Why All the Vitriol Against Disney?

Incomudro

Incomudro

Well-Known Member
chrisbarry said:
I'm a huge fan of The Wizarding World over at Universal for sure. It's probably the best themed land in any theme park anywhere, but having just returned from both Universal and WDW, there are some glaring differences in the types of attractions. Essentially, just about every Universal attraction is the same. They're all projection based mixed with real set elements. You will inevitably fall forward. You will inevitably be towed upwards or forwards. Something is always trying to kill you. They upped the ante on a themed area like Diagonal Alley, but the attractions are all starting to seem the same. Spider-Man, Transformers, Simpsons, Gringotts, Minions - projections surrounding a motion simulator ride vehicle, differences in the package for sure, but the rides are pretty darn similar. One could certainly say they are just cramming their intellectual properties into rides. Even Kong is at its core a projection/motion simulator ride in a different package.

And I'm sorry, I've been to Williamsburg as well. Apples and oranges. I'm getting so much more for my money at Disney, infinitely more.
Click to expand...

My sons (14 year old twins) got tired of the Uni formula very quickly.
Despite my wife and I trying to push them forward, they were saying; "Is this going to be another one of those rides?"
When we went over to Disney, after the Universal portion of our trip they were much happier - and I had thought at this age they'd like Universal more.
"Follow me, I'll get you out of here!" "You made it!" "Good Job!"
 
RobidaFlats

RobidaFlats

Well-Known Member
chrisbarry said:
I'm sorry, acquiring Star Wars, Marvel and Muppets as opposed to Snow White, Cinderella, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins...I could go on and on and on. What they do now isn't all that different then what they've done before.
Click to expand...

That's disingenuous. Taking a story and reworking it, creating new characters and then creating visuals, creating songs and a soundtrack is a far cry from purchasing someone else's fully packaged movie library. In the case of the Muppets, Disney purchased the rights to use existing puppets, theme songs, etc. For Pixar, they even bought most of the people behind the studio.

If you want to make the "nihil novi sub sole" argument, then fine. But the degrees of magnitude between creating a movie around a classic fairy tale and making a new Star Wars movie that can even use some of the pre-existing cast are inescapable.
 
chrisbarry

chrisbarry

Active Member
RobidaFlats said:
That's disingenuous. Taking a story and reworking it, creating new characters and then creating visuals, creating songs and a soundtrack is a far cry from purchasing someone else's fully packaged movie library. In the case of the Muppets, Disney purchased the rights to use existing puppets, theme songs, etc. For Pixar, they even bought most of the people behind the studio.

If you want to make the "nihil novi sub sole" argument, then fine. But the degrees of magnitude between creating a movie around a classic fairy tale and making a new Star Wars movie that can even use some of the pre-existing cast are inescapable.
Click to expand...

One could say that they took the Star Wars characters and license and turned around and made one of the best films in the series much in the same way they took a classic fairy tale and made it relevant to future generations.
My point really is I still think the creativity is there, but so many of the fans out there don't even give them a chance to deliver before they condemn them.
 
Disnee4Me

Disnee4Me

Well-Known Member
arielsgrotto said:
I mean I personally try not to focus on little problems with WDW too much because I rarely get the chance to go and wanna enjoy it as much as possible. At the same time I'm willing to criticize (like saying the Frozen ride, as much as I'd like to ride it, seems like they kind of just shoved frozen into Maelstrom's shell awkwardly).

I'm torn on this issue :( I guess it's different when you go often
Click to expand...
I personally think a Frozen ride should have been at the Studios (since its from a Disney MOVIE) ... leave the countries as Countries. Maelstrom was a great ride. Disney should capitalize on their movies by having more movie-related rides at the Studios.
 
RobidaFlats

RobidaFlats

Well-Known Member
chrisbarry said:
One could say that they took the Star Wars characters and license and turned around and made one of the best films in the series much in the same way they took a classic fairy tale and made it relevant to future generations.
My point really is I still think the creativity is there, but so many of the fans out there don't even give them a chance to deliver before they condemn them.
Click to expand...

One could say that, but it wouldn't be true. One cannot say that creating a new film in an existing film franchise is done in the "same way" as creating a new film based (and sometimes loosely based) upon an old fairy tale. That is what my post was about, hence why I quoted your assertion that "What they do now isn't all that different then what they've done before." I explained the differences, and if you disagree, that's fine, but generally one explains such disagreements by attempting to refute the points raised.

