What The F Is Disney?
January 2024, France.
Past the admission gates of Disneyland Paris, five-past-eight in the morning, my girlfriend and I were freezing in the bitter winter air, wrapped, waiting to enter “the happiest place on Earth”.
She’s a Disney adult. This trip was for her thirty-fourth birthday. She is endearingly and unashamedly child-like as we wave to Mickey and Minnie upon entering, by the huge Christmas tree still erected. Our trip was filled with character meet-ups, screams of glee on rides, and exhaustion. For me, the grown-up to her inner child for the next four days, keeping an eye on time, reminding her of dinner reservations and calculating how many more rides we can squeeze in, I’m less about the parades and merchandise and more about the designs behind it all; part of me wished I had been an imagineer.
At first, we were enjoying ourselves on the old classics; Peter Pan, Pirates, Big Thunder, and Haunted Mansion. But soon a nagging feeling crept over me. Hyperspace, the Star Wars themed ride, was where it started. The unsettling feeling got stronger as we made our way through Avenger’s Campus, the area for Marvel properties. I still couldn’t pinpoint what I was feeling, which only got stronger and more intrusive as I was staring at garden displays of the Chester Cat, Genie, and Maleficent.
The closest thing I could do to give this strange feeling form was to ask it as a question.
WHAT THE FUCK IS DISNEY?
Sure, it’s a simple question with a simple answer. Disney is an animation studio. At one point they were, yes, but consider the fact Disney’s foundation, an animation studio under a sole visionary, hasn’t been a thing since the early 1960s, and their latest iconic animations were in the 1990s.
Yes, they’re still animating, but their last hand-drawn animation, the very thing they’re still touting as they’re style, was The Princess and the Frog, which is at least fifteen years old. That’s like saying Microsoft are known for Halo; they were, but they haven’t done anything notable with it since.
And while you may point to Frozen or Encanto, those only exist because of the seismic shift to CG pioneered by Pixar. Disney hasn’t garnered the same reputation in 3D as Pixar has. So, while Toy Story, Wall-E, and Inside Out may feature in Disneyland, they aren’t Disney.
Are they a film studio? Well, I admit their live-action catalogue include Mary Poppins, Tron, Herbie, and the massively popular Pirates of the Caribbean series, since the late 2000s they’ve either been producing live-action remakes/reboots of previous works, acting as distribution for their Japanese cousin, Studio Ghibli, or else producing acquired IP from Fox, Star Wars, Marvel, and the aforementioned Pixar. Not only are most new shows/movies coming out from preestablished IP, with diminishing interest as is the case with MCU and Star Wars flops, but now the vast majority of their back catalogue isn’t anything they’ve made. There are more hours of The Simpsons on Disney+ than Disney animated films. They’re a studio that didn’t make most of their products.
Ok, Conor! It’s a mass media conglomerate! Happy!
First, I’m screaming into the void about Disney; do I sound happy? Second, yes, you’re getting close to what I’m trying to say. Maybe now you can empathise with what I was struggling to articulate to my girlfriend back in France, as we waited in line for the Ratatouille restaurant (which is lovely, by the way).
Disney is a media company… that doesn’t create its own media.
It clings onto a past it would never allow; an artist led vision free from interference. Fittingly, Disney started his studio when his first successful cartoon, Oswald the lucky rabbit, was stolen from him through the same copyright gymnastics his company would become known for. Disney profits off history it has long since turned its back on.
Disney, sensing competition from Pixar, who were just practicing the creative storytelling first model they once were famous for, bought them out. Frozen, Tangled, and Wreck-It-Ralph wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for Disney self-plagiarising from their CGI subsidiary.
Its three biggest franchises, Star Wars, Avatar, and Marvel had their fanbase, lore, and value set up by former rival, Fox, who also owned Blue Sky Studios, who produced the popular Ice Age series. In 2021 Disney closed Blue Sky, with then-in-production Nimona narrowly avoiding death after being picked up by Netflix. Despite closing the studio, Disney still retains control over established IP. Think about that for a second. Disney bought a studio, closed it down, laid off hundreds of animators, handed their competition a free film, but still control media they didn’t produce.
At the time of writing, a sixth Ice Age film has been announced.
