John C. Wright's Journal

We are reviewing the Disney animated features in chronological order.

After a long, weary period of films from the Dry Spell, when the Disney Corporation lost their creative genius, two films GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE and OLIVER AND COMPANY showed a trifle of creative effort, but nothing able to reach the iconic and immortal status of Disney’s original golden age.

Finally, like a bomb burst or flash of lightning, came several films in a row equaling or exceeding the classics of the golden age.

THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) is the first of this period, aptly called the Disney Renaissance, for it was like the rediscovery of classical forms and models after a long dark age.

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I have been watching or rewatching all the Disney full-length animated features in chronological order, which provides the prospective of seeing each work in the context of its film history. In this case, we have reached what is widely regarded either as the last film of the Dry Spell (a long period of uncreative and inferior works following Walt Disney’s passing) or the first of the Disney Renaissance (a welcome return to their old strengths and new inspirations.)

As with all Disney films, no criticism can touch a childhood favorite, regardless of merit, but, contrariwise, the mission of the critic is to review even beloved works by standards as dispassionate as the passionate nature of the subject matter admits.

For myself, this film came too late in my life to be a childhood favorite, for it premiered during my college years. I was unimpressed with it then, largely forgot it, and am unimpressed now, and found it largely forgettable, but not flawed.

OLIVER AND COMPANY (1988) is very loosely based on Charles Dickens’ OLIVER TWIST, but taking place in modern New York, and with cats and dogs instead of orphans.

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Watching or rewatching all the Disney full length animated features in order is fascinating, as it puts each work in historical perspective.

With Disney’s THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE (1986), we near the end of the Disney’s Dry Spell of inferior offerings and see hints of the renaissance to come. As with all Disney films, childhood memories make objectivity nigh impossible, but, in my particular case, I had never seen this film before, no heard any review of it, so my first viewing is as a graybeard of many winters.

And yet I was delighted.

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Rewatching the feature length Disney animated films in chronological order gives one a sense of the changes wrought by the changing years.

With THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985) we are still in the Dry Spell of lower quality films suffering from the lack of Walt Disney’s own genius, but we are nearing the end; for perhaps some hints of the Disney Renaissance to come are in the offing.

As with any Disney film, for some, this will be a favorite of treasured memory lodged in the heart, because it was encountered during the golden years of childhood. Alas, I am not in their number, having seen it during my grad school years.

Others regard this film with a jaundiced eye, calling it the worst fumble of Disney to date. I am not willing to be so harsh, merely because the technical accomplishments of the film are striking.

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I have been watching the Disney animated full length features in chronological order. For most films, this is a revisit to childhood memories, but for two or three of them, which came out in the years between boyhood and fatherhood, this is a first viewing.

As with all Disney films, even the worst of them is someone’s favorite film of all time, for he saw it on that golden afternoon in golden childhood when only the most precious memories are formed. Those who encounter the film only with the cold eyes of adulthood cannot see it as it was meant to be seen, alas.

THE FOX AND THE HOUND (1981) is one such film previously unviewed. I have no young memory of it, and had never heard it discussed by any reviewer. As much as any Disney classic can be, it is obscure. But since it fell in the Dry Spell after Walt Disney’s passing and before the advent of the Disney Renaissance inspired by Howard Ashman, I had a low expectation.

Frankly, I feared, like ARISTOCATS (1970) and ROBIN HOOD (1973) and RESCUERS (1977), the film would be plagued by lax plotting, flat characters, poor animation, dull music, and dumb slapstick which plague the Dry Spell of Disney.

I am very pleased to say that THE FOX AND THE HOUND (1981) that such fear was misplaced. The film does not disappoint, and merits being ranked among the better of Disney offerings. The ending is powerful if sad, and brought a tear to the eye of this cynical old reviewer.

This is perhaps the best film in the Dry Spell.

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I have been viewing and reviewing the Disney animated full length features in chronological order, both to get a sense of the trends of changes over the decades, to revisit childhood favorites, and introduce myself to films unwatched in my youth.

