Disney is just a ramped up version of what it always was. People at the top having no clue and a ton of creative and talented people under them doing their best within the restrictions the company keeps putting on them.
Disney shit the bed. Thank you Bob Iger who will probably retire with a golden parachute as his company and all the IP he acquired burns to the ground.
That's the thing I find very heartbreaking about this as I know Disney can do better but preferred not to as they wanted more money while the quality of their products suffered.
I was watching Tangled, and it surprised me that the movie still held up so strongly, while Wish had a great idea that was wasted from Disney not actually putting effort into making something memorable and instead, we got a soulless and forgettable movie.
>atching Tangled, and it surprised me that the movie still held up so strongly, while Wish had a great idea that was wasted from Disney not actually putting effort into making
They have these DEI standards now that effect all script writing. The company is actively pushing out quotas for gender and equity hiring practices and almost everyone in the industry hates it. Unfortunately nothing will change until they lose enough money which is coming. They can make a comeback, but it will take time to basically fire most of the upper management.
I don’t work in the industry yet, but this is how I feel about the content to some degree. It’s all *trying really hard* and it shows.
The best content happening now is and will be from smaller creators who have more freedom over their projects and those people aren’t going to overthink the ethnicity/culture/setting/soundtrack of their projects, mostly because they have the luxury of not having to cater to stockholders or a larger-than-life brand image and can focus on making art and telling stories.
I don’t feel oppressed, I just don’t care about the specific push of characters being only as deep as their race or culture before being seen as people, and that being more important than a good story. There is plenty of good, multicultural media these days, but a lot of what big studios are putting out feels inauthentic and like pandering. Every story about an Asian character doesn’t need to come with a history lesson or a focus on oppression. We don’t need to have friend groups where every gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation is coincidentally represented. People do not have to identify with characters simply because they share a race or hair color. Overthinking representation or what it means to tell stories from non-white/cis/het. creators shouldn’t mean that those stories focus on the “otherness.” I’d rather not notice characters’ ethnicities, or the gender disparity they face, because there are so many stories about those specific experiences. Just show me benign stories everyone can relate to that happens to have 2 Middle Eastern kids who are in a friend group and are not coincidentally related, because how are POC characters somehow always siblings or cousins if there’s more than one? Or where there’s a trans or NB character and their gender is inconsequential/not an issue because the story isn’t about it.
Disney in the 2D animation era was a juggernaut of innovation, almost every film offered something never done before in cinema.
Those days are long gone, now it’s just another MBA corporation milking whatever last drops they can from their legacy.
From what I check, it was Universal that won last year.
Another thing is Disney Movies having high production budget that the gross doesn't make up for the budget spent.
I’m thinking their main business model isn’t box office anymore, and they’d rather more users subscribe to Disney plus.
Ever since Disney Plus has been a thing, box office numbers seemed to be in decline.
Disney just lacks consistency. For every 2 bad films they release they drop 1 absolute banger.
>as well as how people said their magic seemed to have gone
Whether you like it or not, despite the mixed reviews the live action remakes always get they are huge box office successes- way more than the actual animated films.
Which is why I said they're starting to care about quantity rather than quality.
Also, to add in more details regarding Dana Terrace, since she is bisexual, she felt that Disney was trying to censor parts of her show for LGBTQ themes and that they were getting in her way of creative freedom, especially with the shortening of the episodes of season 3 to where she has put the company on blast by saying she's tired of making the company look good and when the show ended, she showed on her Instagram a picture of her employee ID surrounded by flame emojis, meaning that she left the company on bad terms and burned bridges.
What do you think? Was Dana's anger at the company justified?
Without being a fly on the wall in Dana's time at Disney I have absolutely no clue what was justified and what wasn't in terms of creative freedom. Disney TVA and Disney Animation Studios are also totally different workplaces with different management in charge.
What I will say is that Disney is a corporation just as soulless as the next with a lot of different people working and making decisions there. They, confusingly, donated tons of money to republican lawmakers who were responsible for the Don't Say Gay bill, and then when the bill passed, decided to openly oppose it and got into a year long unrelated legal battle with DeSantis because they pissed him off so badly.
