See it can be done...I found Ei$ner's replacement

[DisneyKidds]

Crusader and I (along with others) were having a discussion which I think was moving along quite well......and then you decide to crash it.

Awwww HB, it happens all the time on all sorts of topics from many different viewpoints . Don't take it personally. As for that whole ignore issue.............I always have found that a bit childish. Kinda like covering your ears and saying "na na na, I can't hear you". I know of one person who put me on ignore, who knows if there have been others.................but I don't care.

Matt..................

But certainly it is within the realm of reason that a management team could be found that would have a vastly superior philosophy to the Eisner-led crew we currently have, isn't it?

Sure is................and I hope it happens soon. I think it will happen. However, it won't necessarily change things in regards to what Scoop said about some posters always finding the chink in the armor. Unless Baron disagrees, I submit there is only ONE true Philosophy of which he speaks. There is only ONE problem because THE Philosophy is not the guiding principle. There can be a thousand philosophies that lie somewhere between ME's and Walt's, all of which will be better than ME's but won't quite be Walt's......................and that will always leave room for some "element" to exist.

As I said to crusader above, its not really about the "survival" of the company. Its about a continuation of excellence. Some maybe satisfied with Disney merely remaining in existence, and that's fine. It is after all, just a company. But some want more, and that's fine too. Very similar to us football fans. Some view 8-8 as "better than it could have been", and others view is as "not as good as it could have been". Neither is wrong, just different viewpoints.

And this gets back to my question of what all this Philosophy talk, or lack thereof, really means............a question most of use are sure to never agree to an answer on. Walt's Disney was the undefeated Dolphins, we might all agree on that. Today's Disney.............well some might see it as this years lowly Bears, Chargers, Cardinals, or (dare I say) Raiders while others view it as the Patriots or Cowboys (teams with problems that are achieving a good measure of success with what they have to work with). I think that Disney today is doing more than just surviving. I think Disney today is still excellent, although not near the level of excellence of (insert glory year). Unfortunately such statements usually lead to comments about the color of one's glasses or what shakeable trinkets they own, more than intellectual discussion on the subject. That is the nature of these boards lately................and doesn't leave me (or others it seems) too excited to get into it. Hope summed it up very well..............

This is why I don't post as much, there is no interest in even knowing the thought process behind other people's postings.

......................and it happens on both sides.

You can take the position that they are symptoms you are willing to accept, as you apparently have, but everybody else can't be expected to do the same.

No they can't..................and I have no idea where they go from here. I don't think the Philosophy they yearn for is coming back, not completely. If you look at where we were a year ago vs today (uh oh, a partial list ) we now have M:S, Philharmagic, Wishes, E:E, Soarin, Moteurs Action, a revamped "NY" Street, unconfirmed rumors regarding other additions to AK and the 20K Lagoon site, etc. There has been much added and much announced, and rumors in the pipeline. Sure, they may address symptoms and may not be a fundemental change in Philosophy..............but if this is all that you are going to get (not that it isn't a lot) and it isn't acceptable I really don't know what you do.

 

[HB2K]

Awwww HB, it happens all the time on all sorts of topics from many different viewpoints . Don't take it personally.

Kidds-

This is different. Scoop decides to eulogize his screename here, and in doing so he takes multiple swipes at me (both blatantly & subtely), causes about a page and a half of off-topic posts and acts like he's the messiah.

Hope pointed it out quite nicely. Scoop is taking liberties in speaking for some people's silence. He also ignores others which have been quiet because it doesn't fit his eulogy. He even goes so far as to solicit posters from this site to leave and go elsewhere, which as I said before is probably a violation of this site's terms of acceptable practices...

This isn't a normal discussion which took an original discussion off topic.

 

[DisneyKidds]

This isn't a normal discussion which took an original discussion off topic.

You may be right, but such cranky flareups happen every so often and most see them for what they are . They rear their heads in all kinds of places.

