… And I Helped!

The Mouse House took in $4.73 billion at the international box office this past year…

$3 billion of that came from overseas grosses alone, and this is the fourth consecutive year where the studio had made over $2 billion around the globe.

Five of their films grossed over $200 million at the domestic box office, as opposed to just two last year: The Avengers and Brave.

Iron Man 3 was obviously going to be huge given the massive success of The Avengers before it, and the fact that Tony Stark is the Avenger who draws in the most crowds. 3D made things even better for this Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, $409 million stateside and over $1.5 billion worldwide is not too shabby!

Thor: The Dark World was also big because of this, but to a much lesser extent. Its marketing didn't really do all that good of a job making it look like it was worth seeing, but it's Thor, he's an Avenger and it pretty much kicked off the holiday season if Gravity didn't one month earlier. The sequel topped the original both stateside and globally. It's currently sitting at $629 million, you can't beat that!

Yes, the Marvel acquisition was an extremely smart business decision on Disney's part, wasn't it?

Oz the Great and Powerful seemed to benefit from the success of Alice in Wonderland and the rebooted fairy tale/classic children's stories fad. With a family-friendly PG rating and visual sparkle, Oz opened well and grossed a good amount here and overseas. While not a major success, it did break even. A near-$500 million total is still great!

Monsters University's success was a no-brainer: It's Pixar, it's a prequel to one of their beloved films, it was a summer release, its college setting got the teen audiences in easily. Its legs weren't the most spectacular, but it took in a massive $745 million worldwide making it Pixar's third biggest film behind Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo, and further proving that feature animation will be now and forever. Suits look at those numbers and they want more!

But something else happened to help Disney reach the new box office height this year… A lot, I might add…

It happened to be the Walt Disney Animation Studios film that was released just in time for the holidays…

That's right. Frozen.

Domestically, it's on track to actually beat The Lion King's initial release gross of $312 million, and it just topped Monsters University. It's back at #1, actually. Worldwide, it's currently sitting at $539 million and it will beat the God of Thunder in no time, and will probably dethrone the college-bound Mike and Sulley. Imagine that: Walt Disney Animation Studios' newest film outgrossing the Pixar entry domestically and worldwide (yes, Tangled beat Cars 2 in North America and internationally, but Cars 2 was poorly received), and on top of that, the big budget tentpole and the Marvel blockbuster.

You know what this means…

Disney is finally going to start treating Walt Disney Animation Studios with even more respect, now that Frozen has made quite a hefty amount of money in just two months. Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph were not "once in a lifetime" hits, the studio is roaring again now that people are catching onto the fact that they are currently making good quality films. (Of course, I want these same people who flocked to see Frozen to go rent Meet The Robinsons, Bolt, The Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh.) Now, next up is a Marvel animated film. The pieces have all fallen into place, Disney is most likely going to give the San Fransokyo-set action-packed epic a really big marketing push that'll ensure a blockbuster-sized gross.

In turn, it should help their future films. The once-dormant studio is now more than a valuable asset to the company, as they now make big hits for them and will end up contributing to the big amounts of moolah the company makes in a calendar year. It ain't gonna be just Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm bringing in the massive amounts of dough. Quite a contrast from the fate I feared the studio would suffer. Earlier in the year, I irrationally worried that the bigwigs would possibly slowly phase the studio out and just get the big money from their acquisitions and live action franchises. Silly me…

What a way to start 2014, huh? Knowing that Walt Disney Animation Studios is really ready to go full steam ahead. All we need now is for each new film to be consistently and wholly satisfying.

Big Changes

Another director has been added to Walt Disney Animation Studios' Big Hero 6, and a new producer has taken over…

Chris Williams, who was one of the directors of Bolt and a long-time story man who worked in the story department on several other Disney animated films (such as Mulan, The Emperor's New Groove and Brother Bear), is now co-piloting the ship with director Don Hall. Roy Conli has been named producer, replacing long-time effects producer Kristina Reed. Reed also produced the wonderful Paperman, in fact she was the poor soul who got kicked out of the Oscar ceremony for throwing paper airplanes! Those killjoys…

Why was she replaced? We'll probably never know. (Cue the Lasseter micromanagement comments…) Conli seems like the kind of guy for this project, though, since I see it as a risky experiment much like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet, the latter of which he produced. Still, it's sad to see Reed go. Maybe she'll handle producing duties on another Walt Disney Animation Studios project. Hopefully.

This is from the newly-launched Big Hero 6 Tumblr...

But the bigger question is, why all of this at the last minute? Well, if you remember way back in November 2012, it was announced that Wreck-It Ralph scribe Jennifer Lee was going to direct Frozen alongside Chris Buck. With that film's success (it's on track to top $300 million at the domestic box office), maybe Disney feels that adding another director to the project this late in the game will bolster it.

Williams hadn't directed a finished film at Walt Disney Animation Studios since Bolt, which was released five years ago. Back in 2010, he was going to be the one to bring the once ill-fated King of the Elves to the screen, but the project was apparently rife with story problems so he backed out. The elves got shelved again, they are still waiting to be re-evaluated.

Maybe the studio just wants to give him some directorial work right now, since Elves didn't really go over too well. Or maybe there are some last-minute issues with this picture - it happens a lot with animated features and most films in general - with the story and whatnot, and maybe that's the reason why Reed got the boot.

Either way, I'm still excited for the film. Do you think the changes were necessary? Or do you think they came too late in the game? Sound off below!

Freezing The King - A Rant

Yes, Frozen may actually freeze The Lion King… At the box office, that is…

Box Office Mojo's Ray Subers, in his write-up of this weekend's box office results, suggests that the new Walt Disney Animation Studios event could possibly make more than $300 million at the domestic box office.

You heard that right. $300 million…

This excites me and frustrates me at the same time.

Frozen may have a shot at being the first Disney Animation film to gross $300 million in North America, and it could also possibly be their highest-grossing of all time. The Lion King's "initial release" domestic take was a then-monolith $312 million. The 2002 IMAX re-release added another $15 million, the 2011 3D re-release added a shocking $94 million. Its total lifetime gross is $422 million, and there's no way Frozen will beat that. Of course, we don't expect it to. I don't count re-release totals when it comes to this. (i.e. The Rescuers was the biggest Disney animated film on initial release back in 1977, but of all-time counting re-issues? Nope.)

This weekend, the icy film lightly slipped a great 15% from its previous weekend. The film has grossed $192 million in nearly a month. The Christmas week will greatly add to it, and it'll have excellent legs afterwards. It's got the animation and family film world all to itself until The Lego Movie opens in February, because… Let's be honest here, The Nut Job ain't touching this film with a 39 1/2-foot pole.

The great thing about this is, it not only shows that Walt Disney Animation Studios is a worthy competitor at the box office (a few years ago, they weren't), but also a roost-ruler. Pixar currently sits on top alongside Illumination (though I have a feeling that outside of Despicable Me and Dr. Seuss, they'll be making good-sized hits at best), and occasionally DreamWorks. Very few animated films have topped $250 million at the domestic box office since 2010. Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 have raced past that mark, now it looks like Frozen will do the same. Yes, Disney is sitting up there with the giants… Finally…

But why am I also somewhat peeved about this? I should be all-out happy with this film's success, right? Right?

Well, I am happy - first and foremost - for the film itself and Walt Disney Animation Studios. They've deserved a $200M+ domestic hit since Bolt. But that's just it…

If you've seen my review of Frozen, you'll know that I am not gushing over the film. I didn't think it was a "great" movie, but a "very good" movie instead. I had problems with it, and at times I felt that it was very inconsistent and even a little undercooked. Considering the hell this project went through for nearly two decades, I guess we can all say that we should be happy that the film is decent at the least. This could've been a major league disaster, so I am thankful for it being good.

I can accept the fact that something like this went through a lot to get to the big screen, but I'm just not too keen on all the hyperbole. "Best Disney animated film since Lion King!" Stop that already, please take the time to watch films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, Bolt, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Winnie the Pooh and Wreck-It Ralph. If you did and still consider this the best since Lion King, fine. At least you have seen the films, but I get the feeling that a lot of people haven't, or only saw them once when they were ten and rejected them.

