STRAIGHT TO VIDEO: How The Disney Renaissance Died

A discussion of what caused the end of the Disney Renaissance, including the history of Michael Eisner and Jefferey Katzenberg's time in control of Disney Studios, the fighting behind the scenes, how the Renaissance came to be, what created Disney's home video sequel craze, the history of Disney Movietoons, how animation changed in the 90s and 2000s, the expansion of Disney outside of animation, and how Disney's recent decisions are repeating the death of the Disney Renaissance.

#Disney
#disneyplus
#animation

Music:

Official Matt Draper Channel Theme by Mono Memory

"The Outliers" by Droid Bishop and Sean Ivry

"Landline" "A Side Scrolling Night Drive" and "Glass Palms" by Hello Meteor

"A Distant Quiet" by Traxx

"Once Upon a Dream" by The Fantasyland Band Organ

"Fade (Running In The Night)" by FM-84

"Fly For Your Life" by Gunship

Sources:

[MattDraper]

In a way, this video is a straight to video sequel to my Don Bluth-Disney War video. What's your favorite Disney straight to video sequel?

[jrivxxi]

Honestly I’d take the direct to dvd era over the remake era any day

[provia]

I worked at Disney from 1995 to 2000 on Dinosaur. It was their first CGI picture. For all the $$ spent on it, it was basically the same story as Buth's "Land Before Time"... and we all knew it.

[KLB]

The early 90s all the way to the early 2000s was an interesting time.

[jesusdelcanto]

I really liked King of thieves. It expanded Aladdin's backstory and served as a great finale for the tv series. Iago kept developing as a character and got a proper ending.

[FLABrowncoat]

Treasure Planet was criminally underrated. Yes, you could it "felt like it was it was from another studio, " that's due to the style, not the quality. It contained a degree of world-building rarely seen in Disney animated films, let alone any of their films.

[melanie]

"He Lives in you" is such a great song is because it was written by Lebo M, who was involved in the original. The song first came out on the 1995 album Rhythm of the Pride Lands. Two other songs from that album became "Shadowlands" and "Endless Night", two of the best songs in the Broadway show.

[BoyNamedSue]

While it may have been done for the point of keeping the VHS tapes more expensive, one pro of the Disney vault is it kept the classic Disney films relevant. Snow White and Dumbo were just as popular as Little Mermaid and the Lion King in the 90s. It was an event when you could buy them.

[katherinelynch]

I have a massive soft spot for Cinderella III purely for the bananas plot. Disney's bread and butter is fairy tales, and if I want to be really generous, I could probably write a halfway decent essay arguing that Cinderella III is a solid adaptation of Tale Type 403: The True Bride and False Bride, coupled with 313C: The Forgotten Fiancee.

[mandalorianhunter]

I grew up with these movies, I watched the Lion King countless times when I was younger along with Hercules, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.

I actually saw Hercules and Mulan in theaters so they hold a special place in my heart.

[TheRoomforImprovement]

Take a shot every time Matt Draper says “I cry every time.”

[owensreviews]

I actually remember watching a lot of these direct to video sequels growing up. My favorite direct to video film was definitely Lion King 2.

[SnapperChannel]

As a Gen-Z kid, I definitely grew up during the height of the Disney Direct to Video sequels. Never really interested me personally aside from a selective few (Lion King 1 1/2 and Lilo and Stitch 2 are bangers). But Disney History has always interested me and has influenced my interest in film and animation history. Post Renaissance era Disney was definitely a mess behind the scenes and while I love a few of the movies during that era warts and all (Emperor’s New Groove, Fantasia 2000, Lilo and Stitch, Atlantis, Treasure Planet and Meet the Robinsons) the Renaissance era was just lighting in a bottle (well minus Pocahontas). Great video. Love to see more Disney history videos in the future. Fantasia in particular I think would make a great focus.

[jonathonfloyd]

I maintain that Emperor's New Groove is the most underrated Disney movie of all time. It never enjoyed the success it deserved at the time and I'm grateful that so many in my generation, who grew up with it as a VHS staple, appreciate it more now.

[zibbyzib]

Meet the Robinsons was extremely underrated. Whenever “Little Wonders” comes out, I cry every time.

[FrankHolub]

The part where Matt Draper said "all good things must come to an end?" I cry every time!

[matthintz]

I just want to go on record that Atlantis: the Lost Empire was an amazingly fun and good looking animated feature, and its a shame it, and Fantasia 2000, became a casualties of the post-renaissance era. The Rescuers Down Under, also a great film, has the same problem--getting lost in the shuffle of the Renaissance era. I had really hoped that the Princess and the Frog would re-launch traditional animation, but it turned out to potentially be the last of its kind. It makes you appreciate how special those films were.

I remember back in... I want to say 2012, Disney won an Academy Award for best animated short for Paper Man, which feature traditional animation, computer graphics, and new experimental techniques. There was talk that those new techniques would be used in a future Disney animated film, but eleven years on, that has not come to be.

[jonathanmulondo]

Disney really is a shell of it's former self. Even though their Marvel films made a bunch of money, they aren't as creative and risk taking as they used to be

[SparkyMK]

I posted this on another vid, but Ill share it here too. I'll never forget the stories told to me by Robin Steele, one of the co-directors of Kronk's New Groove, telling me just how toxic of a place DisneyToon was to work at because of the idiotic management running it. They lived and breathed formula, were draconian towards any kind of creativity, and didnt give two shits about the quality of the films or the artists making them as long as the video sales broke the bank. Even the later films had insanely tight budgets to work under by Disney movie standards (Kurt Wiley told me that Cinderella 3 was made on a paltry $6, 000, 000 budget) and the management was so strict that you could get demerits for not 'smiling enough' when getting your work reviewed!

"And then there was that truly evil epoch called DisneyToon Studios, wherein actually solving script problems with storyboard work was a capital offense, when Disney executives figured that they were the REAL storytellers and directors were nothing but "hired wrists" who were brought on to know how to make animation out of the hash they were handed to work with. The day that I objected to the whole idea of a "cheerleading camp" in ancient Peru (because the writer's wife was SO TOTALLY into cheer camp), at a production meeting with the president of DisneyToon Studios, was the day I signed my death warrant therein. When I questioned the anachronism of the two, I was loudly accosted by said president, who screamed at me: "You're being unproductive, Robin! This movie doesn't even HAVE TO BE IN ANCIENT PERU! It could be in OUTER SPACE! You're not being a TEAM PLAYER!!!" There wasn't much creative logic going in there, in those days. "Put it in a jewel case and ship it" seemed to be the overriding principle."

[BAIGAMING]

17:00 That's a really great explanation of Touchstone pictures. I used to watch the Disney channel and randomly on weekend nights they'd show those kinds of movies (the old ones), and it used to confuse me so much on why such adult movies were being shown on a kid's channel at night. I'm thankful for them though, they'd teach me a lot of pop culture references.