Disney/Pixar In General

Yeah, I didn't really get the vast majority of Genie's references either.

Optimism is a duty.

Re: Man why did New Groove underperform? Its humor is chef's kiss.

If many people had the same mindset as Doug Walker, the offbeat humor, and very different story premise may have turned people off.

Frankly though, that's what enticed me to see it.

Edited by Brandon on Apr 25th 2021 at 9:05:12 AM

With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation

The Cynic in me says it because it was not a Disney princess movie,like OK Mr.Cynic whatever.

New theme music also a box

Some movies just aren't meant to find an audience when they're first released because of how unorthodox they are, like Emperor's New Groove or Scott Pilgrim. That's what gets things Vindicated by History.

Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon

@ Tuckerscreator: Actually, "What's up, Doc?" was an expression that was popular where Tex Avery grew up in Texas, which is why Bugs says it. Bugs's style of verbal patter and his habit of talking with his mouth full of carrot is patterned on Clark Gable from the movie It Happened One Night.

@Ookamikun: Bugs frequently mispronounced words, the best known instances being "maroon" for "moron" and "stragety" for "strategy." That aspect of his character (which I suppose was to indicate he was street-smart but not book-smart, aside from just being funny) has kinda fallen by the wayside, except for the mispronunciations for which he's best known.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 25th 2021 at 10:18:20 AM

I mean if anything that's Disney's style from an early point. Sure their first film had to be a hit, but for a long time they got mediocre or low reception that only got recognised with rereleases.

The Emperor's New Groove was a much different film at inception. Apparently is was originally going to be called Kingdom of the Sun, was supposed to have a storyline based on The Prisoner of Zenda and The Prince and the Pauper, and was supposed to feature a whole lot of music by Sting. Sting agreed to compose music for the film with the condition that his wife, filmmaker Trudie Styler, be allowed to make a documentary of the production process (which is her film The Sweatbox; apparently she got more of a story than she bargained for).

Wikipedia described the original story thusly: Kingdom of the Sun was to have been a tale of a greedy, selfish emperor (voiced by David Spade) who finds a peasant (voiced by Owen Wilson) who looks just like him; the emperor swaps places with the peasant to escape his boring life and have fun, much as in author Mark Twain's archetypal novel The Prince and the Pauper. However, the villainous witch Yzma has plans to summon Supay (the evil god of death), and destroy the sun so that she may become young and beautiful forever (the sun gives her wrinkles, so she surmises that living in a world of darkness would prevent her from aging). Discovering the switch between the prince and the peasant, Yzma turns the real emperor into a llama and threatens to reveal the pauper's identity unless he obeys her. During his time as the emperor and doing Yzma's orders, the pauper falls in love with the emperor's soon to be fiancé Nina who thinks he is the emperor that has changed his ways. Meanwhile, the emperor-llama learns humility in his new form and even comes to love a female llama-herder named Mata (voiced by Laura Prepon). Together, the girl and the llama set out to undo the witch's plans.

Production was taking too long to suit Disney executives, who wanted the film to be released by 2000, so the film experienced some serious overhauling. Animators were reassigned, the story was completely re-imagined, Sting's songs were mostly all cut (the only surviving Sting song in the film is "My Funny Friend and Me," which he performed but didn't write). What we ended up with was, actually, pretty good, really, which is a bit of a surprise considering the development hell it went through.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 25th 2021 at 10:54:23 AM

I would have liked to have seen that.

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

Me too, sounds like a great movie.

Optimism is a duty.

Yeah. While the actually movie was pretty fun, the original premise sounds interesting as well.

One Strip! One Strip!

You know Home on the Range kinda had a similar production to New Groove where it started off with a different concept and director before a big overhaul led it into a more goofy and wacky direction. Course main difference is while both flopped financially, New Groove was actually great and hilarious while Home on the Range was just mediocre and weak aside from the admittedly hilarious Slim and his nephews.

Visually Home on the Range looks amazing,that's its one saving grace

New theme music also a box

The original plot Home on the Range was supposed to have back when it was Sweating Bullets directed by Mike Gabriel was " a supernatural western about a timid cowboy who visits a ghost town and confronts an undead cattle hustler named Slim. It was later reconceived into a story about a little bull named Bullets, that wanted to be more like the horses that led the herd" which later became "three cow protagonists who become bounty hunters to save the farm".

Would the original plot have been better?

Kingdom of the Sun also had an excellent Villain Song by Eartha Kitt.

Honestly, the whole plot of Kingdom of the Sun sounded too complicated to me.

Fun fact regarding "Home on the Range". One of the original story ideas was that it was about cows trying to fight from becoming burgers. They ended up not going that route after Mc Donald's heard of the plot and threatened to pull advertising.

With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation

Someone mentioned The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg elsewhere, and apparently Disney owns it now. So... any chance they'll ever release it? Or do something with it at all?

Optimism is a duty.

The plot of Kingdom of the Sun always struck me as them trying to doll up another run of the "Prince and the Pauper" concept (which were everywhere, even in the 90's) as if it weren't one by burying it under the trappings of a grand Disney kingdom story. Imo, the plot that replaced it is ultimately an upgrade.