If Frozen hits $300 million domestically, it'll have scored a 4.5x multiplier, which is a notch higher than Frog and Tangled's multipliers. I bet you if both of those films opened with $66 million like this film did, they would've grossed around the same amount in the end. Problem is, Frog opened with $24 million, Tangled opened with $48 million. This film would've opened with around the latter's amount if the marketing department didn't wise up and give us that wonderful "First Time in Forever" trailer, heavily plug the soundtrack and make the film look good to people over the age of twelve.

Frozen's got the legs that Bolt, Frog and Tangled had. It's only outgrossing them by a wide margin because of the opening weekend gross, plus some added hyperbole. When you put it out there that it's supposedly the "best" since Lion King, obviously people will flock to see it.

Now I'm not angry that Frozen is outgrossing what I believe are superior films (such as Bolt, Frog, Tangled and Ralph), I'm just cautious because Disney suits may react to this success the wrong way. Executives tend to do this kind of thing. I can hear it now, actually.

"They like modern princess movies! They like Broadway-style musicals! Make more!"

Okay fine, you can make more. I am anticipating Giants, which is essentially the third "modernized fairy tale musical", the first two being Tangled and this of course. I'd be down with one every three years, it's not a bad template. Tangled's story is very different from Frozen's. If there are any similarities, then they are very small. Snow White and Cinderella aren't the same, but they happen to have princess leads, handsome princes, cute animals and are based on fairy tales. Storywise, they are very different.

But if Disney executives push Disney Animation to just stick to fairy tales, I won't be pleased. Fairy tales may be what Disney is best known for, but other classics like Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and heck, freakin' Lion King, prove that Disney is more than just fairy tales. They are also more than just snarky comedy-drama Broadway musicals.

Why am I concerned though?

Well, Disney Animation's next two films are not fairy tales nor are they musicals in a "classic Disney" sense. Big Hero 6 is about as anti-Renaissance-era Disney as you can get, ditto Zootopia. I'm glad they are, because I'm not keen on Disney sticking to a formula. Walt hated formulas, he wanted to be diverse. I believe Disney Animation should be that way, all of the time. Try something different, but still revisit what you tried before every once in a while because it is a top menu on the item.

But here's a big concern of mine…

What if Disney were to view Bolt, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph as the sort of Oliver & Company and Great Mouse Detectives of the last 5 years? Or "lesser" films that were successful but not huge (i.e. Hunchback, Hercules, etc.)?

When Disney was finally smashing the box office left and right with popular hits like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and so on, those two 1980s films - one was a profitable and critically well-liked film, the other was a modest success that got mixed reviews - fell to the wayside. The Great Mouse Detective is never promoted with a lot of fanfare whenever it comes around, ditto Oliver & Company.

The Great Mouse Detective may not be a sweeping musical event like Beauty and the Beast, and I do consider Beast to be a better film than Mouse Detective, but that doesn't mean the Sherlock Holmesian rodent romp should be treated like a red-headed stepchild. Yes, I believe Disney treats it like that to an extent, at least it's listed in the classics canon. The Great Mouse Detective in my book is a brisk, fun, breezy, simple adventure story with some very likable characters, a highly enjoyable villain and some incredibly entertaining sequences. A film more people should at least watch. It was also the first film directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, who would give us some of Disney's most beloved films after that. However, it's not really promoted like other Disney films, its DVD and Blu-ray releases lack the attention and care given to the disc releases of something like Beast (now I'm not asking for a packed mega 2-disc set, though that would be nice), and it's just really kind of… Obscure. It isn't dated, it's not a product of its time. It's a Victorian-set sleuth story, that's kind of timeless if you ask me.

I'm not saying Disney should shove Basil of Baker Street, David Q. Dawson, Olivia Flaversham, Professor Ratigan and the rest of the cast down your throat, but come on! A little push, maybe some more prominence in merchandise and theme parks? Maybe that could attract… You know… Potential fans? Yes it's on Netflix, but that isn't enough if you ask me. It's more than just an "obscure Disney film that happens to be on Netflix." (Over a decade ago, something like Disney's House of Mouse was a good way to keep many characters in the minds of fans, casual viewers and whatnot.)

As for Oliver & Company, well… That's kind of tricky. Again, I don't think Disney should shun any of their animated classics, but Oliver & Company is a near-embarassment because it was really just amped up to be hip in 1988, to make a safe, quick buck. That it did. It was the highest grossing animated film on initial release at the time, and it just functioned as a way to keep Disney Animation trucking and to also show Don Bluth that he wasn't going to be the only one ruling the roost. That being said, it should not be forgotten. It's a footnote, and Disney should treat it as that. Not as an obscure "Ehhh we're scraping the bottom of the barrel so we have to put it out on Blu-ray" film.

Then there's the post-Lion King Renaissance-era films. Films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules seem to only be discovered by nostalgic 90s folks today, Mulan and Tarzan are in good standing since they were sizable hits back in the day, ditto something like Robin Hood - which was always doing fine in video sales in the 1980s and 1990s - or Pocahontas, though they could get a little more push from the Mouse. Maybe more prominence in merch and parks, that always helps. Maybe some of these films, like Mouse Detective, aren't animated Citizen Kanes. Maybe they may not be iconic, but that doesn't mean they should be neglected or seen as "lesser". You can make films like these, well, popular enough.

After Disney got the box office and critical power they had been waiting for in the early 1990s, they effectively shoved The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company out of sight. The latter, I can see why. Again, it was dated and just thrown together to make an easy buck. But why did the former have to get shut out? It wasn't dated or cobbled together, it was a genuinely enjoyable flick. Oh what? It didn't make a blockbuster total at the box office? Whatever. They should've used its modest success to its advantage, treat it like a little Sword in the Stone or Robin Hood. Something of the sort, a little profitable film that continues to do well and garner fans.

See, this is why I'm a bit worried about Disney possibly shutting out some of the last string of films. Bolt was a modest hit, as it did double its budget worldwide and sold well on DVD/Blu-ray. It got great reviews, too! Kind of like Great Mouse Detective, and Disney ignores that film even though it got good reviews and it has a sizable fan base.

Meet The Robinsons will probably get the shaft, big time. Wasn't a box office hit, got okay reviews at best, and is seemingly already forgotten. It's seen as a sort of slightly salvaged mess, one Lasseter could not save, etc. (I beg to differ, but…)

The Princess and the Frog and Tangled are safe, being familiar princess films and merchandising monsters.

Winnie the Pooh might not have been seen by many, but the character is now and forever. It's pretty much safe.

Wreck-It Ralph, box office-wise, is above the Oliver & Company spot. It wasn't a modest success, it was a success. Doubled its budget, sold well on home video, merchandise sold well. Out of the other films, that one is the least likely to be pushed aside. But the video game angle could hurt it, as some inside the company may view it as dated… Like Oliver & Company. Unlike that movie though, it was well-received, it took home a few awards as well! It's kind of in the middle.

But back to Frozen, now that I got the "forgetting thing" out of the way.

Another big concern of mine is this…

How will Disney approach future animated features now that a familiar tale has become their biggest hit since The Lion King?

Disney's marketing department has shown that they can't always market a film correctly, which is true of pretty much every other big studio. For instance, this year Warner Bros. totally botched the marketing for Pacific Rim, making something unique look like just another dull summer blockbuster or "Transformers with giant monsters". Fox couldn't make DreamWorks' Turbo look like anything but a silly kiddie film with its been-there done-that trailers and ads. Last summer, Paramount sold DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians as an action-packed film, something quasi-cool for action-loving teens, and the movie blew up in their faces. In the process they left out the whimsy and imaginative tone that would've attracted other demographics.

… and so on… Disney has had a history of bad marketing outside of animated films: John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Prince of Persia, The Sorcerer's Apprentice…

But… Bolt and Frog's marketing (done by the previous team, not the current one that was established in 2009 after Rich Ross took over) was inexcusably poor, Tangled's was too cynical. Yes, it gave the film its good-sized opening weekend gross, but it did alienate adults and fans in the process. Ralph's marketing also shut out adults, with its emphasis on "Hero's Doody" jokes and less emphasis on the story. Frozen's campaign smartly emphasized the story, music and characters (albeit at the last minute) which in turn got more adults to show up. Sorry Scott Mendelson of Forbes, but I feel that your defense of the kid-centric marketing is way off.

Had Ralph or Tangled's campaigns did what Frozen did in the end, they would've performed similarly to this new picture.

