Disney Double-Take: Derivatively Definitive

[Ermintruder]

To what extent does this seem already to be no surprise to you?

Did you always know?

These childhood cartoon images, of the most fundamental visceral familarity, are a self-referencing re-working. Repeatedly-reclad, perfection served twice, thrice and yet again.

Watch closely, and you shall understand....but this time, whilst awake. For me, the spell is both broken and strengthened, I am shocked and awed.

 

[David Plankton]

I'm sure I've seen footage or still photos online of actors playing out scenes from Snow White which were then drawn over by the animators. Not quite the same but it surprised me at the time.

 

[rynner2]

I'm pretty sure this was discussed on an earlier thread, months or years ago. Probably a search on 'Walt Disney' would turn it up, but I don't have the time right now...

 

[Swifty]

Walt's 1942 propaganda film ..

 

[tastyintestines]

Walt's 1942 propaganda film ..

Annoying and off topic.

 

[GNC]

To what extent does this seem already to be no surprise to you?

Did you always know?

It's not that big a deal, animators all around the world have been reusing material ever since the medium began, same with rotoscoping (drawing over live action footage). It irritates me that there's this attitude of the cartoonists being "found out" when they never made a secret of it and didn't think it was worth mentioning anyway. These surprised folks must be aghast and dumbfounded at your average Hanna-Barbera toon.

 

[David Plankton]

These surprised folks must be aghast and dumbfounded at your average Hanna-Barbera toon.

Like when Shaggy and Scooby are running down the hall in a haunted house and they pass a grandfather clock, a moose head, a large vase, a grandfather clock, a moose head, a large vase, a grandfather clock......

 

[GNC]

The Flintstones' house must have been a mile long with extremely unimaginative interior decoration.

 

[Swifty]

Annoying and off topic.

Tastyintestines, next time you're rude to me I shall lean through your computer screen and jam my finger up your nose.

 

[David Plankton]

Tastyintestines, next time you're rude to me I shall lean through your computer screen and jam my finger up your nose.

Now that would be annoying and off topic.

 

[Frideswide]

Walt's 1942 propaganda film ..

not annoying and not off topic - I'm now wondering how much sharing happens between the "serious" and the purely commercial.

There's some beautiful Wagnerian trills at about 2.50

 

[Swifty]

Now that would be annoying and off topic.

Hopefully .. have we got a weird Disney thread?

 

[eburacum]

I'm sure I noticed the Baloo/Little John rejig in the cinema when I first saw it; especially the bit where his eyes go all weird. I just thought it was because Disney's Robin Hood was a particularly shite offering, but it turns out they are all like that.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

The Flintstones' house must have been a mile long with extremely unimaginative interior decoration.

to be fair though it was caveman times, no Ikea in those days.

 

[GNC]

to be fair though it was caveman times, no Ikea in those days.

True, there was probably just the one kind of table lamp available back then.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I can't get any of those clips to play on my laughable BT connection.

I would like to say that Ermintrude has become much more eloquent since she shook off the male oppression of snails, dogs, rabbits and spring-loaded pringles.

 

[Ermintruder]

I would like to say that Ermintrude has become much more eloquent since she shook off the male oppression of snails, dogs, rabbits and spring-loaded pringles.

My incarnation of The Cow is me, myself, I am certainly not a she nor an it.

I channel through choice a respected-but-dated iconic observer of the world that revolves around the roundabout. Ermintrude is passive in appearance only, whilst being (in actuality) an agile agent. She is the pivot, the centre, that is real and can be relied upon.

Was Brian a male snail? I think not: only the named-part he played had a gender. Dougal was 60% dog/ 20% caterpillar / 10% paint-roller. Zebedee and Dylan: again, I think they were pantomimed characters, devoid of any genuine gender agendas.

Cows no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves: will not be pinned

To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cows no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.

(with apologies to Tessimond for the appropriation)

 

[ramonmercado]

My incarnation of The Cow is me, myself, I am certainly not a she nor an it.

