Revisiting Dear Disney

Disney movies are a pretty cool phenomenon. There are the classic movies like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, amazing Pixar movies like Toy Story, Up, and Coco. Mickey Mouse, Frozen, Snow White. Disney has a prominent place in the movie industry. 

Last year, I made this post talking about why I’m kind of done with Disney remakes. Since then, more remakes (along with more originals) have come out. So I thought I would return to that fateful post (which is quite rough now that I’m rereading it) and look at some of the newer Disney movies I’ve watched since then. 

 Mini Reviews 

We’ll start with Pixar. I really enjoyed Soul and Onward. I’ve only seen Soul once, and that was while I was fighting with Organza for a sewing project. So I don’t remember much, but I liked the general concept and the animation was really cool to look at. I definitely want to rewatch it and gather some actual thoughts on the movie.

Onward was great, too. My family has watched it a few times, and it’s just really fun. I’m not saying it’s at Ratatouille or Toy Story level, but I loved the family aspect and the ending is so bittersweet and hit hard. I loved the brother relationship, although the older brother (sorry, I can’t remember his name to save my life) felt a teensy bit annoying and at times made some really stupid decisions. But still, it was fun and enjoyable. 

Mulan (the great debate)

My family won’t stop arguing about the new Mulan. Some love it with all their heart, others hate it. Similar to when we watched Soul, I decided to do some hand sewing while watching Mulan. Halfway through my brother and I started debating and then the Toddler went crazy and long story short, I didn’t really pay attention. 

From the parts that I watched, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really didn’t like it. Because of the aforementioned movie watching quality, I’m still wracking my brain for why. Is it a lot of bias? Yeah, probably. I don’t enjoy watching remakes anymore. But I felt like I just couldn’t connect with it. There are movies that I’ve watched during crazy baking projects, and despite the distractions I still feel like I connected with the characters and story. But that didn’t happen with Mulan.

The costumes and sets in Mulan were very pretty to look at. It was a nice movie for my eyeballs. But I just couldn’t seem to connect with any of the characters on as deep a level as older Disney movies. I had a lot of trouble understanding everyone’s motivations and the emotionally climactic scenes didn’t feel super, well, climatic. I had no idea what was happening. My brain literally went I have no idea what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, but it looks awesome!

But again, take this with a bucket of salt. Those of you who have watched the entire movie without craziness happening, what did you think of it? 

Dragons!!

We also watched Raya and the Last Dragon, which was certainly entertaining. I would put it between Onward and Soul. But again, there were parts that past movies have done really well at that this movie just kind of… flopped? I liked all of the characters and worldbuilding. The jokes were funny too, not laugh out loud, but more like watch your toddler brother laugh hysterically at them and overall enjoy it.

 I think it lacked subtlety. The message felt so, so preachy. It was a good message, but if it was delivered in a more subtle way, and not fed right into your ears, I think it could have been more compelling.  It was still really entertaining, though. 

Road Trips and Stakes

Then a little bit ago, my family watched the new (non Disney) The Mitchells vs. the Machines. It was great. There were a few parts that stuck out a little bit, but it was funny and had compelling characters and was really fun. It was nice to see something where you could clearly see the passion fueling the creators of the movie.

I’ve talked about the importance of stakes in stories before. Stakes and incentives go hand in hand. Character A has incentive to find Lost Character B if they love them dearly. Stakes happen almost everywhere in real life too.

Disney is a huge company now. According to Google, Disney has a net worth of $130 billion. It owns multiple large media companies and has numerous ways of making money. On it’s own, this isn’t a bad thing. Old Disney movies are great, there’s a reason we all grew up with them. But now there’s less incentive and stakes for Disney to make shining movies. 

If a small film studio wants to stay in business, they need to make a movie that will shine. If the movie is just okay or does badly, then that studio might run out of money and eventually have to close. Smaller studios have a big incentive to make good movies. 

But Disney is so big and has so many ways of making money that if they have some movies that flop or are just okay, the studio won’t be impacted very much.  And there are plenty of fans who will watch a movie just because it’s Disney. 

 In my Dear Disney post, I said that it seems like Disney has run out of ideas. I don’t think that’s necessarily all of the case anymore. I think Disney just doesn’t need to make great movies anymore. That’s not saying that they don’t make good movies, there is more focus on releasing a movie than having it be structurly sound. 

Story vs. Publication

When I was a brand new writer, I focused a lot on self publishing and the publishing industry in general. I didn’t think about how I wanted my book to impact people, I just wanted it to be published. Writing something just because you want to publish it probably isn’t the best mindset. Writing something from the heart, where you’ve taken each character and ripped them apart and sewn the plot together in many different ways, that will turn into one of those books that impact readers on a deep level. 

As writers, we can’t focus on the end goal all of the time. Yes, if you want to publish you should probably have that in mind. But it can’t be the sole reason you are writing. Stories are a way to change us, make us think, and connect make-believe with reality. 

How do you feel about Disney and some of their recent movies? Have you watched The Mitchels Vs. The Machines? What do you think of the more recent remakes (Mulan, for example, because my family won’t stop debating) Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day! 

-Hannah`

P.S.

Even though the calendar says it’s not officially summer, summer has pretty much set in for me. June and the beginning of July are going to be really busy, so blog posts might be a little bit more sporadic. In addition to writing regularly for both fiction stories and this blog, I’m going to be working on an exciting project, hopefully coming this fall!

Until then, enjoy the warm weather!

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