Fall of the House of Mouse
I have just seen the first reviews for Disney's new computer-generated animated adventure, Chicken Little. If the indications are what your Dragonmaster thinks they are, then what I am now about to blog does not bode well for the House that Walt Built.
Bluntly put, kids: The Disney era is OVER!
The time has come to realize that Disney on its own can simply no longer compete with the animation powerhouses of its own, soon-to-be-ex-partner Pixar, and the current 800-lb. gorilla of CGI, DreamWorks. I've been saying this almost from the moment Shrek first hit theatres; I find it amazing that the current crop of U.S. film critics are discovering this now. Animation is now a digital world, and the once-proud empire set up at 500 South Buena Vista Street is suddenly, in a most ironic turn of poetic justice, as much damaged goods in the toon business as has Don Bluth likewise become himself.
That your Dragonmaster, who, in his Mortal-born form, was of yore literally breast-fed on Disney, should say this to you now may shock and/or offend some of you who, like me, are obsessed with Disney. But Disney's long road to self-destruction began the minute that Michael Eisner refused to surrender to Jeffrey Katzenberg the Presidency of the Company. That one act of refusal sowed the seed for the death of animation as we once knew it. See you now what has resulted, my friends: terrible storylines, cookie-cutter Saturday-morning concepts, stunt superstar casting. The question, as ever: Why?
It's time to accept what you and I already know, and that is that Disney without Walt is no more than a lion in winter. The Mouse Factory of ancient times has given way to the Mousepad generation spawned by the Studio's own TRON. True, there will always be those who can't get enough of Cinderella, as the recent Special Edition DVD continues to demonstrate --- but the truth remains that Disney as a whole is on the threshold of becoming, as far as animation per se is concerned, a dinosaur.
I wanna know what you think, America. Gimme an e-mail at blackbeardian@yahoo.com.
Master Blackwolf
Bluntly put, kids: The Disney era is OVER!
The time has come to realize that Disney on its own can simply no longer compete with the animation powerhouses of its own, soon-to-be-ex-partner Pixar, and the current 800-lb. gorilla of CGI, DreamWorks. I've been saying this almost from the moment Shrek first hit theatres; I find it amazing that the current crop of U.S. film critics are discovering this now. Animation is now a digital world, and the once-proud empire set up at 500 South Buena Vista Street is suddenly, in a most ironic turn of poetic justice, as much damaged goods in the toon business as has Don Bluth likewise become himself.
That your Dragonmaster, who, in his Mortal-born form, was of yore literally breast-fed on Disney, should say this to you now may shock and/or offend some of you who, like me, are obsessed with Disney. But Disney's long road to self-destruction began the minute that Michael Eisner refused to surrender to Jeffrey Katzenberg the Presidency of the Company. That one act of refusal sowed the seed for the death of animation as we once knew it. See you now what has resulted, my friends: terrible storylines, cookie-cutter Saturday-morning concepts, stunt superstar casting. The question, as ever: Why?
It's time to accept what you and I already know, and that is that Disney without Walt is no more than a lion in winter. The Mouse Factory of ancient times has given way to the Mousepad generation spawned by the Studio's own TRON. True, there will always be those who can't get enough of Cinderella, as the recent Special Edition DVD continues to demonstrate --- but the truth remains that Disney as a whole is on the threshold of becoming, as far as animation per se is concerned, a dinosaur.
I wanna know what you think, America. Gimme an e-mail at blackbeardian@yahoo.com.
Master Blackwolf
posted by Master Blackwolf | 8:50 AM
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