I channel through choice a respected-but-dated iconic observer of the world that revolves around the roundabout. Ermintrude is passive in appearance only, whilst being (in actuality) an agile agent. She is the pivot, the centre, that is real and can be relied upon.

Was Brian a male snail? I think not: only the named-part he played had a gender. Dougal was 60% dog/ 20% caterpillar / 10% paint-roller. Zebedee and Dylan: again, I think they were pantomimed characters, devoid of any genuine gender agendas.

Cows no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves: will not be pinned

To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cows no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.

(with apologies to Tessimond for the appropriation)

Its on Americas tortured brow,
Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow.

 

[GeorgeP]

Its on Americas tortured brow,
Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow.

(arm in arm, staggering home)....Take a look at the law man, beating up the wrong guy...burp

 

[Krepostnoi]

What's that? Life on Mars? Derivative?

 

[Swifty]

Here's some pictures of the inside of the secret Disney club, Club 33 .. apparently it was remodelled in 2014 ..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_33

This video contains no frozen Walts ..

 

[Frasier Buddolph]

To what extent does this seem already to be no surprise to you?

Did you always know?

These childhood cartoon images, of the most fundamental visceral familarity, are a self-referencing re-working. Repeatedly-reclad, perfection served twice, thrice and yet again.

Watch closely, and you shall understand....but this time, whilst awake. For me, the spell is both broken and strengthened, I am shocked and awed.

Yep, it seems to be standard practice among animators to re-use footage, whether for economic reasons or sheer laziness (ala Hanna-Barbera).

Don't get me started on Disney, though. If Disney was ever about creativity and whimsy (a debatable proposition, I know), it has long since ceased to be. Disney is now exclusively a marketing juggernaut, producing merchandising platforms for pushing cheesy wares onto susceptible youngsters. Disney has been described as a G-rated pornographer, and I think that's pretty close to the mark.

I was aghast when Disney bought the distribution rights to Miyazaki/Ghibli Studios animation. Miyazaki's work is a thing of beauty, being prostituted by vulgarian hacks who could never equal or even appreciate it.

Just my $0.02

 

[Krepostnoi]

Yep, it seems to be standard practice among animators to re-use footage, whether for economic reasons or sheer laziness (ala Hanna-Barbera).

Don't get me started on Disney, though. If Disney was ever about creativity and whimsy (a debatable proposition, I know), it has long since ceased to be. Disney is now exclusively a marketing juggernaut, producing merchandising platforms for pushing cheesy wares onto susceptible youngsters. Disney has been described as a G-rated pornographer, and I think that's pretty close to the mark.

I was aghast when Disney bought the distribution rights to Miyazaki/Ghibli Studios animation. Miyazaki's work is a thing of beauty, being prostituted by vulgarian hacks who could never equal or even appreciate it.

Just my $0.02

There is a large part of me that yearns to agree, the part that thought the last great bit of creativity shown by the Mouse's underlings was when use of the jocular-but-not moniker Mousechwitz to describe their workplace was banned and they responded by immediately referring to Duckau. And yet, and yet... Surely Lilo and Stitch is an outlier by traditional Disney standards, and then you get to the watershed moment of Enchanted, in which a famously humourless corporation has a long, hard laugh at itself. This movie has ushered in something that is not so much a renaissance as a metamorphosis. The Muppet Movie is cut from similar cloth (but not its sequel, which genuinely tries to play labour camps for laughs rather than morbid workplace humour...)

The last three Disney animated blockbusters have been Frozen, Zootropolis and Moana, and I put it to you that the first of that triad is in fact the weakest. Zootropolis is, on the face of it, a cutesy film noir, if you can imagine such a thing, but it uses this as a vehicle to raise some fairly profound questions around identity politics and the wielding of fear for political ends that would grace a movie aimed at an older audience, let alone the pre-teen and teen market that I guess was its target demographic. Moana builds on the princesses-don't-need-a-prince-to-validate-them theme launched by Frozen, and brings in apparently respectful depictions of non-Western culture and environmental protection that could well come from seeds planted by Ghibli. (It also gives you the best Bowie pastiche performed by a giant crustacean that I bet you'll see this week.) I think the Mouse is on a bit of a roll, just now, and I'm delighted that these are the Disney films my two girls have to grow up with.