This is not to say Disney hasn’t created anything original as of late. I loved Encanto. Raya and the last dragon was promising, but a little underbaked, and personally I found Strange World underappreciated (or at least more deserving of a little more respect). But the elephant in the room is Wish, a film that was so panned that the early development notes have been praised for the movie that could have been, featuring unique novelties like a husband-and-wife villain duo, and a more human design for Star, the magical character in the film. Instead, we got a film that desperately strains to invoke a past it didn’t have the courage to commit to, with 3D characters in a “water coloured” world, with constant references to Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and even Frozen, all for the 100th anniversary of the studio. The result was a company mandated mess that is more insult than memorial to its legacy.
What few original films we get are the exception. The next six years, according to the latest from the D23 expo held in August 2024, are to be filled with sequels (Moana 2, Zootopia 2, Frozen 3, Toy Story 5, Avatar 3, 4, and 5), reboots (The Lion King prequel, Snow White, Lilo & Stitch, Moana (yes, again!), Freaky Friday, Tron), acquired IP (5 Marvel, 5 Fox, 3 Star Wars), 1 book adaptation, and only 2 original animations.
That’s a ratio of 13:1. And those are just the films with confirmed scheduling. It would have been 14:1, but a Blade reboot was recently cancelled.
Investors want to see growth in a company. It’s the reason they keep their money in, and may put more in. While there’s many ways to show growth, a tried and tested method (to at least simulate growth) is to show a schedule. Many of the films and shows coming up are releasing months within each other. It looks impressive, but that’s a new production every two months. It’s bloat. It’s busy-work. It’s claiming other people’s work for the sake of padding.
And then, eight months later, it hit me…
August 2024, Ireland.
Aside from the odd recollection, I hadn’t given much thought to that strange feeling back in Disneyland.
My girlfriend and I went to see “Deadpool and Wolverine” in the cinema. This would not only be the first “Disney” Deadpool film, but also the first to introduce the X-Men to the MCU. And while I enjoyed the first two entries and, yes, the third instalment, I had long since come to superhero fatigue. As the movie continued, as more and more Fox characters and references were made, that peculiar ickiness returned, only now with clarity; a mental vocabulary giving shape to the abstract. The ringing knell that awoken my realisation happened during the credit sequence, as b-roll and behind-the-scenes footage from the original Fox X-Men films were played.
I suddenly realised what the fuck is Disney.
Disney is a mining company!
Disney’s entire existence depends on extracting value, not creating it.
The original Disney films were based on public domain stories that were commandeered, privatised, commercialised, and copyrighted to the point where they’ve fought to retain their own properties from entering the public domain. Many people don’t fully appreciate that you can create your own Snow White or Cinderella. Disney took these stories, many with cultural and ethnic roots and traditions, and appropriated them, stripping them figuratively from the soil that produced them, like strip mining coal.
It was the same through the “Golden age” (1930s-40s), the “Dark age” (1970s-’80s), and the “Renaissance” (1990s); films were either based on public domain folklore or else books acquired (Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins). That’s not to say they didn’t produce original in-house stories (Lilo & Stitch), but many people would be surprised by how many seemingly “original” stories were still based on previous work.
“The Aristocats” is based on a children’s book, though it was set in New York.
“Oliver & Company” was based on “Oliver Twist”.
“Big Hero 6” is one of the few Marvel properties to be adapted into animation and is the only Disney-Marvel film not in the MCU.
Ironically, some of the few wholly original properties (Bolt, Home on the range) feel the most un-Disney.
So what, you say. Disney adapts stories. Adaptation is a time-honoured tradition dating back to Shakespeare, the Bible, and even mythology. We adapt and adopt stories. Studio Ghibli does the same thing, but you celebrate them.
True… but Miyazaki isn’t taking out the competition to do so.
As I said, Pixar was Disney’s biggest threat in the early two-thousands with the rise of CGI animation. Disney recognised their potential, both as friend and foe, and bought them out. And while we did get more hits like Wall-E and UP (my two personal favourites), it’s important to remember, according to company lore, the majority of Pixar’s big hits were conceived in a single meeting. True or not, the result is the same; the more Disney got involved, the more sequels were made, and the fewer risks were taken. Turning Red, Soul, and Luca were sacrificed to bolster the Disney+ line up, rather than delay a theatrical release due to the Covid pandemic. They are still banking on sequels and spin-offs from movies created in a single meeting.
