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Disney Sequels: Blanding the "Brand"
By Diego Vega

One of Michael Eisner's strategic errors of the last decade was flooding the market with cookie-cutter video sequels to classic Disney animated features. Even though everyone--including kids--knows they're inferior to the originals, it's vitally important for the public, shareholders, and families to understand precisely WHY these TV shows masquerading as movies are so banal, and how they've devalued and continue to devalue the name Walt Disney, the finest name in family entertainment.

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TV is one thing and movies are another. They are separate businesses with different schedules, budgets, formats, and purposes. The general public knows this intuitively. Audiences would never pay to see three back-to-back episodes of Friends or Cheers in theaters. There is good TV and bad TV, but TV shows are not movies.

TV is programming, geared toward product demographics, designed to sell toys, soap, beer, and Viagra. What is important for this discussion is the type of STORIES television tells. TV stories for the most part are open-ended situations of drama or comedy stocked with a familiar cast of characters, with no conclusion, hoping that they get renewed for several years. Hence, one can watch most TV series out-of-order and it makes no difference. TV programming is cheaper and more quickly made than movies and relies heavily on dialogue and one-liner jokes. Good examples of this format are The Simpsons, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond.

In contrast, movies (most sequels excepted) usually STAND ALONE AS STORIES. They are generally an enclosed premise with a beginning, middle, and end. They are more independent statements, telling a distinct story and character journey.

Most movie sequels play like TV series, and audiences are tired of bad sequels; they rejected almost all of them in 2003. Bad Boys II, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Rugrats Go Wild, Dumb and Dumber, Legally Blonde 2, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Lara Croft: Cradle of Life , and Matrix Revolutions all failed expectations at the box office. Viewers expect MOVIE stories from movies, but when the stories become bland, audiences abandon the bland.

Who's the Leader of the Bland?

So who exactly is making the Disney sequels? It's not the division that made Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Aladdin, and Lion King. Every single one of the sequels (except Rescuers Down Under and Fantasia 2000 ) has been made by the Walt Disney Television Animation division. The result are direct-to-video stories that play like TV shows (even though a few get exposure by first "priming the pump" in theaters).

Although this group has been renamed "DisneyToon Studios", it's still the same TV management making the same product under a different "brand". The Company will argue that they're training staff and employing ex-Feature Animation artists to raise the production value of these sequels, but this is a diversion from the central problem. The same executives with a TV background still tightly control the stories. The sad fact is that they really don't know how to make movie stories. The sequels prove it, and the audience knows it.

Story, Story, Story

Any executive in Hollywood will tell you that all that matters in movies is "story, story, story". Unfortunately, just because they know the magic incantation doesn't mean they can create the Disney magic. So what's their secret? How do MBA's and so-called "creative" vice-presidents manage to concoct these Disney "movie" sequels when TV is their background? The answer is: formulas!

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Throughout Jungle Book 2, Bagheera repeats three times "Oh no, not again." This is precisely what the audience feels when watching any of the Disney sequels, which repeat many of the same scenarios from their classic predecessors. For example:

Jungle Book 2
Bagheera and Baloo arguing
Shere Kahn and Kaa
Kaa hypnotizing Mowgli (now Shanti)
Colonel Hati's march
Vultures and Shere Kahn (repeated twice)
Baloo and Mowgli dance with the monkeys
Baloo singing "Bare Necessities" (repeated three times!)

Return to Neverland
Hook shooting at Peter in pirate cove
Smee shaving Hook (now a massage)
Mermaid scene
Crocodile fight (now an octopus)
Lost Boys Song (now "These Are The Things Lost Boys Do")
Climax on the ship
(Also: London kidnap scene repeated from Spielberg's "Hook")

Lion King II
Opening procession to Pride Rock
Scar/Mufasa royal power struggle (now Zira/Simba)
Scar takeover song (now sung by Zira)
Leaving Pride Rock for the Outlands
Graphically stylized "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" (now "Upendi")
Battle with Hyenas (now the Outlanders)
Mufasa/Scar falling to doom (now Zira)
Endless confrontation scenes

101 Dalmatians 2
Dogs watching TV
Horace and Jasper kidnap puppies from Nanny
Dogs escaping from Horace and Jasper
Dalmatian Plantation song (now a bad duet)
Twilight Bark

Lady and the Tramp II
Wrong-side-of-the-tracks romance
Spaghetti love scene
Cornered by mean dogs in alley
Dog pound scene

Little Mermaid II
Under the Sea song (now Down to the Sea)
Ariel's wedding (now Melody's christening)
Ursula (now her crazy sister, Morgana, but with same voice)
Triton making Crab Ariel's guardian (now Melody's)
Ariel discovers underwater treasures (now Melody)
Sidekicks Flounder and Scuttle (now Tip and Dash)
Ursula makes Triton bow to her (now Morgana)
Climactic Ursula/Eric/Ariel scene (now Morgana, Melody, Eric)

An Extremely Goofy Movie
Goofy fly-fishing device (now horseshoes)
Crazy driving scene
Max leaving Goofy for high school (now college)
Max gets fishing rod heirloom (now adding machine)
Skateboarding at home (now at college)
Goofy at work
Goofy dance scene
Big concert where Goofy wows crowd (now college X-games)

Repeat, Repeat, Delete

A sequel shouldn't pretend that the original story doesn't exist. To the audience, and especially to kids, these characters are real. When sequels erase characters without explanation, or delete their original personalities to support a contrived plot, the audience gets confused. What happened to the Crocodile? No explanation. Where are John and Michael Darling? Not addressed. Where did Tiger Lily go? Who knows? Why isn't King Louie in the jungle, but Smashmouth sings his song? Ask the lawyers.

In Cinderella II, the King has a rule against commoners in the palace. Where did that come from? In the last movie, he had a ball in the palace for every available maiden in the kingdom! This is only a concoction to support the notion that the King is rule-bound, which in turn is a contrivance for this sequel and is just the opposite of his freewheeling character in the original. In the sequel, Jaq the mouse wants to be made human by the Fairy Godmother because "only big people help Cinderelly". The Godmother replies "You've always helped Cinderella just the way you are." Even kids know neither statement is true! In the original, tiny mice Jaq and Gus spend a whole lot of time dragging beads and keys around to help Cinderella. And Fairy Godmother magically transformed them into horses to draw the coach! In the sequel, Cinderella acts like Anastasia is her best friend. Isn't this the stepsister who physically tore the sash off Cinderella's handmade dress and faked a good fit for the glass slipper in the first movie? I don't remember any apology scenes. Who writes these things? Did they ever watch the original?

Babies 'R' Us

So if they just copy the old movie, but not all of it, then what do they fill the rest of it with? Another formula. If we wrote it as a "Mad Lib", it would go something like this:

New sequel involves parents (often aged Disney stars, but not always) and a child (usually next generation, though sometimes same from original movie). Parent nags the child with too many rules concerning any rule, and keeps secrets about any secret from the child. The child is ridiculed (real or imagined) by siblings or peers. The child rebels against the parent and proceeds to disobey the parent's rules because of a self-centered reason. The child makes a deal with an adversary to commit a rebellious act of betrayal. Child finds new or old love interest. Everything goes wrong, big climax ensues, adversary is defeated, usually by falling into a treacherous location. Child apologizes to the parent while parent apologizes to the child, thus maintaining family generational dйtente. Bland generic pop artists sing over end credits.

So, let's play "Mad Libs"! Just fill in the blanks and you've got a sequel.

Little Mermaid II
PARENT: Ariel
CHILD: Melody
RULE: not crossing the wall to the ocean
SECRET: being a former mermaid
SIBLING/PEER: guests at ball
DISOBEYS: goes over the wall into the sea
SELF-CENTERED TRAIT: her name's on a locket
ADVERSARY: Morgana
BETRAYAL: steal King Triton's trident
LOVE INTEREST: prince and merboy
FALL LOCATION: in a block of ice

Lady and the Tramp II
PARENT: Tramp
CHILD: Scamp
RULE: stay in the yard
SECRET: once being a street dog
DISOBEYS: run away
SELF-CENTERED TRAIT: he wants to run wild and free
ADVERSARY: Buster the junkyard dog
BETRAYAL: Steal Jim Dear's picnic chicken
LOVE INTEREST: Angel
SIBLING/PEER: triplet dog sisters
FALL LOCATION: junk falls on Buster

Lion King II
PARENT: Simba
CHILD: Kiara
RULE: Stay in Pride Rock
SECRET: Timone and Pumba are shadowing Kiara
DISOBEYS: go to Outlands
SELF-CENTERED TRAIT: she wants to hunt by herself
ADVERSARY: Sira/Kovu
BETRAYAL: date the enemy
LOVE INTEREST:Kovu
SIBLING/PEER: Kovu's siblings
FALL LOCATION: into the river

