Toon Zone Talkback - Disney: No More Animated Fairy Tale Animated Features

[Ed Liu]

This is the talkback thread for Disney: No More Animated Fairy Tale Animated Features.

In the Red Corner, weighing in at 800-pounds: the people who will argue, "Disney never had a problem selling fairy-tale movies before!"

In the Blue Corner, also weighing in at 800-pounds: many of those self-same people who will argue, "Disney should be making movies for everybody instead of targeting specific demographics (especially all that stuff for yucky girls)!"

OK, I want a nice clean fight. No rabbit punching, no hitting below the belt, the usual Marquis of Queensberry rules. Round 1...DING!

[Silverstar]

I'm on the fence with this: even though I'm a guy, I don't mind the Disney Princess movies; if something is well-done and well-executed, then I'll watch it. But on the other hand, I can't fault Disney for wanting to move away from that genre; they have produced a lot of them (frankly, I think one reason for this decision is simply that they're running out of fairy tale princesses), and it certainly wouldn't hurt them to expand their horizons a little. Another reason could be for sequels and series replay value; it's been my experience as a writer and observation as a viewer that outside of one-shot features, princesses make for pretty dull protagonists. Once they find their handsome prince, there's not much else you can do with them.

I just hope this new mode of thinking doesn't put an end to dynamic female protagonists in Disney features.

[PaperBritt]

Every article that says "Someones says no more "insert genre-or-medium-here" needs an asterisk by it saying *until someone makes one*. It happened with stop-motion, it's happening with 2D (not just with Disney, but with out of country studios like Cartoon Saloon), and I'm sure years from now, somebody new will be working at Disney, say "Hey, I have this cool idea to adapt this fairy tale!" and the higher ups will theorize that tons of people will come see it out of nostalgia.

As for the story itself, I kinda like the idea of Disney branching out, but what the article is implying, that the only reason they're doing it is because kids don't find fairy tales "COOL" makes me worried. My "Mike-Eisner/Dreamworks-esq pop-culture comedies" sense is tingling like a joy buzzer, but we'll just have to wait and see what they make.

[trance2009]

Madness. Walt is turning in his grave, or cryogenic chamber or whatever. Though I suspect years down the line someone will bring it up again, as everything always comes back in cycles. I did want to see the Snow Queen in a couple years though.

[GWOtaku]

"By the time they're 5 or 6, they're not interested in being princesses," said Dafna Lemish, chairwoman of the radio and TV department at Southern Illinois University and an expert in the role of media in children's lives. "They're interested in being hot, in being cool. Clearly, they see this is what society values."

..............yeah. Ugh. This inspires language that I can't use here.

Given a choice between marketing to everyone or marketing to THAT, I'll take everyone in a second.

I think the animated musical will make a comeback sometime. Just not right now apparently. The bottom line is that if The Princess & The Frog, which was a great film, had performed, we'd be getting more. It didn't. So while I'm mad, it's not like I can exactly blame Disney for the shift.

If the movies they put out instead suck, on the other hand, then I'll be bitter. My big fear is that they won't try to put out "event" movies and try to be just good enough.

[catlove390]

OH Geez...it's all so ridiculous! I wanted to see the snow queen too!


cat

[The Cartoon]

Sorry Ed, looks like we posted our threads at the same time. I'll lock mine.

But yeah, I am seriously disappointed by this. Disney animation is huge because of Fairy Tales. That's where a lot of the magic comes from. Getting rid of them to "modernize" the company is a huge mistake. Walt Disney would've never wanted this. And I'm also pretty annoyed by that sentence that GWOtaku quoted. That person clearly doesn't understand Disney magic in the slightest. Maybe the revenue will increase and this will be good for Disney, but even then I'd be upset by it. I hate the mindset that fairy tales are only for young girls.

[Robert McSantos]

Maybe Disney should try combining fairy tales with something else in their intellectual property catalogue.

Like superheroes maybe?

[Dr.Pepper]

This news makes me sad. I am not saying they should only do fairy tales, I really wanted a mixture of different stories.

Also 5-year-olds want to be hot? What is wrong with people these days? I never remember wanting to be a princess when I was younger, but I certainly never went around thinking "oh I want to be hot" when I was in kindergarten.

[Astrolupine]

Gee, they probably don't have complete faith in Tangled then.

It doesn't hurt to dabble in some variety (after all, the original Rapunzel is kinda brief and simplistic) and the more originality the better. But like others have said, Walt's film empire was built on fairy tales, so why not just retire the concept until someone's got a really good idea then?

