Disney General - The saddest fandom on Earth

[Vyse Inglebard]

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Eisner greenlit the horrid practice of direct-to-video 'sequels'. A relative of mine had 'Return of Jafar' which was released in 1994, and we saw even more hackneyed releases later in the 90s.

Hell, even some of those were pretty damn decent (Lion King 1 1/2, Lilo & Stitch 2, Cinderella 3, etc.)

 

[William Murderface]

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Eisner greenlit the horrid practice of direct-to-video 'sequels'. A relative of mine had 'Return of Jafar' which was released in 1994, and we saw even more hackneyed releases later in the 90s.

They were great from a financial standpoint. I can't fault Eisner for that decision any more than I can for making TV shows and video games and action figures based on the movies.

 

[Trilby]

Wasn't just anime, as American film and cartoon studios and syndicators
were licensing and bringing in literally every "cartoon" they would get their hands on. Whether it's from the Canada, England, France, Japan and oddly enough even the USSR.

Disney Channel did picked up some foreign goodies like the French Lucky Luke films.

Past him, sadly, Nick Wild would be considered the most attractive male from nu-Disney. The rest of them past Flynn are all Soy or have unique designs that are an acquired taste, see Ralph & Felix.

Well, not bad for a non-human type.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

They were great from a financial standpoint. I can't fault Eisner for that decision any more than I can for making TV shows and video games and action figures based on the movies.

iirc one or two got boosted up to theaters, like I think the Ducktales one was originally direct-to-video but got upgraded during production?

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

iirc one or two got boosted up to theaters, like I think the Ducktales one was originally direct-to-video but got upgraded during production?

Yep, The Jungle Book 2 and Peter Pan - Return to Neverland were the other two. Lilo and Stitch 2 was going to be theatrical as well, but TJB2's failure at the box office scared them off.

 

[Trilby]

Yep, The Jungle Book 2 and Peter Pan - Return to Neverland were the other two. Lilo and Stitch 2 was going to be theatrical as well, but TJB2's failure at the box office scared them off.

I'm sure that put an end to the cheap'quels for a bit.

 

[King Dead]

It's not really like the unnecessary sequel model went away, it just evolved into something arguably worse.

Sure, Eisner greenlit a bunch of direct-to-video sequels that were mostly forgettable garbage, but there was a clear delineation between the theatrical and video productions, with the latter being an entirely separate studio. The most skilled animators would work on the theatrical movies, while the lesser skilled (but still plenty competent) would handle the DTV films. The main studio would continue to create new and original movies while the DTV studio would make a quick buck off the existing IP.

In the Iger era, the unnecessary sequels are instead full theatrical productions, meaning huge chunks of the main studios are focusing on creating mostly forgettable garbage instead of something new. There was a time when that was seemingly less of a case and Disney was still producing a lot of original movies, but that's changed a lot in the past few years and for a while going forward, where it feels like at least half of the release slate is just sequel after sequel. This applies to Pixar as well; a studio once known for rarely if ever doing a sequel is now making Toy Story fucking 5.

I'm sure I don't need to go into what an issue that is for culture in general, just an endless recycling of the same ideas and never coming up with anything new. It's stale and bland and I hate it.

 

[William Murderface]

I'm sure I don't need to go into what an issue that is for culture in general, just an endless recycling of the same ideas and never coming up with anything new. It's stale and bland and I hate it.

I don't know how much of it is there are no new good stories to tell or how much is just it is so expensive to make movies and TV and video games now that the studios only want to go with "safe" properties like franchises. The studios are sitting on entire libraries of unmade scripts that they've bought that will never get made.

 

[King Dead]

I don't know how much of it is there are no new good stories to tell or how much is just it is so expensive to make movies and TV and video games now that the studios only want to go with "safe" properties like franchises. The studios are sitting on entire libraries of unmade scripts that they've bought that will never get made.

As long as humanity continues to exist, there will always be new stories to tell. There is plenty going on outside of the major studios that proves that we're not lacking in good ideas.

