Friends, lovers of animation, give me your Mickey Mouse ears. I have come to praise Atlantis: The Lost Empire and bury Disney. What was once the leader of animation has become a sadly misguided corporation, punishing invention and rewarding repetition. Once upon a time, the company produced artistic and commercial successes year after year, creating unforgettable moments that are ingrained in our popular imagination: the epic nature of The Lion King; Robin Williams as the Genie in Aladdin; the ballroom sequence of Beauty and the Beast (the film itself was even nominated for Best Picture).
Then Jeffery Katzenberg left the company to become the "K" in DreamWorks SKG, and thus came the fall.
Oh sure, the last few years has given us the computer-animated wonders of Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, and Shrek. However, the first four were all Pixar films, and the last was from DreamWorks. Pixar may work for Disney, but Disney has no hand in its creative process. Pixar has the best track record of any film company on earth, with every film earning well over $150 million domestically and winning critical kudos.
Disney, however...
Of the six Disney animated films that followed The Lion King - Pocahontas, Hunchback, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, and the computer animated Dinosaur - which of these sparks any memory? Were there memorable songs? Characters? Any break from formula? True, Pocahontas and Hunchback were just as beautiful animation-wise as their predecessors, and Tarzan used computer animation to create amazing trunk-surfing sequences, but...
Hercules and Mulan were mediocre in both storytelling and animation, and all show no trace of the greatness that once surrounded the studio. Dinosaur, in particular, used computers to render a visually unforgettable world, only to have the credibility come crashing down with cute sidekicks and brutish villains. Only The Emperor's New Groove showed some spark of life, with all the comic timing and seriousness of the best Goofy cartoons. Yet, it grossed the least of all of these films, partly due to shoddy advertising and a bad release date.
Fast forward to the summer of 2001. Atlantis: The Lost Empire is released, and subsequently sinks in a sea of sickly summer offerings - no thanks to Disney. The studio had three major summer releases: Pearl Harbor, The Princess Diaries and Atlantis. Extra credit if you can guess which received the least push in terms of advertising.
Pearl Harbor was given a huge release and all of Memorial Day weekend, and Disney played up the hey-it's-rated-G! angle to death for The Princess Diaries. Atlantis, on the other hand, was given a limp and muddled ad campaign and dumped on the same weekend as Tomb Raider. Given that the audience they were going for was male and 12-16, this was possibly not the best choice.
That was combined with a proper critical dunking. "Oppressively tedious," according to the New York Post. "Mindlessly follows an old formula," said Steve Rhodes on his website. "The essence of craft without dream," said Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (let us not forget this is the same man who called Oh Brother Where Art Thou? the worst film of 2000).
Did we all watch the same film? It boggles my mind how I can walk away with such a different take. Here is a film with real humor, exciting unparalleled action and engaging characters. The writing is crisp, edgy and full of life. It is a true animated adventure, one that doesn't stop to get sidetracked by songs, animal sidekicks, goofy villains, or dancing teacups. Where's the formula? Are these the same people who praised Tarzan, a well-animated film that creaked with formula from sidekick to villain?
I don't know what else to say in its defense other than that it's a great animated movie that happened to be produced by Disney. We are taken to the bottom of the ocean and back by means of great imagination and skill. Flying machines, giant creatures, all the toys that made Jules Verne want to write. But the studio left it out to dry so they could sell The Princess Diaries, and critics dumped on it because... well, who knows. Sometimes I wonder what getting price people pay when they get paid to see movies.
Atlantis fizzled at the box office. Now, it has been given a stand-up, collector's edition, double-disc DVD release (plus a simpler, one-disc version) and subsequent ad campaign, which is wonderful. Judging from the documentaries, deleted scenes, original story boards and story treatments, and the like, Disney knows well enough to give the film a great coffin for it to sail into the video/DVD afterlife. But why didn't they care enough to give it the backing it needed? Why does the studio care more about a second Peter Pan movie than the new stories there are to tell? Maybe the answer lies in the similar treatment the hilarious Emperor's New Groove received in 2000: "If it ain't a musical or rated G, we can't sell it."
On the DVD, however, comes the true nature of the ugly path Disney is heading down. I distinctly remember when The Return of Jafar - the sequel to Aladdin - came out. It wasn't a bad idea for a sequel, as Aladdin at least formed some kind of mythology for the characters to continue to venture out. But the sequel itself was ugly, uninspired and, most painfully, did not have Robin Williams as the Genie. They also made evil sidekick Gilbert Godfried into a "good" sidekick, and once you've lost the ability to hate Gilbert Godfried, you've lost everything. But at least it made sense; there could be more stories to tell in the Aladdin world.
Then came Beauty and the Beast 2: The Enchanted Christmas.
That's right; they made a sequel to a story that was already over. The Beast became the prince, they live happily after ever. End of story, nothing left, you can go home now, take your jacket with you. So the genius idea they came up with to make this bad idea a reality was... this is the hidden story that we didn't learn in the first movie! Yes! The movie is a huge deleted scene! Highlights include more crappy animation and Tim Curry as the computer animated evil Organ Forte, who conspires to make sure that Belle's Christmas plans are thwarted. I wish I was kidding.
Since then, this sad saga has produced Lion King 2, Pocahontas 2, Aladdin 3, Lady and the Tramp 2, Little Mermaid 2 and the soon to be theatrically released Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland.
But that's not all!
Coming soon, and advertised on the Atlantis Double Disc Set: Hunchback 2, 101 Dalmatians 2, Jungle Book 2 Mulan 2 and last but most certainly least, Cinderella 2: Happily Ever After. Most kids go to animated movies because they like the use of color, shape, and the freedom of imagination that comes with putting a pen to paper. Disney is answering their call with sequels to virtually every single film they have made - even the unsuccessful ones. It is a sad statement for the studio that once made every kid go dead silent with an off-screen gunshot in Bambi. What can you expect from sequels to films that needed no sequel? What else can be said about Mulan that needs to be said? What else is there to learn in TheJungle Book after Mowgli leaves? And for the love of old Walt, why do we need another chapter in Cinderella? Go download the trailer and see if you can stomach your way through it. The very phrase - "a new rendition of bibbity-bobbity-boo!" - was more then enough to bang my head against the wall for a few hours. My apologies to my hallmates.Will future generations have to grow up on a Cinderella 3? Is it too much to ask for fresh ideas and new stories to tell? It's easy to view the past through a filter, remembering only the good films and forgetting the mediocre ones. But Disney has a record, a history of quality films that dominate a large part of my childhood imagination. Dumbo, Bambi, Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, Peter Pan, even The Rescuers - these films all once meant something. Atlantis holds a similar spot in my collection. But someday in the future, when DVD is outdated and we're all driving rocket cars on the moon, I can see myself driving to a Blockbuster for my kids and seeing Dumbo 3: Return of the Magic Feather on the shelf. This might make me do something drastic. Like read to them instead.
