More talk about my younger brother today.
Growing up, it was hard to find movies I could watch with him. He liked Transformers, I though Michael Bay was a terrible director and terrible man. I liked The Other Woman and films from the 1940s, he was a regular boy from suburban Australia and thus only cared for robots and aliens (don’t worry he’s fine now he loved the movie Nerve starring Emma Roberts). But for a brief period of time, we found the middle ground, and it was called The Black Cauldron (1985).
The Black Cauldron is an animated film adaptation of The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, a book series I haven’t read and thus won’t comment on. The 25th film in the Disney canon, it’s their attempt of a sprawling fantasy adventure, a genre film more akin to Star Wars than it is Sleeping Beauty. There’s an evil skeleton man named The Horned King, a Princess, and a small furry sidekick that reminds me of the mice in Cinderella. When invoked today, you’re likely to hear it discussed more in the technical aspects than its creative choices.
But those technical aspects clearly paid off. The use of CGI is the most obvious thing people talk about. But it’s so minimal, and so indistinct from what had been done in traditional animation, that I don’t want to oversell it. It’s the cauldron. But following the harsh lined xerox method of printing animation sheets, Disney films had become scratchy -less lush. Turning to more contemporary stories made it work for some of the feature films. 101 Dalmatians (1961) is maybe my favourite film of the era for it’s more graphic aesthetic. But advances in technology allowed animators to use a wider array of colours for their line work. That, along with the talented animator’s work, makes the film feel more analogous with the animation of the golden era of the 1950s than it does with the previous 25 years of animation.
It was, however, a risky film to make for the struggling animation division of the Disney Corporation. Pulling from some surprisingly gruesome imagery, this was an attempt to meet the standards set by Ralph Bakshi and Disney exile Don Bluth. Mangled by demands thrown at them by animation newbie Jeffrey Katzenberg, the film in its final form is less a thrilling masterpiece and more a compelling mess. But the keyword there is compelling. For those who are fond of shows like Stranger Things, I’d heartedly recommend it. It was a spurt of creative energy from the last era the company would have this type of freedom.
Every discussion of the Disney Company that refers to any film released in the period between Walt Disney’s death and The Little Mermaid (1989) talks about the lack of direction the company, and especially the animation studio, suffered before Michael Eisner took over in 1984. Disney in this time was a mess of poor decision making, creative emptiness, and unfulfilled ambition. Like any good scholar of this era, I suggest you pick up DisneyWar by James B. Stewart and read the juicy gossip. It’s genuinely one of the best reads you can find about corporate mean girls. Or just watch the Lindsay Ellis video that talks about the mess that led up to Hercules since I know some of you don’t like to read books.
But no, I don’t care about that. Well, yes I do, but there’s something more pressing to me. I care about the chance I had to sit down and watch a movie with my little brother (before he became too good for this stuff). It was so exciting to see him actually responding to the darker visuals and serious tone. The breathless anticipation as the soldiers walked in, the giggles at the mean, horny witches, the whimpers as the annoying side character sacrificed himself. I appreciated that he wasn’t just tolerating the movie. He loved it.
He then asked me why the new Disney movies weren’t like this.
Now, this was 2013 or so, and so I defended the films I liked. Tangled was fun! Frozen had some amazing moments! Wreck It Ralph was colourful..? But now, a decade into this “Disney Renaissance v2.0” I’m left wondering…why aren’t there more films like The Black Cauldron?
I need you to understand that when that question is asked, there are two ways to read it. One is literal: why aren’t there more dark fantasy films being made by Disney Animation?
The answer to that is obviously that they don’t make enough money.
But that’s not what I mean, and not what he meant at the time. The question isn’t genre or even tone, it’s approach. Why aren’t there more films in the newer Disney canon, the modern era, that feel unique tonally and visually?
The answer is also money.
When we look at the state of current, mainstream animation (because obviously there’s better stuff out there, read Engweri’s excellent breakdown of Netflix Animation for more on that) we see the studios still limping on with franchises and repeated formulas. Illumination is held together with minion branded tape, Dreamworks is now a receptacle for films to take a younger cousin to out of obligation, and the joke about Pixar’s one plot is a reality. Everyone has a niche in the worst way. But Disney as an animation studio is probably the worst because they’re getting away with some incredibly shoddy work.
That work is both technical and creative. It’s characters moving “smoothly”, but only recently with any personality. The move to CGI didn’t have to mean a generic brand of character models, but everyone looks the same. Fans of the newer films like to point to minute differences in nose shape and subtle touches of freckles that seek to differentiate the figures, but that’s a reach. While the “Disney look” for animated heroes and heroines has always been more rigid than the rest of the industry, you can tell the characters apart. Particularly the women. But it’s more than a little worrisome that all that stands between the model for Moana and the model for Rapunzel is a new nose, hair, and colour palate.
