Culture Welcome to Dismal Disney.

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Fair point I suppose. I guess I'm just looking back at the lucasfilm of old and the empire that the EU created long after films stopped being made, books, video games, toys, and I guess it just puzzles me why they don't take the risk to do somthing like that again. Especially considering that it seems like the current direction of sta wars is going mostly backwards.

Who knows, some people may decide to take that gamble, I mean if they can let the current Star Wars occur, they can let other disasters occur
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
I don't want Disney to die though, I want them to improve and become that symbol of americanism they were when Walt and Roy were at the head.

And rise like a phoenix, I expect for change to occur, many people have to be removed in such a way that people feel an old order was smashed to bits and a new one is rising
 

Sixgun McGurk

Well-known member
They have a bean counter in charge at Disney and all he can do is divide the money up. Disney of 2020 can't even make a 30 minute cartoon that anyone will laugh at. I can't imagine WTF they're thinking that all of us being threatened with imaginary viral death and all to real unemployment are going to shell out $30 for this crap remake.
 
They have a bean counter in charge at Disney and all he can do is divide the money up. Disney of 2020 can't even make a 30 minute cartoon that anyone will laugh at. I can't imagine WTF they're thinking that all of us being threatened with imaginary viral death and all to real unemployment are going to shell out $30 for this crap remake.


I might watch it for $30....on the big screen with surround sound....with an extra large cheesy popcorn bucket....and a large slushy....and a box of cookie doughbites, but as a rental on my streaming service? no. Why are they putting these theatrical films on their streaming service?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Fair point I suppose. I guess I'm just looking back at the lucasfilm of old and the empire that the EU created long after films stopped being made, books, video games, toys, and I guess it just puzzles me why they don't take the risk to do somthing like that again. Especially considering that it seems like the current direction of sta wars is going mostly backwards.
I think they're trying, they're just incompetent at it. They put together the Resistance cartoon (which sucked, I tried watching and hated the characters too much to continue), The Mandalorian seems to be doing well, and they've made toys and published a few books.

The issue seems to be general quality and terrible choices for who to use to make things. EA games has a bit of a reputation in gaming circles so putting them in charge of Star Wars games didn't generally inspire confidence, though there's a decent serving of hype for the squad flight sim game. Marvel comics is putting together comics for Star Wars too as an in-house publisher but Marvel's issues have been done to death so that doesn't inspire. Toys seem to just not be selling anywhere at the moment, I can't speak for the Star Wars toys as I haven't touched any.

My gut feeling is that it comes down to the same issues as my discovery in Fanfic I've mentioned before, namely that over half the fanfics were Reylo in an AU so as not to deal with the Star Wars prequelverse. The universe isn't interesting anymore. It's boxed in by choices in the movies and doesn't have as much room for characters to do anything adventurous. There aren't any new exciting worlds, just Salt!Hoth, Junk!Tatooine, and The!Same!Endor Moon. There aren't any new exciting aliens, just a whole lotta variants on "wrinkly, orange, and bald."

For instance if you were writing a book you might base it, in the OT, around a plucky rebel cell somewhere in the outer rim doing their own part. Or in the ST it might be a clonetrooper squadron doing the same. But in the ST there's no room, when Leia called for help there was no answer anywhere in the Galaxy, no hidden cells and no plucky outgroups. There's what... Broom Kid? Does he matter?

There's also less room for anybody to do anything outside the movies. Lando went and gathered a huge fleet and what happened? Palpaclone paralyzed the entire fleet with his lightning and they got to do nothing until Rey killed him with his own lightning, after which they didn't need to do anything anyway because it was over. There was an adventure to be had in the OT as seen in the crew of the Ghost. There was an adventure to be had in the ST as seen by Ahsoka. But what adventure is there to being one of those ships that was paralyzed by lightning and then rendered irrelevant?
 

Yinko

Well-known member

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I should probably add, my read on the situation with Disney is that they're in a faction fight right now, not over actual wokeness but for control of the company. I think some people in the fight are using Wokeness primarily as a shield, setting it up so that if they're fired they can claim it's because they're a woman/woke and create bad press, thus making themselves harder to eliminate.

The general inability of Disney to get things done (particularly in Star Wars) is because they're choosing creators on the basis of who supports which faction and loyalty to a specific person rather than ability to create good stuff.
 
