'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[Andrew C]

Except it is not breaking even..it will make 100 million in profit at the very least

When a studio forecasts a move to return a certain amount and it doesn't, it is a problem. I imagine the expectation was for it to make well above a 100 million profit. They were projecting a certain amount of money to be there, and not it seems it won't be. We will see where it lands.

 

[LittleBuford]

Have you ever met a four year old?

Yep. My niece and nephew, for example. Both saw me with my partner from their infancy onwards. If they had any questions, their parents simply answered, “Some men love other men instead of women.” They dealt with it just fine.

 

[LittleBuford]

Agreed…my nephew just came out..and I know it has been tough on him…you know who you are attracted to by your teen years…how does one even go about being honest with your peers at that age…the more we normalize it… the less stigma there will be…it takes all different people to make this world go around…your a narcissist if you think everything revolves what make you up as a person

By the way the largest suicidal group is gay teens

Congratulations to your nephew! Coming out can be a difficult process, but also an exciting and uplifting one!

 

[LittleBuford]

I just hope Disney Feature Animation stays away from science fiction. They really do no have a good track record with the genre, but to be fair, most other animation studios don't either.

I admit to enjoying both Treasure Planet and Atlantis. I rewatched them recently and think they’re both much better than their reputation suggests.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I used to feel this way. Then I realised the importance of allyship, particularly given that those who dislike us tend to group us all together as deviants anyway. We are stronger together.

Okay, two things, depending on what you mean by "us."

Thing 1, if by "us" you mean LGBT people: Not everyone who disagrees with you on certain things dislikes you. I think you need to allow some room for bona fide disagreement, especially when it comes to public policy debates. For example, do you acknowledge that parents might have some legitimate interest in understanding how a public school's guidance office might handle a student who comes to them saying they want to medically transition to another gender? Do you not see that this is a matter of grave importance to parents? Do you not recognize that calling every parent a bigot if they don't immediately react with enthusiasm to gender affirmation treatment for children whose minds and bodies are nowhere near fully developed pushes them into a reactionary anti-LGBTQ position even if they would otherwise be allies?

Thing 2, if by "us" you mean everyone who identifies as LGBTQ+: There are actual deviants who use the rainbow flag as a shield from criticism. There are people in your camp that it would be best to kick out because they allow the opposition to paint to the whole movement as freaks. It's the "Libs of TikTok" problem. The Internet allows the clickbait sites to amplify the most shocking behavior and frame it as typical of a much broader group of people.

 

[LittleBuford]

Thing 2, if by "us" you mean everyone who identifies as LGBTQ+: There are actual deviants who use the rainbow flag as a shield from criticism.

And it should be clear as day that I unequivocally disavow such individuals, if by “deviant” you’re referring to those who sexually abuse others. It’s absurd to suggest that I’m somehow allying myself with them by default.

The rest of your post isn’t something I can respond to without getting more political than the moderators will allow (several of my posts have already been removed), but suffice it to say that you are putting a lot of words into my mouth and reductively mischaracterising my beliefs.

 

[Consumer]

I rewatched Frozen the other night. First time I watched it since probably 2014. What a great movie. Disney needs to go back to making cinema like that again.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Yep. My niece and nephew, for example. Both saw me with my partner from their infancy onwards. If they had any questions, their parents simply answered, “Some men love other men instead of women.” They dealt with it just fine.

Right. And that's wonderful. I'm sincerely happy that there's no pressure in your family to hide who you are or lie about your relationship with your partner.

Now... At some point your niece is going to approach puberty and her parents are going to have to prepare her for what's going to happen to her body, lest she feel shame or panic or some other horrible psychological effect when she has her first period. The conversation about menstruation is probably going to lead to a conversation about ovulation... which might further result in a conversation about intercourse and fertilization and implantation and pregnancy. And then your niece, who might be 9 or 10 years old at this point, is going to be thinking through all of this new information along with other things she knows and ask "wait... what about Uncle Buford and Uncle Partner?"

There's nothing wrong with any of that. But it's not a conversation that parents want to be thrust into out of nowhere just because they took their kid to a Disney matinee.

