Whole Lotta Apologies
© Enoch Allen
Trent Lott has apologized--many times--for his inappropriate comments. Jerry Falwell has apologized for his insensitive comments during 9/11 (though, arguably, Falwell didn't give much of an apology). The only entity left to apologize for a major transgression is Disney, for not knowing how to do justice to source material.
For those of you who, like, don't read the paper--Treasure Planet is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, box office disaster in since the conception and theatrical release of feature-length animated movies. And it deserves to be, since the creators apparently had zero respect for the source material--even if said source material may be in the public domain--and paid only minute attention to character development.
I understand that Ron Clements and John Musker must be devastated by the outcome of their pet project. My condolences. I have high respect for the pair of directors, who perhaps revolutionized animation with such efforts like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Because of my familiarity with their work, I will refrain from placing total blame for the film's box-office demise on them. From the various articles that I have read, it seems that Disney was blatantly aiming at the lucrative teenage market while attempting to keep their younger audiences at the multiplexes. In doing so, upper management was probably responsible for watering down creatively thick material.
Disney also has to step up and take responsibility for the shoddy way that they treated Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, releasing it in a grand total of 110 theaters and giving it zero promotion. However, the film made more stateside than another one of Miyazaki's animated classics "released" here around three years ago, Princess Mononoke. Nevertheless, Spirited Away, given the limited exposure that it had, is still being touted as a possible candidate for the Animated Oscar that it deserves. And if it gets it (which, sadly to say, might be wishful thinking of me to say that it has a chance), the win might further embarrass Disney.
I wish that Disney would learn the lesson that animated films should be given the same attention as feature film projects.
Questions/comments? E-mail me at eaabrooks@hotmail.com
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