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Opinion: The current run of Walt Disney Animation Studios films has surpassed the Disney Renaissance
- Thread starter EdReedFan20
- Start date
Paperman was so fucking good, probably the best thing they've released in 20 years or more.I have been a big fan of their recent releases.
This being one of my recent favorites.
I know Clements and Musker said Moana was their last movie, but damn, what I wouldn't give for them to take one more crack at it with this art style/technology.
It's a good cleanser after the also brilliant "Little Match Girl" :-((((((
Though Moana, Zootopia and Frozen are in my top 6 which is a mix of those and B&TB, Aladdin and Lion King.
Don't worry I did too. I do recall thinking that it didn't feel very disney though
Fun fact, when I saw Wreck-It Ralph I missed Paperman because the box office person gave us the wrong tickets. We went to the midnight showing, and they rang us up for the 12:15pm showing the next day. We ended up waiting outside Cloud Atlas for fifteen minutes before we realized the mistake.
I was also very sick (stomach flu or food poisoning) and had to duck out of the movie for a good 30-40 minutes, so I had reason to see it again anyway. Paperman was such a damn treat and I'm glad I got to experience it on the big screen in the end, I liked it more than the main movie (which was still good!).
B&TB is the closest thing they've done to a perfect movie. Save for some shoddy animation here and there it's flawless.
There are parts of Aladdin, TLK, Hunchback and Tarzan that have that same spark, but I don't think they're nearly as consistent.
I wouldn't call Pocahontas a classic, but it has great animation and music. The weakest of the Disney renaissance period imo.
you're probably right lol, i think i was just going by my childhood nostalgia
i haven't seen it in forever but still really like the music from it
We're comparing Disney Animation to Disney Animation. Pixar is its own studio.
While owned by Disney, Pixar is a separate entity from Disney Animation Studios.
I like Tangled a lot and think Moana and Zootopia are fine, but beyond that there isn't much in the "new Disney canon" that stuck with me the way stuff from Lion King, Aladdin and even Hunchback of Notre Dame did.
The lack of Alan Menken is not helping things, I'm sure.
The lack of Alan Menken is not helping things, I'm sure.
I'm ALSO talking from a quality of animation perspective. Frozen suffers from the same limitations you just named of Aladdin. All of the early Disney Studios CG films do, they had an obviously limited technology base, and its very obvious when you compare them to Pixar films coming out at the same time.
The difference is that some of those limitations in Aladdin are limitations of the medium. You can't criticize static backgrounds in hand drawn animation. They're all going to be static because you can't reasonably paint a bunch of moving backgrounds. The moving backgrounds that hand drawn films do have are generally just pans and zooms of a single painted piece. This limitation wasn't really overcome until Tarzan, and that was through CG use.
Love it or hate it, Frozen was a mega-hit that still generates them a ton of revenue. (Personally, I REALLY enjoyed it).
Wreck-It Ralph was enjoyable as well, for me, even if it was a tad too heavy on the candy themes in the second half.
Ralph was a cute movie but I honestly can't say I remember much of anything about it. And Frozen just pales in comparison to Tangled in terms of being a coherent story and having likeable characters. It always saddens me when people love Frozen but don't like Tangled.
The new generation of disney movies are altogether more consistent at being enjoyable and well received, but at the same time it's incredibly difficult to say if any of them have even somewhat reached the heights of old disney animation, even if they avoid the critical lows.
As much as I like Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it-Ralph, and others from the current "Renaissance" of Disney movies, there's a distinct energy these newer movies seem to lack that just doesn't have the same staying power for me personally as the older ones do.
As much as I like Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it-Ralph, and others from the current "Renaissance" of Disney movies, there's a distinct energy these newer movies seem to lack that just doesn't have the same staying power for me personally as the older ones do.
Lilo and Stitch maybe (people like it and such and has a great score)
Atlantis nah thats just mediocre to bad.
....arent you basically agreeing with me?
Again, stating the limitations in Aladdin isnt at all bashing the movie. It's pointing out (like you did with Tarzan) that things have advanced enough for the animation to rise considerably. Also of course I can criticise Aladdin's static backgrounds and crowds because we are comparing overall animation quality. The change in using CG instead of 2D has helped in this. Compare the complexity of Tangled's festival scene and Aladdin's Prince Ali scene.