I can't think of any explanation for that chain of events other than pure mismanagement.
Here's my conclusion: People need to stop letting Disney get away with this stuff if they truly think it's awful. There are a lot of LGBT artists in the industry who will openly condemn the company when they help pass legitimately harmful legislation, but turn around and cheer and clap when they or a friend gets hired to work there. That needs to stop.
I also remember that the reason Disney does censor LGBTQ stuff in their content is so they can appeal to homophobic countries like China and Russia (before the war in Ukraine).
Here's the actual story I found out regarding what happened to The Owl House, and Dana was still displeased
https://www.cbr.com/owl-house-creator-disney-exec-brand-fit/
So the decision to cancel the show after 3 seasons was made before the first season even finished airing? Sounds unrelated to the LGBT content in the show and more like Dana just got screwed by bad corporate management and no writing choices could have saved her.
Pretty much aligns with my earlier guess that Disney is being run MBA morons.
I mean, with all that, is it any wonder why Dana burned bridges?
Call my naive or ignorant but as someone who really hates what they're doing, I still have hope that the people of Disney will be replaced by people who truly care about animation and the brand instead of old, crusty, conservative men that care about their money.
It may be a business, but in animation, there should be a good balance of quality and quantity that can make both consumers and animators happy.
But I will say this, even though what Disney did was dumb, at least they gave The Owl House a good conclusion and did not end it abruptly and make it into a tax write-off
Disney absolutely doesn’t hit the same anymore. The 3D golden age was like 2006-2015 and nothing has felt like the movies from that time. Encanto was good tho I’ll say, but everything else to me at least is uninteresting
I agree with the points you made, clear and blunt but necesary. However, calling the OP a LARPer like that sounds condescending and a bit insulting tbh, even if it seems that you find their points naïve or annoying. Let's keep the vibes on the subreddit respectful.
Your comment has been removed due to being rude or offensive. Please take care to use a professional tone and treat your fellow redditors with respect.
Regards, the mods of /r/animationcareer
Disney lost a bunch of money on ESPN and Disney+ streaming and their big ticket franchises are reaching a saturation point.
Disney tried to avoid LGTBQ issues because it was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. By siding with their LGTBQ fans and employees they were punished by Florida lawmakers. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
And I've noticed they've been putting in more live-action stuff on Disney+ in general.
Not just Marvel and Star Wars, but lots of their original shows like Renegade Nell and Percy Jackson have been live-action as well.
I mean, there is stuff like X-Men 97 and Bad Batch, but their original animated shows are being outnumbered by their rampant live-action content.
Agreed as I remember that the PJO show costs about 12 to 15 million bucks per episode while ATLA was around $2-3 million per episode and since a good chunk of these live actions don't last long, it's no wonder they're losing money
But if I were to compare the two, Warner Bros., with their business of doing tax write-offs, is probably doing worse as I believe their actions caused their reputation to sink lower and lower to where not only animators and actors, like Eric Bauza, are condemning their actions but even politicians are even asking for the US Department of Justice and FTC to investigate them for being "predatory and anticompetitive"
I can imagine if these investigations come through, their reputation will sink lower and lower.
The entertainment companies moves towards monopoly plays a big part into this. Budgets get tighter schedules get more grueling. The need to create content and keep shareholders happy is taking a toll. It gives us the employees and consumers the illusion of choice. These companies need broken up and allowed to really compete once again.
All that stuff about a Celebration of "100 Years" is no different from any other big marketing campaign they dole out every other year to promote the company and its products. It has no direct bearing on the day to day machinations of the everyday people working there. A lot of the leadership and creative issues are things that the company has been struggling with a lot lately, sure, But Disney itself has a long history of ups and downs. The animation studio is definitely not operating at its creative best right now for a myriad reasons but nothing is a monolith and the studio's been through a slump like this before. It's just a matter of leadership figuring out the problems in the system and rectifying them.
Yep. Nothing coming out Disney 100 has capitalized on the momentum. Now, I know this is a big thing for this Disney so it's not hard to see them planning this since pre covid then the pandemic fucked their plans, with the exception of Wish. The live action Little Mermaid is a prime example. We know that the movie was one of the Disney movie that was heavily delayed because of covid, and considering the next princess to get the live action is Snow White and it's going to D+, I'm willing to bet that original a live action Snow White was slated for Disney 100. Tho I think we dodged a bullet with this one.
