Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[XYZpdq Jr.]

@Mississippi Motorboater Can’t reply to your post but it’s really jarring what Disney has become under Iger. I think the 2008 recession was a traumatizing experience for Iger and the rest of their corporate overlords. Notice after the recession ended, Disney and every major studio focused entirely on franchises and remakes.

the Writer's strike doing jack and shit to the profits for shit tentpole explosion movies did a lot too
if all you need is Franchise Name and a number cleverly worked into it and they show up why try for something better

 

[Godzilla@1989]

the Writer's strike doing jack and shit to the profits for shit tentpole explosion movies did a lot too
if all you need is Franchise Name and a number cleverly worked into it and they show up why try for something better

That strike was lethal for the industry and for Star Wars in the long term.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

I didn't hate Tron:Legacy, so if we go back to boringly safe shit instead of queers and niggers every 5 feet, good.

I'm excited to see Disney putting out literal ChiCom propaganda.

I was a fanboy for Tron: Legacy purely on visuals and Daft Punk. And the 3D at the time was pretty effective.

I would rather that than what we have today with Star Wars.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

I didn't hate Tron:Legacy, so if we go back to boringly safe shit instead of queers and niggers every 5 feet, good.

In fairness, I haven't seen it (or the first Tron, heinously enough). I just brought it up because it wasn't greeted with the mainstream buzz or financial returns Disney was hoping for (especially with their efforts to give it the multimedia treatment in order to bolster excitement, with the animated series and video-game tie-ins).

I have to get around to watching the first Tron--I'm a big fan of Moebius, and I understand he worked on the costume designs for that movie.

@Mississippi Motorboater Can’t reply to your post but it’s really jarring what Disney has become under Iger. I think the 2008 recession was a traumatizing experience for Iger and the rest of their corporate overlords. Notice after the recession ended, Disney and every major studio focused entirely on franchises and remakes.

It's not all that surprising if you've followed Iger's history from his days at ABC. He's widely known for being an exceptionally effective corporate snake oil salesman, with stories from colleagues and former industry allies like former ABC Head of the Cable Division Anne Sweeney and former ABC Chairman Lloyd Braun. That latter one is especially interesting, as both him and Iger once allegedly got into a public shouting match, in which the former had a particularly interesting list of accusations for Iger...the most prophetic of which include:

"Lack of character, Incompetence, taking credit for things you have nothing to do with, and running away from decisions you have made."
​

And again, this is back when he was in charge at ABC, years before his tenure at Disney. Pretty sinister foreshadowing if you ask me.

The only thing I'd add to that list of character maladies is what I consider quite possibly Iger's worst attribute as an executive: acquiring what you can't replicate. I say this because Iger's entire tenture is defined by what he purchased, not what he spearheaded or pushed for in-house. This makes him an especially profound downgrade from his predecessor, Michael Eisner--who, while controversial, was defined by his rabid and sometimes reckless attempts to raise Disney to the standard of pop culture. He strove to make Disney "cool", to make it more palatable with teenagers and adults, to market new theatrical animated features with the same hype and appeal as action-packed Hollywood blockbusters, to push for more horror and thrill ride attractions at the park, and even spearheaded ventures that were flagrant and entirely unsubtle attempts to pander to older audiences, from creating arcades/malls with Disney branding to or bending classic IPs to imitate competing brands like McFarlane Toys and Jurassic Park, to mixed success.

Eisner's method, whether it worked or not, was to generate new IP's to meet the competition. Iger's method...was simply to buy the competition.

He won't take risks or create new IP's if his life...and that mentality has consumed the entire company, as the 500th Marvel movie and 40th shameless remake of their animated films so grotesquely demonstrates.

 

[Ghostse]

In fairness, I haven't seen it (or the first Tron, heinously enough). I just brought it up because it wasn't greeted with the mainstream buzz or financial returns Disney was hoping for (especially with their efforts to give it the multimedia treatment in order to bolster excitement, with the animated series and video-game tie-ins).

I have to get around to watching the first Tron--I'm a big fan of Moebius, and I understand he worked on the costume designs for that movie.