Unfortunately, cranky flareups combined with a noticeable decline in posting is a little more unusual.........................but not completely unusual.

Anywho................feel free to focus on my beliefs that Disney, despite the lack of Philosophy, is still excellent. Crusader and I will carry that banner and I'm willing to discuss so long as snow globes and rose colored glasses aren't in the vocab .

 

[HB2K]

OK Kidds...you've got a deal provided element is left out as well.

What do you think of my last statement to Crusader? While I agree that the company is producing some quality products (ironically these are the ones farthest away from Anahiem), the number of crappy ones are making the general customer either miss the good stuff or work harder to find it.

Agree? Disagree?

 

[DisneyKidds]

OK Kidds...you've got a deal provided element is left out as well.

Just for the record.............I only referenced element in quotation marks . Gone it is.

Agree? Disagree?

Yes.















OK, only kidding. I'll get back to you.

 

[crusader]

Disneyland - Anahiem for one. How does the condition of that park inspire it's local guests to put their trust in the fact that WDW is in better shape?

Good question. WDW has a distinct advantage in offerings and does an excellent job marketing itself. You can easily distinguish the two just by previewing the free vacation video.

I look at DL as an aging demo used as a prototype to develop the World. The Magic Kingdom does have visible signs of wear as well but they seem to appear less prominent within its' surroundings.

Disneyland has matured into a local park. What that means and how that impacts the company's decisions are not simple challenges to solve. You are looking at a major concern.

How does joe schmoe who saw the trailer for Disney's Jungle Book 2 and decided to go to the theaters only to be disappointed see a trailer for Brother Bear and make the destinction that Brother Bear is Disney's "Good Stuff"?

By using the same techniques whenever he chooses any picture at the theatre. If he likes Disney, he'll have more than a Jungle Book 2 on his measuring stick. If he has a young audience at home, he'll probably utilize a few media outlets and decide based on how he feels at that moment.

I had to really reflect on my own habits to gain a better understanding of one's behavior here. (subjective as always)
I personally have paid to see the following animated films at the box office: (I apologize in they aren't in chronological order)

The Little Mermaid
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
Snow White (rereleased)
The Lion King
Atlantis
A Bug's Life
Shrek
Monster's Inc.
Finding Nemo

Any psychologists out there?

The first 4 I took my daughters to (now grown). The last 5 I took my son to (now a teenager).'

After Atlantis, I subconsciously avoided anything resembling this type of feature because of its' complexity. (ie Treasure Planet)

I also inadvertantly shifted to CGI.

So to quickly recap:
Children played a critical role in my overall patronage but CGI affected the more recent purchase endeavors.

 

[HB2K]

Good question. WDW has a distinct advantage in offerings and does an excellent job marketing itself. You can easily distinguish the two just by previewing the free vacation video.

I look at DL as an aging demo used as a prototype to develop the World. The Magic Kingdom does have visible signs of wear as well but they seem to appear less prominent within its' surroundings.

Disneyland has matured into a local park. What that means and how that impacts the company's decisions are not simple challenges to solve. You are looking at a major concern.

Crusader...

So the Trip Planning Video for the Disneyland resort in Anahiem clearly illustrates it's run down condition...thus if the average consumer is trying to decide which park to go to and uses the Disney marketing material to guide that decision, it will be easy for them to differenciate between the chicken #### and the chicken salad?

And what about the people who don't frequent Disney fan boards? If by chance or demographics their first Disney theme park experince is DisneyLand : Anahiem won't they be pre-dispositioned to think of the park as a representative sample of everything the company offeres theme park wise?

After Atlantis, I subconsciously avoided anything resembling this type of feature because of its' complexity. (ie Treasure Planet)

And you don't feel there are some who after watching JB2 subconsciously avoided Disney's latest release because they felt JB2 wasn't worth the money, so no other Disney movie must be either? You made a decision about future movies, even if subconciously, based on a single film...so is it that far of a reach to think others do as well?

