| Tuesday, November 18, 2008 |
06:47 - Two bloodlines
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/if-disney-is-mickey-mouse-is-pixar-silly-symphonie
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Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew has a theory about how Disney and Pixar are positioning their respective products these days.
I don’t know if this is by design, or is Lasseter’s master plan, or if it’s just my wild fantasy… But I think the two studios could (should?) co-exist as a modern day, feature length equivilent of Disney’s two concurrent shorts series of the 1930s: Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. At least it seems to be where they are heading.
Back when, the Mickey Mouse cartoons were the soul of studio. Disney’s bread-and-butter pictures; they were what the public expected and demanded from his studio. Big, broad and designed to please. The Silly Symphonies were the heart (or at least where Walt’s heart was, en route to Snow White). Each Silly was completely different, pushing the latest technologies, developing new ideas and pursuing new talent. And won all the Oscars.
Presently, WDAS is in full “Mickey Mouse” mode: reinforcing the brand, producing crowd-pleasing films of highest artistic quality and delivering what audiences of all ages, all over the world have come to expect.
Pixar’s films are already reminiscent of the pioneering ways of Walt’s Silly Symphonies. In fact, the basic situations in Toy Story, A Bugs Life and Cars might’ve been inspired by classic Disney shorts like Broken Toys, Grasshopper and the Ants and Susie, The Blue Coupe. They don’t play it safe, consistently break new ground - and win all the Oscars.
PIxar as Disney's SkunkWorks. I kinda like that. Lord knows you need to be able to see something secretive and envelope-pushing in order to inspire your dreams; I can only imagine what life in the 50s and 60s must have been like for kids who wanted to grow up to be astronauts or test pilots, scouring the newspapers and magazines for glimpses of the newest experimental jets and spacecraft to come out of NASA and its contractors. Must have been pretty damn easy to aspire in such a direction, once upon a time.
I wonder where the direct-to-video movies fall in this hierarchy, though? Lasseter doesn't seem to have killed off the sequel machine after all; but if Beck's theory is right, he's relegating such movies to a different tier altogether, one that is unabashedly dedicated to preserving cash flow while not serving up any surprises. Disney's theatrical brand can continue to be used for the creation of new properties (Bolt, The Princess and the Frog), but not necessarily in any real envelope-pushing way; any properties it creates that turn out to have long-term merchandisability can go to the D2V market, and we'll all just get used to the fact that every marginally successful Disney movie—whether 2D or 3D—will see umpteen indistinct sequels. But meanwhile, Pixar will be the banner-bearer brand, the one that gets 3D animators' hearts pumping and creates a future career draw out of what was once and can again be the best place on Earth to make movies.
If my WALL•E theory holds any water, it means all this is entirely intentional.
In front of Quantum of Solace last night, I saw a trailer for Bedtime Stories, an Adam Sandler movie that—bizarrely—looked like a decently original idea from Disney's live-action wing. Sure, trailers can be misleading; but it might well be the case that the stage has been set properly, across the board, for a real honest-to-God Disney comeback.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, Aziz points out just how fast and loose Pixar is able to play it with their continuities and universes—and get away with it. See again this post where I noted the same extra featurette he describes.
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Brian Tiemann
