Disney Eras

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I was just wondering what everyone's favourite Disney era is. My favourite would have to be the Mickey Mouse era, shortly after Walt Disney created the character and had him star in the cartoon shorts of the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s. Everything was more simple back then and Disney wasn't making the cartoons for profit. He made them because he wanted to. Unlike when Snow White was a box office success, and suddenly Disney had to make feature film hits to keep everybody working. What about you guys and gals?

[retrobear]

I love the Disney stuff from the 90s, especially the musicals. Probably because that's what I grew up with. Those early cartoons are a little hard to watch when all you get is the audio. I think the only cartoon that ever had dialogue that I could follow without having to wonder what was going on was Teddy Ruxpin.

[Deleted]

Interesting. I included all the Disney eras, because movies like Snow White, Pinocchio, and Cinderella all originally came out in the '30s, '40s and '50s and I know a lot of people like those movies in addition to the musicals of the late '80s/early '90s. Yeah, the early Mickey Mouse cartoons were mainly visual pieces because even though there was sound, there wasn't much dialogue and no narration, so you had to see what was going on in order to get it. But, I guess that was the whole point, because the cartoons that Walt did prior to Mickey Mouse, like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the Alice Comedies and the Newman Laugh-O-Grams, were all silent cartoons.

[retrobear]

When I was a kid they showed us a silent movie in school one time. There was just a musical score in the background. It was one of the most boring things I've ever sat through in my life, lol. Too bad I wasn't a musician at that time, or I could have just analyzed the score.

I do also love the classic Disney, but I have a special place in my heart for the early 90s movies because that was the soundtrack of my childhood. The funny thing is that I always thought 101 Dalmatians and the Fox and the Hound came out in the 90s because I watched them to death as a kid. I didn't know they re-released the classics.

[Deleted]

Yeah. I watched the original "Mark of Zorro" with Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro, and while it was interesting, it wasn't as exciting as it would've been had there been dialogue.

Before the advent of home video, Disney would re-release their classic films in movie theatres every seven years. So, no matter when you were born, you'd be able to experience Snow White like your parents or grandparents experienced it in 1938. Plus, they would also be aired on The Wonderful World of Disney tv show. Shorter versions of course. But it was a way for people to see the films.

I know what you mean. Even though I owned a few of the classic Disney films on VHS, movies like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Toy Story, Mulan and Hercules were also in my collection. Of course, my parents stopped buying my siblings and I Disney movies after Mulan, so I didn't get to see Tarzan until we rented it, but pretty much after the '90s Disney movies just weren't as good. But, still Disney:)

[Deleted]

I'd have to say that I can't easily vote in this poll, haha...

See, I don't like most of Disney's output (it just isn't my sort of thing), and have only a few that I like at all - and of them, all of my absolute favourites are from the last ten years, which covers two eras in the poll!

My absolute favourite is Lilo & Stitch (2002, but I didn't see it until early 2003). It's off-beat, it avoids cliches, and it's a great deal of fun - exactly my sort of thing, and I love it. ;D

After that, I quite like The Emperor's New Groove (2000), and Bolt (2008). Of the older movies, I like Robin Hood (1973), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999). That's it, really. I don't count Pixar's films as Disney output, because Disney had no hand in making them (and in fact wanted to substantially alter the most important of them into a sappy musical, which I can't stand the idea of at all - and I don't say that lightly, as I do quite like musicals, just not Disney's musicals).

It also appears that Wreck-It Ralph (due for North American release on November 2nd 2012), which probably won't see release in the UK until 2013, will also be very much my sort of thing, as I am a video game enthusiast, and am elated to finally see the medium being regarded with enough mainstream respect that it and the culture surrounding it is core to Disney's next major animated movie - it's a very major step!

[Deleted]

Robin Hood is one of my favourite Disney movies too. I mean, sure they recycled scenes from past Disney movies, but it was a pretty good interpretation of Robin Hood's legend.

As a kid, I didn't much like Snow White or even Cinderella (except for the Mice), but as an adult, and as a fan of Walt Disney himself, I think they're good fare for the times and important parts in Disney's history.

Yeah, except that Pixar is part of the Walt Disney Company and John Lasseter is Chief Creative Officer of Animation for both Pixar and Disney Animation Studio. But, I agree, with the exception of the ones you mentioned, Pixar movies have been better than Disney movies. I've seen the majority of Pixar's movies and I loved all of them.

Besides the fact that I grew up with Disney, both classic and modern movies, Disney is really the only studio that has consistently made wholesome movies that are accessible to people of all ages.

[Deleted]

Jun 29, 2012 13:18:16 GMT -7 @monkeyboy5185 said:

Yeah, except that Pixar is part of the Walt Disney Company and John Lasseter is Chief Creative Officer of Animation for both Pixar and Disney Animation Studio.