This is my first interaction with you specifically, but I am noticing a trend on these forums. Some posters seem to make assertions, and then when those assertions are disputed, they glaze over any points made and just rephrase and restate the initial assertion. I'm all about discussion and have been known to change my view when presented with a compelling argument. However, I'm not getting anything compelling to even chew on.
 
Glasgow

Glasgow

Well-Known Member
Three very simple words - Value for Money. It used to be better. The experience is still GREAT, it's just not as good a value as it used to be. What do I mean by that? Attraction closures without replacements, removal of live entertainment, stale/old attractions languishing without updates, etc.
For us, it has nothing to do with the actual experience itself - we always have a super time. But we're not going as often now (reduced our trips from every year to every two years). Only now, after many years of hardly any significant updates, are TWDC reinvesting their massive profits back into the parks in a big way. They are trying to make up for the dearth of new content over the past 15 years, relatively speaking.
I can't stress enough though - it's not the experience that changed, it was the overall cost to content value .. aka .. value.
 
Prince-1

Prince-1

Well-Known Member
Magenta Panther said:
I think a lot of what you're reading here isn't vitriol. It's tough love.

Some of us here aren't just Disney fans, we're Walt Disney fans, and we want the parks to live up to his standards. And we know that he didn't see them primarily as merchandising outlets. They were a new way of telling wonderful stories. As such, he wanted them to have thematic cohesion. He wanted innovation and fresh ideas, while respectfully honoring ideas that have stood the test of time. And he always wanted park guests to get their money's worth, and he also was determined that the parks be accessible to all kinds of people at all kinds of income levels. He saw the success of Disneyland as an example of how to make the world a better place. He didn't see his parks as products. He saw them as an inspiring and uplifting gift to mankind. But now...we have people in charge of his parks that see them as ways to market "brands", as ways to coax more money out of guests who have already paid a very high price just to get in, and as ways to incorporate off-Studio purchased intellectual properties that many see as an ill fit in any Disney park. But the suits at Disney don't care about any of that. They want to charge more and cut corners and push square pegs into round holes (Guardians of the Galaxy in Epcot, Muppets in Liberty Square). They are ruled by greed, not by inspiration, or understanding of the Disney legacy, or even by good taste. And that distresses a lot of us here. So we vent. We realize that it probably won't do any good, that the best way to protest is to spend our money and our time at other parks, but we'd really rather not, not as long as a little genuine Disney magic still lingers in Walt's parks. How long it will is really the issue with a lot of us. We're afraid that what brought us to the Disney parks, what keeps them ahead of their rivals, will eventually be overlaid with flash-in-the-pan merchandising grabs. It's happening right now. We can only hope and pray it doesn't get any worse...
Click to expand...

Well said...and Go Muppets!!
 
216bruce

216bruce

Well-Known Member
Incomudro said:
Negative people drive away positive ones.
I've seen many forums that I am a member of from music to automotive eventually become the residence of mostly the complainers.
Click to expand...
I think that's the nature of these kind of sites (and much of social media in general). Reasonable people, enthusiastic or not, eventually get tired of arguing with strangers and trolls and give up. What remains are the extremes both pro and con. The anonymity of the internet discussion groups lets folks say whatever they want with no filter or thought of repercussion. 'Back in the day' if someone said a lot of the stuff they say in discussion groups or social sites, they'd get their butts kicked. Revenge of the nerds.
 
Magenta Panther

Magenta Panther

Well-Known Member
RobidaFlats said:
That's disingenuous. Taking a story and reworking it, creating new characters and then creating visuals, creating songs and a soundtrack is a far cry from purchasing someone else's fully packaged movie library. In the case of the Muppets, Disney purchased the rights to use existing puppets, theme songs, etc. For Pixar, they even bought most of the people behind the studio.

If you want to make the "nihil novi sub sole" argument, then fine. But the degrees of magnitude between creating a movie around a classic fairy tale and making a new Star Wars movie that can even use some of the pre-existing cast are inescapable.
Click to expand...

THANK YOU. You totally get the Disney difference. It's a pity that there are some here who do not, who think adapting a property for movies and giving it Disney magic which in turn develops an audience for it is no different from buying up an already-fully-developed/exploited property with already-established appeal. I'm not sure if those folk really believe that or are lying to themselves. Why do they think Iger/Eisner bought the properties in the first place? They saw it as taking a shortcut to profit and reducing risk. And real creativity always involves risk. Walt accepted that risk. Eisner and Iger (especially Iger) avoid that risk whenever possible.
 
danyoung56

danyoung56

Well-Known Member
chrisbarry said:
One could say that they took the Star Wars characters and license and turned around and made one of the best films in the series much in the same way they took a classic fairy tale and made it relevant to future generations.
Click to expand...

