on Treasure Planet
Jan. 26th, 2011 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearVoyages Extraordinaires: Treasure Planet (2002):
I added the following comment:
There is an endless opportunity for speculation in assessing why Treasure Planet underperformed at theatures. A theory that I think holds some relevance for a number of films from that period is that Disney is creatively caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, people complain and dismiss Disney as being a company that produces princess movies and other fairy tales. Granted, that is where they are at their most iconic [...]. However, there has never been a shortage of experimentation either: once upon a time, Snow White was experimental. Fantasia and the other mid-century music anthologies were most certainly so, as were the Latin American-themed Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.Much of the same could be said for Meet the Robinsons which was also a fantastic piece of work that got buried in the "Disney only makes fairy tales" mix, showing that Disney in 3D is just as trapped by the stereotype expectations as Disney in 2D.
Which leads to the other hand: people complain that Disney only makes fairy tales, and then refuse to see any Disney [animated] movie that isn't one. Is it any wonder that Disney's return to traditional animation is being heralded in by two fairy tales, Enchanted and The Princess and the Frog? When they attempt an Atlantis or a Treasure Planet, a moviegoing public cannot seem to wrap their minds around it. Nor can they, despite 20 years of Japanese animation being imported to Western shores, contemplate a mature Hollywood animated film like The Iron Giant or Titan A.E.
Unfortunately, like Fantasia, fans of the film will have to wait a few decades for vindication.
I added the following comment:
Disney Animation in 3D (leaving Pixar out for a bit) hasn't done much better. Meet the Robinsons (which I also loved) was also cursed by the expectation problem, that lack of desire to see a non-princess film from the studio.
Of course that film was also hit hard by being released in a lousy time of year for movies (April, I think?), another experiment ("can we dodge the blockbuster summer and avoid getting buried by our own Pirates sequel") that didn't pay off.
Then again, Pixar too has been hit by the expectation punch. Most of their films since Nemo haven't done near Nemo's numbers in the box office, hinting to some pundits that Pixar should go back to making movies "just for little kids", in spite of the strong critical acclaim and very impressive merchandise sales (think Cars). Toy Story 3 is the recent exception that seems to prove that rule.
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Date: 2011-01-26 07:05 pm (UTC)Funny, tho, that he brings up Iron Giant and Titan A.E., when both films flopped at the box office and probably lead to the death of traditional animated films at Warner Bros and Fox respectively.
As for your example of Pixar having the same problem, I think you are forgetting that "Up" is very close, numberwise, to "Finding Nemo". That is probably the one film from Pixar that is least "for kids" in that the main character is an old man dealing with issues that most kids wouldn't understand.
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Date: 2011-01-26 07:26 pm (UTC)Disney/Pixar also got lucky with low competition for the release date - almost no "kids" movies, the closest being Night at the Museum 2 released the week before, and even none in June, so they had free reign as the only kids-friendly thing on the market at all for most of the "blockbuster" season. That is, of course, very rare.