#Hilarious too; re-reading and watching the show made me realize that this outcome is pretty strongly foreshadowed.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Danse Macabre

[Commission]

[purplemoonfox]

Watch the damn video. The title is upsetting but the video is good.

IMHO, yes and no to the tinfoily possibility of why this film flopped as presented by the video’s maker. I’ll explain why. Basically I agree wholeheartedly, but I don’t go in for conspiracy theories as such. One of these days I’ll write down my thoughts on Star Wars, fandom,society, and the early 2000′s. It’s part of my continuing if unwritten theory on All Else Aside, Why Advertising Should Be Heavily Regulated, closely related to Corporations Are Not People, Fuck Off Don’t @ Me. Also closely related to Ethics: The Class No One Likes In Business School Which Is Hilariously Ironic For A Lot Of Reasons. Little under grad me was sitting in a business school once and my friend walked over laughing. Apparently he’d overheard some business kids whining about how boring and useless ethics class was.

I’m a bit of a misanthropic shit with a bone to pick if you can’t tell.

Anyway--

If you asked me whether Disney had some grand, literally planned out conspiracy in torpedoing this movie, just so they could welch on a deal made with one of the previous execs, I’d say you’re reaching. Frankly, as they say, Disney is a business. Regardless of whatever face it puts on, Disney is a business. If they wanted it to flop they didn’t want a $70 million plus deficit. That’s why it freaked the fuck out after Solo flopped, which isn’t fair to Solo since poor Solo, which grew on me massively since I was somewhat bewildered by it at first (if anyone’s curious I’ll talk about that later) was in a somewhat similar situation when it went up at a weird time of year against DP2, the marketing was absolute shit because they’d practically given up after the backlash against a young Han Solo full stop, and they used a filthy casual generalist’s character (Han Solo) to showcase some very specialist in fandom’s details like (SPOILER?) Maul being alive again. But I do like the point the video maker made about the DVD release and winter movies, and the release environment. 

So let’s re-establish some points that the video maker made.

1. This was a personal passion project from the beginning, not a studio or company thing.

The directors struggled since 1987 to get this thing into motion and it was on an agreement made with an exec that it was ever put in motion.

2. This film spared no expense. 

The visual animation in this film is very well done. But it’s basically Disney animation tossing out all the stops. Which, honestly, was what they generally do when innovating, but...this is an animator’s and director’s movie. In a sense it’s an art film done by masters of their craft, but marketed by someone who is more interested in what sells. You want to know when we’ll get less Star Wars and MCU? Stop buying quite so much of it all. I say, as I’m going to run out and get me some sweet Dooku comics. Shut up. It’s not hypocrisy if I know what I’m enabling...LOL.

But here’s another thing that the video maker lauds, but forgets that studios can be really fucking finicky about this kind of off the wall risk-taking---

3. It’s anomalous in a lot of ways. 

That’s going to scare people in the industry because it’s not the tried and true that often wins the Benjis the easiest for the least effort. There’s a reason we now see so many franchises with long-running film series and remakes and sequels and so on--they have established characters in established universes that makes marketing have an easier time of establishing rapport with an audience and attracting attention. They don’t have to make anything new; new doesn’t even make as much money. Treasure Planet came out in 2002 for reference, POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl came out in 2003, so it was in that time period when movies didn’t necessarily have interconnected franchises and were instead relatively more separate iterations unto themselves, kind of like Rocky or Rambo, so it was a little before the era of massively planned out story arcs. I don’t think Marvel ever really had a plan to make the MCU as we know it today, I don’t think George Lucas knew what the fuck he was kicking off when he released TPM in 1999, which is to say the resurgence of Star Wars in concurrence with the rise of modern fandoms starting with the release of Pokemon in 1996 and continuing to play a big part in the lives of Millennials nostalgia is one of the few marketing techniques that work on us...and yes I can show studies. But studios chased that profit relentlessly and it eventually coalesced into something like a plan oh god I’ll move on or I’ll go into Star Wars and we’re not here for that.

I think people rely too much on the assumption that there must be some kind of dedicated conspiracy to bring outcomes like these, like they’re never the product of an unhappy outcome of multiple issues going on independently and congruently. Sometimes that involves personal issues on the part of the people making the decisions that affect something. Roads to hell and all that.

Okay.