An Extremely Goofy Movie
PARENT: Goofy
CHILD: Max
RULE: brushing, combing, and wearing clean underwear
SECRET: who is Max's mother
DISOBEYS: publicly rejecting his father
SELF-CENTERED TRAIT: live his own life
ADVERSARY: Bradley Uppercrust III
BETRAYAL: tricks Dad into joining Gammas
LOVE INTEREST: Beret girl/Sylvia the Librarian
SIBLING/PEER: Kids in college lecture class
FALL LOCATION: from sky after puncturing blimp

Return to Neverland
PARENT: Wendy
CHILD: Jane
RULE: not yelling at her brother
SECRET: the evacuation
DISOBEYS: slam the door
SELF-CENTERED TRAIT: she's acting like a grown-up control freak
ADVERSARY: Captain Hook
BETRAYAL: give Peter's treasure to Hook
LOVE INTEREST: Father
SIBLING/PEER: Lost Boys
FALL LOCATION: from the mast thru ship into ocean

Oddly enough, the majority of the sequels follow these formulas. There seems to be a strange preoccupation with adolescents rebelling 60's-style and parents withholding secrets from children, while ending with "I'm OK, you're OK" between the generations. This may have been "relevant" to twenty-year-olds forty years ago, but what do these themes have to do with timeless fairy tales or Disney movies? How can they force these templates onto every kind of story and have the continuation of the classic narrative make any sense? The answer is, they can't, and the characters act in ways alien to the audience. The plots feel phony, mediocre, and lifeless.

A built-in problem with the "children of" formula is that the classic characters unavoidably become old, nagging authority figures constraining their child's longings. The Company shouldn't devalue its star characters with such portrayals. Pongo had no problem counting his Dalmatian puppies in the original. Now he acts like he's on medication, or going senile, compared to his son Patch. Tramp was an appealing free spirit in the original; now he's a didactic father with son Scamp, spouting lines like "you know you're not supposed to climb on the furniture...you're going to make a mess...he has to learn by the rules of the house...there will be no wild dogs in this family." In An Extremely Goofy Movie, Max leaves for college, and Goofy spends the first 20 minutes of the sequel in clinical depression. Goofy?? Depressed?!? ...and self-aware, even??? This sounds more like therapy for adults in midlife crisis than entertainment for Walt Disney's optimistic "child within everyone."

Once one knows the formulas, it's easy to predict the future. Sleeping Beauty 2: Aurora's Awesome Adventure is bound to feature Aurora rebelling against the three good fairies and running away to make a deal with Maleficent's estranged half-brother, the heretofore unknown Maleffluent. Refusing to go to sleep like a "mere girl," our now sassy and brassy Princess instead gets the two Mel's back together, where they renounce evil and join our heroes to create a new "family" together in the forest. Limited Edition print included if you pre-order.

Blanding the "Brand"

The sequels have devalued and confused the Walt Disney name. The Walt Disney name is now on animated features, inferior sequels, TV movies, TV shows, and toddler videos alike. Too much of the product skews only to the very young instead of "the child within everyone." Michael is putting the Walt Disney name on non-premium content. Does DaimlerChrysler put the Mercedes Benz brand on Dodge Neons? Did Michael rebrand ESPN as "DisneySports" when he bought ABC? In addition, premium packaging is now being used on inferior sequels, which was formerly reserved for theatrical classics. When Aladdin is released on DVD this year, will we also find the inferior Return of Jafar released as part of a "trilogy" in fancy clamshells? And what of the extra-cheap sequels made in low-end Pacific Rim factories, such as Belle's Magical World, Tarzan and Jane, and Atlantis II? Have you ever compared these cheapies to the real original films? The difference is shocking (even in the case of Atlantis!). And why mix in feature-length versions of TV product like Recess, Kim Possible, and Teacher's Pet that further water down the "brand" even MORE?

RottenTomatoes.com is a web site that collects reviews for movies and videos. While few people bother to review the direct-to-video sequels, when they do, they are devastating. For instance, all collected reviews for Cinderella II were negative, or "100% rotten". The movie was variously described as "bibbidy-bobbidi-bland," "a wish a studio's wallet makes," a "saccharine, Easter-egg-colored concoction," "a rejected TV show," "lifeless," "feckless," and "Disney's own direct-to-video horror show." Another said, "Do not see this film." "The stories are trite. The songs are forgettable. And worst of all, the animation is atrocious. The film looks like it was put together on a dare, as a joke, or both." I encourage you to go to rottentomatoes.com and read the full reviews. They are really a microcosm of everything that is wrong with all the sequels.

The Company has dumped at least two dozen theatrical sequels and at least another dozen direct-to-video TV "movies" in the past ten years. There's just too much product out there that's being confused with Disney premium content. When the Federal Reserve prints more money, the value of the dollar goes down. Quality is the currency of the Walt Disney name. No wonder people are saying that 2-D animation is dead. It's not, of course, but the saturation of badly done sequels in the past ten years has been an important ingredient in the 2-D vs. 3D argument, an argument that is a false dichotomy. Audiences want good stories, and the glut of sequels has been a glut of bad stories. Interestingly, the period of the sequels corresponds to the last ten years' poor stock performance. The Comcast takeover bid will only aggravate this problem with the sequels. If past experience is any indication, look for across-the-board-cuts in expenditures--such as outsourcing more of the sequel production to lower-end Pacific Rim factories like the Philippines--in order to sustain profits, keep the stock price high, and fend of raiders. More cut-rate product will fuel the argument that the Company's assets are undervalued. Now it's a viscous cycle. The Company is now addicted to sequels.

Finding Disney

What is needed at the Company is vision, the sort of vision that made Walt Disney one of Time Magazine's two American Artists of the Millenium. It will take more than making sequels with Dumbo and Miss Piggy in 3-D computer animation. It will take premium content storytellers and a smart way to sell them.

There are examples out there of what could be done. The Lord of the Rings series, which Eisner passed on, is exactly the kind of film Disney would have made in the past: Oscar-caliber broad audience fantasy that stands above the rest of the crowd. Though it involved sequels, they weren't designed as an afterthought, and truly built upon each other. Rings was one of the few sequels that audiences embraced in 2003.

Pixar wrote the book on how to do a sequel right. Toy Story 2 was not only a commercial success, but it is as good as the original, and audiences and reviewers said so. Go to rottentomatoes.com again and look up Toy Story 2; it received a rare "100% fresh" rating, meaning all 110 reviewers loved it! Again, read the reviews and compare to the likes of Cinderella II. The difference is night and day. Toy Story 2 was a sequel that wasn't a cookie-cutter copy. Buzz and Woody's relationship progresses in a new and interesting way. There are new scenarios with new interesting characters, like Jesse, Bullseye, the Prospector, and Barbies. Not to mention the anti-Buzz Lightyear. The beautiful and emotional song "When She Loved Me" was nominated for an Oscar and won a Grammy. Best of all, the story combines the cartoonist's perspective and childlike nostalgia with cutting edge, forward looking technology, which is exactly what Walt always did. But to make a sequel to Toy Story, one can't be cheap, and one must tell stories worthy of a movie, and with the participation of its original creators. If you want to see what Disney does with these characters, watch the TV division-produced direct-to-video Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and compare for yourself.

Disney must refocus its "brands". One obvious solution would be to organize the video product into three labels that would capitalize on the strength of each.

Walt Disney
Restore premium brand status. To be used only for Disney classics and theatrical features produced by Feature Animation. And that means AFTER overhauling the division to once again allow for the cartoonist's perspective, like Pixar does. Very few—if any—sequels. And if there are, they're as good as Toy Story 2, made by the feature people.

ABC Family
TV shows, TV specials, and direct-to-video features using those properties. No Disney properties. Strip off the Disney name from Kim Possible, Teacher's Pet, Recess, acquire other properties, and rebrand as ABC Family. Rename DisneyToon Studios "ABC Family Films", and keep them doing what they do best, cranking out TV grade video features. Pull up the ABC Family brand instead of pulling the Walt Disney name down.

Big Blue House Video
Infant/toddler genre like Baby MacDonald, Animal Train, Baby Einstein, and Bear in the Big Blue House. Babysitting and "mommie" videos. The one exception to this genre could be the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise; it became a preschool TV-like series long ago, but as a unique profit center for the company, could keep the Disney name.

Whoever succeeds Michael will have to fix Disney's branding problems, as evidenced by the sequel situation. If the Company merely reblands the "brand", then we can expect the public to flock to visionaries like Pixar and abandon the bland as Disney falls out of favor. But with the right vision—and those people are out there--we can once again look to the name Walt Disney for the finest in family entertainment.

"I've never believed in doing sequels. I didn't want to waste the time I have doing a sequel; I'd rather be using that time doing something new and different. It goes back to when they wanted me to do more Pigs." —Walt Disney