It’s not enough to make me watch the previews on your dvd’s once…you gotta make me do it twice?? You make so that to go start the movie I have to go to chapter selection. That sucks. Do you really think your damn previews will make me buy them?
You handle my seven yr old that gets frustrated trying to start the movie.
Go suck an egg.
Yeah…Disney Sucks!!! 
But the previews, Jerry - the previews!
Disney rules. Comply!
Esprix
Ah, Disney, world champion producer of “sequels nobody asked for” that suck big-time.
Lion King II
Pocahontas II
Lady and the Tramp II
Aladdin II
Beauty and the Beast II
101 Dalmatians II
Little Mermaid II
Hunchback of Notre Dame II
They have no shame. None.
This from a company whose founder, when asked to do a sequel to the hit “Three Little Pigs,” said, “I don’t believe in making sequels. You can top pigs with pigs.”
One of my favorite pieces of irony. (Apparently, you can top other things-but only when they go straight to video!)
I’ll add this to my list of reasons why Disney sucks. Score!!!
Actually… yes.
And who then went on to produce FOUR sequels to “The Three Little Pigs.” The irony belongs to Walt Disney himself, not the current company.
FOUR sequels - what were they?
“The Big Bad Wolf” (1934)
“Three Little Wolves” (1936)
“The Practical Pig” (1939)
“The Thrifty Pig” (1941) which in fairness was just a reworking of the original short made for the National Film Board of Canada. Instead of bricks, the third pigs’ house is made of Canadian War Bonds impervious against the attacks of an obviously Nazi Big Bad Wolf.
And in fairness also, these sequels were made as a response to public demand, not as a result of trying to push a “pre-sold” product on the public, as the current company is trying to do.
[Edited by Eutychus55 on 07-07-2001 at 06:37 AM]
DDG. Let me relate me own anti-Disney story. This is one of the most absolute shameless low-down cheap plug for sales I’ve ever seen a company do.
Does anyone remember the Russian skaters Gordieva and Grinkov, who were also married to each other? Grinkov was the guy who, while very young, up and died one day. Very sudden and very unexpected. This happened in 1996, IIRC.
Well, they had filmed a special for Disney-owned ABC and as it turns out, this would be the last public performance of the two of them skating together. Disney-owned ABC hyped this up to no end. “Watch our figure-skating special! Last time to see Gordieva and Grinkov skate together!” I mean really milking this guy’s death for ratings.
So my sister and I watch the special (I was living with her at the time). And the announcer says that G & G had “chosen” to skate to music from Disney’s now-available-on-video film Pocahontas. So they’re skating to the score from Pocahontas, when the powers that be decide that during the scene, they’ll splice in clips of the movie. This is annoying enough, since I tuned in to watch the last public performance of G & G, not clips of Pocahontas, but then, during the musical climax, they cut to a full Pocahontas montage, ignoring the fact that people may want to see the skaters perform publicly for the last time.
This just seemed really low and tasteless to me. Hype up the last public performace of World Champion, gold medal winning skaters, playing up Grinkov’s unexpected death and then using that time as a commericial for the now-available-on-video Poca-fucking-hontas.
There are many options in encoding a DVD.
The most evil path to take is to slap a bunch of unskippable crap in front of the menu. Disney’s not the only company who’s done this. If you could follow the paper trail of memos and meetings, I’m sure you could finally find someone, somewhere, who bears the final responsibility for giving the go-ahead to inflict this on people. At the end of all, I like to think that that person will stand before the Pearly Gates.
Saint Peter will look up from his ledger patiently after waving through a very nice atheist couple, who look pleasantly surprised. Smiling, Mr. Unskippable steps up, fully confident, faith unwavering in his worthiness. His church has named a scholarship to their private school after him, things like that.
Saint Peter jerks a thumb to the left, where a singed firepole plunges straight down through a hole in the clouds. All the way down. He looks a little annoyed when Mr. Unskippable just gapes. “Don’t look at me like that! Two minutes of previews, one billion times over in your life, that’s two billion minutes, that’s…Three thousand eight hundred and five years before you even get considered for probationary release out of Purgatory and into Limbo for observation.”
“But…but…sales…”
“All right! Let’s make it four thousand years! You wanna go for five?”
“But…my charities…”
“Five it is! Come on, let’s go for ten! Give me an excuse, just give me an excuse, please.”
Mr. Unskippable shuffles, head hanging, to the Purgatory Pole. The small child behind him in line, she’d died too early from very stubborn leukemia, looks at St. Peter with a smile. “Unskippable previews make Baby Jesus cry,” she says solemnly.
The gatekeeper of Heaven nods. “Yes they do, Virginia. Yes they do. But I’m afraid that you said some very hurtful things to your nurses. That would give you a couple years of Purgatory…”
Her eyes widen, but Peter smiles at her, and shouts after Mr. Unskippable’s dwindling scream, “…but she gets to skip it!”
The end.
hehehehehehehehee…
i just love that.
That should be 102 Dalmations. 
But yes, you guys are correct. i remember when I first got my DVD player. I could just stick the disc in and go straight to the menu screen (after the FBI warning anyway). No I am forced to sit here and watch these frickin’ previews that I don’t want to see. Sometimes I can’t even skip them. All of my other functions are blocked out leaving me powerless. I keep track of which studios do this and I make a note not to buy their products. Speak with your dollars fellow consumers, otherwise we will be their helpless slaves.
Um … we already are. You want a copy of Snow White on DVD? You’re not going to get it anywhere else.
But this is really an old rant anyway and one that has already been corrected. We used to complain about this a lot over at rec.arts.disney.animation and tried to get people to write Disney about it. I’m not sure if it was because of our input or not, but nowadays, any new Disney DVD that I’ve seen has skippable previews.
My hellfire and damnation fantasies aside (fundie porn IS fun!), Disney’s not monolithic evil.
Once upon a time, there was an anime film by the name of Princess Mononoke. It was pretty highly regarded as a fine work, and the DVD release was highly anticipated among many.
Then, doom. Rumors came, and then rumors were confirmed, that Disney was going to release it with the English dub audio track only, and not the original Japanese. This was not received well.
Petitions and letter-writing campaigns started. World-weary naysayers spoke up, saying things often like, “You fucking morons. Get this straight, Di$ney doesn’t care about your letters or petitions. They don’t give a shit how well anime sells. In fact, they’re probably deliberately trying to kill its sales so their own crap sells more! So go ahead, go ahead and write your little letterkins, it won’t make a damn bit of difference! They’re evil! EEEEEEVILLLL”
As the initial planned release date grew closer, hopes began dwindling. Then, an announcement. Disney was delaying the DVD release by several months to make some changes. Most notably–to include the original audio track. And they did (and it’s fine film even for those of us who cringe at much of anime fandom).
Now, the evilness is still debatable. It’s simply not hopeless.
I still enjoy my hellfire and brimstone fantasies, though.