THE RESCUERS (1977) is one such film. I never saw it as a child, and so cannot give an entirely objective review.

It comes from the midst of Disney’s Dry Spell, when animation quality was low (at least by the stratospheric standards of the classics) and the plots suffered from a lax and wandering lack of discipline never seen when Walt himself, a perfectionist, was at the helm. This itself was one of the better films in the Dry Spell, perhaps presaging its end, and promising better films to come.

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I have been re-watching the classic Disney animated features in order. After Disney himself passed away, the Golden Age had passed, and a long Dry Spell ensued: the work product was inferior, and the characters markedly less memorable.

Nonetheless, even the inferior Disney films from this period are superior to nearly any children’s fare anywhere, and will be the favorite childhood film of many a nostalgic soul. So, rest assured, even the poorest film reviewed from this period is one well worthwhile to sit down and show to your children.

THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH (1977) is an oddity on this list, an oasis in the Dry Spell, first, because it was not a feature film, but an anthology composed of three short films, seamlessly strung together; second, because it captures all the charm and delight of Golden Age Disney, for two of the three were produced under the hand of Disney himself, while he still lived. The sheer childlike wonder and whimsy are overwhelming.

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There is no Disney animated feature film so bad and boring that it is not someone’s favorite since childhood. Even the worst have some redeeming qualities.

And this is, so far, the worst.

Robin Hood as a red fox is inspired, well drawn, and a delight to see, but little else in the film is.

ROBIN HOOD suffers badly from the flaws that begin to afflict all the company’s work during the dry period after JUNGLE BOOK, namely, the lack of thematic unity, of plot motion, of memorable characters, of high-quality draftsmanship. These stories are larded with silly slapstick and shallow schmaltz, and deflated by comedically non-threatening villains.

The one original conceit of the film is that the animals have their own version of the legend, one peopled with beasts from European woodland, Indian jungle, African savanna. Alan-a-Dale, here a rooster with a hicktown southern accent, will tell the tale in a folksy and utterly non-English fashion. The characters are then introduced by their species.

And we discover it is the cast of the JUNGLE BOOK playing dress-up. Read the remainder of this entry »

I have been re-watching the classic Disney animated features in order, starting with SNOW WHITE. Seeing the films chronologically drives home the genius of Walt Disney himself, the mediocre period that followed his passing away, the wonder of the Disney Renaissance in the days of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, the sad and sick degeneration thereafter, first into blandness, and next into wokeness.

ARISTOCATS (1970) is the first feature length animation put out by the studio after Walt’s passing, and, I am sad to report, it shows.

The animation quality is haphazard, the plot is slipshod, the characters are slapdash, the humor is slapstick, the scenes are uninteresting, the musical score is unmemorable, with the exception of one jazz piece, rousing but unfortunately pointless. The film is not recommended.

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I have been re-watching the classic Disney animated features in order, from SNOW WHITE onward. The well-deserved immortal fame of these films hardly requires any additional comment, but, as a professionally opinionated curmudgeon, at some point, I may write up reviews of each.

For now, I wish only to pen a critique of SWORD IN THE STONE, which was bland and boilerplate, badly-drawn, badly-adapted, and badly-told.

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Encanto (2021) is from Disney studio, not Pixar, and comes very close to being one of their animated masterpieces, but fails due to simple errors any competent editor would have seen and fixed in the first draft of the script.

The error here is that the show tells rather than shows every significant point of character development. Resolutions are presented with insufficient set up, or none,  are followed by insufficient follow-through, or none. This happens not with one character, but all.

It is mildly astonishing that projects of this size, expense, and prestige can be carried to conclusion without anyone involved seeing and correcting so basic a flaw in story-telling.

But, to be fair, even a near miss for a studio with a history of producing legendary and immortal works of animation puts this film way above average, and it still earns my recommendation.

It is a good film. It could have been great, but missed the mark.

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