 

[LittleBuford]

Right. And that's wonderful. I'm sincerely happy that there's no pressure in your family to hide who you are or lie about your relationship with your partner.

There was pressure. For years. Many of you seem to think that I’m speaking from some liberal pedestal rather than as someone with direct experience of the attitudes under discussion. It took over ten years for my dad to finally come to terms with my sexuality.

Now... At some point your niece is going to approach puberty and her parents are going to have to prepare her for what's going to happen to her body, lest she feel shame or panic or some other horrible psychological effect when she has her first period. The conversation about menstruation is probably going to lead to a conversation about ovulation... which might further result in a conversation about intercourse and fertilization and implantation and pregnancy. And then your niece, who might be 9 or 10 years old at this point, is going to be thinking through all of this new information along with other things she knows and ask "what... what about Uncle Buford and Uncle Partner?"

There's nothing wrong with any of that. But it's not a conversation that parents want to be thrust into out of nowhere just because they took their kid to a Disney matinee.

But those conversations are going to happen anyway. Young people today are inevitably going to encounter depictions of queer love, if not actual queer people expressing affection for one another out there in the real world.

 

[Heppenheimer]

I admit to enjoying both Treasure Planet and Atlantis. I rewatched them recently and think they’re both much better than their reputation suggests.

Treasure Planet, yes I agree. Atlantis, not so much. The world-building was too rushed, and I don't know about you, but I found Atlantis itself and the people who lived there completely uninteresting. And it doesn't help in retrospect that Avatar later did essentially the same plot, but with much more impressive visuals.

I've been pondering about this, and I think the problems with audience reception to animated science fiction comes down to what the average theater goer wants from the genre: lasers and things blowing up. High tech but somewhat antiseptic violence. No, I'm not saying that this is what all science fiction fans probably want, its just part of the expectations for general audiences, who just want good entertainment for an hour or two.

For animated films that mostly need to succeed with families, you can't feature the same level of violence that would be seen in a live action film (although The Incredibles came kind of close). You'd think it would be the opposite, but for some reason, watching the violent death of an animated character just seems so much more disturbing than the often sanitized deaths in live action movies (all those stormtroopers...). So, the easiest go-to tropes in science fiction for marketing to audiences needs to be toned down or eliminated when the film is animated.

Or maybe not at all. I'm just speculating here.

I don't think the problem is that Disney doesn't have the ability to make a good animated science fiction film, I just think it's an uphill battle to sell it to general audiences.

 

[MrPromey]

Would you feel the same if the crush were on a girl?

This whole discussion would be a lot easier, I think, if everyone involved would actually see the movie.

Watching people go back-and-forth on what they've read or what they assume is... well, it's not doing anything except teasing out the biases and apparently blissful ignorance in some of the people doing the talking.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

But those conversations are going to happen anyway. Young people today are inevitably going to encounter depictions of queer love, if not actual queer people expressing affection for one another out there in the real world.

Of course they are. It's not about hiding everything forever, it's about introducing things at a pace that's appropriate for each family and each child. (Again, not "appropriate" like "gays are evil," "appropriate" like "what concepts can my child wrap her head around at what age?")

 

[CaptainAmerica]

This whole discussion would be a lot easier, I think, if everyone involved would actually see the movie.

Watching people go back-and-forth on what they've read or what they assume is... well, it's not getting anything anywhere.

But that's sort of the point, right? We're not debating the content of the movie on its merits for people who have seen it, we're debating whether the content of the movie as perceived by the general public is directly responsible (at least in part) for people not seeing it.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Normalization is partially a reflection of what's considered acceptable and what's considered taboo, like you said, but it's also a reflection of what's  common. If all you've ever seen in your life are blue cars and all of a sudden you see a red car, the red car is going to stand out to you, even if you have zero moral or religious or cultural or any other sort of objection to red cars.

This analogy breaks down by considering that:

Imagine all your life in the real world you've seen 95% of cars being blue and 5% of cars being red.

But, in every movie you've ever seen, all the cars are blue. Red cars are never shown.

Then someone makes a movie with two red cars prominently featured. For that movie, it seems that red cars have an outsized proportion. "Why is this movie so red-car-centric!!!"

And yet, amongst all movies, red cars show up still less than 1% of the time.

