The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...

[dhall]

...
If WDFA was an independent entity, it would have shuttered around 10 years ago. Animation is expensive and even Pixar has proven you can't knock them all out of the park. Hope it works out for them, as DWA has really upped their quality game with most of their recent projects (Turbo notwithstanding).

I don't think I agree with your second paragraph. I think a lot of what's gone wrong with WDFA in the last 20 years or so is due to WDFA feeding from the same corporate trough as all the other divisions. They've been run
by outside execs who lacked the first clue about animation & story telling, and who lacked enough intelligence and taste to know that crap like 'Home on the Range' had no future. Instead, they were sure that what was wrong was the technique and not the content, so they threw away decades of experience & focused on the technology instead of the art.

I think an independent WDFA would've had a pretty good chance to be successful, had it been spun off sometime in the early 90's. If it had been spun off 10 years ago, then alas, the right people to run it were already long gone. Today, I think a combined Pixar/WDFA could be successful, if privately run.

 

[misterID]

People actually complained about the lumberjack joke? Seriously? Ridiculous. It was funny. I'm officially complaining over the complainers.

Loosen up before you hurt yourself.

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

I don't think I agree with your second paragraph. I think a lot of what's gone wrong with WDFA in the last 20 years or so is due to WDFA feeding from the same corporate trough as all the other divisions. They've been run
by outside execs who lacked the first clue about animation & story telling, and who lacked enough intelligence and taste to know that crap like 'Home on the Range' had no future. Instead, they were sure that what was wrong was the technique and not the content, so they threw away decades of experience & focused on the technology instead of the art.

I think an independent WDFA would've had a pretty good chance to be successful, had it been spun off sometime in the early 90's. If it had been spun off 10 years ago, then alas, the right people to run it were already long gone. Today, I think a combined Pixar/WDFA could be successful, if privately run.

I don't think we're necessarily saying different things. Based purely on what happened, if they were spun off in the 90's or later, they would have died a miserable death in the early 2000's. Independent publicly traded animation studios are a bad idea, and DWA has a rough go of it. Making 2-3 films a year is hard enough, but Wall Street riding your and selling off if one of them isn't a megahit? It's gotta be exhausting, and it's not an environment the medium can thrive in. That was my original point - DWA suffers because it's beholden to Wall Street. If WDFA had had a similar arrangement, it would have been fed to the dogs when it started releasing turd after turd in the early 21st century.

 

[doctornick]

My point is, we get it. Beat a different drum. Give me something I actually care to read about if you are going to spend all that time writing those posts. Find some other numbers to tell me about.

Don't really agree. Po4 IMHO offers some new -- and fantastic -- insight with virtually ever post, even if the main gist is the same. In fact, he's probably the one poster on here that I make a point of stopping to carefully read every post whenever I see them.

There's a lot of stuff on these pages that are just things being repeated and repeated. I mean, how many times do people have to mention that the Yeti is broken? Po4 actually has a different and pleasantly objective take on how P&R has been neglected under Iger's reign. Even if it doesn't make a direct impact, I think that the education of even a small segment of the fan base is a good thing.

 

[acishere]

2. While I'm over-sharing, every time someone mentions the new lumberjack show in the Canada pavilion I get an image in my mind of a scene from the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" where they have a outdoorsy dance-off and it's... horrible.

It makes me think of the Dexter finale. And I'd really rather forgot about that.

 

[doctornick]

Not to mention people love to ignore these very nice detailed explanations about Iger when praising him nonstop (and claiming he is Disney Park's second Messiah) and blasting 24/7 on Eisner

Yeah. While we rarely see people really hyping Iger as "good" for the parks, I'll never understand the folks who think that he's been "superior" to Eisner for the P&R division. Really, the best you could say is that Iger is about the same for the parks as Eisner at his worse. Po4 has done some nice illustrations of numbers that back that up.

(You can make good arguments for Iger's leadership in other divisions of the company, not really for P&R though IMHO.)

 

[WildcatDen]

You mean like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Thanks for the reference. Great stuff!

 

[Nubs70]

How hard is it to track a blonde in a blue prom dress that is a walking/running Zamboni in small town Maine?

 

[WildcatDen]

Your posts are great, but I can't help but feel like you are beating ______?!?!? My point is, we get it. Beat a different __________.

Hard to tell what you are hinting at when you play the (Blank) game

 

[WildcatDen]

Okay… What would you like to talk about today? I brought the protests in Hong Kong to the table… iMessage Steve about the Paul Bunyan lumberjack show… ).... So I ask you, what would you like to bring to class today?

Stay Gold Ponyboy!

 

[spaceghost]

1. I love @ParentsOf4's posts. Numbers and statistics appeal to me on a deep and primal level that few things can touch.
2. While I'm over-sharing, every time someone mentions the new lumberjack show in the Canada pavilion I get an image in my mind of a scene from the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" where they have a outdoorsy dance-off and it's... horrible.

