The Neverending Toy Story

It seems that Disney is planning
two more Toy Story sequels
without the
involvement of Pixar, according to Cinescape and
other sources. Does this sound to anyone else like
we’re about to see the Superman/Batman movie pattern
over again? First film is amazing, second is quite
good, third is a decent but entirely different type
of film, and the fourth should never have been
made… I hope they pan out, but without Pixar, I
wouldn’t bet on it.

14 replies on “The Neverending Toy Story”

  1. Oh dear…
    …I think Disney need to hire some more creative folk to come up with a new franchise or two. Or six.

    • Re: Oh dear…

      …I think Disney need to hire some more creative folk to come up with a new franchise or two. Or six.

      Creativity reguires management that will support the odd mistake, or put something out that can’t be neatly categorized . Disney is no longer capable of that kind of work.

  2. Disney
    Disney, to my knowledge, doesn’t have much of an in-house CG development team. There was Dinosaur, but not much in the way of followup since then. Mostly Disney CG has been background to the cell animation. Perhaps this will be like the Buzz Lightbeer animated series? I hope not. Too bad the Disney/Pixar contract allowed Disney to retain the rights to the characters. Look what they’ve done to almost all of their other characters: crappy direct-to-video sequel after sequel. I mean, how many Aladdin sequels did we need? Lion King? Cinderella II?!? When they produce a Bambi sequel, ugh . . .

    Disney needs to face the fact that they haven’t had a really marketable story in years, precicely because they haven’t had a story in years. They botched Tarzan, which could have been much better. Emperor’s New Groove was clever-ish. But Treasure Planet was dismal. Atlantis was dismal. Home On The Range, did anyone see that? The bell started tolling when they decided to market Lilo & Stitch by using their much better films.

    • Re: Disney

      Home On The Range, did anyone see that?

      I did. Not a great story with few memorable characters,
      but the production was excellent, right down to a shifting
      aspect ratio when a character was dreaming a hero fantasy.

      • Re: Disney

        I did. Not a great story with few memorable characters,
        but the production was excellent, right down to a shifting
        aspect ratio when a character was dreaming a hero fantasy.

        Hmm. Well, maybe I’ll give it a try. I’m just so sick of the neverending sequels that Disney feels compelled to do with every single movie. Even those made years ago, and ones for which a sequel just makes no damn sense. They’re doing for the money, I know, but the hurt it’s putting on their reputation . . . . Eisner is a moron, Roy was right to call for his resignation.

  3. Third
    Stop pretending Batman3 wasn’t a horrible mess. Sure, when you’ve seen 4,
    your perceptions of just how bad a movie can be are realigned to its
    monstrous infamy, but if you would care to remember that in the third,
    Bats had a shiny silver bat suit, I’m sure you’ll see the light.

    • Re: Third

      Stop pretending Batman3 wasn’t a horrible mess. Sure, when you’ve seen 4,
      your perceptions of just how bad a movie can be are realigned to its
      monstrous infamy, but if you would care to remember that in the third,
      Bats had a shiny silver bat suit, I’m sure you’ll see the light.

      When I say “completely different type of film,” I mean “script could have worked for an entirely different superhero.” Both Superman and Batman didn’t belong in the story written for their third movies, but the majority of execution problems could have worked for superheroes other than the ones put in the film. The goofy attitude of Superman 3 might have actually worked for, say, Plastic Man, while the gadget driven but otherwise unthreatening villains of Batman Forever (whose name was changed because “Batman Triumphant” was thought to be too spoilerish, as if “Forever” isn’t) might have been a good match for, say, a classic Green Arrow in the prime of his trick arrow days.

      • Re: Third
        One of my City of Heroes characters would have fitted perfectly in Batman Forever. She throws fireballs, breathes fire and… sets things on fire. With witty taglines!

    • Re: Third

      Stop pretending Batman3 wasn’t a horrible mess. Sure, when you’ve seen 4,
      your perceptions of just how bad a movie can be are realigned to its
      monstrous infamy, but if you would care to remember that in the third,
      Bats had a shiny silver bat suit, I’m sure you’ll see the light.