Now that the studio has a huge hit under its belt, the marketing needs to keep things going. Good marketing sells a movie, no matter how good or bad the movie is. Disney Animation, of all things, just needs to be sold properly to audiences. Big Hero 6 needs to be an event, Zootopia needs to be an event, Giants, Moana, all the future projects. All of them. They need to be events! They need to look appealing to moviegoers. The studio is firing on all cylinders and are delivering top notch stories with great characters, lovely animation and a diverse batch of settings, themes and narratives.

Let's hope that Disney emphasizes the future films' qualities in the trailers, ads and marketing materials instead of just slacking off, instead opting to be cliche and pelt the audiences with jokes, jokes and more jokes - like trailers for every other big-release animated movie out there. Big Hero 6 isn't a big musical fairy tale like Frozen, but so what? The Incredibles was an animated superhero film and that was big, Marvel movies are in, superheroes are in. Period. Strike the iron while it's hot! Big Hero 6 could very well nestle itself in the top five highest grossing Disney animated features league. Zootopia is a talking animals film, but that doesn't matter, make it look awesome to the general public! Show how cool the animals-only world of the film will be! Don't market it like Ice Age 12 or whatever, it's more than that!

The goal is to show audiences that Disney Animation isn't just about fairy tales, once upon a time stories, musicals and cutesy talking animal romps. Disney Animation can tackle anything, they can do a space opera, a mystery thriller, an epic fantasy, a small-scale drama… Anything! Audiences may think Disney can or "should only" do fairy tales, no. They can do more, Pixar wins because of this. Diversity rules in the end, and Disney can get other audiences to go see their animated films by tackling new genres. In turn, their audience will grow and grow. They can sit right alongside Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. No wait, they already do!

I'm not saying Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Giants, Moana and the rest should all be $300 million+ blockbusters… That's unreasonable to expect. Pixar couldn't do it, The Incredibles didn't come close to Finding Nemo's huge $339 million gross. (The press went all "What went wrong?", especially when Cars' opening weekend was a little below The Incredibles' opening weekend.) But I all want them to do very good, so they keep the studio going and also get the public to accept new kinds of stories from Disney, so no one goes "But Disney should only do fairy tales! That's what they do best!"

This kind of thing was attempted last decade, but corporate meddling and mismanagement ran that plan into the ground. Dinosaur was killed by the decision to make the dinosaurs talk in hip slang. Emperor's New Groove cost too much because it evolved out of another movie that was already costly enough, it looked bad from the previews and the actually good movie had to rely on word of mouth to make its money… And it still bombed. Atlantis was not allowed to be the cool epic action film it could've been, ditto Treasure Planet plus the marketing made it look like "Disney Extreme Sports… In Spaaaaaaaaace!" Brother Bear and Home on the Range were aimed at kids first, which alienated everyone else. It's quite telling that the derivative, cynical, Shrek-chasing Chicken Little did better than all these films. It's also quite telling that a good film like Lilo & Stitch outgrossed these films.

I see this new era as a revival of that failed plan, but this time, there's no David Stainton or executives having too much control over the product. If Wreck-It Ralph was made in 2002 during the Eisner-Stainton era, it would've tanked, because its screenplay would've been dumbed down, its better ideas would've hit the cutting room floor and the marketing would've made it look terrible. Nope, Wreck-It Ralph was a hit because the screenplay played to adults and kids - it didn't pander to them, bad ideas hit the cutting room floor and the marketing made it look good enough.

Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Dean Wellins' "Space Race" film, King of the Elves and several others are risky and different like Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis, Treasure Planet and Sweating Bullets (yes, Bullets became Home on the Range, but that early incarnation of Disney's failed Western had lots of potential). The difference is, these films are going to be allowed to be good movies… And what they want to be. That's all thanks to the awful, horrible devils that are John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, plus the great writers and animators who bring these stories to life.

Now also…

Attendance and grosses are two different things…

The Lion King's initial $312 million domestic total translates to roughly 74 million tickets today. If Frozen finishes up with $300 million, it'll have sold less than 40 million tickets. Still a big amount of tickets, but…

Grosses don't mean everything. People still saw films like Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph. People have discovered the likes of Bolt and Frog on video, television or other ways. Frozen may make a lot, but Disney better not reserve a throne for that film whilst telling the canine, the frogs and the video game wrecker to take a hike. They already did that to the hunchback, the super-strong hero and several others.

So hopefully the success of Frozen doesn't continue Disney's rather unfair trend of picking and choosing, and hopefully it doesn't drive Disney to go about selling their future animated films the wrong way. They should use the success of Frozen and the films before it to their advantage. Even though Bolt and Frog didn't outgross Chicken Little, they still outgrossed films like Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range. Chicken Little was lucky, because in 2005, if you were CGI and had a DreamWorks-y attitude, you were a hit. Today? Not so much.

Since Bolt and Frog outgrossed the non-fad films from the studio during the 2000-2005 period (minus you know who, of course), they could be used to demonstrate a growing momentum. It's kind of similar to how Disney used the grosses of Oliver, Mermaid and Beast to prove that Disney Animation was getting bigger and bigger. Bolt and Frog could be them saying: "Look. We're slowly winning back the audiences we lost." Now add in the success of Tangled and Ralph, they'll show: "Look! We got even bigger with those two!" Then Frozen can be their capper, their Aladdin/Lion King smash: "We're back in action now!"

This in turn could really hype up the next string of films, it could drive the marketing department to want to keep the gravy train going. The Renaissance fell after The Lion King because we started getting films like Pocahontas; films that were messes, byproducts of misguided intentions clashing and executive meddling. The declining quality of films got good amounts of people to stay away, not marketing. The marketing still gave it their all when readying films like Hunchback, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan to at least help the films make their money back. Guess what? The films did good at the box office! Hunchback, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan were by all means "hit films" back in the day. Lion King was that rare, once-in-a-lifetime freak success that also hit the summit of the momentum mountain. Did they really think that Pocahontas would repeat that? Or Aladdin's then-enormous $217 million gross? It doesn't work that way. The ignorant higher ups scoffed at the post-Lion King films just because they didn't make Aladdin or Lion King numbers despite being very profitable and selling like mad on home video afterwards. Boo-frickity-hoo…

The quality is consistent with these new films, thanks to the studio's current environment. No formulas, no repeating, no annoyances in the films that drive audiences away. No focus groups telling them what to do, no executives taking their cool ideas and watering them down for toddlers. The current Disney brass better know this, and they better take advantage. A new Renaissance is upon the studio, one that could last a very, very long time.

Time to go big or go home.

In fact… That should be Big Hero 6's tagline. "This Fall… Go BIG or go home!"

What Happened to the Elves?

In April 2008, Walt Disney Pictures announced a big animation slate that went from the summer of 2008 to the holiday season of 2012. Yes kids, back in 2008, this slate was massive. It's not like today where Disney or DreamWorks comes out and says, "Here's what's coming out in the next five years!"

Still, this slate was pretty huge in retrospect. It covered four years of completed films, films that were in development and other projects. So, what did this slate look like? Well… Walt Disney Animation Studios had Bolt, The Princess and the Frog and what would become Tangled all in place (2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively) while nothing was slated for 2011. Pixar had two films taking up that year, the ill-fated Newt in the summer and what would become Brave in the autumn/winter. WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3's dates stayed the same since those three were pretty much ready without big issues to iron out. Then in 2012, we had Pixar's Cars 2 in the summer (where it should've stayed) and Disney Animation's King of the Elves in the holiday season.

Yes, a lot has changed since then…

Anyways, notice anything on this slate? You know, other than the canceled Newt?

King of the Elves…

What in the world happened to King of the Elves?

This Walt Disney Animation Studios project is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (whose stories were adapted into the likes of Blade Runner and Total Recall), a tale of an elderly Colorado gas station owner who learns of a race of little elves who are at war with trolls, who name him their king after their ill king passes away. This story seemed like it would really work as a Disney animated film. You have elves, trolls, mystical lands, a war between the two (potential big action there), to name a few things. It seemed like it would make for a quintessential Disney animated fantasy adventure!

King of the Elves was to be directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker, the team who brought us Brother Bear. (Blaise recently worked on a lavish Brother Bear meets Watership Down-esque commercial for British department store John Lewis.) In December 2009, the project was unexpectedly halted most likely due to story problems, Blaise headed to Digital Domain's ill-fated Tradition Studio shortly after and was set to direct an animated elephant tale called The Legend of Tembo with Brother Bear producer Chuck Williams. The two are now directing a very promising project called Art Story, made possible by a Kickstarter campaign.