 

[raidermatt]

Unless Baron disagrees, I submit there is only ONE true Philosophy of which he speaks. There is only ONE problem because THE Philosophy is not the guiding principle. There can be a thousand philosophies that lie somewhere between ME's and Walt's, all of which will be better than ME's but won't quite be Walt's......................and that will always leave room for some "element" to exist.

Even though I sometimes do it, I don't like to try to guess what somebody else would say, so I'll only answer from my pov. If a new regime came to power that had a significantly "better" philosophy, or if the current regime actually improved its philosophy, I most certainly would acknowledge that the direction had improved.

That doesn't mean I'd throw up my arms to the sky and say all is 100% right, though. To go back to the football analogy, we all want Super Bowl victories. If our team goes from 2-14 to 6-10, or from 8-8 to 11-5 and a playoff loss, we'd have to acknowledge the improvement. But at the same time, if our interest was truly in making the team the best it could be, we'd have to also point out the issues that still needed to be addressed.

This is all hypothetical of course, but I don't think its really fair to say that Baron (or any other member of the "element" gang ) would or would not acknowledge a real improvement in philosophy were it to occur, because there really isn't much agreement that the actual philosophy has definitely changed.

We've seen times when the end results seemed to be getting better. The animated films of the late 80's and early-mid 90's, attractions like Indy, Splash and Tower... But in retrospect, it doesn't appear that there was any real philosophy shift from the top, but instead periods where things clicked despite what was coming from above.

So far, this spate of attraction announcements appears to be the same type of thing. To get back to our football analogy, its like a poorly managed team. Or perhaps a better way to say it is a "less than excellently" managed team. They won't have the same record every year. Sometimes they'll go 7-9 or 8-8, other years maybe even 10-6, or even 12-4 (cough, Bears, cough). There's a lot of moving parts, and sometimes they'll line up better than other times. But you'll only see real improvement if the direction truly changes. That doesn't mean every year will be a 16-0 Super Bowl season. But the overall chance of success will be greater at any given time than it otherwise would have been.

So when we say nothing has changed, that's not meant literally, meaning every new attrction is Dinorama. It means the direction is still flawed, and over the long haul, that's what really matters.

While I agree that the company is producing some quality products (ironically these are the ones farthest away from Anahiem), the number of crappy ones are making the general customer either miss the good stuff or work harder to find it.

I think this is definitely happening in some cases. That doesn't mean that every person who saw JB2 was turned off from seeing Brother Bear. Just that it does make a difference, just like it hurt Mermaid, and helped Pocahontas.

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by HB2K
And you don't feel there are some who after watching JB2 subconsciously avoided Disney's latest release because they felt JB2 wasn't worth the money, so no other Disney movie must be either?

I dunno...do you think the folks who watched Son of Flubber in 1963 stayed away from Mary Poppins in 1964?

 

[raidermatt]

Yes its true that DL is much more of a local park, but that isn't the direction Disney is trying to take the resort. Either they have made a colossal error in thinking they could make it more of a resort (not another WDW, just more of a resort), or they blew the execution. I'll go with the execution, which involves DCA and the state of DL, but either way, they've made mistakes they shouldn't have made... mistakes they wouldn't have made if they had the right philosophy, or "mission", or "strategy", whatever.

 

[HB2K]

Bear-

I never saw son of flubber, but yes I think it could have been possible, but not as prominent as it is today. But yes it could very well have been possible. I don't know as much of Disney's history during that time period, but I'm guessing that there wasn't as much crap coming from the company at that point, so it's an apples to apples comparison, but I'll conceed it.

 

[raidermatt]

I dunno...do you think the folks who watched Son of Flubber in 1963 stayed away from Mary Poppins in 1964?

Very possibly, though I think it was easier to make a distinction between those two types of movies than between two animated features. One was a slapstick comedy, the other a fantasy musical.

But yeah, there were some issues there, and I think Disney eventually figured that out.

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by DisneyKidds
Walt's Disney was the undefeated Dolphins, we might all agree on that. Today's Disney.............well some might see it as this years lowly Bears, Chargers, Cardinals, or (dare I say) Raiders while others view it as the Patriots or Cowboys (teams with problems that are achieving a good measure of success with what they have to work with).

I'd say a better analogy than the undefeated Dolphins would be that Walt's Disney was John Wooden's UCLA teams, winning 7 championships in a row, in part due to Wooden's coaching, but also due to the fact that he had the best talent around, and no true competitors. There could never be such a dominating team again.

 

[HB2K]

But Bear....John Wooden didn't let his talent just run off to the competition....and if they clung to their philosophy or hadn't lost their way they wouldn't be struggling as mightily....

 

[crusader]

Either they have made a colossal error in thinking they could make it more of a resort (not another WDW, just more of a resort), or they blew the execution.

You're closer to the helm than I am but honestly, I think it is a combination of the two. CA has only made the situation worse. You're looking at a half billion face-lift for starters which does not guarantee a local response. The market is the real hurdle.

HB2K -

You didn't get my point on that video analogy! Man, it was lame anyway so nevermind!

ok -

back to that subconscious state of mind..................sure, there could be a joe shmoe out there who paid to see JB2 (anybody care to come out of the closet here?) and that one mediocre film had a negative impact on his perception of animation.

That is not what happened in my situation. Atlantis steered me away from Treasure Planet and Sinbad and maybe even Lilo and Stitch but it isn't because of Disney's quality. I'd just rather pay to see other movies and now that my kids are part of an older audience I have that ability.

 

[Peter Pirate]

This latest turn has interested me.

Disney under Walt was no Wooden like experience. He (Walt) experienced many failures and took the Company to the brink on numerous occasions so it is patently unfair to suggest perfection as Walt's legacy and then compare Eisner's real record against that.

HBK, you continually speak of the abandonment of Disney's talent, but I think Lilo & Bear (& even TP to a degree) poke giant holes in that theory. It isn't to say that talented people haven't left or that Disney hasn't made some clunkers, but I submit circumstance and just plain bad business decisions were the cause more than the vacated talent...Talent can always be replaced and as I've said many times, in an artistic field (like animated film) new talent is better than old talent anyday...

As for DL. We've been the past two summers and it still wowed us although it obvious that BIG mistakes have been made (DCA)and situations have been allowed to fester (BTMRR & Tomorrowland), but DL has no problem that isn't insurmountable and with a new President I'd like to think it may be starting...

 

[HB2K]

Peter-

Do you realize the talent behind Lilo & Stitch (Dean & Dubois) are no longer under the employ of the Walt Disney Company?

And I can't tell for sure, but weren't Florida's Feature Animators given walking papers, or at least notice of these coming after Bear? I could be wrong on this one so I'll wait to see if anyone else chimes in.

And surely you could not have forgotten about the reported blood bath at Disney Imagineering?

I do agree with you about the saint hood sometimes bestowed on Walt. He was an entrepenur to the 100th degree, which means he was bound to have his share of failures, and I'm glad you pointed it out...but he always tried for the home run. As much as people sometimes rant and rave about the company being happy with some of their products being just a base hit, it's the home runs which define a company's image.

 

[bretsyboo]

If you don't think previous movies effect people who go to see the next movie, well then you are what we in the business ferer to as a nut.

Consider the 1st Austin Powers, 54 million in theatres. The 2nd? 54 million in it's FIRST week. The first one got great word of mouth that caused people to slowly decide to see the film, either in theatres or on video...the second gained 54 million in it's 1st weekend solely because of the first one. I think we can all agree that a vast majority of people who see sequals have seen the first one, so that is undeniable. Is Disney the same?

Yes, why? Disney promotes its animated features like they are sequals. Every preview has a line like "the next major animated feature from Walt Disney...." They shoot for name recognition like you wouldn't believe. So it people go see hurcules, and tarzan, and leave disappointed...the Disney name isn't going to move them to see Emporers New Groove.

There ARE differences between the two of course, but to think that people aren't affected by the preceeding movies is just silly. Mermaid would have fared far better after lion king...but there seems to be the attitude it did poorly where it was, and that's not true, because Disney films do stand on their own to a large degree. Put to todays numbers mermaid would have grossed 140 million if brother bear does that, you can expect many shocked faces.

As for the company, the overall philosophy is gone, and for those who don't think it can come back are crazy. Of course it can! It's a very simple philosophy that if you give the guest everything they want, have it reasonably priced, and don't think they are idiots, you will have success...that's not such a far fetched idea that no one would ever do it is it?

I think steps are to be celeberated within the company. If the parks are run well, but nothing else is, then the parks should be celebrated...which leads me to say this. Disney pens are the BEST. They write fantastically and I get Disney pens at any possible time, because they are the greatest pens I have ever used. Huzah!

And "wishes" rules...

 

[crusader]

Bretsyboo -

I'll give you that people are affected by a preceding movie and less inclined to ante up the next time. What also occurs is a "wait and see" attitude. Even if a string of flops is put out in a series, the public remains cautiously optimistic that a good movie will eventually come around. They may become better informed and usually rely on more than a soundbite to make a commitment but there is always another round.

Disney's success in mingling the good, the bad and the ugly is no better or worse than any other major production studio. The general public understands this having been the star witnesses themselves.

The reputation this company has within the film industry continues to solidify itself because they have the ability to demonstrate quality entertainment to each and every generation time and time again.

 

[jlambrig]

Originally posted by raidermatt
But yeah, there were some issues there, and I think Disney eventually figured that out.

I don't agree with that at all. Disney has been more than willing to produce crap along with quality for years. Son of Flubber is a nice example. While I enjoyed the Kurt Russell as college kid movies when I was younger, I saw one recently and couldn't understand the attraction. Same with the Love Bug sequels. Wasn't The Black Hole Disney's? SuperDad with Bob Crane.

Some of these have the exact same quality standard as the animated crud you are parading for public flogging here. Disney does not produce only masterpieces and I distinctly remember reading that Disney expected to make profits for multiple re-releases of their films. That includes the Snow Whites, the Bambis, etc. They always had the intention of cashing in multiple times with profits possibly not occuring until a subsequent release. Why is it absolutely necessary that every single film be the herculean effort to match The Lion King?

While I don't disagree that, if you could somehow do that, it would be remarkable and have great positive impact on the Disney brand, you wouldn't get many films made. There is something to be said for making profits on the JB2s and the Piglet's Big Movies because it keeps the Disney name out there for the new Disney customer, i.e. the 3 or 4 year old who is going to see their first movie. Instead of having to wait 2-4 years for the next big Disney feature that hopefully is the next Lion King, I can take my daughter to see JB2 and Piglet. You think they suck, she doesn't. She is now a Disney cutomer and uses her allowance to buy things from the Disney Store.

In the ideal world, should every product be the best effort possible? Yes. In reality, it isn't. Even under Walt it wasn't. Walt just had the right goal in mind all the time. Eisner doesn't. But more importantly, the Disney board doesn't. He won't be gone until they are. They won't be gone until the institutional investors band togther to oust them. Does he pander to the analyst? Absolutely. Every company does except for HB2K's great Costco example. But so does Southwest, a great example of how you can please the customer and the analyst and the shareholder by sticking to a philosophy formulated by one man.

I applaud the efforts people put forth to point out how the philoophy has suffered tremendously. They are right , no question. But I also agree that there is a lot to be thankful for and appreciate. But the key point is, what someone thinks is a degredation in Disney's offerings, someone else doesn't. And neither one is wrong. As long as we can agree to what DK and HB2K proposed, and leave the categorization out of it, then this board should continue to be an excellent source of debate for me and others.

Where am I HB2K? Right here.