      Well, Bat2 had frickin’ penguins with frickin’ bombs on their heads!! Even the best of Bat films had ridiculously silly directorial decisions.

      I’m also of the opinion that Burton’s gothic Penguin and Schumacher’s comic Two-Face would have been better had they swapped.

      • Mask of the Phantasm, anyone?

        Or even Toy Story, which was the topic of this thread

        Even the first Batman had some significant flaws; they could not figure out what kind of movie they wanted to make. Still, it was passable. I nearly walked out of II, despite Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. But Burton devoted more time to mise-en-scene than character, while the later movies were too crammed full of villains they could market for either plot or character to be given adequate treatment. Maybe the forthcoming “origin” film will be worthwhile, but Hollywood’s track record here doesn’t have me holding my breath.

        We have the same problem with the Batman franchise that we have with Enterprise; the people in charge don’t really understand what makes the concept appealing to many of the fans.

        • Re: Mask of the Phantasm, anyone?

          We have the same problem with the Batman franchise that we have with Enterprise; the people in charge don’t really understand what makes the concept appealing to many of the fans.

          I think the larger problem is that they don’t believe the dedicated fans are a group worth designing a movie for. The logic is that there are far more casual fans then dedicated fans out there, so they can make a higher profit by bringing in the mass market than they can with catering to fans. Another assumption they make is that the die hard fans will see the movie no matter how they make it, and sadly, they aren’t wrong. I’m just happy they allowed Burton to make a film that dark, instead of constricting him to the Adam West view that so many people have.

          • Re: Mask of the Phantasm, anyone?

            Yes, but the “mass market” for such films generally respond better to the better-made ones. Hence, the demise of the Batman franchise, the further they got from the core concepts that made the character– or even a movie— worthwhile. Make a film that respects the essence of what the character is about and the mass market will respond. They did with the ’78 Superman or the recent Spider-man films.

            • Re: Mask of the Phantasm, anyone?

              Yes, but the “mass market” for such films generally respond better to the
              better-made ones. Hence, the demise of the Batman franchise, the further
              they got from the core concepts that made the character– or even a
              movie
              — worthwhile. Make a film that respects the essence of what the
              character is about and the mass market will respond. They did with the ’78
              Superman or the recent Spider-man films.

              The trouble is, Bats3 was a financial success because it was riding the hype
              wave created by the last two. It was crap, but since it made money, the people
              in charge didn’t realise it was crap, so they plowed ahead deeper in the
              miasma of mediocrity and commited the horrible crime against taste that was
              #4.

              If only there was a way to make them unerstand before its too late…

              • Re: Mask of the Phantasm, anyone?

                The trouble is, Bats3 was a financial success because it
                was riding the hype
                wave created by the last two. It was crap, but since it
                made money, the people
                in charge didn’t realise it was crap, so they plowed ahead
                deeper in the
                miasma of mediocrity and commited the horrible crime
                against taste that was
                #4.

                If only there was a way to make them unerstand before its
                too late…

                The under-12 age group didn’t realize it either. I worked
                in a theater when Batman Forever came out, and I
                can assure you that the movie had legs. The corporation
                that gathers box office information for the studios didn’t
                ever ask us for the demographics of the audience, only the
                total dollars spent. A huge amount of the income for that
                movie past the third week of release was coming in because
                movie tickets in the mid-1990s were cheaper than
                babysitters, so thousands of kids were getting dropped off
                at a theater to watch it three or four times a week. (One
                of the kids who came in all the time saw it forty times
                over the summer.) Now, bad parenting aside, that
                maintains the box office long enough for accountants to
                conclude that audiences must like it enough for repeat
                viewings and word of mouth to continue. Had they cast
                Robin Williams instead of Jim Carrey (as was the original
                plan; Williams got the script on a Tuesday, and always
                takes at least 48 hours to consider a project and reread
                the script; when he phoned back to accept on a Thursday,
                he was told Carrey was given the script and accepted the
                project on Wednesday) we’d have had a very different
                movie. It would have appealed to a more mature audience,
                it would have had a very different feel for the villains,
                and I think it would have been a much better product. It
                wouldn’t have made as much money as a late June release,
                though.

Comments are closed.