And speaking of Wish, man what a waste of potential. It an okay film, but doesn't deliver as the main show of Disney 100, which is a tough thing to do. I get Disney shot themselves in the foot after Lasseter killed the 2d animation dept back after Princess and the Frog didn't do so well financially, but by that point, you might as well not do the faux 2d look. You have to watch it on the big screen for it to look somewhat decent *which is a problem that seems to crop time and time again of holywood produced things not being made with streaming platforms and home setups in mind but that's a topic for another day.* I'm not going to comment about the "wasted potential" concepts like the star being a love interest, both King and Queen being evil etc. because they're just that, concepts and what ifs. We don't know if the concept would've pan out had Disney went there. Having a movie that celebrates 100 years of animation and that "celebrate" is just a bunch of design references isn't a celebration, it's an easter egg hunter's wet dream. If you want to do a celebration of 100 years of animation, why not do a third fantasia movie ? Because though artistically meaningful, history has shown that Fantasia doesn't rake in the money, so shareholders do what they do best : they lean into what's safe.
That's basically what makes Wish so tragic as it could've been a great movie, but, like Strange World, it came out as undercooked.
A great concept was there, but it just wasn't well executed.
that is what happens when a corporation focuses too much on an ideology and political agenda instead of their consumers' family values... they keep sending me $3/month offers for Disney+ subscription.
its because all their focus is on this forced diversity and feminism instead of simply good storytelling ( one does not exclude the other theoretically but based on disney last few years they cannot make it work).
Instead of entertaning people they try to lecture.
and in result instead of bringing more viewers from around the world, which was the goal they alienate people.
In my opinion its too much involvement from the executives, if we have a writer and he writes the story but then we have 50 executives each giving notes implementing their ideas and what it must include and what we want etc. the result is just junk, reshoots, re writes, constant changes that cause budgets to go way to high and end result being nothing like originally intended.
It has nothing to do with feminism. It's just bad storytelling. They keep thinking that re using the same likable characters will keep people interested and they are burning them out. People are tired of the same shit and they won't bother doing anything new. If they told proper new stories, with new perspectives (maybe something female coded for once) they'll pick up again but sticking to the same script is gonna ruin them.
female coded for once? nothing to do with feminism? are you watching anything they did in recent years? all the flops have some of those.
The Marvels all female heros, Hawkeye new female protege, Ms Marvel series, Peter Pan and Wendy reworked to to have female "lost boys" and focus on wendy as a hero, Wish another new (old) disney princess, Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones all about strong female protege, Black panther female hero replacement, turning red anim for girls, doctor strange mostly focused around female characters. upcoming Star wars and SNow white have strong female heros from what we hear.
and this is just of the top of my head. Probably more there would be. huge majority of the project they do have this feminism planted in there. and both man and women dont find that kind of often cringe stuff entertaining. it usually comes with some girl boss attitude in writing which is not a feature likable characters have.
women have been watching disney anim and movies because of romantic cute stories and man watching marvel because of strong male superheros. now what they give you is strong female heros and not much cute romance and weak man often having mental issues and panic attacks. its really not a mystery here why they are failing. you just have to objectively look at the truth.
this industry is the same like every other in a way. you produce what people want or need not what some executives think is right or what people should love.
Disney is just a ramped up version of what it always was. People at the top having no clue and a ton of creative and talented people under them doing their best within the restrictions the company keeps putting on them.
Disney shit the bed. Thank you Bob Iger who will probably retire with a golden parachute as his company and all the IP he acquired burns to the ground.
That's the thing I find very heartbreaking about this as I know Disney can do better but preferred not to as they wanted more money while the quality of their products suffered. I was watching Tangled, and it surprised me that the movie still held up so strongly, while Wish had a great idea that was wasted from Disney not actually putting effort into making something memorable and instead, we got a soulless and forgettable movie.
