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Source: @Tencent Animation World Style

Introduction

Once upon a time, Disney, as synonymous with animation, has always led the world animation trend. However, after the release of "The Lion King" in 1994, Disney animation has gradually fallen into a trough, just like the little lion Simba succeeded his father Mufasa as the new king of the jungle, Pixar has become the new helmsman in the animation industry with epoch-making 3D animated films, and the former king Disney not only witnessed the new king of Pixar ascending the throne, but also watched rising stars such as DreamWorks and Blue Sky Studios surpass themselves. In the 13 years since the Oscars set the award for Best Animated Feature in 2001, no Disney animated product has won the title. Just when the days of Disney animation were long gone, it shocked the industry last year with a "Frozen" that not only won the highest box office in the history of animated films around the world, but also won Disney its first Oscar for Best Animated Feature. At the 86th Academy Awards, which recently kicked off, Disney's two animations "Super Forces" and "Night Banquet" won two awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film respectively, making everyone who is still questioning that "Frozen" is just a return to Disney animation to keep their mouths shut. So what exactly caused Disney, the king of animation, to fall into a deep sleep for twenty years, and what kind of force woke it up? This issue of World Wind will reveal the decline and revival of Disney.

A turning point in the fate of The Lion King

1994 is a legendary year in the history of world cinema, "Forrest Gump", "The Shawshank Redemption", "This Killer is Not Too Cold", "Pulp Fiction", "True Lies" and many other classic movies are competing for success in this year, and it is also the pinnacle of Disney's 2D animation era "The Lion King". The film is based on Shakespeare's classic tragedy "Hamlet", and with the accompaniment of passionate and generous African music and Western symphony, the film perfectly interprets a prince's revenge on the prairie. The depth of the plot and the thrilling music have made the film attract a large number of adult audiences, attracting $900 million worldwide, and since then animated films have gone from a niche market to the mainstream world.

As the famous saying of "The Lion King", when "every qiē that the sun shines on, it is our land", Disney has been in full swing after the success of "The Lion King". Not to mention Disney itself, even his competitors think that it is difficult to compete with Disney in the field of animation.

Disney's inflated self-confidence has blinded its otherwise keen eyes, so much so that it has been slow to see the signs of an impending sea change in the era of animation. In order to create more profits in the shortest possible time, Disney has produced a large number of low-cost animations such as "The Lion King 2" and "Mulan 2", and moved towards the videotape and video disc market dominated by family viewing.

If Disney's low-cost animation disc market is a stupid thing to kill chickens and eggs, then Disney's senior management at that time stubbornly believed that hand-drawn 2D animation will continue to become the mainstream of the animation industry, and its reluctance to enter the field of 3D animation can be called a fatal blow to its own animation kingship.

Just the year after the release of The Lion King, an animated film called Toy Story was released in North America. The film is the world's first 3D animated film, produced by a company called Pixar Animation Studios. Although "Toy Story" was distributed by Disney at the time, no one at Disney thought the film would be a success, and the sales department claimed that they did not understand why the company would release such an animated film that had no commercial value and was sure to lose money. However, fate is so wonderful, it is such a cartoon that is not valued by Disney, but it has become an inflection point next to the throne of Disney animation.

The opposition between tradition and innovation

Throughout the history of the world, the decline of a powerful empire has often been caused not by foreign aggression, but by internal strife...... The powerful Disney animation empire is also not immune to this fate.

Walt Disney himself is a forward-looking entrepreneur, he understands that in order to make Disney animation long-lasting, it is necessary for the company to have a large number of fresh animation talents, so he spent a lot of money to sponsor the California Institute of the Arts, set up an animation major, and sent highly experienced animators to teach at the school, hoping that one day, the California Institute of the Arts can provide Disney with a steady stream of professionals.

In fact, Walt Disney's investment was very successful, and the California Art School has produced a large number of famous figures in Hollywood such as John Lasseter, Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Joe Grant, etc., and these talents have also entered Disney after graduation. In the '80s, Disney's animated film department was full of talent, from veterans who fought alongside Pete Disney to Mesozoic animators with many years of creative experience, as well as these new forces from the California Institute of the Arts.

It stands to reason that this combination of old, middle and young people can best exert the combat effectiveness of the entire team, but at that time, Disney's animation department was in a dilemma. The reason is that these geniuses from the California Institute of the Arts are not used to Disney's hierarchy, and they are even more unaccustomed to Disney's in-situ and conformist style. These geniuses are desperate to produce some creative, even personal, animation, but according to Disney's system, newcomers like them don't even have the right to speak. That's why Burton called his time at Disney an unbearable ordeal.

Within a few years, these geniuses left Disney, such as Lasseter, who joined Lucas's computer animation department in 1984, and Steve Jobs bought Lucas's computer animation department in 1986, which was renamed Pixar Animation Studios.

In the 90s of the last century, the profits that animated films could generate were not to be underestimated, and Disney was distressed that its own production schedule was far from meeting the needs of sales. Lasseter seized the opportunity to convince Disney to buy three animated feature films from Pixar, and demanded that Disney agree to several conditions, the most important of which were that their production must be 3D animation that relies entirely on computer imaging technology, secondly, the plot of the film must be original, not based on a familiar fairy tale, and the characters in the movie should not start singing as Disney animation does.

Disney accepted these conditions in its entirety, and in this way, Lasseter made her first animated feature film, the world's first 3D animated film, Toy Story.

Since 1906, the Englishman Stewart Brecton created the world's first cartoon "The Humor of the Funny Face", although there have also been ink, paper-cutting, puppets, clay and other forms of animation, but 2D hand-drawn animation is deservedly the king of the field of animation, the industry generally believes that only 2D hand-drawn animation can make the audience willingly pay into the cinema, and other types of animation have no such magic.

Lasseter and his partners were also nervous throughout the creative process, wondering if the market would accept 3D animation, a sentiment that lasted until November 22, 1995, when Toy Story was officially released. In just one week, the box office of the film has fully recovered the production costs, and the final $400 million in revenue made the film the highest-grossing film of the year. Disney then increased its order and changed its original agreement to make three animated feature films to five feature films. There should be no better place to start for a new animation company.

The success of "Toy Story" has seen the potential of 3D animation for many people, including Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former head of animation at Disney. During his tenure, Katzenberg made a huge contribution to Disney. Blockbuster blockbusters such as "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin" and "The Lion King" were all launched during his tenure as head of the animation department. But then Katzenberg had a conflict with Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and after leaving Disney, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to found DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks' first animation, The True Story of Ant Brother, is also a 3D animation. This is how Pixar and DreamWorks began their respective glorious journeys in the field of animation.

A change unseen in a century

If a success can be described as accident and luck, then the reason for successive successes can only be the embodiment of strength. After the success of "Toy Story", Pixar released its second animated feature film, "Bug Squad", in 1999. This animation is actually quite risky for Pixar, because the story theme is similar to DreamWorks' first animated feature film "The Story of Brother Ant", and it is also a 3D animation, which is simply two boxers standing in the same ring. Fortunately, before the bell sounded at the end of the game, "Bug Agent" beautifully defeated "The True Story of Brother Ant" with nearly twice the box office performance and was successful again.

After the success of the second animated feature film, Pixar had plenty of confidence, and Lasseter began to brew "Toy Story 2". It was also at this time that Pixar and Disney had a disagreement. Originally, Disney wanted Pixar to directly put "Toy Story 2" into the videotape and disc market, but Pixar resolutely resisted, and later Disney compromised to increase investment to make the film on the big screen, but said that this film was not counted in the original 5 feature film contracts, which is equivalent to Pixar's part-time job schedule for Disney to add another film.

Disney thought that with its dominance in the animated film market, no one could say no to it. However, the plan could not keep up with the changes, and in the new millennium, the global animated film market changed abruptly, and in 2001, DreamWorks' 3D animation "Shrek" won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Interestingly, the film happens to be a spoof of the fairy tale model represented by Disney. And Disney seems to have really been spoofed, and Disney's 2D animated film "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" at the same time had mediocre results.

Perhaps in order to defend its position as the king of animated films, Disney did not hesitate to spend $140 million to create the 2D animated film "Treasure Island". However, in 2002, after the release of the film, it was met with rave reviews, and the box office performance was miserable, and the North American market only received 38 million US dollars, such a tragedy directly led to the turmoil and financial crisis at Disney's top management. In the following 2003 and 2004, Disney released two 2D animated films, "The Legend of the Bear" and "The Ranch is My Home", respectively, but the results were still unsatisfactory.

At this time, Disney really understood that 2D animated films were outdated, and 3D animation represented xiàn in the future, so in 2005, Disney came up with its first 3D animated film "Four-Eyed Chicken", the film's box office performance of 300 million US dollars was passable, but there was a significant gap between the animation of Pixar and DreamWorks in terms of 3D technology.

Just when Disney's self-made animated films were in trouble, Pixar ushered in its golden age, "Monsters, Inc.", "Finding Nemo", "Cars" ...... Pixar's masterpieces are so frequent that even the most demanding film critics have to give them a thumbs up. In this rise and fall, the king of the animation industry has also ushered in the change of royal power.

Beginning in 2004, Pixar refused to renew its contract with Disney, hoping to release the film independently. Pixar wants to have complete financial freedom: invest in movies on its own, take all profits on its own, and give only 10%-15% of the film's distribution fee to Disney. With such harsh conditions, Disney naturally refused. After that, the two companies quarreled until 2006, when Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion. Lasseter, who returned to Disney, not only ushered in the new position of Disney's chief creative officer, but also shouldered the burden of reviving Disney animation.

Cultural integration helps the king awaken

In the eyes of the public, Lasseter has been praised as the most outstanding animation master in the United States after Walt Disney, but whether he can bring the mired Disney animation back to the top, when some people were skeptical, Lasseter answered with practical actions.

"Lightning Dog" is Lasseter's first animated film after taking charge of Disney Animation Studios, as the executive producer of the film, Lasseter implanted a large number of Pixar's cultural genes into this Disney animation, the most notable point is that this film does not add a lot of opera elements like previous Disney animations, in addition, the character of the protagonist Porter also borrows from the popular character Buzz Lightyear of "Toy Story", it can be said that this is a Disney animation with Pixar blood. Released in 2008, the film earned more than $300 million at the global box office and received a good reputation, and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2009, although it was ultimately defeated by Pixar's "Wal-E". The success of "Lightning Dog" greatly boosted Disney's morale, and in the following years, under Lasseter's leadership, Disney released several critically acclaimed animated feature films such as "The Princess and the Frog", "Rapunzel" and "The Invincible Wrecking Damper", which regained the audience's confidence in the quality of Disney's animation. In particular, "The Invincible Wrecking King" released in 2012, although the film failed to win the Oscar in 2013, its reputation among animation fans was better than that of the award-winning Pixar animation "The Legend of the Brave", realizing the first time since the release of "Toy Story" that Disney animation surpassed Pixar animation.

For Lasseter, what he wants to do is not just to turn Disney into another Pixar, but to combine Disney's heritage with Pixar's innovations, and "Frozen" is the product of that fusion.

"Frozen" has Disney animation traditions — fairy tale adaptations, song and dance, princesses and princes; But at the same time, it also has Pixar's genes of "following offenses", for the film not only the director and screenwriter have a say, everyone involved in the production of Zuò animation personnel can express their opinions directly, of course, the most important thing is that this work is also indispensable to the industry's top 3D technology.

Respecting tradition and not conformist, "Frozen" was a huge success, grossing $1.26 billion worldwide, not only sitting on the throne of the highest-grossing animated film of all time, but also winning Disney's first Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

If the success of "Frozen" is due to the fusion of Disney and Pixar's genes, then the popularity of "Super Marines" is due to the influence of Marvel's hero culture. This animated film jointly produced by Disney and Marvel has changed the convention of Marvel's no cute things, and the medical machine qì Ren Bai in the play has won the hearts of countless girls with the image of a peerless warm man, and has become a hot topic in the circle of friends, and all kinds of toy figures are sold out of stock for a while, which can be called one of the most successful animated images in recent years.

The addition of fresh blood and the integration of various cultural genes have rejuvenated Disney, and it is conceivable that classics such as "Frozen" and "Super Marines" will continue to emerge, and Disney's future is definitely worth looking forward to.

epilogue

From being mired in the mud to reviving and then to laying out the future, Disney has witnessed the ups and downs of the animation industry in the past 20 years. Think about Studio Ghibli, known as the Disney of the East, whose income plummeted as soon as Miyazaki retired, and Shanghai Meiying Studio, which can only rely on its old roots in recent years, Disney has explained to the world what a real strong man is. When a truly strong person is in adversity or even falls to the bottom, he can also work hard to climb the peak. Where will Disney, the returning king, lead the world animation trend? Let's wait and see! (A good event for pie in the sky, cool mobile phones are waiting for you!) Follow from ~ Dian/Chinese network public account (WeChat add friends - add public account - enter ddxiaoshuo), participate now! Everyone has a prize, now pay attention to ddxiaoshuo WeChat public account! ）