The company wasn’t excited about it, it was something those newer CEOs couldn’t pull the plug on once they inherited it. And the company may not have wanted to make the second? Yes, all possible. Even likely. I’m also strongly reminded of Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives, which got him banned from directing for life and established the supremacy of studios over directors forevermore.

Risks too many risks are anathema to a moneymaking entity in the black. These directors may have dragged Disney out of the shitter but now they were sitting comfortably on a pile of cash, and risk is a lot less costly--when you want to take it. When.

I’ve read some, not much, about social economic status and behavior. Rich people have less to lose when taking risks, so they can say cute things like “well just go off and do it and see what you get!” and possibly just face a setback, when for someone in a lower income status the possible outcome of risk is actual destitution. The former sees only potential benefit, the latter only danger.

Moneymaking institutions, on the other hand, tend to resist risk and change when the possible outcome is less money. If anything, they want just enough innovation to draw interest, but not enough to surprise or put people off. Side note: if Disney ever teamed up with Wal-Mart I’m going to call it Shin-Ra and no one can stop me. Disney in the shitter? Fuck yes, take risks--what we’ve got isn’t working and we desperately need to make money somehow. Disney not in the shitter? Fuck no, don’t take risks--what we’ve got is working and you’re possibly going to do something people won’t like so we won’t make money. Who cares if the two people at the head of the project are the reason you’re sitting on a mountain of cash right fucking now? A board without the risk of default only sees dangers, they’re not seeing potential benefits.

If anything there was a level of resignation and “fuck it, let’s let them do this because we kind of have to and see how it goes, this was their project, not ours” and a lot of “see, told you so! Now get back to work!” that went on. But it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that they won’t own up to, in that lack of an advertisement campaign in the run up to the release. They set the movie up to fail not because of a planned conspiracy but because of a risk-minimization impulse and...then make less than astute assumptions about what it was about the movie that caused it to fail--then plan off of all that.

Now. Going to change gears a little and go on a bit of a tangent, because it relates to that very last point--the part about moving forward.

Remember when this happened. The early 2000′s. What was emerging right around the early 2000′s? That’s right. CGI animation. Did Disney scrap their whole animation studios and pare it down to projection work after that spate of less-than-stellar performances before the Disney Renaissance? Did they blame animation itself for its faults? No they did not, but it would become a convenient whipping boy.

I got into a pretty unpleasant argument a few months ago when, having been asked what unpopular opinion one has on a thread, I said that I wished Disney hadn’t closed their 2D animation. I love 2D. I really do. Most of the people who replied were like “you do realize that isn’t an unpopular opinion kthx” and I was like “ok fair enough.”

But then this mouth-breathing chucklefuck that apparently can’t read labels thought it was cute to try and tell me why I’m wrong for me to have my own fucking opinion what a cute notion. He was a fucking twit, but I got a few salient points out of it to roll over in my head anyway. I strongly suspect he had something to do with the industry itself because of the points he made. He didn’t change my mind, but some points are worth thinking about.

1. Disney is for kids. Okay. Not if they don’t want to tap into more than just parents strapped for cashs’ pockets, but the movies are still made to be accessible and engaging for younger people, so I rolled my eyes and moved on.

2. Related to the first point, kids don’t like 2D animation anymore because they’re used to 3D because that’s what all their other entertainment is is. Why?

3. INNOVATION. EVERYONE WANTS INNOVATION AND GETS BORED WITHOUT 100% FULL THROTTLE VISUAL INNOVATION. YOU’RE JUST BEING A BITTER OLD NOSTALGIA HOUNDING HAG. 

Medium aside, the rest to a movie is really just window dressing; Moana had fantastic and original music as well as otherwise being visually stunning too, granted, because in no way am I hating on 3D itself; the point is it’s not an opera singer standing in for the voice actress, much as I love Beauty and the Beast’s animated soundtrack, but music can be played regardless of animation medium. And you’re damn right we could’ve had a Polynesian Princess before now.

Of the two I found the second point more interesting and less inane. The third was just...charming.

Now. Just to go back to Star Wars real quick to make a point; the OT is filmed in a way consistent with the time period it was made in. I’ve known people who tell me that they prefer the sequels and that ANH, ep 4 the one with the Death Star for anyone wandering in, not the one with Ewoks or Hoth, is boring. Why? Because it’s filmed like a movie from 1978, which means its pacing is different and so are the camera angles and so on. Because, uh, it’s a movie from 1978. What an original fucking concept. If you need a comparison for what was otherwise more or less the standard of SFX in the day, pop in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1979 I’m not hating on Trekkies, I love you guys. Star Wars is phenomenally ahead of its time. For an older version, guys, I may loathe Citizen Kane with every fiber of my salty little being, but I will give it full credit for the innovations it made in camera angles and scene setting. 

All of this is not to forget The Princess and The Frog in 2009, which was great, but it didn’t smash through the roof like this was the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So. We had Treasure Planet, whose release was a wretched cluster of fuck. We had Winnie the Pooh, which isn’t...well, guys, it’s not an original story, and then we had Home on the Range, which I’ve never seen. I enjoyed Brother Bear, but I swear the being a bear for most of the movie kind of killed the ability of a lot of people to put themselves in their shoes. Because let’s face it--if we’re going for blaming thematic issues, romance is still a part of the Disney theory, even if we’ve finally reached the point of questioning some of its normal tenets--not marrying someone you just met and why is everyone dancing come to mind oh Flynn Rider you fucking gem you. But none of that is made impossible by the medium of 3D. And why the fuck is everyone ignoring Mulan and Esmeralda in all this anyway. Well, poor Esmeralda always gets the short end of the stick. I swear though that woman did convince me that I could be fucking badass in a skirt though.

Meanwhile we see the rise of Pixar. In 1995, we had Toy Story my mother dragged us to see that movie seven times in theaters. Now that I think about it I shouldn’t be surprised that the woman was fascinated with the concept of a secret world anonymously devoted to the person that plays with them in a way that makes them literally dolls on shelves, since...reasons. Monsters, Inc., in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, and Wall-E and Up in 2008 and 2009, respectively--after the acquisition by Disney in 2006. They haven’t done quite so well recently, their stock has taken on more sequels decently good sequels, granted, not the shitty made for video stuff that Disney put out, and some others. I’ll be annoyed if they make a sequel for Wall-E; I don’t know what that would look like. Maybe rediscovering the concept of competition over resources and nostalgia for the good old days of space. Nah. That just sounds like why Tolkien never wrote a sequel to LOTR.

I brought that bit about Treasure Planet (2002), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), and The Princess and The Frog (2009) up to mainly make the point that after Treasure Planet’s lackluster response until The Princess and The Frog, Disney gave it anything but relatively normal big-name projects...and then topped it off with Winnie the Pooh in 2011, which was never going to be a blowout hit. I like Winnie the Pooh itself enough to not disdain it, but I don’t like it enough to spend money on a fucking movie ticket. Mostly just tolerated it in Kingdom Hearts if not ignored it when I could. 

Now, you might think that the immediately previous statement basically made my point entirely invalid, but I also brought up that bit about the highly successful Pixar, which they bought in 2006. They pretty much lost interest and moved on to the shiny new thing; The Princess and The Frog really only got made because John Lasseter and Ed Catmull wanted to make it; Disney had meant to shut 2D animation down. Then it had some controversy, though to my knowledge the film did its best to resolve the issues. Furthermore, despite the fact that we were supposed to get more animated films because it did well, The Princess and The Frog, despite its success, we got the rug pulled out from under us when they didn’t get enough money.

Look. Every thirty years or so, somebody swears that they just invented 3D screens. While not on a television, they’ve had “how to make visual representation look 3D” since 1838. No, not 1938. 1838. It’s a stupid gimmick, and it will be a stupid gimmick the next time they bring it up, too. They have tried to sell 3D tv screens in the past, and it failed then, too. The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes it’s not the medium that’s at fault, although some people in the industry itself seem to blame it for not being “new” enough, as if it’s not their failure to innovate effectively and then do their due diligence that’s to blame. Disney basically shot themselves in the foot over Treasure Planet and hand-drawn animation in general, and threw up their hands, affected to forget that any of that ever happened, and blamed the gun that they suddenly found sitting at their feet--not because Treasure Planet was fated to be a failure from inception, or that 2D animation is intrinsically inferior to 3D and/or is less interesting to small children because it’s just older if that were the case and frankly, that point about kids and 3D and preference...well, Paw Patrol isn’t every kid’s show in existence, there are 2D animated kid’s shows, and Pixar would never have bothered researching Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin for wordless language while making Wall-E.