Its been years since I've watched Tron, but while its got some really iconic scenes (lightbike) Its just not very good. It was special effects showcase, and the SFX just aren't all that anymore. It at least holds up better than the CGI shitfests we get now will.

I was a fanboy for Tron: Legacy purely on visuals and Daft Punk. And the 3D at the time was pretty effective.

I would rather that than what we have today with Star Wars.

I just enjoyed Olivia Wilde in spandex.

And yes. It didn't just fully shit on the Original.

 

[jspit2.0]

In fairness, I haven't seen it (or the first Tron, heinously enough). I just brought it up because it wasn't greeted with the mainstream buzz or financial returns Disney was hoping for (especially with their efforts to give it the multimedia treatment in order to bolster excitement, with the animated series and video-game tie-ins).

I have to get around to watching the first Tron--I'm a big fan of Moebius, and I understand he worked on the costume designs for that movie.

It's incredibly dated. It was revolutionary at the time it was made. Something that can never be said enough.

But it's the anti-blade runner or Star Wars. It just hasn't aged well.

Tron Legacy was very respectful to the original compared to modern adaptations.

It's not all that surprising if you've followed Iger's history from his days at ABC. He's widely known for being an exceptionally effective corporate snake oil salesman, with stories from colleagues and former industry allies like former ABC Head of the Cable Division Anne Sweeney and former ABC Chairman Lloyd Braun. That latter one is especially interesting, as both him and Iger once allegedly got into a public shouting match, in which the former had a particularly interesting list of accusations for Iger...the most prophetic of which include:

"Lack of character, Incompetence, taking credit for things you have nothing to do with, and running away from decisions you have made."
​

And again, this is back when he was in charge at ABC, years before his tenure at Disney. Pretty sinister foreshadowing if you ask me.

The only thing I'd add to that list of character maladies is what I consider quite possibly Iger's worst attribute as an executive: acquiring what you can't replicate. I say this because Iger's entire tenture is defined by what he purchased, not what he spearheaded or pushed for in-house. This makes him an especially profound downgrade from his predecessor, Michael Eisner--who, while controversial, was defined by his rabid and sometimes reckless attempts to raise Disney to the standard of pop culture. He strove to make Disney "cool", to make it more palatable with teenagers and adults, to market new theatrical animated features with the same hype and appeal as action-packed Hollywood blockbusters, to push for more horror and thrill ride attractions at the park, and even spearheaded ventures that were flagrant and entirely unsubtle attempts to pander to older audiences, from creating arcades/malls with Disney branding to or bending classic IPs to imitate competing brands like McFarlane Toys and Jurassic Park, to mixed success.

Eisner's method, whether it worked or not, was to generate new IP's to meet the competition. Iger's method...was simply to buy the competition.

He won't take risks or create new IP's if his life...and that mentality has consumed the entire company, as the 500th Marvel movie and 40th shameless remake of their animated films so grotesquely demonstrates.

I get what you're saying.

But he did gamble. He gambled on woke. He gambled hard on it because he's not really creative. He's an empty suit who backed the MeToo times up crowd because of politics

The worst thing that ever happened to Disney is Walt died. He may have been greedy and hated jews. But he was infinitely creative and visionary. Everything wrong with modern day copyright is illustrated in Bob Iger, Kennedy, and Kevin Feige.

They collect things they didn't have the mind to create and are allowed a tax payer subsidized monopoly over them in effective perpetuity.

Maybe George would have wound selling his soul. But I don't think Disney would have bought Star Wars if they only got to hold it for the next thirty or so years until he died.

At that point, nothing stopping them from making Star Wars, as its public domain. But anyone else could too.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

@Mississippi Motorboater Can’t reply to your post but it’s really jarring what Disney has become under Iger. I think the 2008 recession was a traumatizing experience for Iger and the rest of their corporate overlords. Notice after the recession ended, Disney and every major studio focused entirely on franchises and remakes.

The Recession seemed to be the point where things changed for the worse. This is the era where we started seeing micro transactions in video games emerging, along with the social justice brigade.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

The Recession seemed to be the point where things changed for the worse. This is the era where we started seeing micro transactions in video games emerging, along with the social justice brigade.

That was also around the time that media like The Big Bang Theory spawned into existence, ushering in the disingenuous faux-nerd phenomenon that bled into the 2010's.

