When hearing mention of Disney, I think back to the classics: the fantasy of toys being sentient; a half-human half-fish woman who sought to explore a different world that was close, yet so far; or maybe a magical wooden puppet who couldn’t effectively lie.
As a film enthusiast, these are a few examples of movies on my “Defining Movies From Disney” list, but none of those that came out in recent years have made it to that list. If you look at Disney today, some titles may be recognizable as remakes, continuations, or spin-offs, sometimes in the form of TV shows barred behind a subscription service so fewer people can access it.
But some characters don’t have the same level of depth or development as Disney characters once did. Older movies had people who learned lessons at the end, but today’s stories just reuse those lessons or use new lessons that just don’t have the same effect.
Recent movies and TV shows released in theaters and on Disney+ have been getting less attention and lower reviews. I’ll be referring to the Rotten Tomatoes scores from the audience since it better defines the general public, rather than the opinions of a select handful, who might be looking for something different.
The Disney+ show Star Wars’ “The Acolyte” got a score of 18%, and another Disney+ show, Marvel’s “Secret Invasion,” got a score of 44%. Both of those shows relied upon already-existing franchises to receive the attention that they did.
Lately, it seems that Disney has been disregarding what I believe to be the essentials that make movies good: entic- ing stories, good characters, and good effects. Looking at recent releases since 2020 compared to older films, Disney
is releasing lower-quality content, seemingly hoping the company’s name and the name of major franchises will grab the attention of an audience.
“Toy Story,” (1995) for example, had an estimated budget of $30 million and made just short of $400 million worldwide, according to the Internet Movie Database (IMBd). Meanwhile, the “Toy Story” spinoff “Lightyear” (2022) had an estimated budget of $200 million, but had a smaller outcome of just about $226 million.
Recent major-studio Disney projects released have had bad overall production quality, including lackluster or cheesy stories (the two main characters’ dream in “Luca” was to win a motorbike, a symbol for freedom), characters who are hard to like (I find Mei from “Turning Red” annoying), and crappy effects (the character M.O.D.O.K. from “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” probably has one of the worst Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) designs in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite the first Iron Man movie from 2008 already having great CGI).
Mason Marder (11) is knowledgeable in entertainment and pop culture, and while he is a Disney fan and has been for a while, Marder said he is disappointed about the direction Disney is going, especially when specifically comparing their animated works to recent Dreamworks and Sony successes.
“Because of how the animation industry has been going with the quality of “Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Wild Robot”…Disney definitely has not evolved to the standards that we now see within the animation industry,” Marder said.
The movie Marder specifically referenced as a “cash grab” was “Wish”, released in 2023. While this film was supposed to be Disney’s 100 year anniversary special, it was met with disappointment, being referred to as having a “half- thought-out script” by the Wall Street Journal’s film critic, Kyle Smith.
“Wish” is a good example of Disney being lazy. This movie had an interesting villain, but most of the other characters
were forgettable, the songs were mediocre, and the overall story was the main character trying to stop the kingdom’s ruler from abusing his power. There wasn’t anything too special about the story itself, which lacked excitement and didn’t have much that was way different from other recent Disney movies.
The villain’s plan also seemed very similar to the villain’s plan in Wonder Woman 1984, since the bad guy in that movie sought to weaponize people’s wishes and make himself more powerful. Unfortunately, we are at a point in time where many good ideas have been used and movie-makers can’t always come up with a good original idea, leading to clichés.
Disney appears to have tried to make “Wish” in a similar style to traditional Disney movies with magic and even the classic talking animal. In that sense, it fits well with the 100 anniversary of a studio that used to be more known for fairy tales.
I think a few recent releases have been too focused on changes in societal views of racial and gender-related inclusion, and I think this has taken away from the main points of the stories. While this may adapt to more modern views and appeal to different demographics, my takeaway is that Disney is focusing less on the overall quality of the content. I have noticed that this isn’t just in the animated content, but also live-action projects, especially in Star Wars’ “The Acolyte.”
There is a brief scene in Star Wars’ “The Acolyte” that discusses a popular topic in society and politics. Since I watch TV to escape from the real world, I feel like real-world politics being in the show takes me out of the piece of entertainment and takes away from the fantasy aspect of the show. In my opinion, not every piece of entertainment needs to have a societal metaphor in it.
I think I could’ve let this element slide if it were not for the plot holes present in the show.
The appearance of Jedi Ki-Adi Mundi in the show is a moment that broke the Star Wars canon and stirred up contro-versy among Star Wars fans, since the show takes place 100 years before “The Phantom Menace.” However, Mundi was only said to be 60 years old in that movie, according to Comic Book Resources.
“The Acolyte” had a few more pointless cameos from famous Jedi and Sith, some of which make more sense in the timeline. If the show creators had to rely on cameos to get fans to watch, then they probably should reconsider how they tell the story.
To make the situation even worse, “The Acolyte” actor Charlie Barnett referenced in an interview that Anakin Skywalker blew up the Death Star, even though it was famously his son, Luke Skywalker. That part is very canon to the franchise.
These are the kind of people you shouldn’t trust to expand upon an iconic franchise. While “The Acolyte” was a massive flop for Disney and may have made the Star Wars franchise that much less liked, “Ahsoka” was a 2023 Star Wars show that I think handled things quite well, and many people agreed, with the Rotten Tomatoes audience score being 64% — not the highest, but a few steps up from “The Acolyte.”
The Disney+ show “Ahsoka” had strong female leads, but that was as far as the societal topics went. Again, there can be movies and shows that don’t have to be a metaphor for a major societal movement. I’m not against discussing societal topics in shows and movies, unless it negatively impacts the details of a story, like it did for “The Acolyte.” “Ahsoka” had an alright story, acting as a sequel to the iconic show “Star Wars: Rebels,” and had an effective cast.
For “The Acolyte”, the Star Wars title was being milked to the last drop. When Disney creators actually make better de-cisions about how they create what they want to release, they might stop receiving so much backlash, unless they’ve seen how the internet works and they’re resorting to “rage bait” to garner attention.
The Disney film nostalgia is unlikely to return in its fullness since so much about the world has changed, and the image of bad quality that Disney studios have inflicted upon themselves may leave a bad taste in some mouths. But if they start being more considerate about what the fans actually want to see, Disney may be able to pull themselves out of Davy Jones’ locker. Although, Disney as a brand is still going strong and that might be all they need to stay in business.
Unfortunately, Disney seems to be more interested in what they want as opposed to the fans, as the controversial live action “Snow White” remake starring Rachel Zegler is still set to release in Spring of 2025.
Zegler stated in an interview at the 2022 D23 event, “We absolutely wrote a Snow White that… she is not gonna be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming of true love.”
I feel like the prince saving Snow White was a pretty major plot point in the original story that should not be cut out. If you want to tell a story about an independent woman, don’t use the title of a classic love story; create something new.
It is confirmed that there will be a supporting male character in the film named “Jonathan,” but we don’t know if he’s going to take on the role of a prince or anything like that. Little information has been released on the details of Jonathan.
Disney also abandoned the idea of casting actors with dwarfism to play the roles of the seven dwarves after actor with dwarfism Peter Dinklage spoke out against it in 2022, saying it reinforces stereotypes of little people. Instead, Disney chose to make the dwarves fully with CGI, which in my opinion, downplays Disney’s goal of being inclusive.
Judging by the route Disney has chosen, their future is not looking very bright, and they might need the Genie to grant them all three wishes to save themselves.