So... I'm from Maine, and the part of Maine that's close to being Southeastern Canada, and we have lumberjack shows. As a touristy thing, they are quite popular. See Timber Tina and the Maine Lumberjack Show. Not saying it's better than Off Kilter, who I will miss, but it may not be horrible either. It is authentic to the country and something different than what's been there before. I'm curious to see how it turns out.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

While I'm certainly not a numbers wizard like @ParentsOf4, I have been looking into the financial legacy of Bob's decision to move the studio to a tentpole only model. The results have been less than pretty. Since 2005, TWDS has seen a year over year decline in revenue in six of the last eight years. In the last two years of Eisner's tenure, the studio business as a whole at a high point thanks to a mix of singles and doubles from Disney, Touchstone and Miramax and home runs like Pirates, a film most folks thought would bomb, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. This deversification in slate pays back dividends longer term with Home Video, Pay TV (HBO, Starz, Netflix), Cable, Broadcast because you have more product to sell at a variety of price points.

If Bob Iger were here on MAGIC, he would tell us that the transition to his BRAND based tentpole model would take time to generate comprable levels of revenue to the old model. There is a possibility he's right. It's absolutely possible for FY 2014 to be the year where, in real dollars, there is an upward swing with FY 2015 being one of the best years for TWDS in the Eisner/Iger era thanks to its reliance on films from Disney, Pixar, and Marvel (The Good Dinosuar and Episode VII will be in FY 2016). However, the loss of the singles and doubles and the hit the back catalogue took when Disney sold Miramax have hurt. Sure Disney has released six billion dollar films under Iger's tenture, but having a steady stream of revenue from a budget and audience diverse slate makes more money and distributes risk evenly.

I brought up the DreamWorks story as an example of the risks of the tentpoles only model. By splitting DreamWorks Live-Action and Animation and selling its impressive back catalogue, sound familiar?, Dreamworks Animation became more profitable, but lost a safety net which would help them weather the bad performance of a particular film. If I may quote Christopher Finch's "The Art of Walt Disney" Michael Eisner's greatest achievement, "was that he built a company where no creative endeavor need be aborted due to lack of funding." That achievement was accomplished due to a respect for respect for the canvas. Too bad that tremendous gift Bob inherited from Michael and Dick and Harvey and Scott and Jeffrey has gone to waste.

 

[BrerJon]

I can't speak for Disney Sea, but my understanding is that there is some bleeding between lands. That doesn't exist in Diagon Alley.

Mysterious Island is fully enclosed. Once you're inside Mount Prometheus, you're totally immersed in the world of Verne. It doesn't, however, have the hundreds of tiny details Diagon does - you could see it all in a couple of hours, which isn't true of Diagon.

 

[Nubs70]

So... I'm from Maine, and the part of Maine that's close to being Southeastern Canada, and we have lumberjack shows. As a touristy thing, they are quite popular. See Timber Tina and the Maine Lumberjack Show. Not saying it's better than Off Kilter, who I will miss, but it may not be horrible either. It is authentic to the country and something different than what's been there before. I'm curious to see how it turns out.

Where abouts? I spent some time in Millinocket.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Mysterious Island is fully enclosed. Once you're inside Mount Prometheus, you're totally immersed in the world of Verne. It doesn't, however, have the hundreds of tiny details Diagon does - you could see it all in a couple of hours, which isn't true of Diagon.

But there is a giant volcano looming over New York City and Cape Cod. There is also the [rather brilliant] integration of views of Tokyo Bay. It's really only Mysterious Island and the interior section of Mermaid Lagoon that do not have views of adjacent lands or the outside world.

 

[twebber55]

But there is a giant volcano looming over New York City and Cape Cod. There is also the [rather brilliant] integration of views of Tokyo Bay. It's really only Mysterious Island and the interior section of Mermaid Lagoon that do not have views of adjacent lands or the outside world.

which is the beauty of Diagon Alley....London on the outside with the full immersion of the land once inside...brilliant on Universals part

 

[BrerJon]

not to mention they detained the young leader.

I hope this isn't in bad taste, but sometimes feel as if being a Disney fan is a little like being a citizen in an unstable country, where a leader chosen by the people in a revolution eventually becomes that which he replaced.

How we fought hard to get rid of Eisner in the SaveDisney days, when he was letting things rot left right and center, and Disney left the animation business completely. How Iger felt like a breath of fresh air at first, not just Eisner's puppet.

Now years later, we appreciate the amazing things Eisner did for WDW in the 90s, his latter sins partially forgotten, while Iger is the bad guy running the parks into the ground and promoting people like Staggs and Crofton who have no love or appreciation for the history of the parks.

 

[BrerJon]

Your posts are great, but I can't help but feel like you are beating a dead horse on this whole "Iger doesn't spend" thing at this point.

I find Parentsof4's analysis posts fascinating, and always learn something new with each one. Also, I know we often discuss the same things over and over, but there will always be people unfamiliar with the arguments, it's fun for those of us who feel that way to discuss with likeminded others, and it helps give a little historical context and spread the word that people need to hold WDW to a higher standard then they currently do.

 

[BrerJon]

Funny this is what comes to my mind...

I was *really* hoping Off-Kilter would perform a bar or two of that in their last show as a sly dig.

 

[BrerJon]

While I'm certainly not a numbers wizard like @ParentsOf4, I have been looking into the financial legacy of Bob's decision to move the studio to a tentpole only model. The results have been less than pretty.

Appreciate the effort you went to putting that together, that was a great analysis and very informative.