I should probably add, my read on the situation with Disney is that they're in a faction fight right now, not over actual wokeness but for control of the company. I think some people in the fight are using Wokeness primarily as a shield, setting it up so that if they're fired they can claim it's because they're a woman/woke and create bad press, thus making themselves harder to eliminate.

The general inability of Disney to get things done (particularly in Star Wars) is because they're choosing creators on the basis of who supports which faction and loyalty to a specific person rather than ability to create good stuff.

what's keeping someone from going darth vader on people and cleaning house?
 
The other side trying to go darth vader and clean house, I presume. Also, not owning a majority of the stock.


yeah and no company is not in the position to buy up a majority, besides they wouldin't allow it. They've had too many close calls with hostile takeovers.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
I should probably add, my read on the situation with Disney is that they're in a faction fight right now, not over actual wokeness but for control of the company. I think some people in the fight are using Wokeness primarily as a shield, setting it up so that if they're fired they can claim it's because they're a woman/woke and create bad press, thus making themselves harder to eliminate.

The general inability of Disney to get things done (particularly in Star Wars) is because they're choosing creators on the basis of who supports which faction and loyalty to a specific person rather than ability to create good stuff.
Kathleen Kennedy seems to be a true believe, and she's at the core of everything that has gone wrong with the Star Wars franchise since Disney bought it from Lucas.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Kathleen Kennedy seems to be a true believe, and she's at the core of everything that has gone wrong with the Star Wars franchise since Disney bought it from Lucas.
Disagree personally. I think she's cynically manipulating it for her own personal benefit. She's constantly promising more wokeness without ever delivering, and her promises tend to coincide with times when her position is threatened. See her vow that A Star Wars Movie Directed By a Woman Is Absolutely Happening.

Then consider: what was stopping it before? She'd been in charge for several movies at that point. Many people noted that although she could have delivered a female director anytime earlier, she chose otherwise, and once the movies were done with then made the promise, at a precise time when it not only would it be a promise she wouldn't need to fulfill for years, if ever, it would make firing her more difficult (and her position was weak due to the sequels tanking) and make it easy to spin her firing as misogyny and thus a PR nightmare.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Jeremy from the Quartering hits on this as well. It's pretty bad.



Not an equivalent, Mulan is a purchase that's meant to make up for all the lost theater revenue. You aren't renting it, you're buying it.

I wonder if they've thought this through. By abandoning their movie distribution chain they've effectively opened themselves to direct competition by anyone that can buy an animation program and find people to do the voices. Disney could get hammered by something like Wallace and Grommet done on the cheap by someone with talent as opposed to connections. Much better than the frankly weird Mulan.

If you're at home and want to shut the brats down for an hour you might pay the $30, but you certainly aren't going to watch it yourself. And given that the majority doesn't like to flush that $30 what are the odds that many will simply steer the kids away from Disney altogether? There are after all many fine alternatives.

You're delusional if you believe this.

The Wallace and Grommet movie had a $30,000,000 budget. Stop motion animation is not cheap. No animation is cheap, really. People who do cheap animation are people who are doing it for passion.

Even RWBY is less cheap than you expect. If it weren't for merchandising they'd probably be losing money.

Meanwhile a shit ton of people are going to watch Mulan for the nostalgia. Fuck I'd purchase it if I wasn't a poor college student.
 
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Sixgun McGurk

Well-known member
Delusional seems kind of harsh for polite conversation, but okay whatever. You have seized on the minutia and completely missed the point. Moore's Law is in full swing on every aspect of motion picture production technique and equipment whether its 'real,' animation, rotoscope, claymation, whatever. All of those techniques are being replicated and supplanted in electronic form and the results are easier, cheaper and better. Big money, expensive gear and brilliant technical skills make for a great looking production, but as the equipment gets relentlessly better the barrier to the competition will diminish.

All current equipment and techniques will be as obsolete as those used by Walt Disney himself within the decade and the new stuff will be cheap. 'Wallace and Grommet' stood out because it was absolutely original. There was real talent there, original stories characters and gags. Not another tired remake.

Say what you want about Mulan, it is a remake of a cartoon and the cartoon itself was a remake of older cartoons. Disney can do a great remake with endless money to polish that rank old turd to a high shine, but they can't come up with anything new. They have no Walt Disney at the helm, they have an Iger. Iger and his bean-counting ilk are middlemen, processors of other's vision, not creators.

By turning their captive arena into something that can be flipped to 'Robot Chicken' or any other cut rate competitor at the touch of the remote, Disney has sewn the wind. The drones at Eastman Kodak never saw it coming either.
 
