It feels like most of their divisions have started making things that are just shaped like older stuff people liked and seemingly only by accident do they make something that the person in charge...
It feels like most of their divisions have started making things that are just shaped like older stuff people liked and seemingly only by accident do they make something that the person in charge of the project actually wants to make. Andor and season 1 Mandalorian being the prime examples. Like the 'money guys' have finally gotten full control and are trying to mine gold more efficiency and loosing track of the fact that what they're actually mining interest in creative products.
I'm still blown away by JJ Abrams quote about the new Star Wars movies that, "maybe we should have planned the trilogy from the start". Like I know he's 'the mystery box guy' and all. But that no one above him thought 'winging it' was a bad idea.
Yeah, the fact that no one with any decision-making power at Disney thought that it was important for their trilogy to have a story shows how little they care about the craft of filmmaking.
Yeah, the fact that no one with any decision-making power at Disney thought that it was important for their trilogy to have a story shows how little they care about the craft of filmmaking.
I would agree. All the Disney owned content in the last year or so have all been "meh". The plots and characters are all just kind of bland. They have become big-budget, CGI laden Hallmark Movie...
I would agree. All the Disney owned content in the last year or so have all been "meh". The plots and characters are all just kind of bland. They have become big-budget, CGI laden Hallmark Movie makers.
Is that not just a trait of capitalism or do other countries know a way to prevent it? It just seems at some point a successful business is nearly always bought by people simply looking to profit...
Is that not just a trait of capitalism or do other countries know a way to prevent it?
It just seems at some point a successful business is nearly always bought by people simply looking to profit off its success for as long as possible. At which point the company starts worshiping money to appease the new owners demanding more money at the expense of employees, products and services. The new owners don't care, at worst they'll just liquidate and move on to the next success.
Other countries have cultural and legal mandates that can override an exclusive focus on profit. For example the Dutch model has more emphasis on boards acting in the interests of employees,...
Other countries have cultural and legal mandates that can override an exclusive focus on profit.
The US in general seem to be very shareholder focused, as opposed to including the concerns of all stakeholders in a business. I think ultimately capitalism drives towards profit focus over time and it has to be actively pushed back against.
While hardly insightful, the US quest for growth at all costs is what causes a lot of things to be sacrificed at that altar. No modern business is happy with just making a modest profit and...
While hardly insightful, the US quest for growth at all costs is what causes a lot of things to be sacrificed at that altar.
No modern business is happy with just making a modest profit and providing a good service, they are continually trying to get larger, do more with less, squeeze their customers and their staff. The planet is wheezing under the strain of it all. Growth cannot be limitless, and industries pay their price in their own way.
Take marvel and film for example, growth happened and culminated in a landmark moment (Avengers movies tying together like 20 films into one epic moment), obviously marvel is chasing that same high again, the growth and insane run to make multiple, billion dollar movies.
They have bungled their latest phases and IP to the point where the coherence of the franchise is lost, and in the name of growth they still need to keep putting out movies. They're wheezing along with failures like she-hulk and the marvels right now.
It's extremely hard to see how the next Avengers movie ties anything together (while we could kind of see it last time because the movies were cohesive), consequently there's going to be much less buzz for the next Avengers movie. That payoff that audiences craved (and literally gave a payoff to the movie makers) is far less likely this second time around.
The sad things about co-ops in NA is that they sound too much like communism to some people but most of the big ones that have extended past their local community are often no better than other...
The sad things about co-ops in NA is that they sound too much like communism to some people but most of the big ones that have extended past their local community are often no better than other regular corporations.
The Dutch Stakeholder system sounds great. I agree, the drive toward profits just builds over time and needs something to keep it in check before it starts to exploit everything it touches at the...
The Dutch Stakeholder system sounds great. I agree, the drive toward profits just builds over time and needs something to keep it in check before it starts to exploit everything it touches at the expense of everyone else.
I'd think that Disney's market dominance is what plays a huge role in this. Who else releases summer blockbusters at this point? It's the Disney show. The option to go watch something else in...
I'd think that Disney's market dominance is what plays a huge role in this. Who else releases summer blockbusters at this point? It's the Disney show. The option to go watch something else in theaters doesn't exist. With no competition, Disney can just double down on pumping out whatever because that's it.
