Posts tagged DISNEY
Game Central Station: The Worlds of Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012)
Game Central Station: The Worlds of Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012)

Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012) follows the antagonist of a fictional arcade game known as Fix-It Felix. After escaping his 8-bit pixelated world and joining fellow outcast Vanellope von Schweetz in the brightly tinted world of Sugar Rush, the eponymous Ralph learns that their quest for redemption could lead to a massive shutdown of the arcade. Through its visual style and videogame narrative, Wreck-It Ralph felt as if it was calling me and my sector of young gamers, and the animation team at Disney managed to successfully bring in elements of popular gaming tropes and familiar characters to build the many worlds connecting through Game Central Station.

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EDITORIALRudan DanielDISNEY, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, STYLE, FICTIONAL WORLDS, VIDEO GAMEComment
The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Magic, the lost art history of the Walt Disney Studio The Courvoisier years, 1938-1946
The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Magic, the lost art history of the Walt Disney Studio The Courvoisier years, 1938-1946

This article is dedicated to Giannalberto Bendazzi, Italian historian and writer.

There is no glitter that plays with the souls of film fanatics like the art produced by the Walt Disney Studio. The films made by Disney hold an emotional spot in the hearts of their fans and this is not by accident. Their characters are drafted to connect to how we feel about ourselves and where we feel we fit within our own lives. The good-versus-evil plot lines that come out of Disney sell us the fantasy that people in power are punished when they try to hold other people back, and the way these narratives are designed to exploit our need to believe in these happy endings has created a cash machine for Disney that is almost unique in the realm of big box office animation.

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EDITORIALRon BarbagalloDISNEY, FILM HISTORY, CEL ANIMATION, ARTISTComment
“Two Cadaverous Vultures”: Disney’s Gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
“Two Cadaverous Vultures”: Disney’s Gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

In January 1939, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its acceptance of an animation cel set-up from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937) and “presented by the artist, Walt Disney” (Burroughs, 1939) (Fig. 1). The gift — an ink and gouache painting on transparent celluloid, laid over a hand-painted background — was duly hung with the museum’s other “recent accessions,” and immediately generated considerable coverage in the nation’s major newspapers, magazines, and wire services.

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EDITORIALHeather HolianARCHIVES, HOLLYWOOD, CARTOON, DISNEY, CEL ANIMATION, ARTISTComment
Rethinking the Disney Renaissance
Rethinking the Disney Renaissance

The Disney Renaissance is one of those curious constructs that circulates among the Walt Disney Company and its fan communities, entering academic studies of Disney animation largely unchallenged. What, exactly, was the Disney Renaissance? One of the many pleasures and privileges of being an animation scholar is not only to think about Disney, but to think about how we think about Disney. And unsurprisingly, a lot of the critical discourse on Disney is shaped by Disney itself.

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EDITORIALPeter C. KunzeDISNEY, HISTORY, ANIMATION, CEL ANIMATION, HOLLYWOODComment
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's "Hellfire"
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's "Hellfire"

Adapted from Victor Hugo’s gothic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1996) tells the story of bellringer Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), born with a physical deformity that gives him a hunched back. The Disney animated film first depicts Quasimodo as a baby, when he was stolen from his Romani parents by Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) during one of his nighttime raids on the streets of Paris. The judge reluctantly raises Quasimodo as his own child, but keeps him locked high in a belltower away from all outside contact, until one day, a Romani dancer named Esmeralda (voiced by Demi Moore) enters Quasimodo’s life.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISAlyson HendersonVILLAINY, DISNEY, ANIMATION, MUSIC, HOLLYWOOD, ADAPTATION, GOTHICComment
Music, Symbolism, and Generational Trauma in Encanto (2021)
Music, Symbolism, and Generational Trauma in Encanto (2021)

Disney’s Encanto (Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 2021) focuses on the Madrigal family and their life in their magical house, or Casita. Every member is given a unique power or “gift” from Casita, as referred to in the film, once they hit a certain age, except for protagonist Mirabel. One night she sees cracks start to form around Casita and realizes that the magic and her family are breaking apart and that she is the only one who can save them. Throughout the film, several characters, including Mirabel’s sisters Isabella and Luisa, exhibit tension and unhappiness in the family that is later revealed to come from matriarch Abuela’s generational trauma (as discussed in an earlier blog).