I'd wager it's much more to do with the latter, with studios chasing mega blockbuster tentpoles at the expense of the lower budget but more easily profitable ventures that used to be their bread and butter. When a movie has a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars, you've raised the break-even point to an absurd level that is difficult to reach, and a flop is utterly disastrous. Conversely, if a movie with a lower budget turns out to be a surprise hit, suddenly you've made a pretty tidy profit, but if it flops it's not as big a deal. Blumhouse has pretty much made that their entire model, and it's been working very well for them; doesn't hurt that horror is a steady genre that practically always gets butts in seats.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out how streaming complicates matters, of course. Back in the day, movies that people took seriously were pretty much entirely made for theatrical release, with "made for TV" being a sign of lower quality. But things slowly started to shift around the turn of the millennium, with prestige TV showing that quality work could be done on television without the format being a negative, especially picking up with the rise of Netflix streaming enabling easy binge watching. And as streaming services began to put out their own original content, productions that would originally have been a theatrical release were finding their way into people's homes instead. That's sucked a lot of oxygen out of the theaters, which are increasingly the domain of the tentpoles and not much else (aside from the aforementioned horror genre).

The short answer is that the industry is complicated, and I'm hardly qualified to untangle the mess that is Hollywood accounting. It would be nice if they'd stop the endless regurgitation of the same shit we've already seen, but outside of a total collapse of the system, I don't really see anything shaking that up.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Eisner greenlit the horrid practice of direct-to-video 'sequels'. A relative of mine had 'Return of Jafar' which was released in 1994, and we saw even more hackneyed releases later in the 90s.

I liked Return of Jafer... Helps I watched it with the hebrew dub so it wasn't such a change in voices.

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Eisner greenlit the horrid practice of direct-to-video 'sequels'. A relative of mine had 'Return of Jafar' which was released in 1994, and we saw even more hackneyed releases later in the 90s.

As a kid I preferred Pocahontas 2 because I would rather see Stuart England than see savage tribals.

 

[Betonhaus]

Agatha All Along has been really, really good. Apparently they focused on using practical effects and avoiding CGI when possible and it shows. The sets are beautiful and it has a level of polish that has been missing for some time.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Hell, even some of those were pretty damn decent (Lion King 1 1/2, Lilo & Stitch 2, Cinderella 3, etc.)

Atlantis 2 is unironic kino and the fact that it never got a full series is a tragedy of incomprehensible proportion.

 

[starborn427614]

Agatha All Along has been really, really good. Apparently they focused on using practical effects and avoiding CGI when possible and it shows. The sets are beautiful and it has a level of polish that has been missing for some time.

I found it to be boring, but I may just binge it when it's done.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Agatha All Along has been really, really good. Apparently they focused on using practical effects and avoiding CGI when possible and it shows. The sets are beautiful and it has a level of polish that has been missing for some time.

Who gives a shit about practical effects and cgi? It's like we're stuck in the last 15 years with MOVIES TODAY USE TOO MUCH CGI, stemming from the prequel trilogy, as if that's the biggest obstacle to enjoying modern films.

 

[Betonhaus]

Who gives a shit about practical effects and cgi? It's like we're stuck in the last 15 years with MOVIES TODAY USE TOO MUCH CGI, stemming from the prequel trilogy, as if that's the biggest obstacle to enjoying modern films.

It's a symptom. It's not just CGI, but shitty fast CGI. Really good CGI takes time. Practical effects take time. There being practical effects show that they are taking the time to do a better show

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

It's a symptom. It's not just CGI, but shitty fast CGI. Really good CGI takes time. Practical effects take time. There being practical effects show that they are taking the time to do a better show

Bad CGI usually indicate a bad movie (unless intentionally bad), and with modern MCU there's the issue of the conveyor belt approach to make films, but the practical effect is just a relic of old internet media criticism (ie, angry critics). It's like how people say about modern Star Wars that there's no Jar Jar or midochlorians, those elements suck but aren't the reason why the films featuring them sucked or that excluding them makes the film good.

 

[The Decimator]

Bad CGI usually indicate a bad movie (unless intentionally bad), and with modern MCU there's the issue of the conveyor belt approach to make films, but the practical effect is just a relic of old internet media criticism (ie, angry critics). It's like how people say about modern Star Wars that there's no Jar Jar or midochlorians, those elements suck but aren't the reason why the films featuring them sucked or that excluding them makes the film good.

Here’s a great video about how modern filmmakers keep lying about the amount of CGI they use:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo&t=1s

And what is the reason they do this? Because they want to avoid being seen as “another George Lucas”.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Hurricane Milton be like

EDIT: Seriously. They need a little more time!

 

[Grand Duke Snowfall]

Like that’s ever gonna happen!