This not only applies to Queer people, but Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.

Just getting them represented in all movies such that they are represented at the same proportion they appear in real life, which would be equitable, gets labeled as 'woke.'

Children in a school of several hundred pupils surely know of one of their classmates as having two moms or two dads. Can't avoid that conversation by straight-washing the population in movies.

 

[LittleBuford]

Of course they are. It's not about hiding everything forever, it's about introducing things at a pace that's appropriate for each family and each child. (Again, not "appropriate" like "gays are evil," "appropriate" like "what concepts can my child wrap her head around at what age?")

Families can make that call for themselves. But if you’re asking me to agree with you that Disney’s inclusion of such themes is somehow age-inappropriate, then of course we’re not going to see eye-to-eye. I think it’s a wonderful thing.

 

[CaptainMickey]

She's not always reliable, but Grace Randolph from Beyond the Trailer said she's heard that Wish will have "strong" LGBTQ representation.

However, she made this statement before the box office failure of Strange World. Ariana DeBose, who is voicing the main character, is "openly queer," so it could have been seen as an opportunity by Disney to have its first lesbian princess voiced by a queer actress. We shall see next November.

I'm no Nosteadamus, but if Disney does another children's movie with gay themes involved, I have a feeling it's going to disappoint at the box office and all the defenders are going to blame the bad marketing.

 

[MrPromey]

But that's sort of the point, right? We're not debating the content of the movie on its merits for people who have seen it, we're debating whether the content of the movie as perceived by the general public is directly responsible (at least in part) for people not seeing it.

Sort of.

But people also are debating the content. Did it matter to the plot or didn't it? How can it be glaring but also minor? Would it have been different if someone was a girl?

There's a lot of back-and-forth discussion going on and it's really hard to discuss that with people who haven't seen the movie without trying to remember the script to give line-by-line dissection of certain scenes.

It feels like watching a debate between a group of blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is by touch, alone.

Having seen the movie, it's frustrating because I think it would be easier to discuss some of what sound like contradictions if people actually knew a little more about what they're debating.

I mean, this is the internet so I don't know what I'm expecting but I'm still kind of over here shaking my head.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

This not only applies to Queer people, but Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.

Just getting them represented in all movies such that they are represented at the same proportion they appear in real life, which would be equitable, gets labeled as 'woke.'

You're lumping a lot of things together that have nothing to do with each other. Race and ethnicity are nothing like sexuality, which is nothing like gender identity.

Some people just get upset about diversity, that's true, and those people are probably just racists or sexists or whatever else.

Other people get upset when diversity comes at the expense of quality. You don't see too many people getting upset at the idea of Idris Elba as James Bond, because Idris Elba is awesome. You do see people upset about Moses Ingram in Obi-Wan because Moses Ingram was legitimately terrible in that role.

Children in a school of several hundred pupils surely know of one of their classmates as having two moms or two dads. Can't avoid that conversation by straight-washing the population in movies.

Like I said to Buford, it's not about avoiding the conversation. It's about having the conversation in a better context than a Disney movie. My 5 year old daughter had a soccer teammate with two dads, so she asked about it and I explained it to her 5-year-old level. My 8 year old daughter knows where babies come from, so she asked about it and I explained adoption. But I had that opportunity in the context of "real life." It wasn't sprung by a movie.

 

[DKampy]

Congratulations to your nephew! Coming out can be a difficult process, but also an exciting and uplifting one!

Yeah…and I see it is even tough in the community…He came out because he was dating a guy he was crazy about and wanted to bring him to family gatherings…they ended up breaking up because he was not comfortable being open in public and my nephew did not want to hide who he was… my nephew was heartbroken.

I am super proud of him though

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Families can make that call for themselves.

We agree!

But if you’re asking me to agree with you that Disney’s inclusion of such themes is somehow age-inappropriate, then of course we’re not going to see eye-to-eye. I think it’s a wonderful thing.

I didn't say it was age inappropriate, I said it was bad business. I'm trying to describe how many parents feel, not how many parents ought to feel. I made no claim regarding the merits of the movie, which I haven't seen.

Disney needs to make movies parents want to see, not movies Disney wishes parents wanted to see.