The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
To make another delayed reaction, I wouldn't blame Eisner for the poor quality of Home on the Range, anymore than I would give Iger credit for Frozen's success. Neither had anything to do with the writing, animating or scoring of either movie. That's not their job and only someone like Walt had that kind of personal investment at his executive level, something he slowly gave up as his company expanded.
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
To make another delayed reaction, I wouldn't blame Eisner for the poor quality of Home on the Range, anymore than I would give Iger credit for Frozen's success. Neither had anything to do with the writing, animating or scoring of either movie. That's not their job and only someone like Walt had that kind of personal investment at his executive level, something he slowly gave up as his company expanded.
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Well Iger did instigate bringing the "Pixar way" to Disney animation. Of course he could not have done that without purchasing Pixar first.

Criticism is fine when warranted but comes off as petty when facts are ignored.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
WDW1974 said:
Also, @MerlinTheGoat has a looooong post above and while I could argue various points, I'd rather leave him to his opinions (some I agree with, some I do not). But I do want to state again clearly that Matt Ouimet came up as a Michael exec, was instrumental in DCL getting off the ground and becoming a bastion of quality and was elevated to DLR Prez by Michael.

He was forced out of the company by Jay Rasulo for going around him to bring concerns to Bob directly and for letting it be known that he wouldn't mind running P&R one day. Bob allowed Jay to push him out. He is now at Cedar Fair and doing wonders for DL's neighbor, Knott's Berry Farm.
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Please feel free to rebut anything you like that is objectively and factually wrong (I would be inclined to listen to a lot of your comments). If you don't have time though that's perfectly fine, I understand that. I'm admittedly posting as someone outside the company, an onlooker.

Yeah I had considered the possibility that Eisner may have been responsible for Ouimet coming to power given that the cleanup began when Eisner was still in charge. The question on my mind though- Did Eisner appoint Ouimet because he actually legitimately cared about the state of the parks? Or was he simply forced to do so against his will because of bad press and such caused by the guest deaths and disastrous safety inspections? Or forced to due to other reasons entirely? And enjoying the parks isn't always enough, you have to have standards of quality as well. There are plenty of people on these boards who are WDW fans but jump on anyone who complains about broken show elements because they don't think such details matter. Did Eisner actually care about the upkeep of maintenance? Because until Eisner came to power (and his pushing out the old guard that insisted on Walt quality maintenance) the parks were never allowed by their leaders to deteriorate.

Everything i've heard (including what ParentsOf4 said) has pointed to Eisner being the one who helped slash park maintenance budgets and crews in the first place. I've also always heard that Eisner was instrumental in bringing Iger and his gang of uncreative bean counters to power. Seems kind of uncharacteristic for someone who is supposed to care so much about the parks and wants creative juices to flow in new attractions. I was under the impression that Eisner was actually grooming Iger as his replacement at some point in the past before he was forced out. If Eisner wanted Iger to succeed him at any point in the past, he probably knew him well enough to realize what kind of guy he would be as a CEO. If he didn't know, i'd either call Iger a fantastic liar (which I can't buy given how horrible he is at it in interviews) or a poor judgement call on Eisner's part. Iger sucks, but if Eisner had a major hand in helping him to power then he deserves a lot of the blame as well.

My feelings about Eisner (again from an outsider's perspective) is very mixed. I'll simply say that under Eisner's rule the parks reached incredibly high points of quality, some of their best years arguably for the first half of his time as CEO. However, prior to Iger taking power and escalating the drop in quality, the parks had also never been worse during the majority of the second half of his reign. Sure even in that second half we got a lot of new attractions as opposed to stagnation under Iger, but there were plenty of attraction cuts under Eisner and a huge quantity of the new attractions weren't very good (and their replacements almost always inferior to what was there prior). Even the "good" attractions of Eisner's second half such as Everest don't come close to touching the likes of Splash Mountain or Indiana Jones (Everest also didn't have the stigma of being an inferior replacement to a beloved classic like the Epcot ones). Regardless of whether he was directly responsible for the decline in quality or not, Eisner in my opinion did not do enough to prevent whoever was responsible, or by being proactive enough in fixing issues when they appeared. Disneyland didn't rot in a day, it took time and plenty of regular people noticed and voiced their distaste long before anything was done about it. As much as Eisner visited the parks (good for him for actually enjoying them), he should have noticed and done something about the problems sooner.