I would commit cold-blooded murder to reverse the influx of hipsters and poser ironic appreciation for niche hobbies that defined that decade, because it led to the dumbification of those same hobbies, and a spotlight on them for every corporation to exploit for cringe-inducing reboots and Funko-levels of consoomer degradation.

 

[Grave Ghost]

The only thing I'd add to that list of character maladies is what I consider quite possibly Iger's worst attribute as an executive: acquiring what you can't replicate. I say this because Iger's entire tenture is defined by what he purchased, not what he spearheaded or pushed for in-house. This makes him an especially profound downgrade from his predecessor, Michael Eisner--who, while controversial, was defined by his rabid and sometimes reckless attempts to raise Disney to the standard of pop culture. He strove to make Disney "cool", to make it more palatable with teenagers and adults, to market new theatrical animated features with the same hype and appeal as action-packed Hollywood blockbusters, to push for more horror and thrill ride attractions at the park, and even spearheaded ventures that were flagrant and entirely unsubtle attempts to pander to older audiences, from creating arcades/malls with Disney branding to or bending classic IPs to imitate competing brands like McFarlane Toys and Jurassic Park, to mixed success.

They seemed to have a winning formula back in the mid 2000s when they marketed themselves as that safe and wholesome company that appealed to middle America, but I suppose that greed always wins out in the end.

The Recession seemed to be the point where things changed for the worse. This is the era where we started seeing micro transactions in video games emerging, along with the social justice brigade.

Reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson's quote about the 20th century being one big party and the 21st being the hangover. The Recession was definitely the start of the "hangover", I know people in my personal life who never recovered from it.

That was also around the time that media like The Big Bang Theory spawned into existence, ushering in the disingenuous faux-nerd phenomenon that bled into the 2010's.

I would commit cold-blooded murder to reverse the influx of hipsters and poser ironic appreciation for niche hobbies that defined that decade, because it led to the dumbification of those same hobbies, and a spotlight on them for every corporation to exploit for cringe-inducing reboots and Funko-levels of consoomer degradation.

The rise and normalization of "nerd culture" always pissed me off because I had enough self awareness as a youngster to hide those interests lest I get labeled a nerd. Now everyone is acting like they secretly were heckin' awesome nerds the whole time. I don't get how most of the original consooomer types could not see the cheap mockery it was.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Since we're talking about Disney, I've decided to give my two cents on the matter:

This makes him an especially profound downgrade from his predecessor, Michael Eisner--who, while controversial, was defined by his rabid and sometimes reckless attempts to raise Disney to the standard of pop culture.

Eisner's method, whether it worked or not, was to generate new IP's to meet the competition. Iger's method...was simply to buy the competition.

I wouldn't be so hasty to praise Michael Eisner if I were you. The first thing he did in his half a year as Disney CEO was to fire 1000 Disney employees while replacing them with Paramount executives. He hated the fact that the company made "sappy family movies", preferring instead for them to make more adult-oriented stuff. He also started jacking up the prices to the theme parks, which was an open violation of Walt Disney's desire to let every kid in America experience the Magic Kingdom. And the prices have never gone down since. Eisner turned Disney into the Games Workshop of theme parks. The tradition that Bob Iger and Bob Chapek continued, that of squeezing families out of every dime whenever they show up on Disney property, was a tradition Michael Eisner started, a tradition that went against Walt's desire for the Disney experience to be affordable to every family in America.

So the next time you laugh at Disney's ludicrously expensive Star Wars hotel, keep in mind that Eisner started that tradition, as well as starting the trend of merging Disney with Hollywood sleazebags. If you're asking yourself, how did a company as wholesome as Disney turn into such a magnet for Hollywood trash, well, Eisner was the forerunner of that trend, since he packed the place with Paramount executives while firing good, honest employees.

Eisner even tried to nuke Disney's animation studios, preferring live action movies instead. It was Roy E. Disney Jr. who tried to make sure the animation studios succeeded as Eisner's treatment of them made the Disney animators feel like second-class citizens. Eisner continued to neglect the animation studios until Beauty and the Beast brought in record profits, double of what the Little Mermaid brought in. Prior to that, Eisner and his buddies were touting Pretty Woman and Billy Bathgate as the premier Disney offerings, which is hilarious considering that the latter failed.