Delusional seems kind of harsh for polite conversation, but okay whatever. You have seized on the minutia and completely missed the point. Moore's Law is in full swing on every aspect of motion picture production technique and equipment whether its 'real,' animation, rotoscope, claymation, whatever. All of those techniques are being replicated and supplanted in electronic form and the results are easier, cheaper and better. Big money, expensive gear and brilliant technical skills make for a great looking production, but as the equipment gets relentlessly better the barrier to the competition will diminish.

All current equipment and techniques will be as obsolete as those used by Walt Disney himself within the decade and the new stuff will be cheap. 'Wallace and Grommet' stood out because it was absolutely original. There was real talent there, original stories characters and gags. Not another tired remake.

Say what you want about Mulan, it is a remake of a cartoon and the cartoon itself was a remake of older cartoons. Disney can do a great remake with endless money to polish that rank old turd to a high shine, but they can't come up with anything new. They have no Walt Disney at the helm, they have an Iger. Iger and his bean-counting ilk are middlemen, processors of other's vision, not creators.

By turning their captive arena into something that can be flipped to 'Robot Chicken' or any other cut rate competitor at the touch of the remote, Disney has sewn the wind. The drones at Eastman Kodak never saw it coming either.


Thing is Walt wasn't just an animator he was an inventor and an innovator. You'd think they'd learn how to innovate on new tech and improve on existing ones. VR tech is now tanagable and is here to stay. why is Disney not taking advantage on that and trying to improve it? If anybody could make something akin to Ready Player One you'd think it'd be Disney they have ILM under thier banner for crying out loud and It's not like they don't have a certain IP that'd be perfect for it.

*looks at dusty old arcade game* Nope not at all.
 
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Sixgun McGurk

Well-known member
Thing is Walt wasn't just an animator he was an inventor and an innovator. You'd think they'd learn how to innovate on new tech and improve on existing ones. VR tech is now tanagable and is here to stay. why is Disney not taking advantage on that and trying to improve it? If anybody could make something akin to Ready Player One you'd think it'd be Disney they have ILM under thier banner for crying out loud and It's not like they don't have a certain IP that'd be perfect for it.

*looks at dusty old arcade game* Nope not at all.

Companies like Disney are where Companies like ILM go to die. There is no chance for a drone factory like Disney to innovate or drive them to come up with new things with an Iger in the lead. It just wouldn't make financial sense.

Walt Disney had an idea, wanted to make animated films that blew the lid off of the genre, and so he did that, working personally on it along with the technical people he hired to help him come up with better ways to get it done. He set the direction, oversaw the team and they innovated until he said 'good enough.'

Contrast this with Iger, who wants to make money. He buys an idea that worked somewhere before and hires all the right people for a lot of money to impliment the old idea bigger and better and turn it into even more money.

The crew he hires knows how to do what they do, so cutting costs are good but true innovation won't really do anything for them. They're just hired guns and technical workers with an endgoal in the crosshairs and they have all the tech that they need to get there. It's a job of work that they want to get paid for.

No one is going to take risks with their rep trying to explain some vision they had while dropping acid into the real absinthe for a wilder ride on the green fairy than Mister Toad ever heard of. Especially not to a poorly disguised kobold posing as Walt Disney and running the place like they make 1964 Buicks there.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Agree with Sixgun. Disney was able to innovate and invent so much because he was the little guy, not running a huge corporation. Generally the most inventive and interesting ideas come from small indie operations. Megacorps by nature are more imitative and samey. This is largely because a small indie operation can run off one person's vision, and one person can come up with wild stuff that a committee can't without watering it down. But in a giant corporation an imaginative person who comes up with wild ideas can't run things, there's too much politicking and managing and operating, so the person who winds up in charge isn't the one with vision but the one who can manage the board meetings to get what they want. The ideas person meanwhile gets their idea stolen and then distorted into sameness by the layers of bureaucracy.

This is why, f'rex, you see all kinds of interesting stories coming out of indie comics and manga artists working on their own, while massive DC and Marvel comics can't seem to do anything but sell the same stories over and hit the reset button endlessly, or go for a hamfisted "message" about the political issue of the week. Google's corporate strategy is designed around mitigating that by buying up indies and startups to use as idea mines, to the extent that "getting bought by Google" is generally the goal of any silicon valley startup.
 

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