Jim on Film: Disney Thermometer - Nov 28, 2005

Jim on Film: Disney Thermometer
Page 4 of 4


Chicken Little
(c) Disney

-25 degrees (-50 with windchill)
Walt Disney Feature Animation storytelling—In several columns written prior to 2004, I wrote that all the Disney films in the cannon were great. I believed that films like Brother Bear and Atlantis: The Lost Empire would someday find an audience, and just as Bambi and Sleeping Beauty would do, they would earn their place alongside the studio’s greatest films as people’s own biases and expectation of what animation should do and be were forgotten and the quality of these films would finally rise above. I believed that even when things were bad at Walt Disney Feature Animation, the process of creation would rise above all the problems and give us something as charming as The Emperor’s New Groove or as exciting as Brother Bear.

It was with a level of sadness that I sat through Chicken Little, watching a once proud studio resort to derivative humor, structure, and storytelling techniques. In the good old days, animation studios copied the best, Walt Disney Feature Animation. Now, with contemporary pop music, mock openings, and in general tone and comedic style, Walt Disney Feature Animation is being led to copy the mediocre standards set forth by other studios. I’m not altogether sure what has changed so that the visionary people behind Aladdin, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, and The Emperor’s New Groove would be reduced to derivative drivel, but it’s saddening and disheartening. I’m happy that Chicken Little is finding such great success, but I’m sad that instead of leading, the studio is requiring its artists to follow. Instead of finding a new way, they are creating copies of copies. The legacy that began with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been reduced to Chicken Little.

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-- Jim Miles

A graduate of Northwestern College in St. Paul, Jim Miles is an educator, play director, and writer. Recently, he produced a workshop reading for Fire in Berlin, an original musical work for which he is writing the book and lyrics (www.fireinberlin.com). In addition to his column for LaughingPlace.com, he is currently revising an untitled literary mystery/suspense novel; is working on a second musical work, a comedy entitled City of Dreams; and has developed a third musical work which he has yet to announce. After having created theatre curriculum and directed at the high school level, he also writes and directs plays and skits for his church. 

The opinions expressed by Jim, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.

-- Posted November 28 2005

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