A Sort Of Homecoming
Well, it's not exactly breaking news now, but Disney has put up 7.4 billion, and brought Pixar back into the fold.
What it gets them is the single most exciting and lucrative studio on the planet, and Steve Jobs on the board of directors.
Hopefully, what it will mean for the rest of us is better quality films from the house of mouse, and an end to these tedious direct-to-dvd sequels they keep insulting us with. Leave your second unit animators doing the television stuff, and put your A-Team (when he's on his meds, Murdoch is quite the skilled cell painter) back on some A-List projects.
There are tons of speculation just how much Apple influence this will all actually bring. I don't think that it would be a bad thing, to a certain extent. As long as they don't try to turn the whole Magic Kingdom park into a sleek G5-like Tomorrowland space bubble, we should be okay. I think that there are some interesting ideas for applications. Wouldn't it be groovy to be able to have your Fast-Pass beamed directly into your iPod, and plot out your whole day of rides at the park in one itinerary, with audio tracks for grooving, and trivia tracks for learning? Sounds kinda cool, no? [author's note - this is my own idea, not something that has been mentioned, and as such I expect to receive the royalties that is deserved of a...hack with a blog, and, umm, nevermind...]
I hope this revitalizes Disney's film studios. Although Disney has plundered the vault of fairy tales, there are more than enough to go around. They're nowhere near the bottom of that well, and there's no need to retread when there's so much territory that's never been explored.
I think that this is a good turn of events. I think that Disney was stupid to let Pixar get ticked off enough to leave in the first place. As in most cases, I blame Eisner, but thankfully he's been excised from being able to cause any further damage.
The vision of Disney is astounding, and I love the things that his company has created. I think that it's still a viable source of wonderment for all time, as long as they remain true to where they started, and the dreams that made them the best of what they are.
posted by myrddin @ 4:51 AM
2 Comments:
I think that if you read a lot of the different articles from Save Disney, and know the way Eisner worked, things should be fine.
He was the one that micro-managed things into the state they are, and specifically pissed off the animation department.
To his credit, he did throw some money around early on in his career there, and get the animation department somewhere near where it needed to be. The problem is that once he didn't get Lion King money from movies every single time out, instead of trusting in the art form, he just tried to trend jump, and force everyone into CGI-based animation.
I truly believe that although Pixar is exclusively computer animation, they will compliment the traditional animation department, and both can continue to reach new heights...
There have been a number of articles and rumblings from Disney since the purchase that all point in the right direction.
It seems that they realize that they can let Pixar make the CG prettiness, and they can get back to what made them great - traditional 2D animation.
It is still a business, so there's still room for the suits to get in the way, but with each new ray of hope, the way back home seems a little closer...
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