this country. Something which is impossible as long as giant corporations dominate the industry with crap animation.

I was raised on Disney, I used to be Disney's biggest fan, but not anymore. Down with Disney!!!!

[Joe Wagner]

I'd really love to see Dreamworks take it to Disney - allowing some of the other studios a chance to see the light also. Granted I grew up on a lot of Disney stuff to and a lot of Filmation and Sunbow for that matter, so I don't want Disney to die - just put out a quality product and stop making the Cheapquels (nice word ButteredToast). I also think that Dreamworks is finally ready to show Disney how to make a good animated feature pretty much everytime and I look forward to seeing Spirit but am looking even more forward to seeing the cel-animated Sinbad. Oh yea! Let the battles, begin!

-Joe

[Howard]

If you think about it, Disney has been around for many years, and for them to stay at the top of their game for that long is probably too much to expect. Disney is sorely in need of another revival like they had in the 80's, but with Nickelodeon, Fox Kids, Kids WB and anime, Disney has perhaps lost it's hold on the newer generations. Disney won't go away quite yet, as their characters and films and theme parks have become ingraned in our culture with previous generations. Unless Disney can somehow regain future generations, they may well just one day (very far down the line) be a footnote in pop cultural history. (And the makers of Mickey Mouse novelty items.)

[Captin "Hank" Murphy]

After seeing the official trailer online of Lilo and Stich that has footage from the movie itself, it looks like another one of disney's flops that is short of true greatness, and I wouldn't be surprize if Treasure Planet will be just Disney Flop "Return to Neverland" meets Fox Flop "Titan A.E."

[Mad Monkey 7]

Return to Neverland was not a flop. It made the production money that it took to make it in a less than a week.

P.S. Yes, Disney is having a rough time right now but it appears that it will turn around very soon.

[Allen's Nickname.]

Disney Needs to stom trying to do nothing more than Make money. It's painfully Obvious that no disney execs. care about nothing more than making money. (Hunchback 2, Cinderella 2, Peter Pan 2) So Yes, hopefully disney will die a slow painfull deth, or make good movies. Hopefully the 2nd, Probobly the first.