I dont think it's unfair to compare the strengths and weaknesses of 2D and CG. In the end both end up with the same output; an animated feature film.
Really, CG has been what they were utilizing for complex backgrounds since as early as the Great Mouse Detective back in 1986.
I have to strongly disagree.
Little Mermaid
Aladdin
Lion King
Beauty and the Beast
Hercules
Mulan
Rescuers
All top pretty much any modern age Disney movie.
Out of the list of the modern ones, Wreck it Ralph, Moana, and Big Hero are the ones I liked the most, I hated Zootopia, it was just so ham fisted and heavy in its message, and Frozen was ok.
Then there's the major difference being the animation, cgi vs hand-drawn 2d animation, which for me personally, will always just be better and hold a special place in my heart over modern CGI.
Little Mermaid
Aladdin
Lion King
Beauty and the Beast
Hercules
Mulan
Rescuers
All top pretty much any modern age Disney movie.
Out of the list of the modern ones, Wreck it Ralph, Moana, and Big Hero are the ones I liked the most, I hated Zootopia, it was just so ham fisted and heavy in its message, and Frozen was ok.
Then there's the major difference being the animation, cgi vs hand-drawn 2d animation, which for me personally, will always just be better and hold a special place in my heart over modern CGI.
I grew up with the Disney Renaissance. The Little Mermaid was the first movie I ever saw in theaters. Almost every year of my childhood included a trip to the theater to see a new Disney animated movie. I nearly wore our VHS copy of Aladdin out, annoying my sister in the process. That period is a huge reason why my dream job is being a part of the Disney Animation story team.
That being said, this current period is amazing. Tangled and Moana are incredible, and every bit as good as the best from the 90s. Wreck-It Ralph is great, and Zootopia and Big Hero Six are both very good. Winnie the Pooh is delightful as well.
P.S. I'm still in mourning over Gigantic. We were supposed to be getting a brand new Disney fairy tale musical next month, dammit! *sobs*
That being said, this current period is amazing. Tangled and Moana are incredible, and every bit as good as the best from the 90s. Wreck-It Ralph is great, and Zootopia and Big Hero Six are both very good. Winnie the Pooh is delightful as well.
P.S. I'm still in mourning over Gigantic. We were supposed to be getting a brand new Disney fairy tale musical next month, dammit! *sobs*
Really, CG has been what they were utilizing for complex backgrounds since as early as the Great Mouse Detective back in 1986.
Think Rescuers Down Under is sorely underappreciated too, and this was back in 1990
I think Frozen is a super overrated movie. It's good, but I don't think it's worthy of all of the acclaim it has.
Tangled and Moana are much better movies.
If we count Pixar, then Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo are the best movies Disney's made this millennium.
Tangled and Moana are much better movies.
If we count Pixar, then Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo are the best movies Disney's made this millennium.
It's a shame The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo and Stitch are stuck in the middle of such a bad run.
The problem here is you're equating animation quality to animation technology. Being able to do a sweeping camera shot isn't a question of animation quality, its a question of technology. There isn't ever going to be much that tops Disney's hand drawn stuff from the 90s in terms of hand drawn quality. The images don't get a whole lot better, nor does the technique used. There were already CG things that topped Frozen and Tangled when they came out. Stand out CG animation is much harder to come by than stand out hand drawn, and will inevitably become more and more dated as time goes by.
One day CG will be able to generate Colors of the Wind whenever they want to, without much effort. But it will never actually top Colors of the Wind because there would be no actual achievement in doing it.
I wouldn't say that this current era of Disney has reached the highs of the first few Walt films or the Renaissance, but Moana and Zootopia are top ten Disney in my book. Hell, I think Moana is Clements and Musker's best film (even better than Little Mermaid and Aladdin).
I watched it for the first time since VHS the other so that I could
Eh, it's fine.
and Pocahontas is a classic
I watched it for the first time since VHS the other so that I could
Eh, it's fine.
gotta disagree
Zootopia and Wreck it Ralph are good, but lion king and Aladdin are god tier
hell, beauty and the beast got nominated for BEST PICTURE at the oscars
and Pocahontas is a classic
Pocahontas is beautiful artistically, but man, that whole movie is a mess, plot-wise. Moana is basically the exact same movie in a lot of ways but executed better.
