Dear Disney Corporation;
Let me begin by expressing my deep gratitude and admiration for all the hard work and wonderfully artistic talent you've inspired throughout the years. I'm sure I'm not alone in expressing this, and I'm positive you get this all the time but, I know I wouldn't be the person I am today without many of your beautiful and uplifting movies. I know I am truly blessed to have grown up during the Disney Renaissance of the 1990's. I was inspired everyday as a child by the idea that with kindness and determination I could do or be whatever I wanted. What a profound honor that has been.
Animation has mesmerized me my entire life. As a child I used to watch my Saturday morning cartoons with a touch of amazement and wonder "How do they do that?" I remember going to see Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin in theaters and I felt that I had truly found magic in the world and that that magic was created in the fantastic world of animation. So thank you for enchanting my childhood.
I am now in my senior year of college finishing up a degree in illustration. I have made it a hobby of mine to study animated movies. I like to consider how well a story is told, what point is trying to be made, and how well the movie elevates the art form of animation. I don't consider myself by any means an expert but I do have loud opinions on the subject and for the most part I consider those opinions viable.
Now, my dear Disney, you've had your Renaissance, you had an awkward transition phase as you tried to figure out how digital animation works, I feel now that you've moved into a Rococo phase in your progression of the art of animation. I say Rococo because I feel like many of your recent movies are full of needless opulence and that they greatly lack substance. They are formulaic and slightly mundane (granted, the storylines of the 90's were also very formulaic but each movie was very stylistically unique). They're just a bunch of fluff. Your characters no longer come across as really feeling anything. They've become actors portraying someone else's emotions. Take for example the absolutely stunning scene in which Pinocchio finally becomes a real boy. That scene was so carefully created that I was convinced that animated drawing was truly a 3-dimensional boy who had gained something significant and who deserved it. I could feel his joy at the accomplishment he had earned.
I haven't seen that level of a character's conviction since maybe Mulan.
What's happened to you Disney? Have you become so confident in your successes that you no longer feel the need to push yourself? Are you no longer interested in growing an art form? Do you feel that you have deserved the privilege of resting on your laurels?
I feel as though you're no longer interested in further innovations in storytelling. Sure, you're still trying to experiment with animation and pushing the technological advancements of the medium and for that I applaud you. But you no longer seem interested in telling important stories in an unapologetic manner. You seem to have lost the part of your soul that cares about saying something that matters. And that fact makes me deep and miserably sad.
And now it looks as though the only thing you're interested in doing is rehashing your previous successes. I see these ads for your live action Cinderella and I wonder "Why?" There's nothing there that hasn't been said before. Then I see that you have a live action Beauty and the Beast in the works and the same bitter question rolls through my mind. Then comes the announcement of a live action Dumbo, a movie that really had something significant and special to say and that took the art of animation to a whole new place and I lament the lack of creativity I see seeping out of your corporation. You won't make any of these stories better by retelling them, you only diminish some of their splendor by sheepishly admitting you think you can do them better than their creators did.
And then this afternoon I come across this most egregious of announcements and I have to admit it's made me nearly give up on the future of my most beloved art form:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/frozen-2-is-official-110332.html
Why Disney? Why do you insist on doing this? Here is the most shallow, opulent, lacking in conviction, Rococo-esque movie I believe you've ever come out with and now you've seen fit to expand the vapidness by creating a sequel to this mess. As your continuing greed mounts the one thing I've consistently held to is the fact that Disney creates so few canonized sequels to their movies. Dreamworks and Pixar seem to create nothing but sequels but not you Disney, you've got a loftier goal than high box office returns. But now you've gone and announced this embarrassment and my confidence in you sinks further and further into the void.
If the only aim to your enterprise is to create commercial success then please stop lying to the public and telling us that your sole desire is to uplift the masses and give them bright shining hope for the future. You aren't doing that; you're padding your retirement fund and buying private islands in the Caribbean and referring to that as good for everyone.
You've made me very sad Disney and I'm tired of watching you sink into vanity. Please reconsider the work that you're doing and the purpose for doing it and raise to the challenge of creating something better.
Sincerely;
A Concerned and Wavering Fan