Maybe this is a feature and not a bug. Assuming the business environment is lively enough for another firm to grow out of the decay, seems almost natural in a weird way
Maybe this is a feature and not a bug. Assuming the business environment is lively enough for another firm to grow out of the decay, seems almost natural in a weird way
That's more or less what the article concluded as well. It even mentioned and dismissed the "get woke go broke" sentiment like your comment. I'm not quite sure myself. I feel its easy to take a...
That's more or less what the article concluded as well. It even mentioned and dismissed the "get woke go broke" sentiment like your comment.
I'm not quite sure myself. I feel its easy to take a "weak" year and conclude creative bankruptcy, but I think it's simply a matter that the thatres are still recovering from the pandemic and that Disney is no longer that, as the article says, the one stop shop for all entertaiment. At disney's scale, they aren't just competing with movies and TV, they are competing for attention, and attention is being drawn by all kinds of stuff only tangentially related to Disney's mediums of expertise. Youtube, Tiktok, reality TV, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
The pandemic likely caused some irreparable damage to those mega-movie franchises of the 2010's. It was already at a downturn in the 2010's because what was the real last, new "great" IP? Frozen in 2012 maybe for animation? Game of Thrones for TV in 2011?
That's not to say there aren't some great shows since then, but we're probably past the age of the time where there are cultural phenomenons that literally everyone watched due to how much content there is, all on demand. Unless its coming off the back of an existing cultural phenomenon, it's very hard or nearly impossible to re-built tjat kind of empire. And those are how disney built, killed, and revived its brand over the past century
Not who you responded to, but the central generational conflict had a nice resolution of accepting another's individuality and loosening tradition that doesn't fit that person... But at the same...
Not who you responded to, but the central generational conflict had a nice resolution of accepting another's individuality and loosening tradition that doesn't fit that person... But at the same time this "tradition" was a big secret, and giving national attention to it causes all sorts of complications. The secret probably wasn't kept just because the family wanted to reject their true identity.
It's definitely one of those "don't think too hard about it" endings that is sweet and teaches a great lesson, but crumbles under the slightest scrutiny.
Oh. Yes, I didn't focus on the whole "cartoon red pandas destroy a stadium" thing, as the movie is metaphorical. I viewed it more as the whole "coming of age as a woman" by getting one's period...
Oh. Yes, I didn't focus on the whole "cartoon red pandas destroy a stadium" thing, as the movie is metaphorical. I viewed it more as the whole "coming of age as a woman" by getting one's period and societal expectations put on women and girls, and ending the cycle of shame, secrecy, repression of emotions and oneself, and ultimately generational trauma.
Pixar is the only division of Disney that I can still get excited about. They've pretty much ruined Marvel, Star Wars, and traditional Disney by turning them all into soulless corporate product....
Pixar is the only division of Disney that I can still get excited about. They've pretty much ruined Marvel, Star Wars, and traditional Disney by turning them all into soulless corporate product. ("Andor" was pretty good, though. I wonder how that one got through.)
Elemental was a pretty fun movie that was actually original. I'm sick of toy story 15 and avengers 82. I have been enjoying the star wars content but that's due to my major bias. I bet if I didn't...
Elemental was a pretty fun movie that was actually original. I'm sick of toy story 15 and avengers 82.
I have been enjoying the star wars content but that's due to my major bias. I bet if I didn't love it so much I wouldn't bother watching it.
That's it right there. Disney knows people think this way, even if most people aren't as self-aware as you are. So as a result each project needs to be on-brand, to the point that there's very...
I have been enjoying the star wars content but that's due to my major bias. I bet if I didn't love it so much I wouldn't bother watching it.
That's it right there. Disney knows people think this way, even if most people aren't as self-aware as you are. So as a result each project needs to be on-brand, to the point that there's very little room left for creative flexibility, and then the creatives attached become disinterested.
It's like, I bet McDonald's burgers had a pretty close resemblance to actual food in the beginning, but now they're McFood. People buy it, but nobody is really thinking about it
I initially dismissed Elemental as an Inside Out knockoff. I'm glad I ended up giving it a chance. As a daughter of immigrants in America with an American partner, that movie actually hit me hard.
I initially dismissed Elemental as an Inside Out knockoff. I'm glad I ended up giving it a chance. As a daughter of immigrants in America with an American partner, that movie actually hit me hard.
I originally wasn't super interested in it because the water guy looked like Osmosis Jones. Despite that, I went to go see it anyways. I was fully on board as soon as it clear this was an...