And when the animation studios started turning in money, Eisner encouraged them to make more adult-oriented entertainment, sneaking in dirty jokes in movies aimed for kids, like Aladdin telling Jasmine to take off her clothes, or having Frollo wax on about having a lustful desire which violates his religious beliefs-in a movie made for kids. If you're going to make a movie where some religious figure is having naughty thoughts about plowing the residential gypsy hottie, the least you can do is put in a higher rating and make it for mature, older audiences.

Not to mention the fact that under Eisner, you had the beginnings of the "female heroine who can do no wrong" trope. You think someone like Rey popped up out of nowhere? The feminist slant started with the Disney princesses. Films like Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Little Mermaid portrayed fathers in rather unflattering ways, from overprotective dolts (Triton, Chief Powhatan) to imbeciles (the Sultan from Aladdin). Although nowhere near as obnoxious as Rey, these princesses have scant few flaws of their own, while male heroes like Aladdin and the Beast had to overcome more obvious flaws like how Aladdin had to get over his rudeness or the Beast had to overcome his own anger. In the end, these films were all about how fathers didn't know the world as well as their daughters, and they should let their daughters take the lead.

Shit, just look at Mulan and look at how the soldiers fighting alongside her are mostly buffoons outside of the main love interest. The men are morons, and it's the woman who gets things done. Now where have I heard that before?

Hell, there was even a bit of political correctness in films like Pocahontas, where, instead of having the title character convert to Christianity and live like a British person who eventually gets buried in England, (which is what happened in real life, LOL) she remains staunchly Native American in her ways, it's John Smith who has to learn from her, while the Englishmen were portrayed to be short-sighted greedy rats, led by a guy who wanted to upstage the king by getting wealthy enough.

Then Pocahontas' father was voiced by Russel Means, a radical Native American activist who led a group of armed individuals from the American Indian Movement to occupy Wounded Knee, South Daokta, for 71 days in the year 1973. In the resulting standoff, 2 died, 12 were wounded (including 2 marshalls), and 1,200 people were arrested. He's the guy who made a speech in 1980 that was entitled "For America to Live, Europe Must Die". It's quite obvious what they were going for with that casting choice.

Sure, Iger replaced innovation with buying out, but don't mistake Eisner for being an effective officer. Disney succeeded despite his influence, not because of it. If he had his way, Disney would've stopped making cartoons. And many of the flaws of modern Disney, namely, the jacking up of prices for theme parks, the political correctness, the merging with Hollywood sleaze, and the overt feminism had its seeds planted during the Eisner era.

If you want to learn more, I suggest you read Disney, The Mouse Betrayed: Greed Corruption, and Children at Risk. What I have described here is but a small taste of what that book can reveal for you.

 

[Sneed F91]

I would rather that than what we have today with Star Wars.

Luckily for you they're making a Tron 3 that staring Jared Leto without any of the people who made Tron Legacy involved. And it's going to suck too.

They seemed to have a winning formula back in the mid 2000s when they marketed themselves as that safe and wholesome company that appealed to middle America, but I suppose that greed always wins out in the end.

To be fair Disney was becoming soulless back in the mid 2000s too. They just managed to hit soullessness levels never thought possible during the 2010s.

@LORD IMPERATOR
It's good that you mentioned Rey being written like a Disney Princess, because that's exactly what she is, but the difference is that the good princess characters from the good Disney movies had motivations and personalities. Rey doesn't. That's why I find it funny when fans say that Rey should have "went evil" or "joined Kylo", because if you think about Rey being a Disney Princess, you'd know Disney would never do something like that because it would hurt the brand.

Disney succeeded despite his influence, not because of it.

I totally disagree. As a CEO Eisner was an asshole who totally lost it after the death of Frank Welles and his drama with Jeffery Katzenberg, but he did a lot of good for Disney in the late 80s-90s when he had Welles to keep him grounded to reality. At his best he knew the importance of creativity and taking risks with new ideas. That's why they're still riding off the successes he had with the animated movies that came out back then. Disney died when they kicked out Roy Disney from the company.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@LORD IMPERATOR
It's good that you mentioned Rey being written like a Disney Princess, because that's exactly what she is, but the difference is that the good princess characters from the good Disney movies had motivations and personalities. Rey doesn't. That's why I find it funny when fans say that Rey should have "went evil" or "joined Kylo", because if you think about Rey being a Disney Princess, you'd know Disney would never do something like that because it would hurt the brand.

Exactly. Rey was a Disney princess in a Star Wars setting. Down to the point where she has an asshole patriarch to deal with. (her evil grandpa, in this case)

I totally disagree. As a CEO Eisner was an asshole who totally lost it after the death of Frank Welles and his drama with Jeffery Katzenberg, but he did a lot of good for Disney in the late 80s-90s when he had Welles to keep him grounded to reality. At his best he knew the importance of creativity and taking risks with new ideas. That's why they're still riding off the successes he had with the animated movies that came out back then. Disney died when they kicked out Roy Disney from the company.

And I respectfully disagree. From squeezing money out of parks, to belittling the animation studios (he wanted them gone) and packing Disney with Hollywood sleaze, Eisner began the Disney Company's descent into madness. You had this wholesome family company that produced entertainment mostly for kids and the whole family to enjoy, and Eisner gives little heed to it, wanting to leave the whole "sappy family film" genre behind, while packing it full of Paramount executives, making the price point for the theme parks higher, and barely giving a shit about the animation studios to the point where the animators, who were the pearl in Disney's crown, felt like second-class citizens.

 

[Sneed F91]

From squeezing money out of parks, to belittling the animation studios (he wanted them gone) and packing Disney with Hollywood sleaze, Eisner began the Disney Company's descent into madness. You had this wholesome family company that produced entertainment mostly for kids and the whole family to enjoy, and Eisner gives little heed to it, wanting to leave the whole "sappy family film" genre behind, while packing it full of Paramount executives, making the price point for the theme parks higher, and barely giving a shit about the animation studios to the point where the animators, who were the pearl in Disney's crown, felt like second-class citizens.

I never said he was perfect.

As a CEO Eisner was an asshole

He did fuck up the theme parks by being cheap and raising prices after Euro Disney failed, and treated 2D animation like shit after Toy Story, but for a while he wasn't that terrible. The company was fucked after Walt died and never truly recovered, even during the Renaissance era. The animation department still ended up making some of the best string of movies they ever made during that time. I still believe that he wouldn't have fucked up Star Wars the way Iger did, but he probably wouldn't have bought Lucasfilm anyways.

Disney would have likely gotten bought out by another corporation if Eisner, Welles, and Katzenberg never stepped in during the 1980s. Again, he only went full retard during the late 90s after they were gone. Hollywood being Hollywood the (((sleaze))) would have infiltrated Disney whether Eisner showed up or not because Walt was never going to live forever. To imply otherwise doesn't make sense to me. The same thing happened with Lucasfilm.

The feminist slant started with the Disney princesses.

That's funny considering how modern Disney considers the old movies "outdated" and fills the remakes with more feminist pandering because the 90s movies weren't feminist enough.

 

[M3xus]

Speaking briefly of Tron, there's a pretty good video game by Monolith called Tron 2.0 that was an initial stab at a sequel. It's got Boxleitner reprising his role alongside Cindy Morgan providing voice work for a plot-critical AI, and you get to see a slightly different take on a "modernized" Tron. The visuals still hold up for being close to twenty years old, and it's got a mod called "Killer App" that includes widescreen support and cheats. Worth checking out, though I'll warn you it's got some bite to it even on normal.

Funnily enough, Disney declared it non-canon with Legacy's release, which gave rise to a small portion of fans that just ignore that declaration and consider 2.0 the canon sequel.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Luckily for you they're making a Tron 3 that staring Jared Leto without any of the people who made Tron Legacy involved. And it's going to suck too.

Oh, no they're not. It was mentioned by myself earlier in this thread, but the director of Legacy said that the purchase of Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios killed any chance of that happening.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I never said he was perfect.