The elves languished for a little while until Bolt director Chris Williams took a crack at it in 2010. According to Honor Hunter of Blue Sky Disney, the film was in a "race" of sorts with Frozen by 2011, for the holiday 2013 spot. King of the Elves proved to be riddled with too many issues, so Frozen moved forward. Williams left the project to work on other films as a board artist. The project was shelved, and as of today, it hasn't been re-evaluated since its last shelving. He assures us, though, that it's not dead.

So could it possibly re-enter development? Could it possibly show up some time this decade? What were the story problems?

The project isn't unique. Multiple Walt Disney Animation Studios films have been through phases where they don't seem like they'll make it. Walt Disney once looked into stories like… Well… The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Projects like Chanticleer made it far enough, but never materialized. Walt wanted to adapt the likes of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a while back, but a film based on those stories wouldn't make it to the silver screen until the early 1950s, long after Walt decided that he wanted to tackle that story.

In the post-Walt years, there are many examples. The Snow Queen was on and off until it failed to move forward after 2003, only for it to be revived in 2008 by the Lasseter crew and then to be shunted aside after The Princess and the Frog underperformed over a year later… Then it got revived again in 2011 after Tangled did well, we got the movie as Frozen nearly a month ago. Ron Clements and John Musker's super cool "Treasure Island In Space" project was pitched in 1985 and shot down, but lo and behold it ended up hitting screens in 2002!

King of the Elves is just another one of those. Dean Wellins' "Space Race" film is another, as projects that were pitched after it have moved ahead of it in the development pipeline. This of course means that both aren't dead, it also means that the lizard film up at Emeryville isn't dead either. So the bigger question is… When will we get this epic fantasy?

Well, for now, it seems like Zootopia, Giants and Moana are all in place. These three films span three calendar years, two films are coming out in 2016 while another one comes out in 2018. Another film is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2018, but since "Space Race" is down for the count, we have no idea what film will be opening on that day. Right now, there's enough time to reboot King of the Elves so that it'll be ready for the spot. After all, Frozen got its reboot in 2011 and took two years to make.

If that happens to the elves, then...

Zootopia (3/4/2016)
Giants (11/23/2016)
Moana (3/9/2018)
King of the Elves (11/21/2018)

Or the late 2018 film could be the Mickey Mouse feature-length film that Burny Mattinson talked about in 2011, since the mouse turns 90 in November 2018 and one is long overdue. Maybe that first, and then King of the Elves in 2019. That is, if Pixar won't hog up 2019 with two releases.

Zootopia (3/4/2016)
Giants (11/23/2016)
Moana (3/9/2018)
Mickey Mouse (11/21/2018)
King of the Elves (Christmas 2019)

That could very well happen, but I have heard that many new projects are being pitched and some of them might be in fine shape, the "Ready for Lasseter Approval" state of course. Again, it seems like King of the Elves just needs something of a fine tune-up from someone (or two people) who can make something of the supposed mess. Ditto "Space Race"…

Who and when? We still play the waiting game…

December Animation Tidbits [#2]

Another round of bits...

How To Spoil Your Dragon

A recently released image showing Cate Blanchett's
character.

How To Train Your Dragon 2's trailer is right around the corner, but we all may have to avoid it. I got word from a good friend of mine, who found a source suggesting that the trailer might spoil a major twist in the film. It's said to be all Fox's doing, and that the people at DreamWorks begged the marketing department not to spoil said "mystery".

Attention Animation Fans: There is a new HTTYD2 Trailer coming out soon. Don't watch it unless you want the story's big mystery spoiled.
— Mygames19 (@Mygames19) December 14, 2013

I know the source isn't exactly reliable, but for those who don't want to be spoiled, it's better to assume it is. http://t.co/W3ZUb99Wxl
— Mygames19 (@Mygames19) December 14, 2013

If this turns out to be true, all I can say is: Really Fox? Really?

People just don't have a clue when it comes to marketing animated films, do they? That teaser was so excellent, suggesting that Fox was going to market DreamWorks' films correctly since Paramount did poorly at doing so in their final years with the studio. I mean come on! This is a highly anticipated sequel to a highly acclaimed animated film, and this is what you're going to do?

I hope it's all a rumor…

Moana Madness

Like that logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios' upcoming Polynesian-set adventure? Well, it's fake. You can tell too, with the two swooshes above and below the "Moana" text looking so basic and the Disney logo being in white, which contrasts heavily from everything else.

Also, people thought that these were newly leaked pieces of concept artwork… They aren't…

And it seems like people are just discovering this upcoming Ron and John project. I don't mean to brag (if you've been reading prior to May, you have the same bragging rights), but I've known about this for a while.

The good thing is, people know it exists. It's presumably not due out until 2018 (going by Blue Sky Disney's notes), but it's good that the word has gotten out somehow. The only post-Big Hero 6 film that Disney has officially mentioned or announced is Zootopia, but they didn't outright say that the film is set to open on March 4, 2016. Smart move, because if you ask me, picking a date for an animated film very early on might be detrimental to the production.

Keane Gets Work!

Wow… Already! Apparently he's set to work on a commercial for Motorola, going by a mysterious email Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi received.

Now, how long until it's announced that an animated feature enters development at Glen Keane Productions?

90s Revival

On January 20th, Cartoon Network will take us back to the City of Townsville with a Powerpuff Girls special titled "Dance Pantsed"…

As the poster implies, this special will be done in a completely different animation style and will also feature Ringo Starr as a character named Fibonacci Sequins, an over-the-top mathematician. Hmmm, I wonder if he'll sing a song! Oh wait, he will! "I Wish I Was a Powerpuff Girl"!

Color me excited.

Also, the premise…

In 'Dance Pantsed', why is Mojo Jojo kidnapping a mathematician, an opera singer and a badger? To steal Chemical X, of course, and to finally take over Townsville. But when the Powerpuff Girls thwart his plan, he invents an evil video game called “Dance Pants R-EVILution” to control their minds and bodies to fulfill his evil plot! The Professor must visit his dark dancing past to save his girls so they can save all of Townsville!

It's good to see Cartoon Network revisiting one of their classic 90s shows, and while the new art style might leave some fans upset, I'm certainly looking forward to it. Here's hoping the writing is as good as the original show. Plus, Ringo Starr… You can't go wrong.

~

Will you check out the How To Train Your Dragon 2 trailer when it comes out? Do you think it will end up being spoilerific? When do you think Disney will officially announce Moana? What do think Glen Keane will work on next year? Does the upcoming Powerpuff Girls special excite you? Or not?

Sound off below!

The Big No-No

Many people will say that Walt Disney Feature Animation went through something of a dark age or two at some point in time. The first dark age is usually said to be the post-Walt/pre-Second Golden Age years, roughly the late 1960s up until 1986. The second, well… Was a little more recent. The post-Renaissance era, namely an era that contained most of the films produced after Tarzan and before John Lasseter took over Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2006.

That certainly was a dark age. The early-to-mid 1970s was a period of stagnation and uncertainty, Disney made lower budget features like The Aristocats and Robin Hood, which both seemed closer to Saturday morning shenanigans than the epics of Pinocchio or Bambi, or the storytelling greatness of Cinderella or Lady and the Tramp. Both films were subpar, showing that Disney was only in it for the money at that point. The success of The Jungle Book proved to executives that - Walt or not - animated features still needed to be made and were very viable in the long run. This laziness was soon counteracted by the likes of Don Bluth and many young animators, who were hungering for the day they made their own Snow White. A transitional time, if you will… Not necessarily a dark age, because we still got a bright gem like The Rescuers out of the era along with some other impressive work. A "rough" age. At least the company's integrity wasn't completely stripped away…

Then there's the post-1999/pre-2006 era… This is when executives were given more control over Walt Disney Feature Animation, and as a result, their films began showing major weaknesses and problems. By this time, then-CEO Michael Eisner morphed Disney into a soulless corporation, steering it away from the "standard bearer of family entertainment" status. The executives did get their way during the Renaissance to some extent, as many of those films stuck to the Broadway break-out-and-sing/cute animal sidekick/epic love story/comedy formula that obviously didn't suit stories like Pocahontas or a decidedly dark novel like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, to say nothing of Greek myth Hercules or the legend of Hua Mulan. You can't just take those stories and apply the Little Mermaid template to it.

