Disney Retrospective

A number of days ago, Walt Disney Pictures released their 50^th animated feature film, "Tangled". The term Disney has been something of a household name since Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was released an astonishing 73 years ago. At an average of once every 18 months, Walt Disney Pictures has presented us with a new animated classic just about every year. In honor of their 50th title, I want to take a step back, and see where they are as a company, where they came from, and where their future lies.

Snow White wasn’t Disney’s first project. Mickey Mouse was created long before the Evil Queen tricked our fair-skinned princess into eating her way into a coma. Even Mickey wasn’t Disney’s first attempt at a loveable cartoon character. However, what made Snow White and the Seven Dwarves so impressive was the fact that it was, in fact, the first full-length, animated feature film in history. People gathered for miles around to witness Walt Disney’s epic masterpiece. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before from the compelling animation, the musicality, the lushly painted landscapes and the rotoscope of real, human-like movement. This paved the way for Disney to make more incredible visual masterpieces. The lead heroine sparked the lineup of a Disney Princess franchise. And the wretched evil queen set the standard for a string of some of the best villains out there.

The magic didn’t stop with Snow White. Although it certainly wasn’t an original story line by any means, Disney continued to use classic fairy tales as its base when creating feature films. Before anyone knew it, classic tales such as Pinnochio, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland had been re-imagined onto the silver screen. All the while Disney became more involved in music. While Snow White only bore two musical interludes, entire movies started being set around the very concept of music. These include the Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and the original Fantasia, which contained visual representations of multiple classic songs such as “The Nutcracker Suite”, and the now personified “Night on Bald Mountain”.

Disney didn’t rely entirely on humanoid characters however. On the contrary, many of their classic tales featured anthropomorphic creatures to play the lead. This became first apparent with “Dumbo”, which featured a young elephant in a travelling circus. Later classics featured Pongo and Perdy from “101 Dalmations”, Tod and Copper from the aptly titled “Fox and the Hound”, and Bernard and Miss Bianca from “The Rescuers”. There was a lengthy period of time where it seemed just about every Disney movie featured an anthropomorphic hero, from deer to rats to various breeds of dog, Disney certainly wasn't shy about making animals the stars of many of their classics.

Whether animal, vegetable or mineral however, strong character development was never entirely on the lead. On the contrary, some may say that Disney villains are more charismatic than the heroes themselves. Just like the Disney Princesses have spawned their own franchise, so have the villains. In particular, Cruella DeVil is considered one of the strongest incarnations of ‘pure evil’. And Maleficent is sometimes considered to be the ‘queen’ of the villains. Future villains like the warlock Jafar, sea-witch Ursula, and god of the Underworld Hades, succeed in matching Disney’s earlier antagonists with their own unique characters, quick wits, and smooth tongues.

Disney really hit its stride in the 80s and 90s. While nearly every Disney masterpiece is worthy of a space on the shelf, the Little Mermaid sparked what many people refer to as Disney’s Golden Age. From “The Little Mermaid” to Mulan, literally every single films in that lineup make for some of the best movies around. The soundtracks are well orchestrated, the music is funny, the humor is witty, and the stories are just fantastic. Disney’s creative genius overflowed from “The Little Mermaid”, to “Beauty and the Beast”, to "The Lion King", to “Aladdin”, to “Pocahontas”, to “The Hunchback of Notre Dam”, to Hercules, to “Mulan”. Some would argue that in comparison, the rest of the Disney classics almost seem minute (though of course they’re all great). On top of that, Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora gained three new princess in the Disney Princess lineup with less traditional princesses in Ariel, Belle and Jasmine. Pocahontas and Mulan were also technically added to the lineup, but aren’t widely as accepted since neither is really a princess.

Leading up and into the 90s, Disney began incorporating more and more CG into the 2D masterpieces. From the Cave of Wonders in “Aladdin” to the avalanche in “Mulan”, Disney began to rely on 3D animation for some of the bigger events. This became very apparent in the movie “Tarzan”. Tarzan marked a change in the Disney lineup, not only relying so much on CG, but moreso by eliminating all muisical elements entirely. Gone were the days of ‘Hellfire’, ‘Reflection’ and ‘Colors of the Wind’. Instead the entire soundtrack for “Tarzan” was created by Phil Collins. No one in the movie had a solo, no one in the movie sang a song (with the exception of a quick, unofficial spurt via the younger gorillas) This decision was not well received by many, and Tarzan’s popularity suffered as a result. But that was only the first step.

While few would say any of the movies Disney has produced in the past ten years were “bad”, they just weren’t the same. Musical became straight shows and all flamboyancy was essentially erased. The character development wasn’t strong and the movies were rendered as ‘cute’ instead of ‘magical’. Worst of all, Disney created “Lilo & Stitch”, “Brother Bear”, and “Home on the Range”, and called it quits in terms of traditional 2D animation. They still pumped out around one title each year, but each title was now in full CG instead of the widely beloved 2D. Fact is, CG was on the rise, and Disney had to keep up with the times. It was a sad, sad, time for Disney.

Then, around March of 2009, be it from wishing on a star or true love’s kiss, what seemed like a miracle occurred, and Disney was working on another 2D masterpiece. Their newest film, titled “Princess and the Frog”, promised to bring back the old Disney essentials, and they certainly delivered. We got a charistmatic villain in Dr. Facilier, a new princess in Tiana, a charming new tale of a re-imagined classic, and a fully voiced score of musical numbers. Disney sent out ads that they were opening back up the 2D studios and hiring artists to fill them. And that’s where we left off until this year.

What seemed like a bright future, I’m not entirely certain of now. Tangled was released only a few days ago and I went to see it. While it was charming in its own right, it wasn’t without its problems. First, it was in CG, which disappointed me. It was a visual masterpiece and honestly one of the best CG films I’ve seen, but I still just seem to prefer 2D because there just seems to be something more personable about it. What I didn’t like about the film however was its music. While Disney usually provides a fantastic sing-a-long score, this movie just fell short. I found myself enjoying it until the next time they opened their mouths. One last thing is that Disney tends to take one of two routes in their miracle endings. Either they outline a guideline for a miracle early on so it can be realized later on, or they come through with a loophole in order to make the miracle work. Tangled did neither. It was one of those miracle tears endings if you know what I mean.

While Tangled was a disappointment, I’m more nervous for Disney’s future. “The Princess and the Frog” gave me so much hope for a return to 90s Disney, but after Tangled, Disney already has their next three projects lined up. In 2011, Winnie the Pooh will be released. While it looks cute, and is in fact 3D, this is nothing new. Winnie the Pooh has been around for years at this point so I’m afraid Disney won’t be offering much to the table. In 2012, a project titled “Reboot Ralph” is scheduled for release. I believe I read that this film will be 2D, but the premise doesn’t sound very promising in that it’s about a boy who gets sucked into a video game. After that, in 2013, Anima the Jungle Cell is slated for release. This one will be 2D, and feature a new Disney Princess in Anima, but all that’s been released about it is that its about blood cells. While we’ve no idea what they may be able to do with this, it sounds like it may just be an Osmosis Jones knock-off, which wasn’t a very good film to be knocked off in the first place.

I don’t know what the future of Disney is going to hold, but frankly I’m a little nervous for it. Disney has always had its hand in creating epic masterpieces for people of all ages to enjoy, but lately they just haven’t been on their game. Maybe “Reboot Ralph” and “Anima the Jungle Cell” will end up surprising me, but it makes me sad to think that 90s Disney may just be a thing of the past. I guess we should all start wishin’ on stars if we want the good old days to ever come back.