He did fuck up the theme parks by being cheap and raising prices after Euro Disney failed, and treated 2D animation like shit after Toy Story, but for a while he wasn't that terrible. The company was fucked after Walt died and never truly recovered, even during the Renaissance era. The animation department still ended up making some of the best string of movies they ever made during that time. I still believe that he wouldn't have fucked up Star Wars the way Iger did, but he probably wouldn't have bought Lucasfilm anyways.

I suppose there is that point. But he did start the downfall by introducing Hollywood sleaze and politics into Disney. The only politics Disney ever had before that was to make anti-Nazi propaganda films.

Disney would have likely gotten bought out by another corporation if Eisner, Welles, and Katzenberg never stepped in during the 1980s. Again, he only went full retard during the late 90s after they were gone. Hollywood being Hollywood the (((sleaze))) would have infiltrated Disney whether Eisner showed up or not because Walt was never going to live forever. To imply otherwise doesn't make sense to me. The same thing happened with Lucasfilm.

I'm not so sure. If the right guy came along and kept pushing family-friendly animation, Disney would've prospered without the sleaze. At most, you might get some politics in the animations, but at least the Hollywood sleaze would remain off the property, the way it remained off Lucasfilm until after Lucas sold it.

That's funny considering how modern Disney considers the old movies "outdated" and fills the remakes with more feminist pandering because the 90s movies weren't feminist enough.

Because that is feminism in a nutshell. Feminism keeps shifting between traditional ideas of womanhood to far left or corporate ideas. First-wave feminists were harshly opposed to abortion and promoted religion and traditional womanhood alongside voting rights. Second-wave feminists were less traditional or religious, and they agreed with corporate elites like Nelson Rockefeller and were all for abortion. Second-wave feminists were also big fans of public displays of sexuality (ie. porn, hookups, sexualized art) to tear down the patriarchy, whereas third-wave feminists, despite retaining the Marxism and leftism of the second wave, saw the promotion of sexualized content as the enforcement of a neo-masculine hierarchy which objectifies women.

 

[draggs]

There was no one and no group in the industry that could have or would have enforced a strict wholesome culture on Disney's product after the millenium. To do that you need to enforce it on your employees

It really got going with sexualizing teenagers visually on their live action Disney Channel shows and it went downhill and spread to everything else from there. Employees that make that kind of crap don't listen when the boss says do what I say and what I say is no degeneracy. And Disney's top brass clearly didn't care or wanted it or got co-opted along the way

What savior or group of saviors existed, that realistically could have bought the company and been any different? It's LA and New York elites. In that group, it's like 1 in 10000 that are not okay (at least) with all this political, social, and cultural garbage that makes a garbage product

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

I totally disagree. As a CEO Eisner was an asshole who totally lost it after the death of Frank Welles and his drama with Jeffery Katzenberg, but he did a lot of good for Disney in the late 80s-90s when he had Welles to keep him grounded to reality. At his best he knew the importance of creativity and taking risks with new ideas. That's why they're still riding off the successes he had with the animated movies that came out back then. Disney died when they kicked out Roy Disney from the company.

This. All executives and CEO's are complete assholes, and putting any trust in them is unwise--they're calculating business tycoons, not your friends. But the sole thing that benefits us as consumers is what outcome is made of whatever greedy or shameless decisions they make.

Eisner was incredibly controversial, as I said, but you know what? Even at his worst, his time as CEO was the last gasp of the Disney company still putting out products and experiences that justified their asking price. His fixation on making Disney a cooler brand taxed and exhausted the animation studio, but they still had enough autonomy to usher in the Disney Renaissance, arguably the touchstone of animation for company history that it has yet to replicate almost thirty years later. His control freak behavior with the parks irritated Imagineers, but still ushered in things like Star Tours, Indiana Jones Adventure, and Extra-Terror-Restial Encounter, all of which I loved as a kid.