That is true now, but I was more referring to the fact that currently, most of Pixar's movies were made when they merely had a distribution deal with Disney, and one of the terms of the Walt Disney Company's purchase of them, if I'm remembering it right, was that they would be allowed to continue to operate as before, with no meddling. (Such meddling, I assume, being unwanted in order to avoid another situation such as when Disney execs wanted to turn Toy Story into a musical, in order to avoid shedding much light on character development.)

Besides the fact that I grew up with Disney, both classic and modern movies, Disney is really the only studio that has consistently made wholesome movies that are accessible to people of all ages.

I guess. I just wish that they'd stop freezing out female characters (when you start noticing how few female characters there usually are, you'll never stop ), or consigning them to faddish princess roles. Come to think of it, this probably plays some part in why I don't really enjoy a great deal of their stuff...

But that's neither here nor there as far as the eras thing goes. (And it's another discussion entirely, of course!)

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Yeah, I think that was part of the deal. Though with Lasseter playing a role in both studios, he's the one who gets to make all the decisions, concerning the movies Disney puts out.

As for the lack of female characters in Disney movies. The thing with that is the fact that all of Disney movies, with the exception of maybe one or two, were adapted from children's books, many of them written in the 19th Century or earlier, when females were considered less equal than men. Which means they were seen as helpless creatures, therefore all of the princess characters (with the exception of Tiana in Princess and the Frog, and Rapunzel in Tangled) are the damsel in distress types.

But really, in terms of characters, the creative team is hampered by the material they're adapting. So, if there's no strong female character in a particular story and Disney adapts it, then they're not necessarily gonna create a character simply for the sake of the movie, unless they think they can make them interact well with the adapted characters.

That's just my take on it. I don't know what other people's opinions are on it. And I certainly can't tell what was on the animators' or Walt Disney's minds when they were making the films

[retrobear]

Well I love Toy Story. I guess I never really thought about Disney movies from that point of view. I just enjoy the stories and love the music.

[Deleted]

That's why Walt Disney made the films. So people could escape into a fantasy world that was accessible to all age groups. He never meant them to be a commentary on social issues or anything like that. The cartoon shorts were meant to be simple, but funny with a lot of two dimensional characters (as cartoons were back then, and to an extent, still are today). Nobody knew that Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto would take on lives of their own.

But, if you think about it, that is the magic of Disney. So many characters from the pre-Mickey era, like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Julius the Cat from the Alice Comedies, and from the early Mickey cartoons, like Clarabelle the Cow, were forgotten as the five central characters became more well known, and didn't make it into the current era (except for Oswald). But other characters like Winnie the Pooh, and characters from the animated feature films all survived as a result of the classics being re-released in theatres and on home video.

[Deleted]

I guess if I had to pick one era, it would be the Eisner Era. I grew up then, and I remember the magic of that era. My family had always been a Disney family. We had all the classic movies on VHS as Disney re-released them: Cinderella, 101 Dalmations, Fox and the Hound, Snow White. I remember enjoying them all so much, but the movies that made me a die-hard Disney kid were The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the Lion King. I doubt we will ever see a spike in Disney like that again unless you count the Pixar films, which are each brilliant in their own right (with the exception perhaps of Cars 2). But I love to go back and watch early Disney now because you can see how brilliantly Walt conceived the films and the care he took to create them. Sleeping Beauty is a film we never owned growing up, but I have it now on DVD and it is just an absolute masterpiece.

Aladdin is still my favorite Disney film of all-time, though from a purely "animation" perspective, I suppose Beauty and the Beast will always be the most beautifully animated Disney film for most.

[Deleted]

I guess those of us who are Teddy fans and grew up with him, also grew up with the Disney movies of the '80s and '90s. At least some of us did. The earlier movies we only know from either theatrical re-releases, or home video releases. But movies like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, just to name a few, all came out during our childhoods, or within our lifetime.

I know what you mean vilicles, the movies Walt made, whether they were big box-office hits or flops, are now all classics. I've gone back and started watching all the Disney movies, starting with Snow White and going right up until last year's Winnie the Pooh film, and the only one I found boring was Lady and the Tramp, except for the Spaghetti scene, and the battle with the rat at the end.

Walt Disney gave us all something magical. Whether we were around in the '30s when Snow White came out, or born long after that, we all have memories of seeing the classic Disney films. I'm not only a fan of the Disney movies, but of Disney himself.

[TRO Admin]

Sleeping Beauty would have to be my favorite... but I am admittedly biased. One of the artists from that film has been my hero since I was 3

[Deleted]

That wouldn't happen to be Ken Forsse would it Josh? It's actually astonishing at the people who worked on Sleeping Beauty. I mean, we had Disney's Nine Old Men (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Marc Davis, Les Clark and John Lounsbery), Don Bluth, Ken Forsse and Chuck Jones (creator of the Looney Tunes) on the film.

My favourite Disney movie of all time is The Jungle Book. I watched it so often as a kid. I mean I watched all the Disney movies I had on VHS all the time, but The Jungle Book is the one I watched the most. It's also the first Disney movie I remember seeing in the theatres (during one of it's theatrical re-releases) and the first one my parents bought for me when it came out on VHS.