So after the formula wore thin, the plan was to now tackle new genres. Always good, right? Well, unfortunately, Disney's artists, story people and animators were merely allowed to experiment. They had to get their ideas past hordes of executives in order to get them to the boss (nowadays, they only have to present the ideas of to John Lasseter), and most of the time, their best ideas were supplanted by inferior ones. Executives having too much power over a studio is a nightmare to begin with, executives who only saw animation as kiddie stuff ruling over the animation powerhouse that is Disney is an even bigger nightmare.

Thus we got films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and this. Lilo & Stitch nearly dodged the bullet, but the very little meddling that went on behind the scenes still hurt it in some ways. The other three are films that can't be what they want to be, because the artists' ideas were outweighed by what the executives wanted. Atlantis isn't allowed to be a work of compelling storytelling, it's pretty much forced to be a summer blockbuster blow-em-up extravaganza. It isn't allowed to be a little more intense and violent despite all the action and gunfire, not to mention the really high body count. Atlantis also loses its steam completely once they get to the lost city, because the executives had the team throw out an hour's worth of material that probably would've made the film better, perhaps more fleshed out. Treasure Planet is creative as hell (I mean, c'mon, 17th century pirates-and treasure-adventure… In spaaaaaaaaaaace!), and the story isn't too bad either, but then you get the feeling that it's trying too hard to appeal to the extreme sports crowd and teenagers, much like Don Bluth's Titan A.E. Then it also tries to please kids with a constantly shouting robot side character, who could've very well been funny without acting obnoxiously. Brother Bear also has a good story with a good amount of depth, some creative sparkle and jaw-dropping art direction… But then you have Koda gabbing every second he can, belting out modern slang and toilet jokes that make the film feel like an older DreamWorks film. Were they trying to one-up the potty humor in Shrek? I think so. Imagine if Bambi was like that? *shudder*

Then we get to Home On The Range…

By the time this film entered production, Disney executives had already botched so many films that could've been great and consequently ran the animation studio - one of the most important players in animation and cinema history that gave us the likes of Snow White and Pinocchio - into the ground. This film was not going to be any exception whatsoever, and this film already had a troubled history behind it. It began life as Sweating Bullets around the time Pocahontas was finished, which that film's director Mike Gabriel was set to direct alongside Pocahontas art director Mike Giaimo. The story went through multiple changes and by 2002, the two directors were off the project. Will Finn and John Sanford, first-time directors, replaced them. They had inherited a mess, and they were going to make a mess… They had to.

Sanford himself confirmed this in a 2008 interview, saying that the executives - upset with how the teen-chasing Atlantis performed - had him and Finn gear the film towards toddlers. The very audience that you should never ever aim a family-friendly film towards, especially a Disney film…

The Disney executives were essentially similar to the general public, the average joe who doesn't know much about animation or the rich history of Walt Disney's company. These people assume that anything by Disney or anything animated is for kids first and foremost, of course one of life's greatest lies.

"We don't make movies for children." - Walt Disney

Walt and other people in the animation world will tell you that making a film for everyone, not just a certain age group, is the winning option. If you make a film for kids only, it fails… Because it's only for kids. It's simple, really. Why do so many adults enjoy Disney? Why do you, the reader, enjoy something from Disney? Because it's also made for you. Then they'll say, "Yeah it's for adults, but it's really more for kids." Lies. Walt himself outright said that he made films for the whole family. He made them suitable for kids, but he really aimed the stories and heart and intellect at the adults. "Our most important audience out there are those freethinking adults". Pixar does the same, any good animation studio does the same…

The executives at Disney did not want to do this, they wanted to make kids films and Home On The Range is a perfect example of their mindlessness. Its existence is kind of a good thing, as it could be used to teach people how not to make an animated feature… Especially a big-budget Disney animated feature!

Home On The Range's biggest problem is that it's a kids-only film, not made to engage adults in any way. It's something that's more suited for a kids TV channel like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. Of course, talent like Will Finn and John Sanford plus all of Disney's artists wouldn't want to make a film like this for Disney Feature Animation. If it was for a kid channel or something else, they'd probably be fine with that.

What's worse is that you can see a decent, if not good movie buried under all the pap. Home On The Range, when you dig deeper, shows that it wants to be the next Emperor's New Groove. A wacky, Warner Bros.-esque Western for the entire family loaded to the brim with witty jokes, an irreverent edge and broad cartoony humor. This could've been gold, really. The Emperor's New Groove is the cult classic that it is because it not only pushes the 90s Disney formula aside, but it also has this energy to it that's irresistible and it's genuinely funny, but not without characters you care about or heart.

Home On The Range doesn't have characters that you really care about. Its story isn't terrible, nor is it any great shakes. In fact, the story is well put together and it's not really all that bad… The problem is, your plot could be as good as anything, but you need good characters to make you care about what's going on. Home On The Range's story, I'll admit, is okay. It could've been a very good story had our leads been likable characters, but the screenplay is bad. Because the film aims to be kiddie fare, the characters just aren't that interesting. Maggie is essentially Roseanne in animated (cow) form, who specializes in painful comedy routine-esque one-liners. Mrs. Calloway is the prim and proper who scoffs at Maggie's behavior. Grace on the other hand, is just kind of there to crack a one-liner, if no one else will.

Then there's Buck, the sheriff's horse who is a fanboy of the rather cool bounty hunter Rico who also just wants to kick butt… Gee, doesn't that sound like a character created by a focus group? A horse screaming "Hi-yah!" and doing kung fu? The kids will dig him! Toys will fly off the shelves in no time! Man, how many times have we seen that character or that attitude in kid shows? Actually, to be fair, there is a pretty neat daydream sequence where the horse takes out a few gunslingers. A moment that suggests how different this film could've been.

The rest of the cast is mostly forgettable. The villain, Alameda Slim, boasts an interesting character design but he's got no real depth. He's just a cattle rustler who hypnotizes cows (through yodeling!) and sells them because… Of course… Money!


His yodeling's power over cattle was a decent idea for the story, it's just too bad that the story doesn't move you! Earlier versions of this villain were actually much more interesting. In Sweating Bullets, he was a vengeful undead who lead cows to their demise by having them fall off of cliffs because he was trampled to death by them. Another version had him hypnotizing cows because he wanted to form an army of them, storm the White House and become President. Honestly, they should've went with that because the goal they ended up giving him is, in a storytelling sense, too safe. I mean, a guy wanting to become President and obtain power is too 90s Disney-ish, but it's way more interesting than just making mountains of money. ("Mine! Mine! Mine!") Plus, forming an army of cattle to take over the White House already given the fact that he can manipulate them through yodeling? C'mon, that sounds insanely awesome!

Nope, big bad guy looking to make money it is. Thus we have to worry about our bland characters possibly getting sold and eaten, because apparently Disney should be in the business of making animated movies about animals that meat-eaters eat in a comical adventure about escaping a dinner plate fate. Chicken Run you are not!

Anyways, the villain is mostly dull. Wesley, the slimy fellow who buys the cows also has a weird, interesting character design but he's only in it for like a few minutes. Rico is badass, but there's really not much to him and there is a twist that reveals he's just two-faced. The rest of the cast is either cutesy-wootsy farm animals (well, I did like the goat, that's about it) or boring human characters, such as the Patch of Heaven's owner who isn't all that developed either… In fact, she only has a few lines, too. There's also Lucky Jack, a peg-legged rabbit who could've been funny but he's not well-used either! I guess the best character in this movie was the Patrick Warburton-voiced horse who Buck tricks into running from Rico, that was actually one of the funnier bits in the movie. It's kind of telling when your film's best character is one who appears for less than a few minutes.

