Question for everyone on this thread. What was the last time Disney was fully good in your eyes or at least what was the last good Disney movie you saw?
Generally, I like plots in which a hero[ine]'s problems are external and intractable.
I really only like
Aladdin, so much I can watch it back to back three times. The leads are aspirationally attractive and
not embarrassingly stupid (Jasmine is
ignorant but she doesn't even learn fast (as she says), her ignorance simply never again matters). Jafar's idiocy as he burns through his wishes is carefully handled and I don't have to feel sorry for him. All the songs are bangers. It's got actual tension, conflict, and a sense of place (no one's randomly travelling and "encountering" shit). Many Disney movies have cringy moralfaggotry;
Aladdin doesn't (for all the "bee yourself" talk, his marriage to Jasmine and the happiness of both of them depend on him pretending to be a prince). No troo wuv's quiche either. The only thing I don't like is the stupid weepy bit in the end that stretches long enought to put both gaping plot holes into focus.
Frozen is fucking stupid and I can't stand the soy samefaces.
I don't regret watching
Coco but don't like the characters and don't remember a single song from it. At least the skeleton facial anatomy makes the soyfaces not as prominent.
Hunchback has decent songs but the plot and motivations are a mess.
Cinderella has the hidden small world setting and Cindy's awesome dress. From wikipedia:
Walt Disney referred to Cinderella's dress transformation, animated by Marc Davis, as his most favorite piece of animation.
Too bad it settles into baby blue, I wish it'd sparkle throughout the movie.
when they do the men are usually portrayed as being incredibly Goofy and directionless.
This.
I feel like tangled struck gold with this one where the love interest was a near perfect mix of funny guy having goofy things happen to him who occasionally needs rescuing from the heroine (her superpowers), and competent cool guy who saves the day and is proactive, and then they just immediately ditched it.
I think he could stand to be cooler. Aladdin is gold.
Or even worse, Rapunzel would go all Steven Universe, MLP, or Care Bears on Mother Gothel, and redeem her, thus, both heroes and villains get a happily ever after.
Good lord, that would be so saccharine, that everyone would be vomiting up marshmallow fluff upon viewing. But thank goodness Tangled came out before the Tumblr generation take over. So that is at least something to be thankful over.
This hasn't been a real trend and it's telling that you have to bring up Care fucking Bears to make it seem like it is.
Fortunately I haven't seen either Steven Universe or ponies and only know the former from E;R's videos. But making peace with an alien civilization is an ancient plot, and it's in fact "we could've had avoided so many tragic deaths if not for [tiny contrivance]" is an equally ancient plot tweest. That basic plot has been blown into a pretend-trend by Trumpmad libs who think descendants of Confederates should be exterminated..
The mouse, in contrast, likes killing its villains in contrived ways to make the hero[es] avoid responsibility, exactly because the mouse can't do redemption. I fucking hate this trope and I wish whoever came up with it dies from AIDS (but he probably already did). Have the courage and conviction to let the hero do what he intends to!
The heroes then proceed to celebrate and (if opposite-sexed) kiss (because muh runtime) while the corpse is still warm. What the fuck mah dood? If you actually wanted the villain to die, celebrate
responsibly! -- otherwise at least try to pretend to be sad at this senseless loss of life or something. It's gotten so bad that other, supposedly serious movies insert parodies on Disney deaths to show how serious and brutal they are, even though in such merciless universes subversible fakeout mercy wouldn't exist as a concept in the first place.
It's true that redemption is also soy and a movie doesn't have the runtime for it. But they can have a villain just fucking lose, like the evil stepmother in
Cindy or the plagiarizer in Coco. (Again,
Aladdin shines here, Jafar's fate is epic but not gruesome, it''s what happened to Genie and he's ok.) Two other examples (apparently, didn't see either) are Big Hero 6 (capeshit) and Zoophilia (nonhuman). Or, they can have a cool villain who fucks up and helps the heroes fix it, then fucks off (maybe to plot revenge in the sequel). But the mouse thirsts for blood.