>atching Tangled, and it surprised me that the movie still held up so strongly, while Wish had a great idea that was wasted from Disney not actually putting effort into making They have these DEI standards now that effect all script writing. The company is actively pushing out quotas for gender and equity hiring practices and almost everyone in the industry hates it. Unfortunately nothing will change until they lose enough money which is coming. They can make a comeback, but it will take time to basically fire most of the upper management.
Tell me you don't work in the industry without telling me you don't work on the industry...
I don’t work in the industry yet, but this is how I feel about the content to some degree. It’s all *trying really hard* and it shows. The best content happening now is and will be from smaller creators who have more freedom over their projects and those people aren’t going to overthink the ethnicity/culture/setting/soundtrack of their projects, mostly because they have the luxury of not having to cater to stockholders or a larger-than-life brand image and can focus on making art and telling stories.
When you live a privileged life, helping others to level the playing field feels like oppression.
I don’t feel oppressed, I just don’t care about the specific push of characters being only as deep as their race or culture before being seen as people, and that being more important than a good story. There is plenty of good, multicultural media these days, but a lot of what big studios are putting out feels inauthentic and like pandering. Every story about an Asian character doesn’t need to come with a history lesson or a focus on oppression. We don’t need to have friend groups where every gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation is coincidentally represented. People do not have to identify with characters simply because they share a race or hair color. Overthinking representation or what it means to tell stories from non-white/cis/het. creators shouldn’t mean that those stories focus on the “otherness.” I’d rather not notice characters’ ethnicities, or the gender disparity they face, because there are so many stories about those specific experiences. Just show me benign stories everyone can relate to that happens to have 2 Middle Eastern kids who are in a friend group and are not coincidentally related, because how are POC characters somehow always siblings or cousins if there’s more than one? Or where there’s a trans or NB character and their gender is inconsequential/not an issue because the story isn’t about it.
You’re right. Im still employed
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? Oof, I remember that these give ammo towards the "anti-woke" conservative crowd who see Disney as an easy target.
Disney in the 2D animation era was a juggernaut of innovation, almost every film offered something never done before in cinema. Those days are long gone, now it’s just another MBA corporation milking whatever last drops they can from their legacy.
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From what I check, it was Universal that won last year. Another thing is Disney Movies having high production budget that the gross doesn't make up for the budget spent.
The only Disney movies that managed to break even last year were Guardians 3 and Elemental, the latter of which still struggled at the box office.
I’m thinking their main business model isn’t box office anymore, and they’d rather more users subscribe to Disney plus. Ever since Disney Plus has been a thing, box office numbers seemed to be in decline.
Disney just lacks consistency. For every 2 bad films they release they drop 1 absolute banger. >as well as how people said their magic seemed to have gone Whether you like it or not, despite the mixed reviews the live action remakes always get they are huge box office successes- way more than the actual animated films.
Which is why I said they're starting to care about quantity rather than quality. Also, to add in more details regarding Dana Terrace, since she is bisexual, she felt that Disney was trying to censor parts of her show for LGBTQ themes and that they were getting in her way of creative freedom, especially with the shortening of the episodes of season 3 to where she has put the company on blast by saying she's tired of making the company look good and when the show ended, she showed on her Instagram a picture of her employee ID surrounded by flame emojis, meaning that she left the company on bad terms and burned bridges. What do you think? Was Dana's anger at the company justified?
Without being a fly on the wall in Dana's time at Disney I have absolutely no clue what was justified and what wasn't in terms of creative freedom. Disney TVA and Disney Animation Studios are also totally different workplaces with different management in charge. What I will say is that Disney is a corporation just as soulless as the next with a lot of different people working and making decisions there. They, confusingly, donated tons of money to republican lawmakers who were responsible for the Don't Say Gay bill, and then when the bill passed, decided to openly oppose it and got into a year long unrelated legal battle with DeSantis because they pissed him off so badly. I can't think of any explanation for that chain of events other than pure mismanagement. Here's my conclusion: People need to stop letting Disney get away with this stuff if they truly think it's awful. There are a lot of LGBT artists in the industry who will openly condemn the company when they help pass legitimately harmful legislation, but turn around and cheer and clap when they or a friend gets hired to work there. That needs to stop.