So with poor character work comes an equally poor screenplay. Again, the executives wanted this one to be a toddler picture, much like Brother Bear before it. While it's not loaded with unnecessary toilet humor like Brother Bear was, it's mostly a peachy-keen story with gags that just don't work. Sanford said the best jokes were cut out after the studio test screened the film for toddlers, and boy does the film validate what he said. Most of the jokes in this movie feel like a little kids show trying to be funny, sure the youngest of audiences will laugh, but everyone else? Ughhhhh…

There are some jokes that are funny that come out of nowhere, but most of the film is littered with these lame attempts at being funny alongside Roseanne's stupid one-liners. In many scenes, it feels like there's a funny joke waiting to happen, but it doesn't occur. There's this running gag, for instance, where Slim's nephew henchmen can't tell who he is when he puts on a disguise and they freak out. This could've been hilarious, but the way it's written and the way it's acted is just awkward and smacks of poor timing. The rest of the comedy is pretty much this, and then there's Roseanne's lines. Comedy club reject lines more like. I bet that "Stallion of the Ci-Moron" line was thrown in by executives, because DreamWorks - or more appropriately Jeffrey Katzenberg - wanted to stick it to Disney at the time, and Shrek did have some mean-spirited jabs at them. Having that line in there makes it look like Disney was part of the little mud-slinging match, when they could've been mature and just avoided poking at DreamWorks altogether. The script is just a really bad mix of these jokes.

The animation on the other hand is mostly solid, going for that style that New Groove went for but with a mix of the 1950s Disney style, which can be seen in the art direction of the desert, which is for the most part pretty decent. The color work, at times, is pretty impressive. After all, some of the finest of them all worked on this very film. The problem is, the character animation doesn't do much and a lot of it is rather forced. The character animation is about as interesting as the characters themselves. Everything just looks so flat and uninteresting, and when an animal does something cartoony, it just doesn't elicit any laughs. The movements just don't work. A lot of computer animation is also used. Even mere backgrounds, such as the interior of the farm owner's house during the rainstorm or just trees, rock formations even! It makes the settings look awkward, and many random objects are done in CGI as well, and they stand out a little too much. Conspicuous CGI to a tee.

It would've been nice if the film worked off of its limited budget and went for a minimalist style, which it tries to do, but all of that unnecessary CGI makes it look very cheap. Some shots of the non-CGI parts also look like something out of a Disney Television Animation show from the era. There's penny-pinching everywhere, and it's not pretty. It's just not all that great-looking, and the other big problem is that many of the character designs are way too cute. Yes, Disney has mastered the art of making such cute, appealing characters, but they were never overdone. They didn't look like things you'd see on baby toys or whatever, but in this film, the designs come a little too close to looking like that. It just makes the film look like a preschooler show, though some character designs rise above that a bit: Alameda Slim, Wesley, Rico, Lucky Jack, Jeb and Buck. It's just sad because, again, Disney's animators and artists had to make this. I feel bad that they had to…

At least it doesn't look terrible. Working within a limited budget does restrain in many ways, and like I've said, the look of it does have some positive qualities to it. An all-out minimalist style without much CGI or anything would've been just fine. After all, this is Disney Animation, so if it can't look great, it's at least going to try very hard to look great.

Limited budget you say? Well, the film was reported to have cost $110 million, but that's because the previous incarnations of the film added to the finished film's cost, which must've been somewhere around $60 million… Maybe even less. The Emperor's New Groove began life as Kingdom of the Sun - which was a radically different film from the finished product - in 1997. As it was entering physical production, it was canceled and a good $25 million had already been spent on the picture. The Emperor's New Groove itself cost $75 million, hence the $100 million budget. This is basically the same deal. Tangled, also.

This shot is beautiful...

So… Weak characters, kiddie-flick tone, poor writing, mostly underwhelming visuals… Does anything else work in this film? Well, Alan Menken's songs are actually good. They're not the most memorable, but they aren't cringeworthy either. "Patch of Heaven" is a fun, country-esque ditty, but it doesn't leave you humming. The opening song is pretty good, recalling the Disney films of the 1950s and we do get a fun chase sequence to go along with that. (Also, clever use of the Walt Disney Pictures logo at the beginning!) Alameda Slim's yodel tune tries too hard to emulate the surrealism of "Pink Elephants on Parade" and "Heffalumps and Woozles" in the visual department (it's too simple, colorful cattle really isn't enough), musically it's just okay. "Will The Sun Ever Shine Again?" is a nice, lightly somber number, but since the story gives you little to care about, it almost feels like it's all for naught. A decent soundtrack to say the least…

In fact, the score is pretty decent too, as it feels like it belongs in a big animated Disney movie for the most part. Too bad the visuals and writing don't match it. Poor Alan Menken, all that talent slapped onto this mediocrity.

That's pretty much what Home On The Range is. Mediocrity. Boring, often cringeworthy mediocrity. As a kids-only movie, it's the best it can be. If you're a kid, it's probably for you, though kids should be shown the best Disney films, the ones that don't talk down to them. Home On The Range is essentially the very definition of pandering, and it's so unfortunate because this could've been something really fun. Something bursting with energy and all-out wacky humor, again - a Wild West Emperor's New Groove! It would've been awesome! But it isn't allowed to be, all thanks to clueless executives who knew very little about animation and saw very little in it. The same executives who approved of the Disney direct-to-video sequels that also badly hurt hand-drawn animation, the Disney brand and the original films… All for a quick buck, no less! They didn't "get" animation, nor did they get Disney animation. You might as well assign someone who sees comic books as trivial kids' stuff to write a superhero film. In the process, you get something like Catwoman.

Of course, the biggest stab in the heart is the fact that this is one of the very reasons why American traditional animation was shown the door, in the very country where it blossomed from the very studio who made it blossom the way it did. I really wish that Bob Iger and all the people running Disney right now would get it through their heads that lame movies like this and terrible management were the reasons why hand-drawn films sunk at the box office, not the medium. People avoid lame computer animated films in this day and age, now that the fad has ended a long time ago. (Shark Tale would've tanked hard if released today, ditto Chicken Little.) People avoid lame animated movies, period.

People also avoid animated movies that look lame, movies that look lame as opposed to being lame. Case in point, The Princess and the Frog! Do I have to keep bringing its slipshod marketing campaign up? Do I need to keep reminding Disney of how badly they marketed this film? Do I need to remind them of the dunderheaded title change?

Get… It… Through… Your… Heads… Audiences like traditional animation! Audiences don't like BAD traditional animation!

Audiences liked The Princess and the Frog! It had very, very strong legs at the box office and fought the tidal wave that had Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and the Chipmunks sequel! Making $104 million domestically off of a weak $24 million is nothing to scoff at! It sold very well on home media! Tiana is everywhere on effing merchandise! People like the movie very much! That has nothing to do with it being hand-drawn or computer animated!

People see good movies, people see movies that look good!

Do I need to spell it out in any other way?!

*deep breath, deep breath*

Anyways, Home On The Range got mixed reviews at best, it didn't quite get the critical beating that Brother Bear kind of unfairly got. It opened low, as expected, and crept its way up to a weak $50 million domestic total and made $103 million worldwide. Now, I don't know if Michael Eisner, David Stainton and everyone else engaged in a big conspiracy to kill hand-drawn by making the films poor, marketing them badly and having them fail, but the way Disney Feature Animation was beaten to a pulp during this era makes for a painful part of Disney history. Thank goodness the madness stopped (I think a lot of people take what Lasseter and Catmull have done for the studio for granted), but hand-drawn remains something of a casualty of this era.

I wish the business people realized for one minute that Eisner's mismanagement of the company and the decision to swamp Disney Feature Animation with ignorant executives hurt hand-drawn. I wish they'd realize that poor marketing hurt films like The Princess and the Frog. I really wish they would… John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and everyone at Disney wants to bring hand-drawn back… They really do! It finds its way to theater screens via short films like Paperman and Get A Horse!, Disney's computer animation goes for a painterly style, but that really is not enough… The traditional Disney animation style should never be a thing of the past… Never…

Home On The Range was a weak film, un-Disney in many ways. Disney Animation should never pander to toddlers, never. It should never be for toddlers or kids first and foremost. Worse, in addition to the fact that it could've been good, it helped hurt a beautiful art form. A beautiful medium that Walt Disney worked so hard to bolster… The film provides an excellent lesson: Executive meddling should be kept at a minimum in animation, or better yet… It should be banished from feature animation in its entirety. Never let people who don't give a damn about animation be the heads of animation film production. That goes for other studios, too!

A debacle of epic proportions…

"Home On The Range" is in the fifth tier of my ever-changing best-to-worst Disney animated classics list. What are your thoughts on this Disney animated feature? Sound off below!

December Animation Tidbits

Bits… From awards to Disney Animation news to Minions...

A few days ago, the Annie Awards have revealed the nominees for the 41st ceremony!