But furthermore, the worlds the characters live in feel, quite frankly, boring. The nature spirits of the Pacific Islands and the nature spirits of the Nordic wilderness and the nature spirits of a fantasy world inspired by Southeast Asia all feel somewhat redundant. Friendship and non-romantic love solve every issue. Family is at the heart of every conflict, even those where it would make more sense not to. The refusal to have clear and defined villains has stagnated creativity in a way it was meant to make it flourish, and the shirking of romantic love in many of these films has created tensions that only fanfic writers can solve.
It also feels notable that this sudden move away from romance was paired with an increased demand for LGBTQ+ representation. Not an accusation, just a very pointed remark.
And accusation.
There’s a clear person to blame for this.
When Disney was taken over by animation legend and alleged sexual predator John Lasseter, he put forward a shift in focus for storytelling that has tainted every film since. While there’s probably a nuanced take to his filmmaking ethos, the basic thrust is that every opportunity for emotionality must be taken advantage of. That sounds fine, until you realise that purely emotional storytelling is easily led into being trite. BORING. It’s putting many of these new worlds into a place where they can’t actually explore, because we need to hit the tearjerker moments.
In retrospect, Lasseter being given the job of running the company’s creative teams on both their A and B studios feels insane. Not only is that a whole lot of responsibility, but as Disney becomes more and more indistinguishable from Pixar, you can’t help but be confused as to why they bother with the pretence. The studios don’t have separate identities anymore. Brave (2012) feels more Disney than Zootopia (2016), which feels more Pixar than Coco (2017). I’d give the edge to Pixar, is just because they’re clearly more adept at handling the emotional tsunami, but it’s still a decision that makes no sense from a brand perspective.
Except it does.
People like these films because they’ve become increasingly bland. They’re a potato chip; you can’t have just one. Risks mean children might be frightened, questions might be asks, tastes might be challenged. Which is extremely disheartening, considering Disney Animation was always the white bread of family entertainment. When I called The Black Cauldron “risky”, that was within the context of the studio. Comparisons to Bakshi and Bluth are, quite frankly, insulting to those men. But look at them now. Gone.
It’s an obvious punching bag, but the Frozen franchise feel like such compromised set of films. The Snow Queen is a story that is inherently dramatic and intense, but Frozen gives up the threat of a clear villain for the sake of a story that can only have a good twist once. The betrayal of a lover feels less impactful when he has a single song on a repeat viewing. The sister storyline is sweet, but ennui and peppiness cannot sustain a movie. That’s the problem with pretty much every film of this run. There’s heart (however artificial) but no weight or real threat. Big Hero 6 (2014) is sweet. Moana (2016) is sweet. Encanto (2021) is sweet.
It’s tooth rotting.
These films are approaching their storytelling with the goal to manufacture the moments of emotional intensity that made the former great Disney films stand out. They want you to remember something as devastating as Mufasa’s death or Cinderella’s dress being torn off of her body. But the moments aren’t sufficiently supported by a compelling, or frankly fun, set of character dynamics. They just sit there.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and so is lowered expectations.
Part of me wants to soften the blow of what I’ve written thus far by pointing out what this era is doing right. Focusing on the emotional side of things has led to stronger character moments between protagonist and representation does matter. Disney has never had this diverse an array of settings and characters. That’s an amazing step forward. But we can get those things without sacrificing the rest of what makes the movies of yore great. It’s like replacing a fruit salad with the same quantity of just bananas and saying you’re grateful for the increased potassium.
When I look back at that viewing of The Black Cauldron, do you know what stands out to me? The visceral reactions that came from a young boy watching a movie that wasn’t hitting the same beats as everything else he was watching at the time. Children’s entertainment is, in every era, monotonous. There was a thrill of not being the same as his regular programming. But people are attracted that are the same, because it is comfortable. They love Marvel movies and rewatching Glee for that reason. Or rather, they’re easier able to consume media that they can anticipate the beats of.
There’s a film right now, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, that takes a current storytelling device -the multiverse- that has a lot of cultural cache and simply does it very well. It’s amazing. It also reminds me that my feelings about current Disney are related to my feelings about the sitcom-ification of Hollywood cinema. Nothing about these movies is inherently bad , they’re just boring. We don’t get as many interesting movies anymore because they’re just not what anyone thinks will make money. Prestige cinema has been swamped with biopics in a way that’s way more smothering than the period pieces of yore (at least their costumes were fun!) and ultimately, we’re all bored.
Hopefully we’re beginning to realise it.