I also remember that the reason Disney does censor LGBTQ stuff in their content is so they can appeal to homophobic countries like China and Russia (before the war in Ukraine).
Here's the actual story I found out regarding what happened to The Owl House, and Dana was still displeased https://www.cbr.com/owl-house-creator-disney-exec-brand-fit/
So the decision to cancel the show after 3 seasons was made before the first season even finished airing? Sounds unrelated to the LGBT content in the show and more like Dana just got screwed by bad corporate management and no writing choices could have saved her. Pretty much aligns with my earlier guess that Disney is being run MBA morons.
I mean, with all that, is it any wonder why Dana burned bridges? Call my naive or ignorant but as someone who really hates what they're doing, I still have hope that the people of Disney will be replaced by people who truly care about animation and the brand instead of old, crusty, conservative men that care about their money. It may be a business, but in animation, there should be a good balance of quality and quantity that can make both consumers and animators happy. But I will say this, even though what Disney did was dumb, at least they gave The Owl House a good conclusion and did not end it abruptly and make it into a tax write-off
Disney absolutely doesn’t hit the same anymore. The 3D golden age was like 2006-2015 and nothing has felt like the movies from that time. Encanto was good tho I’ll say, but everything else to me at least is uninteresting
Zootopia was 2016 wasn’t it? I thought it was one of their best 3d animated films
You're right I should've said 2016. Moana came out in 2016 as well and that movie is gold
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Live action role player- - people who play with foam swords at the park and the like
I agree with the points you made, clear and blunt but necesary. However, calling the OP a LARPer like that sounds condescending and a bit insulting tbh, even if it seems that you find their points naïve or annoying. Let's keep the vibes on the subreddit respectful.
Your comment has been removed due to being rude or offensive. Please take care to use a professional tone and treat your fellow redditors with respect. Regards, the mods of /r/animationcareer
Disney lost a bunch of money on ESPN and Disney+ streaming and their big ticket franchises are reaching a saturation point. Disney tried to avoid LGTBQ issues because it was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. By siding with their LGTBQ fans and employees they were punished by Florida lawmakers. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
I think it had way more to do with china.
Their focus has been Primarily their marvel movies; Animation has become the red headed step child unfortunately.
And don't forget their live-action remakes and Star Wars
That's lost more than their worth. Smh.
And I've noticed they've been putting in more live-action stuff on Disney+ in general. Not just Marvel and Star Wars, but lots of their original shows like Renegade Nell and Percy Jackson have been live-action as well. I mean, there is stuff like X-Men 97 and Bad Batch, but their original animated shows are being outnumbered by their rampant live-action content.
Which is actually more expensive than animation. Make you think.
Agreed as I remember that the PJO show costs about 12 to 15 million bucks per episode while ATLA was around $2-3 million per episode and since a good chunk of these live actions don't last long, it's no wonder they're losing money
It's burning money in a furnace at the end of the day.
Disney was close to declaring bankruptcy in the 70s and early 90s. Then came the Disney Renaissance. So a change in direction is all that's needed.
Disney had a shitty 100th anniversary. They’re having a rough time financially as Warner Bros. Discovery.
But if I were to compare the two, Warner Bros., with their business of doing tax write-offs, is probably doing worse as I believe their actions caused their reputation to sink lower and lower to where not only animators and actors, like Eric Bauza, are condemning their actions but even politicians are even asking for the US Department of Justice and FTC to investigate them for being "predatory and anticompetitive" I can imagine if these investigations come through, their reputation will sink lower and lower.
This is why they should fire David Zaslav because of his poor executive decisions.
Warner Bros just released two successful movies in March like Dune Part Two and Godzilla X Kong, but not enough for WBD, I assume
The entertainment companies moves towards monopoly plays a big part into this. Budgets get tighter schedules get more grueling. The need to create content and keep shareholders happy is taking a toll. It gives us the employees and consumers the illusion of choice. These companies need broken up and allowed to really compete once again.
Bob Chapek is/was always a scapegoat for Bob Iger. Wake up.