I originally wasn't super interested in it because the water guy looked like Osmosis Jones. Despite that, I went to go see it anyways. I was fully on board as soon as it clear this was an immigrant story. The trailers, as I can remember them, did not convey that it was about immigrants.
Definitely. The trailers and promotional content did a disservice to the movie. That's why I initially dismissed it as some sort of "Inside Out but with elements" knockoff.
The trailers, as I can remember them, did not convey that it was about immigrants.
Definitely. The trailers and promotional content did a disservice to the movie. That's why I initially dismissed it as some sort of "Inside Out but with elements" knockoff.
I had a bit of a bumpy 15 minutes or so before I turned off the part of my brain that needed to analyze every idea of how a society of elements might work, but overall, I thought it was enjoyable,...
I had a bit of a bumpy 15 minutes or so before I turned off the part of my brain that needed to analyze every idea of how a society of elements might work, but overall, I thought it was enjoyable, and did a good job of showing off the challenges of being the first generation in a new country.
Oh man, that was my exact experience. We didn’t watch it til D+ had it, but I could not suspend disbelief for the first bit. We stopped and came back to it the next day, and I was much more...
Oh man, that was my exact experience. We didn’t watch it til D+ had it, but I could not suspend disbelief for the first bit. We stopped and came back to it the next day, and I was much more engaged with it then. It was like some mental switch just wouldn’t flip - elements don’t work that way!
Look at Cars. Cars (2006), Mater's Tall Tales (2008), Cars 2 (2011), Planes (2013), Tales from Radiator Springs (2013), Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014), Cars 3 (2017). Or Frozen. Frozen (2013),...
Look at Cars. Cars (2006), Mater's Tall Tales (2008), Cars 2 (2011), Planes (2013), Tales from Radiator Springs (2013), Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014), Cars 3 (2017).
Or Frozen. Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019), Frozen Fever (2015), Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017), Myth: A Frozen Tale (2019), Once Upon a Snowman (2020), At Home with Olaf (2020), Olaf Presents (2021)
There is some great content here, but as a parent it increasingly feels like a cynical cash grab. Disney has recently wanted to extract as much cash from people as possible[1], and fair enough, that's how many businesses run. But it does leave me seeing the shows as "product being sold" rather than "art being made".
[1] Disney were late to home video rental market because they couldn't understand how it would work - "but there could be lots of people in the room watching the film! How do we charge each of them?" (I can't find this anymore because Google fucking sucks for searching, especially if you're looking for obscure stuff from before 2020, but there are meetings notes where Disney executives say this). But see their experiment with FlexPlay in 2003 - a DVD that would self-destruct after two days: https://www.zdnet.com/article/disney-dvds-self-destruct-after-two-days/
The Michael Eisner days did a lot of this too - There are straight to home video sequels for most of the Disney Classics because of this era. I don't think the "cash grab" is new. It's possible...
The Michael Eisner days did a lot of this too - There are straight to home video sequels for most of the Disney Classics because of this era. I don't think the "cash grab" is new. It's possible that you were just a kid/teen/young adult during that time and weren't feeling the same way.
Yeah, none of this is remotely new. If I remember correctly, these sorts of decisions are what led Don Bluth to leave in the 80s. The late 90s and early 2000s through 2010 featured the traditional...
Yeah, none of this is remotely new. If I remember correctly, these sorts of decisions are what led Don Bluth to leave in the 80s. The late 90s and early 2000s through 2010 featured the traditional animators at Disney putting on a constant tour-de-force in a fight for their careers, though, and mixed with acquiring Pixar and giving them a blank check, most people were lulled back into a bit of Micknosis. At the same time, Disney was ramping up their acquisitions, and I'm sure they felt less pressure to dilute the Disney brand with the trash that had always gone direct-to-video with subsidiaries happy to take it. Now, though, they've clearly become comfortable competing with themselves.
It feels like most of their divisions have started making things that are just shaped like older stuff people liked and seemingly only by accident do they make something that the person in charge of the project actually wants to make. Andor and season 1 Mandalorian being the prime examples. Like the 'money guys' have finally gotten full control and are trying to mine gold more efficiency and loosing track of the fact that what they're actually mining interest in creative products.
I'm still blown away by JJ Abrams quote about the new Star Wars movies that, "maybe we should have planned the trilogy from the start". Like I know he's 'the mystery box guy' and all. But that no one above him thought 'winging it' was a bad idea.