 

[Coal]

Moana builds on the princesses-don't-need-a-prince-to-validate-them theme launched by Frozen

^this^, best thing about the film.

 

[Frasier Buddolph]

I think the Mouse is on a bit of a roll, just now, and I'm delighted that these are the Disney films my two girls have to grow up with.

Thanks for that, Krepostnoi.

Since I only know the films by the saturation advertising that accompanies each release, I cheerfully defer to you, who has actually seen them. Perhaps I need to reconsider my position on Disney. (I still won't forgive them for Miyazaki, though. )

 

[Peripart]

I'm a bit anti-Disney generally, and never found the Mouse remotely engaging.

However, I watched Frozen with my granddaughter, thinking it would be crap, and was blown away. I've seen it twice more since then, and still think it's charming. If Moana is even better (and who wouldn't want to hear The Rock singing?), I might have to offer to take the little one out to the cinema...

 

[GNC]

I thought Frozen and Zootropolis were great. Wreck-It Ralph too. I have no problem with Disney creatively, they're a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Business-wise, they're more like a competition-eating juggernaut, however.

 

[Krepostnoi]

I'm a bit anti-Disney generally, and never found the Mouse remotely engaging.

However, I watched Frozen with my granddaughter, thinking it would be crap, and was blown away. I've seen it twice more since then, and still think it's charming. If Moana is even better (and who wouldn't want to hear The Rock singing?), I might have to offer to take the little one out to the cinema...

The Rock is surprisingly good in it, and makes a decent fist of his musical number. I'm not normally one for musicals - I had a traumatic experience with an amateur production of A Chorus Line in my early 20s that pretty much ruined the genre for me - but the songs in Moana are pretty damn good. I still have at least 3 of them as earworms. I definitely think Moana is better than Frozen (although arguably Frozen had to happen before Moana could).

I thought Frozen and Zootropolis were great. Wreck-It Ralph too. I have no problem with Disney creatively, they're a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Business-wise, they're more like a competition-eating juggernaut, however.

Yes, Wreck-it Ralph is a good call, and I can't believe I forgot Big Hero 6. Sure, it owes quite the debt to the Iron Giant, but since there are only 7 actual stories in the world anyway, we can't really hold that against it: if you are bound to copy something, you could do a lot worse than copy that... And I know they say that if you are noticing the backdrops then the movie isn't holding your attention, but the depiction of San Fransokyo - and especially the skyscapes - is hard to ignore.

 

[GerdaWordyer]

There is a large part of me that yearns to agree, the part that thought the last great bit of creativity shown by the Mouse's underlings was when use of the jocular-but-not moniker Mousechwitz to describe their workplace was banned and they responded by immediately referring to Duckau. And yet, and yet... Surely Lilo and Stitch is an outlier by traditional Disney standards, and then you get to the watershed moment of Enchanted, in which a famously humourless corporation has a long, hard laugh at itself. This movie has ushered in something that is not so much a renaissance as a metamorphosis. The Muppet Movie is cut from similar cloth (but not its sequel, which genuinely tries to play labour camps for laughs rather than morbid workplace humour...)

The last three Disney animated blockbusters have been Frozen, Zootropolis and Moana, and I put it to you that the first of that triad is in fact the weakest. Zootropolis is, on the face of it, a cutesy film noir, if you can imagine such a thing, but it uses this as a vehicle to raise some fairly profound questions around identity politics and the wielding of fear for political ends that would grace a movie aimed at an older audience, let alone the pre-teen and teen market that I guess was its target demographic. Moana builds on the princesses-don't-need-a-prince-to-validate-them theme launched by Frozen, and brings in apparently respectful depictions of non-Western culture and environmental protection that could well come from seeds planted by Ghibli. (It also gives you the best Bowie pastiche performed by a giant crustacean that I bet you'll see this week.) I think the Mouse is on a bit of a roll, just now, and I'm delighted that these are the Disney films my two girls have to grow up with.

Racist Walt is long gone.