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Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

economist.com

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Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#51

Post by Jtsummers »

freshyill wrote: post #41

Not going to read it due to the spoilers, but I give Disney a lot of credit. They've done pretty well by Pixar, and exceedingly well by Marvel. Disney is certainly a corporate behemoth out to make a buck, but I really believe that it's accompany that understands these properties, and wants people to love them. Disney knows fans will not continue to flock to prequel-quality Star Wars films. Even the die-hard fans have…

If you're worried about the spoiler that some people seem to think is in the article, skip the first paragraph. It merely starts the narrative, it doesn't contain any content pertinent to the discussion of the article beyond that it may or may not contain a spoiler.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#52

Post by PhasmaFelis »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #18
codemac wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.

Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to l…

If the impression you got was "anger is bad and abstract thought is risky," then I'm not sure what movie you watched, but it definitely wasn't Inside Out.

You're mistaken about "anger" being purely a cultural/linguistic construction, and about the authenticity of Inside Out's psychological model in general: the film was inspired by (and admittedly somewhat simplifies) solid psychological research, particularly the work of Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner, whom Pixar brought on as consultants.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#53

Post by isolate »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #40
zekevermillion wrote: post #30

There was some magic to the 80s childhood movies -- Star Wars, ET, Last Starfighter, Goonies -- that I don't think can be bottled. Whatever stories hold that place for our kids, I don't think they will be the same movies that did it for us. There's just something about seeing Star Wars in the context of that time, and it's not the same as seeing it now.

It's because you were (presumably) a kid back then - and everything was much more magical then because it was your whole world and imagination. Just like old people now state how much better the 50s were, because that's when they were children. I pretty much discount anytime someone says "It was better when I was a kid."

I know what you mean, but sometimes it isn't pure nostalgia. I like hand-drawn non-CG animation a lot, but there aren't a lot of animated movies coming out now that have it. And cultures can change dramatically too. I liked it better when people weren't so distracted by their cellphones. (This is a fairly small change.)

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#54

Post by knughit »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21
brazzledazzle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people are probably going to want to yell at me but I think it needed to be remade. And I say this as a fan. I don't think a non-fan would pour over Star Wars vehicle cross sections. What they did was remake it in the best way possible given their constraints (old diehard fans) and I think it was done smartly and tastefully. Done this way you get new fans without losing a lot of them to appeasing old…

Except for that it wasn't supposed to be a remake, rather this was just a case of everyone involved phoning it in. I think Andrew O'Hehir said it best, "it's the Citibank of movies, literally too big to fail." Right now everyone has been brainwashed into loving it because of Disney's billion-dollar marketing spend. But much like Bush's popularity after 9/11, sooner or later reality is going to catch up. As a kid part…

The books and TV shows and video games and their consumers disagree with you

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#55

Post by LukeShu »

Jtsummers wrote: post #44
tunesmith wrote: post #7

FYI, the first part of the article spoils some minor things about the new star wars film, for those who haven't seen it. I bailed out of reading it after that.

I'm pretty sure there are no spoilers in that first paragraph. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of what's referenced was available in pre-release materials (trailers, press events, and such). I just saw the movie and just read this article, it's less spoilery (in my opinion, not spoilery at all) than listening to coworkers in the lead up to it who were making conjectures based on their knowledge of other Star Wars media…

Pre-release materials are the worst, and often contain awful spoilers. I intentionally avoided them for Star Wars. During the previews when I saw Star Wars, one of the people I went with did his best to ignore the Captain America trailer, because he didn't want it spoiled at all. You watch enough ads/pre-release materials to decide you want to see it, then once you decide to see it, you ignore everything you can.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#56

Post by PhasmaFelis »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #38
cjhveal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine. While our emotions certainly are complex and misunderstood, I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all these little people in their heads. It's a fun concept that takes som…

>I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine. And yet the first thing to come to many children's minds when shown a clown fish or French cuisine is Nemo and Ratatouille. > I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all th…

> I've met people who think the movie helped them "understand themselves better" whether or not that is actually true.

What makes you better qualified than them to understand what's happening in their heads?

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#57

Post by oldmanjay »

LukeShu wrote: post #46
beedogs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the name of a single character now counts as a spoiler, I don't think I want to live on this planet anymore.

It's more than just the name; the first part of the sentence is far more spoiler-y than the name at the end.

Spoiler alert: franchise soft reboots do the same thing as the original franchise because that's what puts ("record" number, in this case) butts in seats.

I just ruined A LOT of movies from here forward.

Re: Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece

#60

Post by olewhalehunter »

lfowles wrote: post #47
olewhalehunter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure that Inside Out was meant to be an accurate depiction of our emotions any more than Finding Nemo is meant as an accurate portrayal of marine ecosystems, or Ratatouille of French cuisine. And yet the first thing to come to many children's minds when shown a clown fish or French cuisine is Nemo and Ratatouille. > I don't think that children watching the movie will really grow up believing they have all th…

> And yet the first thing to come to many children's minds when shown a clown fish or French cuisine is Nemo and Ratatouille. Is that a bad thing?

Disney having a monopoly on children's psychological and cultural associations is a bad thing, yes.
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