Iger did do good for Disney in the beginning, mostly as a way to get in good graces with the Disney family/Pixar, and over time make more money for the company. They DID put out some good movies at the time too, but after his true agenda went into play it's obvious he stopped caring about anything but making money. He did the same thing to George, come up with a plan to sweet talk him into selling Lucasfilm, then go against everything he said he'd do.
Eisner’s push for a direct to DVD Toy Story 2 and The Buzz Lightyear cartoon pissed them off
That's too bad, because Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was a great fucking show. John Lasseter might not have liked it because he's autistic, but I recall the Disney guys asking Pixar for permission to do what they did on the show, and they were ok with it (not that they had much of a choice).
Phineas and Ferb, DuckTales, and Gravity Falks are all big Disney Channel series that aired during his time.
P&F was ok but repetitive, Gravity Falls was good from what I remember, but The Webby Show was a joke. It's like if Rey Palpatine was a duck.
I think this was partially due to people getting moved around as plenty of Pixar talent worked on Disney films in the early 10s.
Now this is something I've heard mixed things about. Other than Lasseter, I remember Pixar stating that they and WDAS did not share staff amongst each other and that they were completely separate studios. Maybe they were lying, but I don't think they are. WDAS and Pixar are so similar to one another they might as well be the same studio at this point though.
Eisner wanted to kill of the 2D animation studio to cut down on costs and because 3D was the new shiny thing.
Don't underestimate how popular Shrek and Toy Story were back then. CGI was the new hotness, so I can't get mad at Eisner or even George Lucas for wanting to capitalize on it, in theory.
The worst thing Bob Iger added was buying out the competition-
- stripping them of their creativity, subverting them, and forcing the studios to mass produce soulless trash every fiscal year for a quick buck
Eisner is the sleazebag who turned Disney from the capital of family-oriented entertainment into a magnet for Hollywood trash, sleaze, and politics/feminism.
That sounds like Iger too
Disney has like no competition in the field as Pixar, DreamWorks, and others were basically dead till recently.
Dreamworks put out two pretty good movies last year, and unlike Disney's movies, they actually made money because they didn't have $200 million budgets.
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.
Iger simped for China hardcore, and it made a shit ton of money for Disney. He's friendly with the CCP, and even lied to Hong Kong that Disney wouldn't put a theme park in the Mainland so their HK Disneyland could make a profit, just to put one in Shanghai anyways.
After a few years of no Disney movies in China, now that Iger's back the MCU and Avatar are right back in China. They might even put out another Star Wars movie again just so it can fail in China like they used to do.