Then comes their acquisition of two major pop-culture brands: Marvel and Star Wars. Much like their animations, Disney has between 50–80 years worth of lore, notes, movies, books, magazines, internal memos, animations, and tv shows to fall back upon. MCU films are so chocked full of easter eggs, references, and audience nods that entire websites and channels are dedicated to dissecting trailers, scenes, and still images for anything that can be talked about. Entire “phases” are picked straight from the comics they had no hand in creating (Civil War, Infinity War, Secret Wars). And those aren’t the only wars they’re copying.
Despite setting up their own trilogy (with another reportedly on the way), Disney still uses elements from the original and prequel trilogies. Go to Disneyland, especially on May the fourth (be with you), and you’ll find Darth Vader and his stormtroopers skulking around. Again, the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, Rogue One, and Andor are all set around the original trilogy, with the mini-series Obi-Wan Kenobi taking place shortly after the prequels. The only original Disney addition was The Acolyte, set 100 years before any of the Lucas films. It has been cancelled after one season.
In any case, all Marvel and Star Wars content has been self-referential, reusing characters, devices, and even resurrecting deceased actors just for the sake of nostalgia bait.
They’re mining nostalgia.
That’s what I was feeling in Disneyland, as I watched characters dance around from films that can’t even be made now, because the very conditions that created them no longer exist. It’s why I saw a Disney owned film reuse footage shot from another studio, with characters created by comic book writers back in the 1960s, and act like they were paying tribute to a history they weren’t a part of. It’s why one of their most popular characters in the last ten years looked like a baby version of an old alien puppet from a sci-fi film Disney wouldn’t touch today with the name recognition. It’s why Disney will make live action films only a few years after the original animations (see Moana). It’s why they’ll bring back two actors, Toby McGuire and Andrew Garfield, for Spiderman, just to try and capitalise on their legacy, something they’re doing again with Hugh Jackman for Wolverine.
Jessica Jones. Daredevil. Oliver Twist. Shogun. The Omen. Alien. Predator. Power Rangers. Independence Day. Night At The Museum. Poirot. Percy Jackson. Home Alone. Futurama. The Muppets.
None of these were made by Disney. None of these invoke “Disney”. But they are all owned by Disney. Most are being rebooted. Many already have. Disney has spent an incalculable amount of money more on what you’re familiar with, than on what is new. That’s not unique. Indeed, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Sony are all trying, to various levels of success, to do the same. What is unique however is that Disney are quietly placing themselves in this revisionist position, where they are always right after the fact, and always capitalising on the work of others without credit.
Famously, Dumbo, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Lilo & Stitch were all disliked by the studio, yet they merchandise the hell out of them now. Disney had the opportunity to acquire the Marvel roster, including the much-coveted Spiderman, back when Marvel was in desperate need of cash and selling off properties. It was Sony and Fox who took the risk and spearheaded the 2000’s superhero craze with Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Blade, and Punisher, with Sony and Netflix even beating Disney to the punch when it comes to gritty TV adaptations, BUT we still act like it’s Disney who pioneered superheroes.
And then, people don’t like to admit it, but Star Wars has always had a love/hate relationship with its most devoted fans. But despite this, credit where it’s due, Lucas Films capitalised on the series it such a way that no additional media wasn’t without reason; movies, shows, books, video games, comics, magazines, and websites all fed into the lore and history of Star Wars. There was no Solo film for the sake of a Solo film. There was no Princess Leia cameo just because. Lucas may not have always been the best storyteller, but at least he was one.
There’s an episode of American Dad, another Disney show they didn’t create, that briefly touches on the difference between land rights and mineral rights; you can have millions in gold under your feet, but unless you can get it out, it’s worthless. The same can be said here; Disney is focused on pre-established media. It is focused on extracting as much value from the soil of media as it can.
What’s wrong with that? It’s their property; they can do as they want with it! What’s it to you!
Well, you’ve got me there. But if you’ve ever felt tired and bored with the offerings, with the reboots, remakes, constant adaptations, the generic plots, the superhero movies, the shows, the spin-offs, and the few good, new, exciting pieces of media getting cancelled because they couldn’t compete against the 600th show based on a film, based on a book, based on a movie, based on this or that or whatever, I want you to know I’ve felt that feeling before. It’s the same feeling a mine has after it’s abandoned.
Do you know what mining companies do with abandoned mines?
Nothing.
They got what they wanted.
They’re left hallow and empty. Wishing to be filled again, like they were in the past.
That’s what nostalgia is.
#HI
