Fabulous!

If you haven’t seen Toys Story 3 yet, my advice to you is:

1. Go!  It was wonderful!

And:

2. Wear waterproof mascara.

Now quit reading this post right now.  I mean it; go away.  You do NOT want to read any spoilers for this film.  You want to experience it for yourself, trust me.  I’m serious; the less you know about this film when you see it, the more you will enjoy it.

Are they gone now?  Okay, good.  We can discuss the film. Obviously, I loved it.  I loved how they started with the familiar lines and characters (we all recognized “One-eyed Bart” right off the bat, and knew that dinosaurs can take down force-field dogs any day of the week).  We experienced strong emotions as we watched Andy grow up; proud of the young man was becoming, but a sense of loss, as well. We saw how this affected his family and his toys.  Then we got a whirlwind adventure as they toys struggled to determine where they belonged, and how to get there.  There was a great villain, and I was so thankful that Pixar didn’t take the cheesy redemption route, but had him stay evil when he had a chance at atonement.  And if you weren’t crying in the fire scene, your emotion chip has malfunctioned and it’s time for a reboot.  My daughter even cried in that scene, and she didn’t cry when Old Yeller died!

This film ran the gamut of emotions.  I loved the humor (Buzz in Spanish mode, Tortilla Potatohead), the edge-of-your-seat thrills, the simultaneous sense of loss and completion during the final good-bye.  I know I’m not even scratching the surface of the real highlights of this film, but to be honest, my emotions are still so raw, so close to the surface, that I think I’m going to need to see the film again before I can provide any sort of an objective analysis of it.  And see it again, I shall.  My daughter clamored to do so immediately, and my husband, Mr. Frugal (or as I shall now refer to him, Mr. Pricklepants) who hates seeing movies in the theater, didn’t argue. It’s another home run for Pixar, and has me even more excited for some of their upcoming projects.  What’s on the horizon?  There’s Newt, the story of the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet forced together by science to save the species, and they can’t stand each other (Summer 2011). Summer of 2012 is supposed to herald in Cars 2, featuring the international escapades of Lightning McQueen and Mater, and even though I wasn’t all that impressed with Cars (by far my least favorite of the Pixar films), I trust Pixar enough to give them another chance on that franchise.

Have you seen Toy Story 3?  What did you think?  Let me know at http://www.facebook.com/disneygene!  

Disney War

I tend to read everything about the world of Disney that I can get my grubby little paws on.  I read travel books, biographies, Imagineering guides, and trivia books.  It’s gotten to the point where my husband laughs at me for my eternal optimism that I might actually find out anything new.  That’s why I was so happy to stumble across Disney War by James B. Stewart. 

I was actually at Amazon.com to order my daughter’s summer reading assignments for Honors English, and I needed a couple more books to meet the minimum for free shipping. One of the books I ordered I wasn’t too impressed with, so I’ll refrain from mentioning it.  Another I ordered was Queens in the Kingdom, by Jeffrey Epstein and Eddie Shapiro.  While it didn’t provide much new data and could certainly do with an update, the book itself was hilarious, and a very enjoyable read.  The real stand-out though, was Disney War. 

Most Disney history books tend to focus on Walt’s life or the history of the parks.  I find all of that fascinating, but it can be hard to find anything new.  And not to sound like a petulant teenager, but it all happened before my time.  Disney War, on the other hand, covers the history of the Walt Disney Company throughout the Michael Eisner years. This is a part of Disney history that I remember vividly.  It’s so wonderful to compare the insider look provided by the book to my personal memories of the events described.

The book tries (to my mind at least) to give a fair representation of the side of each of the major players during the events that unfolded during the Eisner era.  Why did Roy E. Disney decide to oust his Cousin Diane’s husband from the company in favor of Eisner?  How much really changed upon the death of Frank Wells?  What was the cause of the acrimonious split (and ensuing lawsuit) with Jeffrey Katzenberg, and what lasting repercussions did his departure bring to the entire animation industry? How did we almost lose Pixar?  What finally prompted Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold to start the Save Disney campaign (which I joined)?  How did the acquisition of ABC and the Family Channel impact the company, and why is the company still following this trend towards mammoth acquisitions today?  All of this and more is covered in this amazing book.  My husband is reading it now, and I can’t wait for him to finish so I can read it again.