Earlier, I had predicted that Ernest & Celestine, Frozen, A Letter to Momo, Monsters University and The Wind Rises would be the five nominees for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature… Well, those five have also been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Annie! Looks like my predictions may all come true…

The other two nominees are The Croods and Despicable Me 2, kind of a short list… But let's face it, this was a very weak year for animation. How come other foreign films didn't make the cut if the American output was lacking?

I have a feeling that the award is either going to go to The Wind Rises or Frozen, though I think The Wind Rises has the advantage since Disney cleaned house (deservedly so) with Wreck-It Ralph last year. I liked Frozen, thought it was solid, but not great nor the masterpiece others say it is. To be honest, I'm not really rooting for it at the Oscars. Sorry folks…

By contrast, the Best Animated TV Show lists is impressive. On the "for children" front, Disney Television Animation's Gravity Falls is one of the nominees, since its first season concluded this year, I say give it to Disney. Either that, or The Legend of Korra. The rest of the competition? Well, it's mostly shows that have been around for a while (Adventure Time, Regular Show) or okay-ish newer entries. Teen Titans Go!, for example, is at times funny and quirky - but it leaves me wanting a real new Teen Titans show. You know… A serious one that's not a parody.

The "general audience" television show line-up has TRON: Uprising sitting alongside adult-oriented fare like Archer and Bob's Burgers. Another win for Uprising would sure serve Disney right for moving it to midnights - why they aren't kicking themselves over that, I don't know. Futurama could also win since it concluded on a high note this year, MotorCity could also get some love - another show that Disney mishandled greatly.

Either way, this is kind of "meh" all around. The individual animation and effects categories all have strong nominees, so it'll be fun to see which ones win. Again, I think that this was a weak year for animation and that the offerings we had here in the states mostly aren't up to snuff.

~

Walt Disney Animation Studios' Moana - presumably not due out until spring 2018 - has gotten its composer!

Mark Mancina confirmed on his website that he'll be handling the music. Mancina also scored Tarzan and Brother Bear, arranged the songs for The Lion King and also handled some DisneyToon fodder. We'll see what he brings to the table for this film, since his scores for Tarzan and Brother Bear are quite memorable, the former's in particular.

Since the picture is said to be a musical, it's possible that he'll arrange the songs for whomever is writing them - that is, if he isn't writing the songs. Who will write the songs is the bigger question? Will it be Alan Menken? Or will it be someone that hasn't taken a crack at writing Disney songs before? I'm leaning on the latter, because Robert and Kristen-Anderson Lopez scored a huge hit with Frozen's soundtrack and everyone's praising the individual songs. Heck, they might be the ones to do it, though I suspect they won't because I just can't see Frozen's musical style fitting in with this kind of story. Perhaps they won't go the Broadway route, which is what I'm hoping for. How about a different kind of musical?

I've been backing this idea for a while, as it will be nice to see fresh new talent handle future Disney songs. What do you think?

~

The Minions are finally heading to China…

Various reported issues held Despicable Me 2 back from opening in mainland China, but as confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter a couple days ago, it'll hit the country in January. To date, Despicable Me 2 has grossed $918 million at the worldwide box office off of a robust $367 million domestic gross. It's possible that the film will be the second ever animated film to cross the $1 billion mark, the first one being Toy Story 3.

Do you think it could do it?

~

What do you think of the Annie nominations overall? Does the idea of Mark Mancina providing Moana's score excite you? Do you think Despicable Me 2 will score a huge gross in China? Sound off below!

A Little Poor… But A Lot of Fun

With the success of The Aristocats behind them, the once-groundbreaking Disney animation studio would continue to thrive. The suits realized that animation wasn't something that had to be sent packing; The Jungle Book was a record-breaking hit and The Aristocats kept the success streak going. However, The Aristocats also showed the suits that you really didn't have to set the bar too high. The Aristocats got mixed reviews upon release, but it still made money and was considered a good diversion for family audiences. The next feature would also resort to that kind of storytelling laziness.

Robin Hood evolved out of many attempts to tell the story of Reynard the Fox, a character who Walt Disney deemed unsuitable for a lead heroic role. After Walt's death in 1966, production on a Robin Hood film began and the studio decided the tell the story with an all-animal cast. This film is actually a classic example of this trope, one that Disney Animation will be revisiting for the upcoming Zootopia, it was also explored by DreamWorks in their Kung Fu Panda franchise. Art director Ken Anderson went all out, coming up with several great character designs, only for them to be watered down into the kind of designs you'd find in a Saturday morning cartoon. He actually cried when he found out that his works were turned into such by-the-books designs! In addition to this, Robin Hood would turn out to be one of the most cost-efficient films in the Disney canon, and not in a good way. The studio really cut the budget this time around, and in turn... It really affects the whole production, making it a very middling effort from the studio - both visually and narratively.

Fortunately, Robin Hood boasts a very appealing cast despite the streamlined character designs. Making Robin Hood a fox was a great idea from the start, and Brian Bedford (Tommy Steele was originally considering to voice the titular character) brings out his sly trickster demeanor. He's smart as a whip and he is good at giving the bad guys a run for their money, but he's also very likable. Little John is fun, but he's really a recolored Baloo - he's also voiced by the same voice actor, Phil Harris! It doesn't help that a lot of animation from The Jungle Book is recycled in this film, it just doesn't really set the character apart from the two-bit bum bear from Walt's swan song.

Also, aside from Phil Harris, Robin Hood's cast is half-American. There's quite a few British actors in the film, but a lot of the characters have Southern accents. So is this Robin Hood: Bayou Edition? Andy Devine voices the portly badger Friar Tuck. Roger Miller and the animators transform minstrel Allan-a-Dale into a country singing-and-whistlin' rooster. Pat Buttram voices the Sheriff of Nottingham, who is portrayed as a pudgy but suitably mean-spirited wolf. (Taking a birthday present farthing from a child? Cruel.) John Fiedler voices the sexton, a borderline tough-guy mouse, probably just to have Piglet's voice in there for the sake of it being there. This side of the cast clashes with the British cast, which is all well-picked.

Peter Ustinov makes Prince John the wimpiest of Disney villains, and one of the funniest. A bratty, whiny adult child who comically sucks his thumb when his mother is mentioned, he's a delight to watch. His banter with Sir Hiss (voiced by Terry-Thomas, and he even has Thomas' teeth gap!) is also hilarious, making up for what doesn't work in the film. These two are pretty much a riot, and it's fun to see a villain who cowers when the hero is swings a sword in his direction, a nice little change of pace. Monica Evans and Carole Shelley, after voicing the two silly geese in The Aristocats, return to voice Maid Marian and Lady Kluck. Maid Marian is pretty much a bland damsel-in-distress in many ways, Lady Kluck is spunky, loud and one tough chicken. She's one of the most enjoyable characters in the film as a result.

In addition to such an American-flavored cast, the film goes a very cartoony route. Robin Hood isn't trying to be a lavish, fairly serious fairy tale like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Sleeping Beauty. Instead, it's trying to be freewheeling comic fun like The Jungle Book and The Aristocats. There's lots of goofy slapstick, no real dramatic tension and lots of anachronisms. During the archery tournament fight scene, Lady Kluck takes down Prince John's rhinoceros guards like she's playing football, complete with the University of Southern California fight anthem! It's a very bizarre moment, but yet it's so strangely amusing because the film doesn't even present itself as nothing more than a giddy full-length cartoon to begin with.

If one takes Robin Hood on those terms, they could enjoy it very much. It's not really a retelling of the classic legend, but just a fun romp based on some of the tale's elements. Like many have pointed out, it's really a good extended Saturday morning cartoon episode more so than a Disney animated feature, one that bests most of the Saturday morning cartoons made in the early 1970s. As a work of cinematic storytelling, it just falls flat because it isn't really trying to be anything more than just a comical cartoon adventure…

Robin Hood is essentially The Sword in the Stone all over again, oddly enough since both of them are set in the Middle Ages and came out nearly ten years apart. Robin Hood is a compilation of sequences, episodes really. It's all strung together, feeling incomplete and also a bit incoherent. The Sword in the Stone didn't have much a plot with a goal, neither does this. Robin Hood robs from the rich and helps the poor, that's about it, really. Now looking at the different sequences, they are competently-made and well-told sequences. Very entertaining and enthralling at times, too. But where's the center? Where's the heart? It doesn't really resonate.