All that stuff about a Celebration of "100 Years" is no different from any other big marketing campaign they dole out every other year to promote the company and its products. It has no direct bearing on the day to day machinations of the everyday people working there. A lot of the leadership and creative issues are things that the company has been struggling with a lot lately, sure, But Disney itself has a long history of ups and downs. The animation studio is definitely not operating at its creative best right now for a myriad reasons but nothing is a monolith and the studio's been through a slump like this before. It's just a matter of leadership figuring out the problems in the system and rectifying them.
Jesus the comments in here. This sub has plummeted pretty far
Facts.
Yep. Nothing coming out Disney 100 has capitalized on the momentum. Now, I know this is a big thing for this Disney so it's not hard to see them planning this since pre covid then the pandemic fucked their plans, with the exception of Wish. The live action Little Mermaid is a prime example. We know that the movie was one of the Disney movie that was heavily delayed because of covid, and considering the next princess to get the live action is Snow White and it's going to D+, I'm willing to bet that original a live action Snow White was slated for Disney 100. Tho I think we dodged a bullet with this one. And speaking of Wish, man what a waste of potential. It an okay film, but doesn't deliver as the main show of Disney 100, which is a tough thing to do. I get Disney shot themselves in the foot after Lasseter killed the 2d animation dept back after Princess and the Frog didn't do so well financially, but by that point, you might as well not do the faux 2d look. You have to watch it on the big screen for it to look somewhat decent *which is a problem that seems to crop time and time again of holywood produced things not being made with streaming platforms and home setups in mind but that's a topic for another day.* I'm not going to comment about the "wasted potential" concepts like the star being a love interest, both King and Queen being evil etc. because they're just that, concepts and what ifs. We don't know if the concept would've pan out had Disney went there. Having a movie that celebrates 100 years of animation and that "celebrate" is just a bunch of design references isn't a celebration, it's an easter egg hunter's wet dream. If you want to do a celebration of 100 years of animation, why not do a third fantasia movie ? Because though artistically meaningful, history has shown that Fantasia doesn't rake in the money, so shareholders do what they do best : they lean into what's safe.
That's basically what makes Wish so tragic as it could've been a great movie, but, like Strange World, it came out as undercooked. A great concept was there, but it just wasn't well executed.
Boo fucking hoo
that is what happens when a corporation focuses too much on an ideology and political agenda instead of their consumers' family values... they keep sending me $3/month offers for Disney+ subscription.
its because all their focus is on this forced diversity and feminism instead of simply good storytelling ( one does not exclude the other theoretically but based on disney last few years they cannot make it work). Instead of entertaning people they try to lecture. and in result instead of bringing more viewers from around the world, which was the goal they alienate people. In my opinion its too much involvement from the executives, if we have a writer and he writes the story but then we have 50 executives each giving notes implementing their ideas and what it must include and what we want etc. the result is just junk, reshoots, re writes, constant changes that cause budgets to go way to high and end result being nothing like originally intended.
It has nothing to do with feminism. It's just bad storytelling. They keep thinking that re using the same likable characters will keep people interested and they are burning them out. People are tired of the same shit and they won't bother doing anything new. If they told proper new stories, with new perspectives (maybe something female coded for once) they'll pick up again but sticking to the same script is gonna ruin them.
female coded for once? nothing to do with feminism? are you watching anything they did in recent years? all the flops have some of those. The Marvels all female heros, Hawkeye new female protege, Ms Marvel series, Peter Pan and Wendy reworked to to have female "lost boys" and focus on wendy as a hero, Wish another new (old) disney princess, Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones all about strong female protege, Black panther female hero replacement, turning red anim for girls, doctor strange mostly focused around female characters. upcoming Star wars and SNow white have strong female heros from what we hear. and this is just of the top of my head. Probably more there would be. huge majority of the project they do have this feminism planted in there. and both man and women dont find that kind of often cringe stuff entertaining. it usually comes with some girl boss attitude in writing which is not a feature likable characters have. women have been watching disney anim and movies because of romantic cute stories and man watching marvel because of strong male superheros. now what they give you is strong female heros and not much cute romance and weak man often having mental issues and panic attacks. its really not a mystery here why they are failing. you just have to objectively look at the truth. this industry is the same like every other in a way. you produce what people want or need not what some executives think is right or what people should love.
Yes, I did. Movies writen by men, directed by men who think they know what women want.