The Disney Problem

It's no secret that Walt Disney Animation Studios is in the middle of a second Renaissance right now. Whether it began with a specific feature (my vote is The Princess And The Frog) or with John Lasseter's promotion to Chief Creative Officer during production on Meet The Robinsons is still ambiguous. But the studio's last several features have maintained a consistent standard of quality and detail that is encroaching on Pixar's reputation more and more with each project. Zootopia (my favorite since Wreck-It Ralph) may have just upped the ante by throwing an eerily timely allegory for prejudice into the mix.

But is there a downside to this Renaissance? About one year ago, Big Hero 6 stole the Best Animated Feature Oscar from Cartoon Saloon's Song Of The Sea and arguably the best Dreamworks film in too long, How To Train Your Dragon 2. Big Hero 6 may have given us a vivid mashup of Tokyo and San Fransisco to go with its solid storytelling, but did it really need to win?

In an age where there are more feature animation studios and distribution companies competing against Disney than ever before, why do families still equate good animated features exclusively with the Disney brand? To be clear, this problem does not exist in television. Disney Television may also be blooming at the moment, but when Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and adult-oriented shows like South Park and The Simpsons (the latter of whom groomed Zootopia director Rich Moore) did not rule the playing field, Hanna-Barbera did. There's just no competition.

The first puzzle pieces to sort out are the qualities that link good Disney features. Some of these reflect a long-standing house style: a saturated color palette. Body language characterized by strong poses and emotional clarity. Character designs based in anatomical reality, (Walt Disney pushed this really hard). And of course, wide-eyed wonder (I actually have trouble telling Anna and Judy Hopps apart). There's also the need to adhere to traditional three-act structure in a detailed yet concise manner. The conflict is uncomplicated. The protagonist signposts his or her goal at every turn. The second act break where all hope seems lost is made deadly clear.

These aesthetic and storytelling choices inform the other less tangible qualities that have an awful lot to do with tone. The air is optimistic and light-hearted. There is rarely a looming sense that things will end badly for our heroes. And of course, even the darkest scene in the film is tempered with a great deal of entertainment value, some aimed at kids and some aimed at adults. The formula has A) worked before, and B) worked consistently, so beyond the studio's recent variety of subject matter, there is little reason to shake things up.

Pixar doesn't veer too far from this model, but there was a time when Lasseter felt the need for the studio to go beyond *insert talking animal/object here*. When Brad Bird began The Incredibles, everything changed: the character designs pushed exaggeration. The humor grew more sophisticated. The conflict often spoke directly to adults and left kids out for minutes at a time. And this sensibility seeped into the trio of excellence known as Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up, but aesthetic, structure, and tone of each of those films were still wholly different from one another.

Studios like Dreamworks Animation are similar to Pixar in that they vary up an established formula slightly without quite breaking the chain. While Disney makes sure every pose tells you exactly how the character is feeling in plain terms, Hiccup and Astrid's gestures toward one another during the opening of How To Train Your Dragon 2 are full of subtlety and uncertainty. And where Disney usually employs framing that moves the action toward clear vanishing points, HTTYD2 is full of complex, shallow compositions that feature a lot of left-to-right, background action: there's more than one story taking place over the course of one shot.

If you're an parent wondering what other animated features you can take your family to outside of your familiar niche, look no further than GKids: they're an American distribution company bringing a wide variety of international films to cinemas, and they all look and feel completely different from one another. If you're an adult looking for animated features just for you...well, you'll have to delve into old and recent history. Movies like Watership Down, Mary And Max, Rocks In My Pockets, and Pink Floyd - The Wall are all animated because they are a natural fit for their mature content, and had absolutely nothing to do with a family-friendly marketing imperative.

It's very difficult to discuss the issues surrounding mainstream Disney features without making it sounds like I dislike them: far from it. I adore them. They have a welcome place on my radar. I just don't want them to be the only thing on my radar, and neither should deserving viewers like yourself. I hope good feature animation can follow in television's footsteps and come to mean not just one thing, but anything. Any tone or any look for any race, any gender, and especially any age.