The first thirty minutes of the film are a complete mess, with two "day in the life" exploits of Robin Hood and Little John supplying the levity and fun. But then we also get an inconsequential sequence where young rabbit Skippy loses his arrow and goes to retrieve it with his friends, thus meeting Maid Marian and Lady Kluck. The picture takes a while to really take off, but it starts coming together thanks to a great archery tournament sequence that comes in during the halfway point. This whole sequence is well-paced, the lack of music makes it exciting and there's some great inventive stuff thrown into the mix: Robin Hood's stork disguise is fun, Sir Hiss puts his head in a balloon and flies around like a helicopter, and Robin's attempt to undo the Sheriff messing up his final shot. All good stuff right there.

Then a really action-packed chase follows when Prince John shows that Robin Hood faked everyone out, making this whole section of the film even more exciting. From here until the climax, Robin Hood begins to start clicking. In fact, it starts to get really intriguing when Robin Hood carries out his most elaborate plot ever: Get all the money back, save Friar Tuck from being hanged and break the poor out of prison. Like the archery tournament sequence, there's very little musical accompaniment and it's actually pretty suspenseful - almost like the mice and key sequence from Cinderella. After all the build-up, we get a lot of fast action and this really great escape sequence that just gets bigger and bigger... Then it's all thrown out the window.

All of it.

After Robin Hood escapes the burning castle, Prince John has his last "mommy" freakout and chases a frightened Sir Hiss. Then the scene ends, and then the next morning comes ... Alan-a-Dale tells us that King Richard returned and "straightened everything out". Originally, there was going to be a sequence where King Richard enters the castle right after Robin escapes, angered at what Prince John had done in his absence. To save money, they cut this nearly-completed sequence at the eleventh hour. This decision only showed how low Disney had sunk at the time, and it was a move that truly hurt this film in many ways. Having that would've been the perfect capper to the climax, and it would've given the film's episodic structure something an ending, and a little bit of a center that it was so lacking. The return of King Richard should've been triumphant, considering the build-up, something that would've ended that climax with a real bang.

Alas, we didn't get that thus we have to be told what happened. Fine for a kids Saturday morning cartoon, but this is a full-length animated Disney production. Might as well not show the dwarfs chase the hag to the cliffside, just have them run after her and fade to black. Saving money by recycling animation from several Disney films for the bulk of the film is one thing, but completely cutting this ending is another. There's also an earlier storyboarded alternate ending where a wounded Robin Hood escapes the castle and Prince John hunts him down, but he is stopped just in time by King Richard. (This can be seen on both the Most Wanted Edition DVD and the recently-released Blu-ray.) Was the studio that low on money that they couldn't make a roughly 2-3 minute conclusion for the film? It takes such great build-up and soils it with an anticlimax... That's not how you resolve something, especially something big!

Had Robin Hood been made at another time in the studio's history, it would've been much better. This film wonderfully captures the situation that Disney was in at the time, and many animation historians have noted the many instances of traced animation in the film. I'm personally not a fan of it, as I feel that it doesn't differentiate these films from one another. Thankfully, this "recycle animation" thing was ditched after the 1980s (save for Beauty and the Beast's inexplicable recycling of the final Sleeping Beauty dance for that film's final seconds). It was something that producer-director Wolfgang Reitherman really latched onto, among other things.

Much has also been written about the quality of Woolie's work after Walt's death and during the Ron Miller era of Disney. He was actually ousted from The Black Cauldron during early pre-production. probably because of his "touches" to these films (Phil Harris, the Southern vibe), and the young animators especially hated the disco musical number that was in his early treatment of The Fox and the Hound. But Woolie really had a love for recycling animation, others however, didn't. Animator Milt Kahl angrily declared that the animators were "garbagemen", and proceeded to say some not-so-polite stuff about what they were doing to Disney animation. Newly-recruited Don Bluth (his second time at the studio) was also not happy with the direction Disney's animation wing was going... Major changes would ensue, of course.

Robin Hood would have to be right down there with Disney's 1960 featurette Goliath II when it comes to recycling animation. So much of the film is cut-and-paste, it even recycles itself! For instance, Prince John's rhino guards marching? You'll be seeing that a ton of times in the film, along with Alan-a-Dale's walking and whistling. The credits, like The Aristocats' credits, is composed entirely of scenes from the film, but without the backgrounds so that they don't spoil anything.

Technical problems aside, Robin Hood is hurt by its lack of a good resolution to such a good climax. It also fails to resonate. Maid Marian is a bland love interest, and she's one of the only Disney heroines that I'd call a shallow damsel-in-distress. To those who complain about how Snow White and Cinderella don't pick up swords like Mulan and fight others, why not get upset over this character instead? She always needs saving, and she's not that interesting to begin with! Robin and her have a brief but pointless "romance stroll" through the woods, accompanied by the film's weakest song and perhaps one of the blandest of Disney songs... Simply titled "Love". It's weird-sounding early 70s AM pop meets strings-heavy syrup, and I never remember much of the lyrics after each viewing.

The other songs, however, are actually pretty good. Where this film lacks in story and visuals, it completely packs a punch with the songs. All fun ditties in their own right, even if the Southern country flavor doesn't particularly fit in with Merry Old England. Roger Miller's "Whistle Stop" is intoxicating, "Not in Nottingham" is fairly dour but it works (it's used where it's needed, of course). "Oo-de-lally"? Fun, hummable. I also really love "The Phony King of England", despite the scene's rampant animation recycling. At least the songs serve a purpose here, and they help bolster the cartoony exuberance of the film.

Other than that, there is not much else to say. It's economic as hell, lacking in a good story and often falls flat with too much cutesy pap (the whole "lost arrow" sequence, I didn't even like that bit as a kid) and schmaltziness. It at least has something of a decent story compared to The Aristocats, and it doesn't plod like that one. It's surprisingly more engaging, but still very weak in structure and its scope is also limited by the low costs. Nottingham Forest looks more like the Hundred-Acre Wood than the forests in The Fox and the Hound. Some of the art direction just looks basic, almost TV animation-level. I understand that they had a budget, but this decidedly more minimalist style leaves one wanting more.

Robin Hood... Is that you?

Robin Hood opened in the fall of 1973 to generally less-than-enthusiastic critical response, but it was the biggest animated film on initial release back then. It only proved to Disney management that you could be ho-hum and still turn out a hit, even in the changing animation landscape. Yellow Submarine, Ralph Bakshi's first two films and Fantastic Planet only made this and the film before it seem dull. The re-releases of Walt's greatest films also made these two films pale in comparison in many ways. Luckily, a certain someone wanted to take action and would come to dominate a good chunk of the next feature... Don Bluth.

Despite its myriad problems, Robin Hood has always had a fanbase. The charm of the characters and humor is irresistible for many, even me. With all the problems I have with it, it's still fun to watch and I do find myself enjoying a lot of it. So... A poor-but-enjoyable movie? I guess so. In 1984, it would be the first of the "moratorium" Disney animated classics to be released on home video, and the release did sell very well (according to Disney). It seems like Robin Hood got a lot of popularity on video over the decades, given that this film does appeal more to children than it does to adults than most Disney animated films. Still, its video sales never got it any Platinum status or anything of the sort. But aside from the young, the film seems to have many older fans, too. There's just something about it that calls you to it... Heck, someone like director Wes Anderson must be a fan because he used "Love" in his brilliant Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Robin Hood in the end may not be a good film, but it isn't without merit. The film doesn't really aim to be a great classic to begin with, you can get that vibe easily from the first half hour or so. The film basically had the intentions - like The Aristocats before it - to give the audience, young and old, a fun time at the cinemas. Nothing more, really. It just wanted families to come in and leave happy. It's like a rather okay local amusement park, you get a kick out of some of the rides and whatnot but let's face it, it's not Disney World or Universal or Six Flags! Does it have to be? No, not really.

Robin Hood works well when taken on terms like that, it's decent, entertaining and memorable family fare. Its problems are quite glaring, but you can still have a good time watching it. Stacking it up next to the other Disney animated classics can be a bit unfair, as it's leagues below many of them. There could've been some good tweaks made in order to make this film much more solid.

"Robin Hood" is in the fourth tier of my ever-evolving best-to-worst Disney animated classics list. What are your thoughts on this Disney animated feature? Sound off below!