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISJacqueline Gonzalez CastroDISNEY, MUSICAL, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, LATIN AMERICAComment
Strange Waters: Filming Imagined Spaces in Fantasy Blockbusters
Strange Waters: Filming Imagined Spaces in Fantasy Blockbusters

Had Disney’s Strange World (2022) made more of an impact the internet might well be flooded with articles comparing Don Hall’s latest work with James Cameron’s behemoth sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Both explore magnificent simulated environments, examine the complicated dynamics arising from father-son relationships, and tackle the destructive land-grabbing hunger associated with colonial sentiment.

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EDITORIALMarkus BeekenDISNEY, SPACE, FICTIONAL WORLDS, SPECIAL EFFECTSComment
Mouse House sees the value of sequels in post-pandemic Hollywood
Mouse House sees the value of sequels in post-pandemic Hollywood

Recently returned Disney CEO Bob Iger – reappointed to the company following the abrupt dismissal of his successor, Bob Chapek in November 2022 – confirmed late last week that the celebrated animation studio would be producing a slate of sequels to three of its blockbuster films. News of Zootopia 2 within Disney’s upcoming roster of features was a welcome, if not entirely unexpected, surprise given both the box office success of the 2016 original (the film took $1.02 billion and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature) and the recent arrival of spin-off web television series Zootopia+ (Trent Correy & Josie Trinidad 2022), which premiered on Disney+ the same month as Chapek’s acrimonious exit.

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EDITORIALChristopher HollidayDISNEY, SEQUEL, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, PIXAR, FRANCHISE, HOLLYWOODComment
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event

The first event of the new BAFTSS Animated SIG was a very spooky one. Threading the often-unexplored relationship between animation and horror and organized by Dr. Sam Summers (Middlesex University), “Animated Horror: An Online Mini-Event” (Fig. 1) took place online on October 19, 2022. Even though it was a short one, the seminar offered a great deal of varied richness on issues of liminality, transformations, and the overlapping of horrific and seemingly innocent content, within animated horror.

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EVENT REVIEWJuliana VarelaHORROR, ANIMATION, DISNEY, HOLLYWOODComment
Healing Latin-American generational trauma in Encanto (2021)
Healing Latin-American generational trauma in Encanto (2021)

Encanto (Byron Howard & Jared Bush, 2021), Disney’s 60th animated film inspired by Latin-American culture tells the story of a magical family, the family Madrigal. The narrative follows the dynamics of the Madrigal family tree across generations in the town of Encanto, ultimately spearheaded by 15-year-old Mirabel, the only member of the family without magical powers.

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EDITORIALMariana Pintado ZuritaCOMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, DISNEY, MUSICAL, LATIN AMERICA, MAGIC, REALISMComment
Review: Encanto (Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 2021)
Review: Encanto (Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 2021)

Being Colombian is an act of faith. This is how Jorge Luis Borges aptly puts it in his short story ‘Ulrikke,’ published in a 1975 collection. And although I have felt that my identity as a Colombian has always been somewhat unstable or in doubt for a variety of reasons (like growing up in an increasingly globalized world), it was never as affirmed as it was when I went to the cinema to see Disney’s recent computer-animated feature Encanto (Byron Howard & Jared Bush, 2021) in the UK.

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FILM REVIEWJuliana VarelaMAGIC, DISNEY, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, FAMILY, NATION, CULTUREComment
Beyond Heroes and Villains? Establishing Character Duality Through Formal Sequence Arrangements
Beyond Heroes and Villains? Establishing Character Duality Through Formal Sequence Arrangements

This blog post follows on from an earlier sequence analysis of Disney’s Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker 2016) in which I explored the redemption of Te Kā by the opening of an anthropomorphised ocean. In this second post, I will analyse the moments immediately following the opening of the ocean, which sees Moana and Te Kā to come face to face.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISCharlotte DurhamDISNEY, GENDER, CHARACTER, MUSICAL, FEMINISMComment
“Let her come to me”: Opening the Ocean in Disney’s Moana
“Let her come to me”: Opening the Ocean in Disney’s Moana

Since its DVD release, Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker 2016) has carved a home in my heart. When I’m not re-watching it captivated and in love with its artistry, I’ll watch it thinking about the voyage Disney takes into Polynesian histories and the representation of culture which, although efforts were made through the formation of the Oceanic Story Trust to depict authentic Polynesian cultures, often falls short – as one indigenous rights advocate puts: “having brown advisers doesn’t make it a brown story” (Ngata, 2016).

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISCharlotte DurhamWATER, REPRESENTATION, GENDER, FEMINISM, DISNEY, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM Comment
Orientalism and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Orientalism and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Eighty-four years after its first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937) and fifty-eight movies later, Disney finally has its first Southeast Asian princess with Raya and the Last Dragon (Paul Briggs, Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada, 2021). The titular character, Raya, joins the ranks of their other princess-of-colour from the Disney canon including Tiana from The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2009), Jasmine from Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992), and the titular characters from Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg, 1995), Mulan (Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook, 1998) and Moana (Ron Clements, Don Hall & John Musker, 2016).

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EDITORIALPrakash Krishnan and Patricia Petit LiangDISNEY, ASIAN ANIMATION, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY, FANTASY, GENDER, RACEComment
Review: Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021)
Review: Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021)

I’m going to say straight off: I thoroughly enjoyed Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021) and I think you will, too. A prequel to One-Hundred-and-One Dalmatians (Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske & Wolfgang Reitherman, 1961) and a re-framing (sort of; more on that shortly) of the beloved Disney villain Cruella deVil, Cruella purportedly tells the story of how the great enemy of dalmatians everywhere became a crazed villain.

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FILM REVIEWAMY M. DAVISADAPTATION, DISNEY, SPECIAL EFFECTS, ANIMALS, GENDERComment
Review: Raya and the Last Dragon (Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada, 2021)
Review: Raya and the Last Dragon (Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada, 2021)

In his business memoir, Bob Iger, the (former?) CEO of The Walt Disney Company, raised a question in connection with Disney princesses: “[w]hat are the attributes of a Disney princess in today’s world and how should they manifest in our products?” (Iger 2019, xx). Iger’s query outlines both the commodification of the Disney princess, and the notion that her portrayal must reflect the societal changes of the 21st century.

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FILM REVIEWAnna ZsuboriFANTASY, DISNEY, STAR WARS, MAGIC, EAST, GENDERComment
Disney’s Queer Queen – Frozen’s Elsa and Queer Representation
Disney’s Queer Queen – Frozen’s Elsa and Queer Representation

Frozen’s (Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee, 2013) protagonist, Elsa, is easily the most obviously queer-coded heroine in Disney’s princess films. Both academic analyses and media outlets, as well as a robust part of her fandom, have argued as much (see, for instance, Charania and Albertson 2018; Mason 2019; Rose 2020).

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EDITORIALSabrina MittermeierDISNEY, QUEER IDENTITY, REPRESENTATION, GENDER, MUSICALComment
How We Learn to Say the Unsayable: Grief in Fantasy/Animation
How We Learn to Say the Unsayable: Grief in Fantasy/Animation

In many ways, 2020 is a year marked by many different intertwined sources of grief: all the different kinds of loss associated with a global pandemic and its effect on daily lives; the political and economic situations that have forced a reckoning with an acknowledgement of a loss of idealism – that maybe we aren’t, and never have been, the enlightened society we (the Western European and North America, the Anglophone West in particular) have considered ourselves to be.

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EDITORIALMichelle Anya AnjirbagPIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, GRIEF, TRAUMA, NETFLIX, DISNEY, REPRESENTATIONComment
Transworld Travel in Postwar Animated Musicals
Transworld Travel in Postwar Animated Musicals

The films of postwar Hollywood often featured wanderers, characters who were “trying to leave behind the tensions of a modern world for the clarity of another place; a place outside history” (Polan 1986, 264). While this character type and narrative structure primarily materialised as a foray from urban spaces out to the country or a transatlantic trip to a different continent, occasionally the stresses of the world merited a journey completely outside reality, depositing characters into fantasy realms.

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EDITORIALLisa DuffyDISNEY, MUSICAL, JOURNEY, MAGIC, WONDER, FANTASYComment