Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,074
- Location
- London, UK
I remember for many years Disney refused to play ball with home video; in retrospect, it reminds me of the music industry missing the bus on the internet, then scrabbling to catch up.
Walt did seem to have some sort of idealised vision as to what Disney was about beyond simply turning a profit. The latter seems to be the driving force now. I think they've sunk to a real nadir now every other film is a retconning of some of their greatest villains, turning them into poor, misunderstood children that really aren't all bad. Such a tragedy to take something as great as Cruella Deville and destroy her like that!
For me, a big part of the issue is going to be how they cast the inevitable 'New Indy'. If it's a Daniel Craig, game on. If, however, they go Lazenby / Moore.... nope, they don't get it.
I think it may be more than that in this case if they see Jones as a more profitable franchise, but they've certainly done this before. Just one example is the 1987 quasi-remake they did of the Love Bug, with Bruce Campbell in the lead. I'd love to see that one(!) - big BC fan - but I don't think Disney admit to it any longer.
Disney are notorious for taking any culture's fairy stories, making significant changes to the plot or giving generic characters names and roles, specifically so they can then copyright that traditional story for their own ends. It would be interesting to see a chart against the copyright positions of things like 101 Dalmations running out against the timing of the new Cruella Deville picture.
This chart is indicative of the power of Disney as a lobbying force in Congress:
Pretty much since Walt died in 1966. The whole thing was his "vision" and it seems he was the only person who saw it clearly. I'm not saying he or his vision was flawless, but someone has to be Captain of the ship and almost everyone at that helm since Walt has run the corporation into the Matterhorn.
Walt did seem to have some sort of idealised vision as to what Disney was about beyond simply turning a profit. The latter seems to be the driving force now. I think they've sunk to a real nadir now every other film is a retconning of some of their greatest villains, turning them into poor, misunderstood children that really aren't all bad. Such a tragedy to take something as great as Cruella Deville and destroy her like that!
That's my greatest fear with this upcoming Indy movie. I just know it's going to be a pandering nostalgia fest trying to cultivate all the '80s kids without recreating any of the magic that actually made Indy, "Indy." The character that is Indiana Jones has always been two things to me: intelligent and tough. He's not a wise-cracking action hero, he's a hard-nosed university professor who does what's necessary even if it's not what's right.
For me, a big part of the issue is going to be how they cast the inevitable 'New Indy'. If it's a Daniel Craig, game on. If, however, they go Lazenby / Moore.... nope, they don't get it.
The only reason these are happening is purely for the petty reason of preventing the material from returning to public domain.
I think it may be more than that in this case if they see Jones as a more profitable franchise, but they've certainly done this before. Just one example is the 1987 quasi-remake they did of the Love Bug, with Bruce Campbell in the lead. I'd love to see that one(!) - big BC fan - but I don't think Disney admit to it any longer.
Disney are notorious for taking any culture's fairy stories, making significant changes to the plot or giving generic characters names and roles, specifically so they can then copyright that traditional story for their own ends. It would be interesting to see a chart against the copyright positions of things like 101 Dalmations running out against the timing of the new Cruella Deville picture.
This chart is indicative of the power of Disney as a lobbying force in Congress: