1/17/2024 0 Comments Hand drawn animated film postman![]() The resurgence turned out to be short-lived: Disney released its last hand-drawn animated film, Winnie the Pooh, in 2011. As part of that arrangement, Pixar co-founders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull were brought on to also lead Disney’s feature-animation division, and they soon rehired two legendary directors, Ron Clements and John Musker ( The Little Mermaid, Aladdin), who began work on 2009’s lovely The Princess and the Frog, which unfortunately cost a lot and didn’t make back enough. Hand-drawn animation actually got tossed a lifeline when Disney bought Pixar in 2006. You could see the difference in the respective movies they made. By contrast, Disney was being run by managers, executives, and accountants. It wasn’t because hand-drawn wasn’t good, it’s because there were bad decisions at upper levels - too many layers of middle management, too much second-guessing, the typical filmmaking by committee.” Pixar was, famously, a filmmaker-driven studio, where animators and artists often collaborated on creative decisions. “Of course, why they didn’t do well is another question. ![]() “Pixar was doing really well and Disney films weren’t, and there was a general push in that direction,” says Amid Amidi, publisher and editor-in-chief of Cartoon Brew. By contrast, another Disney-affiliated company was bounding from success to success with computer-animated hits: Pixar had produced the first Toy Story in 1995, and within a decade it would have Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles to its name. (Remember The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride?) Meanwhile, event releases like Pocahontas, Hercules, and Mulan failed to replicate the success of The Lion King. They put out cheap, direct-to-video sequels to some of their most beloved titles, thus devaluing their brand. They split the animation unit and pushed for faster timelines. In the wake of that movie’s epochal success, the suits at Disney became more aggressive about their releases. One might even say that the triumph of the original Lion King in 1994 - which, in terms of pure attendance numbers, comfortably remains the biggest animated film of all time - helped lead to hand-drawn’s demise. But the form seemed to die a slow, protracted death at the House of Mouse in the early 2000s. Of course, such animation - the kind drawn by armies of animators, frame by painstaking frame - built the Walt Disney empire and aided in its resurgence in the late 1980s and early ’90s, known as the so-called Disney Renaissance. What I suddenly longed for was a burst of hand-drawn animation. ![]() But in so doing, it reminded me of what was sorely missing from this newfangled version of The Lion King: Lines. ![]() (Never mind the fact that the scene was set during the day!) Jon Favreau’s film had achieved something once thought impossible: creating digital animals so authentic they could have passed for the real thing. There I was, watching two lions limply cavort onscreen, in what looked like mildly interesting footage from a nature documentary, as “ Can You Feel the Love Tonight” blared on the soundtrack. It was about halfway through the new, photorealistic remake of The Lion King that I found myself overwhelmed with grief. ![]()
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