Pocahontas is a mess of a film, its the worse then Hercules.
Funny that the heads up at Disney thought Pocahontas would be the hit and get them the Oscar while they didn't think much of a little film known as The Lion King.
Funny that the heads up at Disney thought Pocahontas would be the hit and get them the Oscar while they didn't think much of a little film known as The Lion King.
Love Lindsay's comparison point of the climaxes in both movies when the heroine confides in her grandma her insecurities.
Pocahontas - Grandmother Willow urges her to swoop in and save the day. It's made out to be Pocahontas' responsibility to stop the fighting and save John Smith.
Moana - Grandmother tells her it was unfair to put the burden of saving the island on her shoulders alone, and if she decided to give up and go home, no one would be mad at her. It ends up being Moana's decision to jump back in and confront Te Ka.
Pocahontas is clear Oscarbait, so much of the film makes sense when you watch it under these circumstances, there's so many obnoxious tropes shoved in there to make it feel more artsy and grown-up.
I wish they'd stuck to their original version of keeping Pocahontas a little girl and having her learn English naturally over the course of the film (all the Native scenes were originally going to be spoken in Powhatan). You know, so it'd actually be somewhat historically accurate.
Damn if that final track doesn't get me though.
I have to strongly disagree. I think Frozen is the only new one that will have any cultural endurance years down the line on the same level as the greats
Well...okay.
The Lion King
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
The Little Mermaid
-big fucking gap-
Hercules
Tarzan
Mulan
Hunchback
Pocahontas
Haven't watched The Rescuers Down Under since my childhood.
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The Emperor's New Groove
Atlantis
Treasure Planet
Lilo and Stitch
Brother Bear
Fantasia 2000
Dinosaur
Home on the Range
Haven't watched Chicken Little.
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Tangled
Wreck-it-Ralph
Zootopia
Bolt (I haven't seen this since it came out)
Frozen
Moana
Big Hero 6
Winnie the Pooh
The Princess and the Frog
Haven't watched the Meet the Robinsons
If I look at it objectively I'd say the average quality is higher than before (Frog might be at the bottom but it's a fine film), but the current era hasn't reached the highs of the renaissance and probably never will frankly.
I'm unsure if they have as much "teeth" to them. Unsure if they'll hold out and become a timeless entity similar to the likes of Lion King, Aladdin, Little Mermaid, etc.
That said, I have watched some of these newer ones multiple times. Current 3d animation is excellent but in a couple years will it still be good? I always think of how shitty Star Wars Ep. 1 and 2 CGI scenes look nowadays.
That said, I have watched some of these newer ones multiple times. Current 3d animation is excellent but in a couple years will it still be good? I always think of how shitty Star Wars Ep. 1 and 2 CGI scenes look nowadays.
I think we're nearly at the point where the "style" of a film is going to remain ageless, even as technology changes. Attack of the Clones was 2002, about a year after Monsters Inc and a year before Finding Nemo. Those films still look "great" even if the technology behind them is nearly two decades old now.
Even Disney animation for "classics" weren't always on the same level of budget or time or skill. Something like Sleeping Beauty was SUPER expensive and lush for its time...
... So much so that Disney couldn't afford to do it again for YEARS. Their next few movies scaled their budgets and animation techniques WAY down, cut out frames, resorted to sketchier animation, and they still "worked" because they employed it as a style that benefited the movie and characters.
I think older 3D Disney films are sort of the same way. The good movies remain good, while the shiniest, flashiest CG movie with a bad story and characters will be forgotten.
The Rescuers Down Under feels like one of those 90s family movies trying to so hard to ape Disney and falling on their faces.
I love Tangled, but that aside none of Disney's recent films are on par with Lion King or Beauty and the Beast imo.
The actual top ten Disney movies:
- Fantasia
- Beauty and the Beast
- Pinocchio
- The Lion King
- Sleeping Beauty
- Lilo & Stitch
- Moana
- Zootopia
- The Jungle Book
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