Yeah, the fact that no one with any decision-making power at Disney thought that it was important for their trilogy to have a story shows how little they care about the craft of filmmaking.
I would agree. All the Disney owned content in the last year or so have all been "meh". The plots and characters are all just kind of bland. They have become big-budget, CGI laden Hallmark Movie makers.
This seems to be the major flaw in US based capitalism. Eventually businesses destroy themselves in the pursuit of profit.
Is that not just a trait of capitalism or do other countries know a way to prevent it?
It just seems at some point a successful business is nearly always bought by people simply looking to profit off its success for as long as possible. At which point the company starts worshiping money to appease the new owners demanding more money at the expense of employees, products and services. The new owners don't care, at worst they'll just liquidate and move on to the next success.
Other countries have cultural and legal mandates that can override an exclusive focus on profit.
For example the Dutch model has more emphasis on boards acting in the interests of employees, customers, and the environment. See: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/08/02/the-dutch-stakeholder-experience/
The US in general seem to be very shareholder focused, as opposed to including the concerns of all stakeholders in a business. I think ultimately capitalism drives towards profit focus over time and it has to be actively pushed back against.
While hardly insightful, the US quest for growth at all costs is what causes a lot of things to be sacrificed at that altar.
No modern business is happy with just making a modest profit and providing a good service, they are continually trying to get larger, do more with less, squeeze their customers and their staff. The planet is wheezing under the strain of it all. Growth cannot be limitless, and industries pay their price in their own way.
Take marvel and film for example, growth happened and culminated in a landmark moment (Avengers movies tying together like 20 films into one epic moment), obviously marvel is chasing that same high again, the growth and insane run to make multiple, billion dollar movies.
They have bungled their latest phases and IP to the point where the coherence of the franchise is lost, and in the name of growth they still need to keep putting out movies. They're wheezing along with failures like she-hulk and the marvels right now.
It's extremely hard to see how the next Avengers movie ties anything together (while we could kind of see it last time because the movies were cohesive), consequently there's going to be much less buzz for the next Avengers movie. That payoff that audiences craved (and literally gave a payoff to the movie makers) is far less likely this second time around.
The US has those as well. Look up B Corp. But it's a new concept here, and it's not enough to change consumer behavior in a lot of cases.
There are also cooperatives and so on - they just aren’t common.
The sad things about co-ops in NA is that they sound too much like communism to some people but most of the big ones that have extended past their local community are often no better than other regular corporations.
The Dutch Stakeholder system sounds great. I agree, the drive toward profits just builds over time and needs something to keep it in check before it starts to exploit everything it touches at the expense of everyone else.
I'd think that Disney's market dominance is what plays a huge role in this. Who else releases summer blockbusters at this point? It's the Disney show. The option to go watch something else in theaters doesn't exist. With no competition, Disney can just double down on pumping out whatever because that's it.
Break up Disney.
Maybe this is a feature and not a bug. Assuming the business environment is lively enough for another firm to grow out of the decay, seems almost natural in a weird way
That's more or less what the article concluded as well. It even mentioned and dismissed the "get woke go broke" sentiment like your comment.
I'm not quite sure myself. I feel its easy to take a "weak" year and conclude creative bankruptcy, but I think it's simply a matter that the thatres are still recovering from the pandemic and that Disney is no longer that, as the article says, the one stop shop for all entertaiment. At disney's scale, they aren't just competing with movies and TV, they are competing for attention, and attention is being drawn by all kinds of stuff only tangentially related to Disney's mediums of expertise. Youtube, Tiktok, reality TV, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
The pandemic likely caused some irreparable damage to those mega-movie franchises of the 2010's. It was already at a downturn in the 2010's because what was the real last, new "great" IP? Frozen in 2012 maybe for animation? Game of Thrones for TV in 2011?
That's not to say there aren't some great shows since then, but we're probably past the age of the time where there are cultural phenomenons that literally everyone watched due to how much content there is, all on demand. Unless its coming off the back of an existing cultural phenomenon, it's very hard or nearly impossible to re-built tjat kind of empire. And those are how disney built, killed, and revived its brand over the past century
I liked Inside Out and Turning Red. What did you find strange about the ending? (I like discussing movies.)
Not who you responded to, but the central generational conflict had a nice resolution of accepting another's individuality and loosening tradition that doesn't fit that person... But at the same time this "tradition" was a big secret, and giving national attention to it causes all sorts of complications. The secret probably wasn't kept just because the family wanted to reject their true identity.
It's definitely one of those "don't think too hard about it" endings that is sweet and teaches a great lesson, but crumbles under the slightest scrutiny.
Oh. Yes, I didn't focus on the whole "cartoon red pandas destroy a stadium" thing, as the movie is metaphorical. I viewed it more as the whole "coming of age as a woman" by getting one's period and societal expectations put on women and girls, and ending the cycle of shame, secrecy, repression of emotions and oneself, and ultimately generational trauma.
Pixar is the only division of Disney that I can still get excited about. They've pretty much ruined Marvel, Star Wars, and traditional Disney by turning them all into soulless corporate product. ("Andor" was pretty good, though. I wonder how that one got through.)
Elemental was a pretty fun movie that was actually original. I'm sick of toy story 15 and avengers 82.
I have been enjoying the star wars content but that's due to my major bias. I bet if I didn't love it so much I wouldn't bother watching it.
That's it right there. Disney knows people think this way, even if most people aren't as self-aware as you are. So as a result each project needs to be on-brand, to the point that there's very little room left for creative flexibility, and then the creatives attached become disinterested.
It's like, I bet McDonald's burgers had a pretty close resemblance to actual food in the beginning, but now they're McFood. People buy it, but nobody is really thinking about it
I initially dismissed Elemental as an Inside Out knockoff. I'm glad I ended up giving it a chance. As a daughter of immigrants in America with an American partner, that movie actually hit me hard.
I originally wasn't super interested in it because the water guy looked like Osmosis Jones. Despite that, I went to go see it anyways. I was fully on board as soon as it clear this was an immigrant story. The trailers, as I can remember them, did not convey that it was about immigrants.
I’ll wager they limited the immigration aspect to tamp right wing controversy. As far as I can tell, right wingers still haven’t figured it out.
True beyond intent.
Definitely. The trailers and promotional content did a disservice to the movie. That's why I initially dismissed it as some sort of "Inside Out but with elements" knockoff.
I had a bit of a bumpy 15 minutes or so before I turned off the part of my brain that needed to analyze every idea of how a society of elements might work, but overall, I thought it was enjoyable, and did a good job of showing off the challenges of being the first generation in a new country.
Oh man, that was my exact experience. We didn’t watch it til D+ had it, but I could not suspend disbelief for the first bit. We stopped and came back to it the next day, and I was much more engaged with it then. It was like some mental switch just wouldn’t flip - elements don’t work that way!
Look at Cars. Cars (2006), Mater's Tall Tales (2008), Cars 2 (2011), Planes (2013), Tales from Radiator Springs (2013), Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014), Cars 3 (2017).
Or Frozen. Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019), Frozen Fever (2015), Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017), Myth: A Frozen Tale (2019), Once Upon a Snowman (2020), At Home with Olaf (2020), Olaf Presents (2021)
There is some great content here, but as a parent it increasingly feels like a cynical cash grab. Disney has recently wanted to extract as much cash from people as possible[1], and fair enough, that's how many businesses run. But it does leave me seeing the shows as "product being sold" rather than "art being made".
[1] Disney were late to home video rental market because they couldn't understand how it would work - "but there could be lots of people in the room watching the film! How do we charge each of them?" (I can't find this anymore because Google fucking sucks for searching, especially if you're looking for obscure stuff from before 2020, but there are meetings notes where Disney executives say this). But see their experiment with FlexPlay in 2003 - a DVD that would self-destruct after two days: https://www.zdnet.com/article/disney-dvds-self-destruct-after-two-days/
The Michael Eisner days did a lot of this too - There are straight to home video sequels for most of the Disney Classics because of this era. I don't think the "cash grab" is new. It's possible that you were just a kid/teen/young adult during that time and weren't feeling the same way.
Yeah, none of this is remotely new. If I remember correctly, these sorts of decisions are what led Don Bluth to leave in the 80s. The late 90s and early 2000s through 2010 featured the traditional animators at Disney putting on a constant tour-de-force in a fight for their careers, though, and mixed with acquiring Pixar and giving them a blank check, most people were lulled back into a bit of Micknosis. At the same time, Disney was ramping up their acquisitions, and I'm sure they felt less pressure to dilute the Disney brand with the trash that had always gone direct-to-video with subsidiaries happy to take it. Now, though, they've clearly become comfortable competing with themselves.
Forget superhero fatigue, I suspect that there's some sort of general "Disney fatigue" in play here.