Off topic - is this the same Chris Barry from Mouseplanet?
 
216bruce

216bruce

Well-Known Member
My two cents worth: Put yourself in "The Wayback Machine". You are Walt Disney, it is the 1930's and 1940's and 1950's and you are developing ideas for animated and live-action feature films, even theme park attractions and TV shows . Where can you acquire (ooooh....horrible word) familiar, popular or at least 'known' characters and stories for family audiences from so you can make successful product? Well, books are far and away the source of those things in a popular form back then, so you do it. Not just public domain fairy tales like "Snow White" but recent works like "Bambi" and "Dumbo", "Old Yeller", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Zorro", (I could go on and on) and even a franchise of sorts with "Mary Poppins" that has multiple books and a lot of characters in it. If you are Walt, you really don't have anywhere else to acquire stuff from. Your company is pretty much inventing family entertainment as you go, there aren't any 'franchises' as we know them today in film for families so you do a 'back in the day' version of what the company is doing today- buy the stories, characters and rework them in most cases into 'the Disney version' from books. Again...there weren't any franchises to buy in films, so we don't know if he would or wouldn't have bought them, given the chance. He DID buy other peoples work and use it. That's obvious, traditional and fine.

The company still creates stuff that they didn't 'franchise purchase' and release it to less success financial results than the biggies like Star Wars and Marvel. Some of my favorite Disney films of the past few years were "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and "Saving Mr. Banks". Very original, very modest box office and the crazy original "Tomorrowland" which bombed badly. It's fine to not like that the company is purchasing franchises and just releasing their 'bought' output but it's unfair to say the company doesn't still make new stuff and it's inaccurate to say that the company used to be different in how they 'got' ideas. The scale and mediums have changed...not the process.
 
chrisbarry

chrisbarry

Active Member
216bruce said:
My two cents worth: Put yourself in "The Wayback Machine". You are Walt Disney, it is the 1930's and 1940's and 1950's and you are developing ideas for animated and live-action feature films, even theme park attractions and TV shows . Where can you acquire (ooooh....horrible word) familiar, popular or at least 'known' characters and stories for family audiences from so you can make successful product? Well, books are far and away the source of those things in a popular form back then, so you do it. Not just public domain fairy tales like "Snow White" but recent works like "Bambi" and "Dumbo", "Old Yeller", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Zorro", (I could go on and on) and even a franchise of sorts with "Mary Poppins" that has multiple books and a lot of characters in it. If you are Walt, you really don't have anywhere else to acquire stuff from. Your company is pretty much inventing family entertainment as you go, there aren't any 'franchises' as we know them today in film for families so you do a 'back in the day' version of what the company is doing today- buy the stories, characters and rework them in most cases into 'the Disney version' from books. Again...there weren't any franchises to buy in films, so we don't know if he would or wouldn't have bought them, given the chance. He DID buy other peoples work and use it. That's obvious, traditional and fine.

The company still creates stuff that they didn't 'franchise purchase' and release it to less success financial results than the biggies like Star Wars and Marvel. Some of my favorite Disney films of the past few years were "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and "Saving Mr. Banks". Very original, very modest box office and the crazy original "Tomorrowland" which bombed badly. It's fine to not like that the company is purchasing franchises and just releasing their 'bought' output but it's unfair to say the company doesn't still make new stuff and it's inaccurate to say that the company used to be different in how they 'got' ideas. The scale and mediums have changed...not the process.
Click to expand...

I think you said what I was trying to say…but much better, thanks.

I also think that if you consider the possibility that Iger may have been looking at the long term interest of the company - you may not believe that, you may think that he took a shortcut by buying these IP's, but hear me out - if you do consider that the thought process in purchasing Star Wars, Marvel and most definitely Pixar, was a "buy-them-for-the-good-of-the-company" thought process, than those purchases made good sense. Should he have let Pixar go? In my opinion, It made perfect sense to incorporate them into the fold permanently. I think Star Wars made perfect sense as well. I go back and forth on Marvel. Personally, I think it makes more sense to purchase these properties that are linked to films, characters and good storytelling than it did for Eisner to purchase baseball and hockey teams.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom