This has been acknowledged for decades, predating the Internet. I remember seeing animation historian Charles Solomon showing the Jungle Book/Robin Hood bit back in the 80s. I was thrilled when I discovered my own - The fight over Mowgli in Jungle Book reuses big chunks of the fight for the deed in the “Wind in the Willows” portion of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It was just a cost-savings measure.
I still love the breathless hyperbolic clickbait headline of the HuffPo article. What’s next? “You won’t believe who played the solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, It’s NOT a Beatle!! Mind Blown!11!!!”
When you get old you’ll go to a place that specializes in “rotoscoping”.
You’ll wait an hour or two with the other unwashed masses until its your turn. Then another couple hours cold and half naked and half awake while they Area 51 you a dozen ways. Then they will pawn you off on some poor relative who has been watching FOX news the whole time. At which point you go home cold, tired, violated, and very hungry. Once at home, you wait for the bill, cross your fingers for the “no cancer” verbage, and count the days until the next go around.
I found it interesting and mildly disappointing. You watch a movie and you think you’re watching something made just for that show and it turns out to be recycled stuff. I’m sure at least some of these recycled scenes seemed a bit forced in the remake and not quite in character.
Just a hijack-but that link to Dragon’s Lair brings back so many memories. That was the first video game I ever “won” (and it took a lot of time in the arcade watching better players and memorizing the moves so I wouldn’t waste my quarters. I don’t think my brain would be up to it any more let alone the newer games that these young-uns play nowadays. But for a teenager used to Pong, centipede, and Pac-man that video was amazing.
I have not seen the film since its initial theatrical release, but I recall Disney’s Robin Hood repeating some animation sequences in itself. The crowd of guards in the (?) football/ faire (?) sequence charges through at least twice in *exactly *the same way. Memories may be rusty and I still don’t know why they used country-western comic actors for so many parts of a British story.
I’ve known about this for years. I’m a trained animator and catch it all the time. Robin Hood is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love it, but damn is it one of the laziest efforts in the Disney catalog. Not only does it reuse long sequences from previous movies and repeats itself, there are extended sequences of nothing but walk cycles.
Just the other day I watched a short I’d never seen before called Goliath II about a freakishly tiny elephant trying to keep up with his (regular-sized) herd, including an overprotective mother and a disappointed father. In less than 15 minutes, I spotted reused animation from Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Sword in the Stone*, Jungle Book* and Dumbo. Double checking myself shows a bit reused from Sleeping Beauty, a Goofy short, and also a rather clever use of a series of “takes” of a frightened Ichabod Crane transfered onto the little elephant. Goliath II was also the first use of the Xerox Inking process, making me wonder if Disney spent any money on it at all.
(*: These two came later, so Goliath II reused and was reused itself.)
I understand cost and time savings, and usually I don’t mind. The Wind in the Willows/Jungle Book chase scene, though, is awesome. I’d like them to reuse it more often.
I find this quite interesting - it makes a lot of sense to do it this way. It must save tons of hours of work, and chances of anyone in the movie-going public having their enjoyment lessened by it are remote.