[Rick Jones]

I think it's kind of silly to limit themselves like that or to at least make statements that make it seem as though they are. While I can understand not wanting to use a classic Disney formula as a crutch, there's still lots of great things that can be done when adapting classic stories whether they're fairy tales or whatever else. Either way, I am still hoping that Disney Animation will cook something jaw-dropping soon. I'm pretty excited for a 4th quarter Disney film but it's definitely not Tangled.

[Rainbow Sharpie]

Does this mean Brave will be cancelled as well?

On one hand, I'm glad that Disney wants to open their horizon more to other ideas, since they probably sick of being stereotyped as "for little girls". On the other hand, I don't want them to completely abandon fairy tales; what do you think made Disney's films so famous? I hope that maybe that they'll find something halfway.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Somewhere along the line Disney's fairy tales became part of the genre known as "Disney Princess Movies" which is a sort of crass and condescending label, IMO.

It's unfortunate. Although I haven't always been pleased with Disney's adaptations, I have always appreciated the fact that they respected the old fairy tales as a viable creative source.

[Sparticus]

Hmm, interesting.

Thinking about it, Disney isn't JUST known for adapting fairy tales, they're known for DISNEYFYING fairy tales. Many of the stories they adapt are actually pretty dark in their original form(s) and - lets face it - aside from the 10 and under crowd, the market for Disneyfied fairy tales has shrunk. A lot.

So... avoiding that format isn't really a bad thing - especially if the bulk of the people pitching things to Disney are ONLY pitching fairy tale adaptations. They've got an army of talented animators, why should they pigeonhole them as a fairy tale factory? Why not branch out and experiment?

Besides, it doesn't mean they can't do a fairy tale again if the concept is interesting enough. I think this is more about not RELYING on it than anything else.

[HG Revolution]

Something interesting to note in the article: apparently everything in the pre-2008 production of Tangled was scrapped. Yet back when Glen Keane was directing, supposedly the first act of the film was the best Disney had ever made according to Lassetter. I assumed the new directors were mainly trying to figure out how to come up with a good conclusion rather than make a different movie entirely. I hope the DVD contains some of the older material.

So how does this affect Brave? And was it this sort of decision-making that sent Guillermo Del Toro to Dreamworks? Since he's all about fairy tales, albeit darker ones.

[RonDrakenfan17]

This makes me so sad, curse you Disney!!! The kids liked them, heck even adults did, what makes you think this is a good thing?

[PaperBritt]

So how does this affect Brave?.

I doubt Brave isn't in any real danger for a couple of reasons

1. It's a Pixar production, and as we sometimes have to remind ourselves, Pixar is a different company from Disney, it just so happens to be owned by them.

2. It's not based on an existing fairy tale.

3. It's a year away from its release date, there must be WAY to much already done for them to just scrap it without losing all the money they put into it.

[Zen Man]

From a strictly business standpoint, I think it's pretty smart for Disney to experiment with other genre's; especially in this day in age where the competition is so fierce. However I can't help but wonder if part of this decision is because Disney has lost some confidence in it's ability to make a good animated fairytale film? Maybe I'm over reading, but it should be interesting to see what comes out of the studio from here on out.

[spongebob03]

I'm a guy, and I'm sad to read something like this. I love fairytales! Something that I think is silly is for Disney to allow this article to be posted so close to the release date for Tangled. Especially after hiding the fact that it's a fairytale with the marketing. I will see Tangled on it's release day. But I'm not feeling the music I've heard to far. I miss the days of Alan working with Howard.

[Monterey Jack]

Disney already tried to move away from musical "princess movies" in the first half of this decade, and all of their "boy-centric" anime-inspired adventure features (Atlantis, Treasure Planet) were mediocre and flopped hard at the box office. A good fairy tale feature can appeal to all age groups and both genders, provided they're well-made movies. The Disney "renaissance" features of the early 90's were supposedly "girl movies", but The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast and Aladdin (which had more of a "boy's adventure" overtone to it in some respects), but they appealed to little girls and boys, as well as their charmed parents and even "date crowds" in their teens and twenties. The Princess & The Frog underperformed, true, but it hardly flopped, and it was up against the latest Twilight movie. And Enchanted was very successful at the box office for presenting a "classic" Disney Princess archetype with an amusing twist, gently ribbing the cutesy wholesomeness on display while still hitting all of the required emotional beats. This decision is just as asinine as closing down the hand-drawn animation facilities. Don't say "traditional animation is dead", or "no one wants to see Princess movies anymore", just make them better, and market them correctly. Retitling Rapunzel to Tangled and cramming the trailer with action, slapstick gags and bad pop music is only gonna backfire when it attracts a crowd that doesn't get what was advertised and doesn't attract the audience that actually likes this sort of thing.

Bah.