It pains me to see POC representation only at the point when it’s pretty clear Disney have absolutely checked out of doing any good work anymore.
If anything, including POC representation is the only thing that’s keeping the franchise alive, as it forces them to source art and culture from beyond the six Bavarian townships responsible for 90% of their content before The Lion King. Encanto was another really sold film, in no small part because of how heavily they cribbed from culture outside the Western European mainstream.
I think it’s more of a personal taste thing rather than those movies being worse than any other cgi Disney movie.
Frozen felt very “D&D nerds take over the studio”, with lots of story beats and visual elements that just looked like it came out of a TTRPG. I liked it in large part because it subverted a bunch of the traditional Disney tropes. The conflict was between protagonists, with the villain having a very secondary role. There was lots of drama built around simply surviving the elements, rather than punching monsters. And the conclusion was that classic “Waking the Princess with a Kiss” trope wholly inverted into sibling affection, which really warmed my heart.
Onward got me for similar reasons. A bunch of classic Disney elements subverted into a very sweet story.
But Disney isn’t doing anything particularly daring. Plenty of studios have been making movies like this for as long as I’ve been alive.
If anything, including POC representation is the only thing that’s keeping the franchise alive, as it forces them to source art and culture from beyond the six Bavarian townships responsible for 90% of their content before The Lion King. Encanto was another really sold film, in no small part because of how heavily they cribbed from culture outside the Western European mainstream.
Frozen felt very “D&D nerds take over the studio”, with lots of story beats and visual elements that just looked like it came out of a TTRPG. I liked it in large part because it subverted a bunch of the traditional Disney tropes. The conflict was between protagonists, with the villain having a very secondary role. There was lots of drama built around simply surviving the elements, rather than punching monsters. And the conclusion was that classic “Waking the Princess with a Kiss” trope wholly inverted into sibling affection, which really warmed my heart.
Onward got me for similar reasons. A bunch of classic Disney elements subverted into a very sweet story.
But Disney isn’t doing anything particularly daring. Plenty of studios have been making movies like this for as long as I’ve been alive.