Have you read Disney War?  If so, what did you think?  Do you have any good Disney books you’d like to suggest?  Let me know over at http://www.facebook.com/disneygene!  

The Roll-Over Effect

I was listening to a discussion recently regarding a film studio’s surprise at the performance of a recent movie of theirs at the box office. Dreamworks was astonished that “How to Train Your Dragon”, which got brilliant reviews from the critics, was performing less well than their previous release, “Monsters vs. Aliens”, whose reviews were lukewarm, at best. As this issue seems to puzzle Disney quite often as well, I thought I’d discuss it. In my opinion, it’s a result of what I refer to as “The Roll-Over Effect”.

My premise is this: audience turnout for a movie from a company like Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks isn’t based as much on what they think of the current film as what their experience was with the previous film. I know that sounds strange, but let me explain. After years of sub-par films, the first big Disney film of its Renaissance was The Little Mermaid. This has become a beloved Disney classic, but only grossed $6 million its opening weekend. Why? Because movie-goers had been trained to expect the likes of The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective. They weren’t anticipating anything truly wonderful.

This works in the other direction, as well. After a hugely successful run, including films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, Disney was able to get some pretty good numbers out of Pocahontas which, while a good movie, certainly wasn’t in the same league as the others. The following film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, got rave reviews from the critics, but people remembered being less enchanted with Pocahontas than its predecessors, so the turnout wasn’t as good for Hunchback as it may have been if it had immediately followed The Lion King. This downward trend continued until, with the likes of The Emperor’s New Groove and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, theater-goers were about to throw up their hands in frustration. Lilo and Stitch breathed a bit of new life into things, but it wasn’t enough to counter, the disastrous less than stellar Treasure Planet and Home on the Range. Disney then closed the hand-drawn animation studios, to focus on computer generated pictures.

Okay, it’s time for me to rant a little here. I heard an interview with a Disney Studio head claiming that the quality of the films didn’t drop in the mid-nineties; audiences were just tired of the Broadway-style hand-drawn animated films, and wanted them all to be computer-generated. When I heard that, I nearly blew a gasket. I’m sorry, but I think that is complete garbage. Are you trying to tell me that Treasure Planet didn’t do well because it was produced predominately in 2-D animation? News flash; it didn’t do well because it wasn’t a very good movie. If it had been as good as Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King, people would have gone to see it.

Although they won’t admit it, Disney is a little disappointed that The Princess and the Frog didn’t get a better reception. But let’s face it, the last hand-drawn film before it was Home on the Range. Disney hadn’t exactly trained its audience to have high hopes. Now, if Tangled is as good as The Princess and the Frog, my guess is that it will do very well. If, that is, Disney hasn’t totally confused audiences with this weird, “we’re too cool to admit we’re doing a princess fairy tale story (because those never work for you, do they Disney?), so we’re going to give it an ambiguous name to peak your interest” marketing plan they have going on.

The roll-over effect has worked very well for Pixar. For any other company, people may have been hesitant to shell out their hard-earned cash to see an animated film about an old guy and some balloons or a robot that doesn’t talk much and has a peculiar Hello Dolly fetish, but we’ve learned to trust Pixar, so we gave them a shot and were rewarded with some fabulous viewing experiences. My hope is that Disney will learn from this. It’s going to take a few back-to-back home runs from Disney before we’re truly going to believe they have a solid animation offense again.

I hope you’ll forgive me if you think I’ve been too harsh, but I’ve gotta call ‘em like I see ‘em. Hopefully, Disney will learn this lesson, and start worrying more about the story they are telling, instead of the medium they are using. What do you think? Please join me at http://www.facebook.com/disneygene and let me know!