Though literally all the Yzma parts we've gotten to see and understand were beyond fantastic, which gives the impression - at least to me - that she likely would've been the best part of an otherwise less than remarkable movie (much like Alameda Slim, come to think).

However, one of the big notes to come out of its development is that said development was contentious, and that the movie had always had issues with Disney top brass - and it's worth noting that the movie didn't do badly as much as it didn't do as well as previous films, the company reception to which gels with the idea that they were only continuing to support the biggest, most financially rewarding projects in that period in order to keep the studio afloat. And Even now, now the movie is a cult classic, it's still largely ignored by the company.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I want to be honest I think Yzma would have been great in her original goals as villain, but the story and protagonists would be the same stuff you would have seen during the Reissance. Well, except for the fact that Kuzco was still selfish. I am surprised that they didn't keep Nina's name for Pacha's wife, Chaca, when it was retooled into the Emepror's New Groove. I know they reused Mata for the waitress and her design for Malina.

Soul won. :)

I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.

Germane to the earlier discussion, Don Bluth, apparently, is really keen on creating a renaissance in hand drawn animation. It was to that end that he tried to get Kickstarter funding for a film version of Dragon's Lair. I don't recall if he ever got all the funding he wanted for that (and this after appearing in a full suit of armor for a promotional video), but Bluth is apparently a producer for a Netflix live-action Dragon's Lair adaptation, with Ryan Reynolds slated to play Dirk the Daring. Bluth also has an upcoming project to do an anthology series called Bluth's Fables, which is supposed to appear on Youtube.

One of Bluth's unrealized projects is Strawberry Fields Forever, which was intended to be a Fantasia-style film based around Beatles songs (Michael Jackson approached Bluth with the idea after Jackson acquired the Beatles song catalogue). Bluth intended to make the film entirely in CGI. Had it been made, it would have preceded Toy Story by about 8 years. It fell through when surviving Beatles wouldn't license their likenesses to the film, though some test footage (of the Beatles as gangsters) does survive.

Interesting fact I didn't know: Bluth another of Bluth's unrealized projects is an animated adaptation of David Eddings The Belgariad. My understanding was that Eddings was dead set against a film adaptation of his series, so I wonder how Bluth even thought this was going to happen.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 26th 2021 at 6:26:13 AM

Here's something interesting. Influential Bulgarian animator Rumen Petkov (possibly best known to Western audiences for his work on a number of CN series in the 90's, such as Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, and others) made his own science-fiction adaptation of Treasure Island, also called Treasure Planet, all the way back in 1982. His version is darker and considerably more surreal than Disneys (Felipe, Petkov's stand-in for Jim, shoots Long John Silver during the film's climax).

Ron Clements and John Musker apparently first pitched the idea of Treasure Planet in 1985, at the same meeting where they pitched The Little Mermaid. It was turned down multuiple times, until the two went to Roy Disney and he interceded on their behalf to get the film made. Musker and Clements said the delay was ultimately beneficial as technological advancements allowed them to make the film more they way they'd envisioned it.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 26th 2021 at 6:09:31 AM

I think this beats the Disney film any day.

And in response to Saban bought all the live-action stuff they produced back... but Disney still has the animation. You should be asking, instead, if they'll do anything with The Tick.

Edited by Aldo930 on Apr 26th 2021 at 6:28:04 AM

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

Todd Kauffman, who worked on shows like Total Drama Island and Grojband, once pitched a High School Musical cartoon.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByfBTy7AWza/?igshid=1ox5elsnfxsjq&fbclid=IwAR2Y3Hd-wbHafaoQAQlTqoIkhu8WSVuAy1rlo6jErnwz24ZMemFQV5YIZSY

Here's the Disney ratings for Friday April 23. Sydney To The Max, Raven's Home, and Just Roll With It got viewership between 264,000-285,000. Muppet Babies got 464,000 views.

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-friday-cable-originals-network-finals-4-23-2021.html

Edited by jessicadicicco610 on Apr 26th 2021 at 2:27:14 AM

In hindsight, I have to say one thing that sometimes bugs me about Pixar movies is how often the plot is chained off by a really contrived set of Disaster Dominoes.

Like some being subtle ones mainly caused by the characters' own bungling are fine (eg. Bug's Life) but then we have the Toy Story series where nearly every instalment's main plot is primarily set off by an almost Rube Goldberg-esque chain of events. Like the first one I can sort of forgive because they were likely just trying to show off new animation techniques of its time and also had to quickly rush in a more sympathetic reasoning for Woody getting Buzz thrown out the window, but Toy Story 3 is almost infuriating in how the main plot and misunderstanding is chained off by this really elaborate accident. It's a rehash of the same "They did that on purpose" conflict of the first, but with more ridiculous execution framing the character and far more of the ongoing plot hinging on that one sequence, making it feel more like it was solely because they couldn't think up a more believable way to get the story rolling.

Edited by Psi001 on Apr 26th 2021 at 2:10:52 PM

Wow I should pay attention more to nab this.