Disney/Pixar In General

I was surprised with how solid Horton was, actually.

The Lorax on the other hand was horrible.

The less said to me about The Lorax, ... the better.

The Grinch was an okay film? Are you sure you didn't watch it after you got some sort of concussion?

I could imagine Seuss and Disney doing something when Walt was around. Now, however... It would never be good. (Besides, guys like Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng managed to get the feeling of his works down very well.)

It's a personal running gag to me that Disney songs always sound phenomenal in French.

I heard that the creator of Astroboy once wanted to do a collaboration with Disney.

Yes, it's true. Tezuka was a noted fan of Disney and Carl Barks, and Disney himself had seen Astro Boy and liked it.

It could have been a great project spearheaded by two of the greatest men in animation - Osamu Tezuka is pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Walt Disney; he's often referred to as the god of manga - but unfortunately, Disney died, so it never came to pass...

And then along came The Lion King, and the rest is history.

Tezuka actually knew a lot of people.

to my great surprise, he was actually friends with Mauricio de Sousa, who is probably the most famous brazilian cartoonist of all time.

i've also heard kubrick wanted him to work on designs for 2001 A Space Odyssey, but that fell through.

it really IS a shame about them not being able to collaborate with Tezuka, i would have much liked to see the result.

I kinda want to see a CGI movie of The Sneetches. ...yes, I am aware of that storyboard animatic showing it as an example of Hollywood bastardization. I'm talking about a SERIOUSLY competent adaptation.

The De Patie-Freleng version's fine enough, if you ask me.

Which storyboard animatic?...

There was a comic on Tumblr that made fun of modern Dr. Seuss movie adaptations by taking The Sneeches and turning it into a dumb movie like The Lorax, with an all star celebrity cast (including Adam Sandler and Samuel L. Jackson), a pop singer (Ke$ha), a dumb romantic subplot, and a lot of lewd humor. It was funny because it was unfortunately true.

At least foreigners can stop complaining about what we do to their children's literature when we do the exact same stuff to our own.

I will never stop complaining about that!

So apparently Brian Bedford, the voice of Robin Hood, passed away recently.

In fact, Hollywood shows no respect for anything it chooses to adapt these days...

Look at Disney's adaptations of old cartoons, for example. Mr Magoo, Inspector Gadget, Underdog. Crap, crap, extra crap. The only one they did right was George Of The Jungle...

I'm currently rewatching Princess and the Frog. Is it just me or has Tiana done absolutely nothing wrong and is way too good for Naveen? I mean, the movie keeps trying to hammer in how she's working too hard and stuff, but it never really shows her being unhappy. A bunch of characters just keep telling her she's living her life wrong.

I'm sure this has been said before. It's just hitting me really hard as I rewatch this.

edited 14th Jan '16 7:00:04 AM by spashthebandragon

I think her problem isn't that she's unhappy...it's that she's working too hard. She's literally making her entire life revolve around that restaurant, even when, at first, it doesn't really have any chance of happening and she needs to have some more fun in life.

Yes. That is exactly one of my main issues with Pot F, Naveen is an a-hole and he does nothing to truly redeem himself. In real life, he is the kind of guy who would vanish with Tiana's money and the waitress after a few years of marriage.

I think the point is that Tiana will never succeed because the 1920s are too racist and sexist to give a single black woman a chance, even in an area with one of the biggest population densities of African Americans in the nation. They just can't outright say it because it's Disney and not Pocahontas-era Disney.

Well yeah, but I think the audience should be aware that it's Disney's version of New Orleans in the 1920's, and would you honestly think that much racial prejudice would be allowed in a bright, animated family film from Disney? Not to mention Disneyland already has a New Orleans section anyway.

Naveen could have been handled a lot better, and in order for the development to work, their relationship needrd to be built naturally and organically.

I think it has more to do with her habits being unhealthy instead of unhappy. It is a good thing they barely touched on the racist 1920s New Orleans.

There's totally some heavily implied racism in the movie. It's not blatant and only comes up in certain contexts, but:

edited 14th Jan '16 6:43:12 AM by KnownUnknown

That's Disney saying, "Well we can't have NOTHING in the script that observes the racial prejudice in that time period, so let's throw one bone at those people in the audience so they'd be happy for the rest of the movie with that ONE LINE."

"Compromise".

While it is one line, it's a very important one. In context its the basis for much of Tiana's character arc, as the inability to get the restaurant because of her background is the entire reason she gets desperate and kisses Naveen in the first place.

Facilier also has a conversation that could imply it, but that one's a lot more vaguely written.

edited 14th Jan '16 7:12:00 AM by KnownUnknown

Except it doesn't spend enough time showing that her lifestyle is harmful. All we get is, like, one scene of her declining an offer to hang out with her nameless friends who never show up again. There's just no sense of real urgency to Tiana's character arc.

So basically, Disney didn't have the balls to tell the story properly. They literally resolve the racism/sexism conflict with "Tiana sics a cartoon alligator on the racists ha ha ha those silly racists!"

Yeah, I, uh, I thought the movie was okay the first time around, but having just rewatched it last night and stewed on it for a bit, I really dislike this movie. It just feels like there could've been so much more to it...

My other issues are that it suffers "Brother Bear syndrome" where it starts off somewhat serious before abruptly diving into cartoonish Funny Animal antics, and the alligator and firefly were stupid and intrusive, I found around 90% of the jokes forced and unfunny, the wise old mentor lady came off as a complete jerk ("We need your help!" "How about instead I give you a list of all your flaws? One, you're single..."), Ray's death scene was total Narm to me, and, though this is kind of only a "retroactive" problem since this movie came first, but the plot follows the same formula as Tangled and Frozen of "girl has problem, goes on adventure with hot guy, they beat the bad guy and hook up, the girl's problem is solved." If Moana follows that formula, too, I'm gonna start having some problems with Disney...

Also, none of the songs stood out to me except "Friends on the Other Side." The Shadow Man was the only part of the movie I genuinely enjoyed.

Guess I'll throw this in the pile of "Disney movies I thought were okay but then I rewatched them and didn't like them" along with Brother Bear.

edited 14th Jan '16 7:18:49 AM by spashthebandragon

I have no problem with animated films where the main character has to magically transform into an animal to learn a lesson. I get that. Those stories existed for centuries. But it's just that whenever an animated film IS made about that, at least in major studios, the movie never winds up being great! Think about it.

Not to mention how some were complaining that Disney was side-stepping the idea of having a Black princess by making her into a pretty, green, cartoony frog for the majority of the film's running time. But I think that's a load of hooey.

edited 14th Jan '16 7:25:36 AM by kyun