The first thought I had was the same as the ones the heads of the studio and the press are echoing: 'Yayyy!! Imagine all the awesome new movies these guys are gonna come out with in the upcoming years!"
Then I woke up out of my Disney cartoon fantasy and realized that more companies were being consolidated under the giant global corporations that already control the world.
Yippee.
I don´t know why, but I just had this mental image of Mickey Mouse as THE Big Brother looking at me on my TV…
shudders
Look on the bright side: Bambi 3 (Bambi 2) will now feature stunning computer generated animation in addition to vulgar 3rd-rate pap.
I don’t know what technology will be used for Bambi III, but Bambi IV will be animated with sticks and stones.
Daniel
I think this is going to be a good thing for Disney. John Lasseter is going to be the CEO of Walt Disney Animation, which means we might see some more really good Disney animated features.
Do I think Steve Jobs being the CEO of Apple and one of the members of Disney’s board is a sign of corporations creeping ever further into our lives? No, unless you live in Orlando, I suppose.
The only time I’ve ever heard of Pixar was “A Disney/Pixar presentation”. Were they ever really seperate entities?
And is this really that upsetting to you? A CGI studio making family-freindly movies is incorporated into the world’s best-known family-friendly studio. The former being so successful in large part because of the latter’s funding.
I guess I just don’t get the connection to evil.
I’m really curious how you’re getting some sort of tin-foil paranoia over this and equating it to the fall of civilization. 
I think there’s something in the book of Revelation about a Bambi sequel being a sign of the birth of the antichrist. If it’s straight-to-video, we’re all doomed.
Actually, a few years ago, Pixar was getting out of their Disney contract. This made many of us rejoice because Disney has been making stupid decisions and pumping out half-assed movies as of late. We had hope for Pixar, and now that hope is lost.
Yep, Steve Jobs bought it from LucasFilm way back when. (1986 according to Wiki, which also says it was mostly a hardware company at the time) In 1988 they won an Oscar for best animated short with “Tin Toy”. Until “Toy Story” they were doing mostly those animated shorts and animations for commercials.
I saw an analysis on Slashdot the other day - can’t say if it’s an accurate take, but it was interesting:
Actually, the wording of their credits was always “Walt Disney Pictures presents a Pixar Animation Studios film.” You can pretty much tell it’s two companies, a la “20th Century Fox presents a LucasFilm production.”
Fine with me. Instead of two studios putting out feel-good animated crap for me to avoid, now there’s only one.
Even better, Lasseter is also the new creative bigwig for Disney Imagineering, which means the theme parks and rides ought to improve as well. And Ed Catmull of Pixar is now the head of the animation studios, which means – between his presence and Steve Jobs’ seat on Disney’s board of directors – he’ll be in a great position to fight off the beancounters and let the creative folks (under Lasseter) create.
I’ve been mulling over the news all evening, and I can’t find a single downside to it – Pixar will remain operating as they always have (e.g., free from busybody influences), but Disney now gets an infusion of perfectionism and fun that’s long been missing. I predict this deal will be looked upon by history as the start of another golden age for Disney, where they get away from Eisner’s money-driven churn-out-another-crappy-sequel attitude and back to making quality entertainment for everyone.
:eek:
Yeah, reading the article in the WP yesterday I was struck by how little it looked like Disney was buying Pixar and how much it appeared that senior Pixar management was moving into top slots at Disney.
It’ll be interesting to see if Jobs et al can re-enliven Disney and give them some juice.
I realise this is a matter of opinion and probably more suited to Cafe Society, but which Pixar movies would you rate as “feel-good animated crap”? Finding Nemo was probably their weakest {and most “Disneyesque”} movie, and that was only because it was very good rather than excellent or brilliant. I know tastes vary, but to me dismissing Pixar movies like that is akin to saying, “I hate movies”.
Thankfully, oatmeal does not easily traverse through the nose.
You know, it is possible to enjoy Disney/Pixar products without encouraging these Gomers by raising sales figures.
Just buy your DVDs used. The pictures are just as good. And the total # of DVDs sold is lower. And it is all legal & honest & stuff.
Just thought I’d point that one out. 
Well, it has been unusually dry, and it was a bit chilly this morning…
I find that an amusing statement coming from someone whose username is taken from a Peanuts character.
Hah! That was my splort moment of the day.
I’d rate all their movies as “feel-good animated crap”. Toy Story (1 & 2); Monsters, Inc; A Bug’s Life; The Incredibles - sorry, they did nothing for me. Maybe if I was 8 years old or a Mormon or something I’d find them life-affirming; as it is, I just saw them as visual spectacles with basic kiddie-movie formulae for plots. I don’t hate movies - love 'em, in fact. For whatever reason, though, my enjoyment of a film generally seems to be in inverse proportion to the number of product tie-ins and merchandising deals it generates. Not that I hate something just because it becomes a franchise - the things I hate just often (if not always) happen to fall into that category.
Ah, but my name’s really more a play on “Snoop Doggy Dog” (I know he doesn’t go by that anymore, but he did when I signed up).
Disney has been making some better stuff. I am looking forward to Pirates 2 and 3. Though my wife has been working on them. Disney’s been doing some things differently. Contracting my wife’s company was one of them. What my wife’s company does is manage the content for franchises. Specifically in this case Pirates and Fairies. Disney has some insane parallel corporate structure where communication between divisions is kind of prohibitive. So what her company does is make sure that the video game division, the film division, the publishing division all have continuity between their storylines. I’ve become less and less worried about the idea of megalithic corporations recently as I realized that when a corporate structure becomes of a certain size it’s individual divisions become almost seperate entities anyway. The way lobbying has worked for years now is that industries in and of themselves have become trusts. You can see this in the way the oil industry, and the pharmaceutical industry operates. Intel now that Mac is on Intel is going to be dominating the Microprocessor market. It seems like industries are just consolidating under one umbrella, and are loosening the fiction that they are seperate entities. I mean what’s the difference between being owned by similar funds and using overarching lobbying groups anyway? So Disney will dominate the children’s market, and Intel will dominate Microprocessors, but so what? Their corporate culture internally will still be stratified, and there will still be power struggles within that affect the way things happen.
From what my wife tells me, apparently Disney is a lot of soulless corporate executives that have meetings about having meetings, and largely get in the way of the creative process out of ineptitude rather than malevolence.
Erek