Home on The Range- Look Back Machine
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
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before it's released. Snow White and the seven doors had been nicknamed Disney's Folly, expected in many circles to fail and take casualties. Instead, the film launched the company into the stratosphere in the world zeitgeist. As of 2000 and eight team, there have been 56 animated Disney feature films, and there is no end in sight. It is the life blood of the Walt Disney Company. But in 2000 and four, Disney Animation was facing an identity crisis. They were confronted with stiff competition and features for the first time in their history, from both inside and outside the company. The most obvious threat was former executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was dead set on revenge against his former employer. After an ugly public and lucrative falling out with Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Katzenberg founded DreamWorks in 1994. Shortly thereafter, he made a biblical epic in a few films that were quickly forgotten. Then the studio stumbled upon Shrek. In 2001 films earnings were massive and even better for Katzenberg. The Movies Foundation was a bitter criticism of the saccharine Disney classics, and even better yet, Michael Eisner was drawn is the evil villain. The second threat, however, was more dangerous and from inside the company. Disney had been distributing Pixar films since Toy Story revolutionized the industry with computer animation. Pixar movies were doing monumentally better in the press and at the box office than Disney's own two D films. Two D animation movies simply weren't the box office juggernauts they once worked. In fact, the opposite was true. From 2000 to 3 2004 Disney animated features earned less than $100 million in states. Most famously, there was Treasure Planet, nicknamed Treasure Plummet, which perfectly fits $38 million gross. Worse yet, Pixar was thinking about leaving Disney and setting out on its own. Disney was only marketing and distributing the films, and Pixar was nearing the end of its 10 year, five film deal with Disney. Because of this relationship, Pixar was now an established household name. Disney's only leverage was that they own the rights of Sequels and were threatening to make them without Pixar. So they pitted Pixar against itself instead of crushing Pixar movies with, say, Disney movies as they would have in the past. It was in this climate that Disney's home on the range feeders. Only a month before the film's release, Disney closed its animation studio in Florida, firing 258 animators. Disney assured the press that it would continue to make traditional two D animation, but the press saw blood in the water and it would dominate the conversation about home on the range. Home on the Range wouldn't be completely savaged by critics, but there were plenty of cow based ponds to express their distaste, although most critics were simply nonplussed, bemoaned the rumored end of traditional animation and Disney. Coincidentally, the film happened to be about three cows trying to save their beloved farm. Their home from destruction film didn't directly kill hand drawn animation of the company, but distinctly marked the end of an era. The Walt Disney Company was again an uncharted territory with its legacy on the line, but that's only part of the film story. It's also the story of two directors, John Sanford Will Finn, who try to live up to the Disney legacy in the face of tremendous obstacles. That impossible legacy creates Disney animation directors air rarely lauded and hardly praised. If they succeed, they made a Disney film, not a John Musker, Fillmore, Clyde, Jeremy Phil or a Wolfgang rifleman film, a Disney film, pure and simple. If the director fails, then and only then is it their film, because the directed Disney movie is at once a lifetime opportunity and a possible death sentence. And now the story of two directors, three cows and $110 million. If there's one thing that makes Disney Disney its its ability to transport viewers from their own harsh reality toe wonderlands where happily ever after is just around the corner. It's a formula that's worked wonders since 1937. Interestingly enough, Home on the Range had all the elements that Disney uses to create magical illusions talking animals, songs, villains, heroes and that Disney happy ending Over Home on the Range doesn't manage to capture that blinding Disney Magic. Because the film fails to take the viewer on the immersive vacation from reality. It actually grounds them in the stark reality of life reality, in which he spent every day wondering if you'll be fired a reality in which cows taking over Washington is too political, a reality in which McDonald's has a significant creative input on art. The circumstances that John and will encountered were begging for that Disney happy ending that never came. Instead of that happy ending, there are innumerable questions about the elusive nature of magic. I never hated it. I like it. I always felt good about the things that appealed to me about the movie. Was difficult to be objective about the movie itself while making it because we were so steeped in it for so long. It's or such an intense period. I think there's a good version of that movie. We just didn't manage to find it. I actually would like to think that under the right circumstances, where fewer things were going drastically wrong and probably at a different studio, you could make that story into a very entertaining movie like I don't have any complaints about anybody on that movie. I think everybody worked hard. I mean, that's kind of the lesson there. Everybody did their best, and yet the movie's not that good, that sort of thing that fascinates me. The fact that people can work so hard and everybody's trying hard and there's no laziness at all. You know, everybody's doing their damnedest, and yet the movie comes out. It's not that