His desire to compete with other 90's action cartoons like Batman The Animated Series and X-Men played a role in getting Gargoyles greenlit, which for my money was the best cartoon of that decade. Granted, he didn't hold back on whoring out the company's IPs for a wealth of crackpot ventures, such as the countless AWFUL direct-to-video Disney Sequels that polluted the 2000s, but that same feverish desire to expand their IPs to home media also led to the influx of great shows by Walt Disney's Television Division, such as Hercules the Animated Series, Aladdin the Animated Series, The Little Mermaid Animated Series, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, all of which more than made up for the lackluster efforts of their direct-to-video counterparts. And speaking of TV, one of Eisner's only Iger-esque purchases of this period was the acquisition of Power Rangers, which not only led to the now-standard filming at New Zealand that the franchise has embraced, but also seasons that are still revered and loved by fans to this day....from Ninja Storm, to Dino Thunder, to SPD, and arguably the franchise's crown jewel, RPM, heights which the series has yet to reach even a decade later. Eisner's aggressive pursuit of other demographics was also how Disney successfully branched out into other markets, which is how their gaming division, Disney Interactive, and subsequent collaborative ventures like Kingdom Hearts came into fruition--which, regardless of what you think about that series, at least demonstrates last time Disney made bold strides in the medium of gaming (until Iger shut down Disney Interactive in the 2010's, from which the company has barely tapped into inhouse game development or ambitious joint projects since).

And lest we forget Eisner's push to turn theme park attractions into movies---which, yes, led to mixed success in the form of the middling Haunted Mansion and the hilariously bad Country Bears, but also led to the creation of the original Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy. Which you can certainly scoff at, but for me, those movies marked the swansong of that company taking risks and making something that wasn't squeaky clean and dictated by focus groups. Unlike the balls-out terrible live-action efforts of the Iger Era, Pirates was dark, seedy, ambitious, riddled with creative stuntwork and setpieces, black humor and adult innuendos, and imagery that bordered on graphic and non child-friendly. The mad vision of Gore Verbinski and the Elliot-Rossio Duo of Writers made those films a rare stunt that Disney would never take today. Now, I want to be clear: this all came about in spite of many autistic corporate mandates that Eisner made--not least of which including his producers' insane mandate to write the scripts for the 2nd and 3rd film within a month, so they could shoot both films back to back LOTR style. But this suffocatingly-tight schedule, combined with Eisner's "anything goes" approach to how dark the films could be, is precisely what induced the writers to throw everything at the wall to make the sequels as bold and ambitious as possible...with Davy Jones, the Flying Dutchman, the Brethren Court, the East India Trading Company and the utter insanity of the Odyssey to World's End being a result of the autonomy they were afforded as writers. I won't deign to speak for everyone, but for me, those efforts paid off, and those films were arguably the last time I was ever lost in the hype and buzz for a new Disney IP. You can rightfully chalk that up to being at an impressionable age, but I'll still stand by the assessment that nothing Disney has ever made in-house in the years since, live-action or otherwise, has matched the sheer creative insanity of those initial Pirates films, which is why they hold a special place in my heart. To me at least, they represent the last time that Disney as a company was truly great, and making experiences worth having.

Point is, for all of Eisner's worst corporate impulses, there was always silver lining. There were beneficial aspects to even his most inept decisions, and the situation was always salvageable. Where one corner of the company floundered, another corner soared. Merch was still worth buying. Classic and beloved IP's were still being made. Theme parks and attractions still justified their price of admission.

For the Iger era, that silver lining doesn't exist. For the last fifteen years, Disney has been making just as many cynical and callous business decisions as they did under Eisner--but the difference now, is that those decisions never lead to anything of quality for consumers. Everything is worse now; the parks have their worst upkeep in the last twenty years, consumers are being nickel-and-dimed for everything from pathetically small park food portions to Fast Passes, home video releases are at their all-time worst, and classic rides are either being dismantled or going unfurnished (with their competitors at other parks are demolishing them in the "new attractions department", while Disney's own new attractions are either low-effort screenfests outsourced to the Legoland Amusement Park company or barely fucking functional). And that's to say nothing of the way they've destroyed the IP's they've acquired, from Marvel to Muppets to Star Wars, and the way they've positively molested their own IP stable, from the endless wave of live-action Disney remakes to the 4th and 5th defanged and embarrassingly-bad Pirates films.

People who believe that Disney only went to shit recently have a profoundly bad case of tunnel vision. It's been in utter freefall since the 2010's, with the quality getting substantially worse every year, with only the last few bubbling to such a foul boiling point people finally began to notice. But if you were paying any attention for the last decade, you'd know that the signs were there all along. For many of us on this thread, the cruelest cut of all was definitely their gross mishandling of Star Wars.

But let's not pretend for a second that was their first malady, or that anything that Eisner did in his tenure comes within a country-ass mile of the corporate hellscape the company is today.

Speaking briefly of Tron, there's a pretty good video game by Monolith called Tron 2.0 that was an initial stab at a sequel.

I've actually been meaning to play that, actually. Mostly because I'm a fan of Monolith's other FPS games, chiefly their underappreciated gem that is Alien Versus Predator 2. I love the shit out of that game.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

I will defend Iger a little bit here. When the dude was brought on, he made quite a few good decisions. A part of the Eisner story that is being left out was Pixar’s absolute disdain for the company, which ended with them trying to break away multiple times. Eisner’s push for a direct to DVD Toy Story 2 and The Buzz Lightyear cartoon pissed them off significantly and it was Iger that amended that broken relationship.

Iger also reinvigorated the animation studio in the early 2010s. Really great new Disney IP like Tangled and Wreck-It-Ralph got to be made. I would also claim that Big Hero 6 and Frozen were also pretty good. The animation department adapted to the changed landscape brought on by Pixar and DreamWorks in the early 10s, and I feel they made some great modern classics that don’t get enough respect. Stuff like Ralph is pretty unique for Disney animation.

It was also under Iger that the Muppets came back for a short period of time, making the much loved 2011 movie. Given that the Muppets were a dead IP, the decision was kinda cool for a time.

Hell, the people talking about Disney Interactive’s closure are also being disingenuous. The studio closed in 2015, not 10, thanks to an over-production of Disney Infinity toys. Before that, Iger was president through Epic Mickey, which was one hell of a risky IP that sort of crashed on its own thanks to the sequel’s reputation, though Disney may not have marketed it well enough. Also, DuckTales got that Chad remake even without any relevant media to tie into.

Phineas and Ferb, DuckTales, and Gravity Falks are all big Disney Channel series that aired during his time.

Iger did great shit in the beginning, but the fall out post-2015 was so much worse than Eisner’s, that I feel most forget that fact. Disney held a lot of respect and was a king for the early parts of the decade, sad to see it go to hell.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

Iger did great shit in the beginning, but the fall out post-2015 was so much worse than Eisner’s, that I feel most forget that fact. Disney held a lot of respect and was a king for the early parts of the decade, sad to see it go to hell.

I think that's the most important part worth highlighting, because I think it's key in analyzing the point where Iger took things to a point where the damage was irreparable; and that's when the success of their earlier ventures--Tangled, Frozen, various successful Pixar projects, and the MCU especially--made them big enough that they started to compromise quality in their aggressive pursuit of foreign markets, and enforce greater control over their divisions.

By the late 2010's all that autonomy Iger had granted Pixar had all but vanished. Their animated features became more and more dictated by committee, to where genuinely interesting and even groundbreaking incarnations of animated films were stripped apart in pre-production by focus groups and executive meddling, to where the final film ends up sterile and boiler-plate by comparison (just look up the concept art for films like Zootopia, and the comparison with the final film will make you weep). And as The Hollywood Reporter documented, the downturn in Marvel films came from Iger exercising greater in-house control, and having the film division answer to Alan Horn instead of Perlmutter's Marvel branch.

This isn't new behavior, either. It's the same thing Iger did during his tenure over at ABC. At the start, he did a lot of good for that network, and ushered in an upward trajectory. But the second he got an inch of success, his true machinations came out, as the long list of infuriated network executives and insider drama I listed demonstrates. The only difference is that Disney's much bigger than ABC, and the consequences of Iger's atypical late-game disaster mongering is on a much larger scale. And it's a shame, because I do agree with you. I, too, have fond memories of their earlier 2010's output, like Phineas and Ferb and even some of their unsung film efforts like Meet the Robinsons and Bolt. But you'll notice that we don't get genuinely well-made content like that anymore, and haven't for some time.

Which is what separates Iger from his predecessor; the redeeming qualities have all but vanished, and the company is now languishing in the lifeless and corporate stranglehold that Iger had all but established.