You say he was insulated from a lot that was happening, fair statement. But considering the obvious nasty things that occurred right under his nose (things that we all saw happening without even being company employees), i'd personally call that more oblivious as a CEO of a company. You say he hated Imagination 2.0, so he clearly knew there were issues. The maintenance problems weren't exactly easily swept under the rug either, they were there for anyone to easily see and fans certainly spoke up against it every chance they got. And you'd think after seeing maintenance problems and subpar ride projects, Eisner would have taken some initiative to see what was going on in Imagineering and maintenance and do something about it. I've also heard he had some really negative words about the Tiki Room that helped cause the vile Under New Management redo.

There's a lot I just can't help but trace back to his leadership skills, even if others were more directly responsible for the problems. If there's a problem at work with employees, it's part of the boss' job to take the initiative and fix the issues even if the boss wasn't the source of the problem (not be oblivious). He did much good for the company, but there's a lot of things he should have prevented that has come back to hurt the quality of the current Disney company.

Animaniac93-98 said:
To make another delayed reaction, I wouldn't blame Eisner for the poor quality of Home on the Range, anymore than I would give Iger credit for Frozen's success. Neither had anything to do with the writing, animating or scoring of either movie. That's not their job and only someone like Walt had that kind of personal investment at his executive level, something he slowly gave up as his company expanded.
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From everything i've heard, Eisner was very hands on with the products the company made, both movies and park attractions. I've heard that Eisner often worked with the imagineers and got involved with and excited about the projects they were working on (at least initially). Iger doesn't do any of that, he never gets involved unless it requires some kind of bean counting. Hell he even seems to have contempt for a lot of the things the company does in fact (particularly the parks and especially the guests who visit them).
 
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jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
WDW1974 said:
Not sure what opinion you are seeking. ... If you are asking if the area looks good, then I'd say largely it does although it suffers from the typical MK problem of the last 15 years -- too much open dead space.

I like what was built in terms of improving the aesthetics of the area. But substance is what counts and I don't see much there. I also really do not like Storybook Circus at all. It is just the latest version of all the temp lands that were there before.

WDI never left, but too many with too much talent were forced out. What you are left with are the Irvines, Jacobsons and Fitzgeralds etc.
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It just reminded me of 'old school' MK. I have seen many views of the new mountain and it is well done. IMO.
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat said:
From everything i've heard, Eisner was very hands on with the products the company made, both movies and park attractions. I've heard that Eisner often worked with the imagineers and got involved with and excited about the projects they were working on (at least initially). Iger doesn't do any of that, he never gets involved unless it requires some kind of bean counting. Hell he even seems to have contempt for a lot of the things the company does in fact (particularly the parks and especially the guests who visit them).
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I've heard of Eisner participating in "Gong Show" sessions (where projects are pitched) or being shown dailies for review, but never doing any extensive writing like Howard Ashman or more thorough participation like Katzenberg.

When a bad movie is made by hundreds of people, there's plenty of blame to go around. I'd sooner pick the guy who's officially in charge of the film division myself.
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat said:
Please feel free to rebut anything you like that is objectively and factually wrong (I would be inclined to listen to a lot of your comments). If you don't have time though that's perfectly fine, I understand that. I'm admittedly posting as someone outside the company, an onlooker.

Yeah I had considered the possibility that Eisner may have been responsible for Ouimet coming to power given that the cleanup began when Eisner was still in charge. The question on my mind though- Did Eisner appoint Ouimet because he actually legitimately cared about the state of the parks? Or was he simply forced to do so against his will because of bad press and such caused by the guest deaths and disastrous safety inspections? Or forced to due to other reasons entirely? And enjoying the parks isn't always enough, you have to have standards of quality as well. There are plenty of people on these boards who are WDW fans but jump on anyone who complains about broken show elements because they don't think such details matter. Did Eisner actually care about the upkeep of maintenance? Because until Eisner came to power (and his pushing out the old guard that insisted on Walt quality maintenance) the parks were never allowed by their leaders to deteriorate.

Everything i've heard (including what ParentsOf4 said) has pointed to Eisner being the one who helped slash park maintenance budgets and crews in the first place. I've also always heard that Eisner was instrumental in bringing Iger and his gang of uncreative bean counters to power. Seems kind of uncharacteristic for someone who is supposed to care so much about the parks and wants creative juices to flow in new attractions. I was under the impression that Eisner was actually grooming Iger as his replacement at some point in the past before he was forced out. If Eisner wanted Iger to succeed him at any point in the past, he probably knew him well enough to realize what kind of guy he would be as a CEO. If he didn't know, i'd either call Iger a fantastic liar (which I can't buy given how horrible he is at it in interviews) or a poor judgement call on Eisner's part. Iger sucks, but if Eisner had a major hand in helping him to power then he deserves a lot of the blame as well.

My feelings about Eisner (again from an outsider's perspective) is very mixed. I'll simply say that under Eisner's rule the parks reached incredibly high points of quality, some of their best years arguably for the first half of his time as CEO. However, prior to Iger taking power and escalating the drop in quality, the parks had also never been worse during the majority of the second half of his reign. Sure even in that second half we got a lot of new attractions as opposed to stagnation under Iger, but we also got a ton of cuts under Eisner as well and many of those new attractions just weren't very good. Even the "good" attractions of Eisner's second half such as Everest don't come close to touching the likes of Splash Mountain or Indiana Jones (Everest also didn't have the stigma of being an inferior replacement to a beloved classic like the Epcot mess). Regardless of whether he was directly responsible for the decline in quality or not, Eisner in my opinion did not do enough to prevent whoever was responsible, or by being proactive enough in fixing issues when they appeared. Disneyland didn't rot in a day, it took time. Plenty of time to notice before things got as bad as they did. As much as Eisner visited the parks (good for him for actually enjoying them), he should have noticed and done something about the problems sooner.

You say he was insulated from a lot that was happening. But considering the obvious nasty things that occurred right under his nose, i'd personally call that more oblivious as a CEO of a company. You say he hated Imagination 2.0, so he clearly knew there were issues. The maintenance problems weren't exactly easily swept under the rug either, they were there for anyone to easily see and fans certainly spoke up against it every chance they got. And you'd think after seeing maintenance problems and subpar ride projects, Eisner would have taken some initiative to see what was going on in Imagineering and maintenance and do something about it. I've also heard he had some really negative words about the Tiki Room that helped cause the vile Under New Management redo.

There's a lot I just can't help but trace back to his leadership skills, even if others were more directly responsible for the problems. If there's a problem at work with employees, it's part of the boss' job to take the initiative and fix the issues even if the boss wasn't the source of the problem (not be oblivious). He did much good for the company, but there's a lot of things he should have prevented that has come back to hurt the quality of the current Disney company.


From everything i've heard, Eisner was very hands on with the products the company made, both movies and park attractions. I've heard that Eisner often worked with the imagineers and got involved with and excited about the projects they were working on (at least initially). Iger doesn't do any of that, he never gets involved unless it requires some kind of bean counting. Hell he even seems to have contempt for a lot of the things the company does in fact (particularly the parks and especially the guests who visit them).
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I am pretty sure Iger not micromanaging the creative process is proving to be a complete success. How did the animation unit fair during ME's final years?

I think a lot of Eisner but Iger is a better fit as it relates to the long term viability of TWDC. Fact.
 
Darth Sidious

Darth Sidious

Authentically Disney Distinctly Chinese
WDW1974 said:
Yes, he was taking his grandkids on a vacation and proudly showing off a resort he helped build.

When does Iger go to WDW when there isn't a business reason? When is he ever seen riding Tron Track or Little Mermaid or Tot with his wife and kids? Just enjoying a large piece of the media company he runs?

How about never?



The current leadership is due to Bob Iger and Jay Rasulo. Let's look at who has been running the company for the last nine years. The leadership at every resort has changed since Michael was CEO, some multiple times. New positions have been created as well (see Meg Crofton). I don't want to be an Eisner apologist, so I'm just going with the facts.

The culture at WDI has been poison for decades. The reality is Michael had very little to do with what happened there daily, much like Bob. WDFA was absolutely run poorly in Michael's later years, BUT ... it wouldn't have existed at all by then, let alone created all those amazing hits and IP that is beloved around the globe IF Michael hadn't of come to power to start with. FA was dead before he arrived. And while he made some major mistakes with it (largely hiring the wrong people to run it), it sure doesn't look dead now. So, let's simply say they had a great period followed by a relatively short down period and they are back near the top again.

Baxter, as much as I personally like and respect him, was often his own worst enemy. And anyone who knows him and knows how he conducted himself will tell you the same. ... And, notice, that he wasn't forced out of the company by Michael. No, that happened after almost a decade of Bob's leadership where Bob never seemed to care about Tony's talents and left him on the sidelines.

Ovitz was a disaster that even Michael would admit. But, at the time, it didn't seem to be a bad hire. Ovitz was that generation's Ari Emanuel.

Pressler and Harriss were both highly regarded executives in the retail field that helped grow The Disney Store chain. The mistake was moving them into P&R positions. .... But again, that is something that Bob has no trouble doing as well.

At least Paul ran DL before becoming head of P&R, Tom Staggs had no parks experience whatsoever.



One man didn't ruin EPCOT. ... wait, why am I arguing this point by point with you? You simply have a hate for the man and it is much easier to blame someone who is gone and has no decision-making power than it is to blame the guy who is running the company now and has been for almost a decade.



Let's be blunt: Jobs was an egomaniac who is somehow viewed as a visionary because he has created products that people who want to be hip buy. The reality is no one was going to pony up the kind of dollars Pixar was asking for, but Disney. I know this one. Pixar was either going to go it alone and lose Disney's marketing machine or they were going to become part of the company. The fact John Lasseter hated Michael almost as much as a day sans wine doesn't change those realities.

And if your measure for the success of a company is strictly based on the price per share, then you can't also claim to give a damn about what kind of product that company creates or how it makes that price happen.
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He openly wrote in his book that Ovitz was a mistake.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
To make another delayed reaction, I wouldn't blame Eisner for the poor quality of Home on the Range, anymore than I would give Iger credit for Frozen's success. Neither had anything to do with the writing, animating or scoring of either movie. That's not their job and only someone like Walt had that kind of personal investment at his executive level, something he slowly gave up as his company expanded.
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Even Walt was not consistent in his level of involvement.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
jt04 said:
I am pretty sure Iger not micromanaging the creative process is proving to be a complete success. How did te animation unit fair during ME's final years?
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With few exceptions, the animation department is little better under Iger than it was under Eisner in his later years. Iger made a lot of empty promises early on in order to suck up to both the board as well as the fanbase (many of which he has broken). Overall though their internally developed animated movies have left much to be desired. Nothing made after 2000 can match their movies from the 90's (under either Eisner OR Iger). We'll see how they handle Frozen's success (it's good and deserves to do well due to that but it's still severely overrated and no match for the likes of Beauty and the Beast or Hunchback of Notre Dame). Iger wants sequels, and that's bad news to me for striving for creativity (Disney doesn't have a very good track record with animated sequels made in-house either). Also not happy about Iger killing off hand drawn animation AGAIN, effectively breaking his promise he made when he first became CEO and nullifying yet another reason (in an ever growing list of negatives) for him to be running the company. Pixar had previously been keeping the quality alive up to a point but they don't count as Disney's core animation studio as they're often left to their own devices (we'll see if they can get out of the rut of mediocrity they've been in for the past 3 movies). Quality and financial success aren't always closely tied to one another, otherwise Disneyland Paris would have been a gold mine.

I was talking about park projects when expressing my distaste of Iger, the parks are arguably even worse off under Iger than Eisner. And from a creative perspective, Cars Land is the only great new US park project that was built under Iger's reign. There have been some good international attractions (though if you count them then you have to count the amazing Tokyo Disneysea, which destroys anything Iger has ever done park wise). The only reason Cars wasn't a flop was because Lasseter used political threats towards the bean counters in order to not value engineering it beyond repair (despite their best efforts to mutilate it). Pretty much everything else built in the US parks under Iger has been massively underwhelming (nothing touching even Everest, the final Eisner project). Mermaid is seen as a massive letdown and the Mine Train isn't looking much better, New Fantasyland is all style and no decent substance. Maintenance in WDW is dire as has been the case for many years now, and Disneyland's upkeep is starting to falter again. And unless Avatar has someone like Lasseter in a position of power and political leverage to ensure it gets done right, it could very well be heading down the same path of mediocrity as New Fantasyland. Especially with even more budget cuts being planned as we speak to try to cover up the next gen disaster.
 
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ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
Captain Neo said:
Splash Too bro
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I'm still confused.

Previously you wrote:
Captain Neo said:
He [Eisner] changed Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah River Run's name to Splash Mountain because he wanted it to serve as an advertisement to the then in production Splash Movie with Darryl Hannah.
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How does renaming a ride that opened in July 1989 help advertise a TV movie starring Amy Yasbeck that aired in May 1988?
 
TinkerBelle8878

TinkerBelle8878

Well-Known Member
WDW1974 said:
One of my all-time favorite Michael Eisner tales was his response after riding Imagination 2.0 ... and I know it is true because I know the person who rode behind him. Michael was so angry and just yelled ''Where the (f word deleted) did my $53 million go?'' There were other angry comments after but that's the important and telling line.

I can tell you as sure as I am here that if he had known how that disaster would have turned out that we would still have the original (stale, but intact) today.
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I'm happy to hear he wasn't thinking, 'Oh this is interesting.' The money lined pockets I'd imagine. Basically they did demo of the original and then put in an upside down toilet and skunk smells. I'm not an imagineer, but as it wasn't a whole building leveled, and they kept the Imageworks intact, this couldn't have cost that much.

It really is such a shame...and in a twist of irony, the whole good nutrition and health focus, wouldn't a show that entertained everyone while keeping them informed be ideal? The original (Kabaret) was the better of the two but at least they were trying with that update when it became Food Rocks. Too bad that was demolished for Soarin.

I guess I figure that Eisner's legacy (for lack of better terminology) was Epcot amongst other stuff. So to see it and I guess DHS in such disrepair and with only a few rides in DHS's case, I can't imagine he'd be having much of a good time there. I'm actually picturing a good Clark Griswold rant.
 
FigmentJedi

FigmentJedi

Well-Known Member
TinkerBelle8878 said:
I'm happy to hear he wasn't thinking, 'Oh this is interesting.' The money lined pockets I'd imagine. Basically they did demo of the original and then put in an upside down toilet and skunk smells. I'm not an imagineer, but as it wasn't a whole building leveled, and they kept the Imageworks intact, this couldn't have cost that much.
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Actually the skunk smell was added when they tried salvaging the abomination.
 

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