Hey everyone! So Disney has been a thing for my entire childhood! I've watched a lot of the classics, and even as an almost seventeen year old, I still do my best to keep up with Disney's new releases. Now, obviously I haven't seen every single movie Disney has released. I haven't seen some of the releases from the Transitional Era and the Post-Renaissance Era,( Which are the worst two era's of Disney films in my opinion. If you don't know about all the different era's of Disney films, I suggest watching Drunk Disney by the Practical Folks cause they have a chart that appears at the end of their videos, and it shows the different movies that are part of each era. And subscribe while you're there, cause they're awesome people and there's possibly other content on their channel that you might like! ) but for the most part, I have a pretty good grasp on Disney and their work. And since these movies are probably the freshest on people's minds, here's 7 reasons why I like and dislike modern Disney films. Now when I say modern, I mean all the movies that are part of the revival era.( again, refer to the Drunk Disney videos to see the different era's and which movies they're in. ) So, I will be talking about all the movies from The Princess and the Frog up to their newest release, which at the moment I'm writing this is Moana. Plus, yes, I have seen all the movies, well, except for the Winnie the Pooh remake. Trust me, I definitely would've of I knew, cause Winnie the Pooh was my all time favorite growing up! I just never knew Disney actually made a new one. Anyways, enough of me blabbering. Let's go!
1. As far as their modern movies go, I feel that Disney has taken greater leaps to better developing their film's stories. Now as far as Princess and the Frog and Tangled goes, they did kind of re-use their traditional princess movie plot lines that are pretty set in stone. But, they give the extra push to flesh out all the characters, giving them all memorable and charming personalities and making them seem more real and relatable. Add in different subplots, interesting themes, wonderful looking animation, and Disney's ability to make awesome musical numbers, it's more fun and enjoyable to watch these two movies, even if on the surface they seem like generic Disney princess movies. Not to mention, through this era of Disney films, they have deviated away from their traditional formula of films. Movies like Big Hero 6 and Zootopia leave the fantasy world and enter reality, both of these movies taking place in urban metropolis settings and discussing certain topics and issues that should be mentioned more in the real world. For Frozen, yes it is a princess movie, but they went through great lengths to develop a good story for this movie, and throughout the entire film, the script writers and characters relentlessly poked fun at several Disney movie tropes, which I can admire them for. Not to mention, Moana is possibly the first Disney princess that wasn't inspired by any other source material, meaning they had to develop an entire universe and lore for that movie! All in all, Disney's script writers are getting better and becoming more creative with their films.
2. This is mostly gonna be about the characters designs. Now of you've seen any of Disney's 3-D animated films, you'll notice that the lead females of these movies have pretty specific face proportions. They have giant eyes that take up from 50% to 75% percent of their face paired with long full eyelashes on their eyelids to make them appear bigger. Their nose and mouth are small and are usually positioned lower on their face than where they are on normal humans. Their heads are rounded, giving them chubby cheeks and small, but prominent chins. This reason excludes Princess and the Frog because it was the last 2-D animated princess film and Tiana's facial features still resembled those of the more classic Disney princesses and were very similar to normal human face proportions. Now, obviously, there are people that would rather have the character have normal looking face proportions. But, I welcome the drastically different cartoony faces. It emphasizes the fact that although most of them are humans, they aren't real, and they're designs look more interesting than if they looked like humans. Plus, I feel like with very huge eyes, it better reflects the emotions the characters are trying to show, because even when normal actors are showing different emotions and expressions, most of it is told with their eyes. If you ever wanna see what it looks like when animated characters have lifeless looking eyes, just watch any clip from the movie Food Fight. But I wouldn't watch the whole movie. It is the worst animated movie ever made. It looks like trash and I hate that it exists, but that's a chapter for another day.
3. Disney has tried in the Post-Renaissance era to incorporate more 3-D animated movies, but it wasn't til the Revival era that Disney really got the hang of making their 3-D films polished looking and well animated. This also includes Princess and the Frog. It's one of the best looking 2-D movies Disney has made, 2nd place only to Sleeping Beauty because, Jesus Christ! Considering when Sleeping Beauty first came out, the whole film looks amazing! It was definitely my favorite movie for a little while until I watched Aladdin. I still love you, Robin!
4: This reason's not completely negative, but it's not completely positive. This is mostly dealing with how villains are portrayed in these films, which excludes Moana, because even though you can argue that Maui kinda was the villian in the movie, to me, he just seemed like a good guy that is insecure and has flaws. In general, Moana never really had a true bad guy. Most of the main characters had a good side and a bad side. Now, as for the rest of them, I feel the villains in the other movies don't really get as much screen time and development. In Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, both of these movies reveal the villains in a plot twist. In Big Hero 6, Robert is revealed to be the villian after the team of heroes discover a film of Robert working on an experemint with his competitor that goes wrong and that he was the masked man that's been using Hiro's microbots to get revenge on his rival. In Zootopia, the villian turns out to be the Mayor's assistant, Bellwether, who used a serum that made the predators go savage and get her boss arrested, causing her to take power of the city and control it's people by making the majority fear the predator animals. It's not that either of this villains are terrible. It's that in the beginning of the film, they seemed like good guys, and it wasn't revealed that they were evil til near the end of the movie. I feels like it would've been better if before they were revealed, they should've put in clips through the movie that hinted their true intentions instead of revealing them out of nowhere near the end. Now, I hear you saying, " Maggie, didn't Frozen do the same thing with Prince Hans? " Yes, they did, but I exempt Frozen for doing this because there is a theory that may or not be true that states that the trolls are responsible for his sudden evilness and since Frozen 2 is on it's way, I'm waiting to see that so I can see if the theory turns out to be true. If you want to research it, Matpat explains this theiry on his Film Theorists channel where he better explains it and shows evidence of why this might be true. And as for Princess and the Frog and Tangled, they don't reveal their villian's evilness with a twist. The voodoo man and Mother Gothel both remain evil throughout the entire movies that they're in, we just don't get to see them be evil as much as we wanted to.
5. This one kinda ties in with my last reason, cause even though Disney has kinda taken away the focus from their villains, they have done a great job developing their main characters. They've given them distinct personalities, desires, and traits, making them very enjoyable to watch as they progress through the story.
6. The backgrounds and settings are more detailed. For example, Zootopia is a city made up of several different ecosystems, each sector of the city different and unique. They all have different animals that live in certain areas of the city based in their natural habitats that they usually live in. For instance, polar bears live in Tundra Town, just like in real life where polar bears naturally live in Tundra and cold places.
7. So.......much........FANART!
Alright, the last reason was kinda a joke, but I'm really tired and my brain couldn't think of a 7th reason. Also, Lin, if you read this, now you know why I didn't message you a lot, cause I spent a crap ton of time working on this chapter. So, I hope you enjoyed this, and if you would like me to talk about Disney again or if you have any other topics in mind leave them down in the comments below! Again, thank you for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter! Keep reading!
