It’s hard not to feel depressed about the state of modern entertainment these days. We’re all trapped in a chokehold of nostalgia that corporations a♏re choosing t𝓀o abuse with a stream of constant reboots, sequels, remakes, and returns to established properties instead of exciting new ideas. In order to make a living as a creative in the mainstream, you need to swallow up your pride and accept that those on top are afraid of taking risks and only care about money.
This is exactly how I feel whenever D23 comes around, an annual event from Disney where it reveals a number of new projects it has in the works, alongside new looks at existing projects that fans have been waitiꦍng to hear more about. This can be anything from films to TV to video games, and people show up in their thousands to get a taste. Disney adults cheer on mentions of the Fox acquisition or the reveal of yet another unnecessary Toy Story sequel.
Of all the new feature length and television projects shown during Disney’s headline panel last week, only two of the projects were original. Elio and Hoppers are new Pixar films, the latter from director Daniel Chong, known for creating the excellent We Bare Bears. Aside from the two outliers, we had Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3, the live-action Lilo &aꦓmp; Stitch remake, the ‘live-aꦅction’ Lion King Mufasa prequel, a Freaky Friday sequel over 20 years after the first, and a litany of other new outings in existing properties already proven to bring in record profits.
My stubborn 𓃲feelings aside, our own Eric Switzer was on the ground at D23 doing some , , and loads more.
Prior to🉐 the release of Inside Out 2, Disney made clear in an earnings call that it would strive to leave behind original, morꦿe personal stories in favour of universal experiences anyone will be able to relate to regardless of their own lives. This flies in the face of the fact that some of Disney’s finest work in recent years has been films like Luca, Turning Red, Soul, and others which draw from ver♈y specific ideas that not only challenge the viewer, 🍰but offer different cultural and social perspectives that are so valuable in modern day.
Inside Out 2 has already made billions at the box office and has, unfortunately, proven Disney right. So this is th🎃e future we must look forward to. One where characters and stories we already know reign supreme, and very few original ideas are given a chance to shine. I’m glad Hoppers and Elio exist, but I also fear that, should they fail, they will be used as an excuse to further stifle what animation should be about: freedom of expression.
What I hate most is that every film needs to be a billion-grossing behemoth from a mammoth franchise. Corporations don’t understand that so many amazing things can be made on a smaller scale. This is how big properties﷽ are born, and we seem to forget that.
Disney instead treated us to a laundry list of sequels, reboots, an𝄹d other pieces of media all taking place in existing universes which represent the next several years of the company’s output. That is hard to get excited about, especially when The Incredibles, Toy Story, and Star Wars already feel painfully long in the tooth at this point. Yet they resonate with a huge international audience that simply wants to consume the familiar, so of course, it wants to appeal to that demographic over anything e🉐lse. Art loses out, and that sucks so much.
Aside from that audience, though, it also points to a fan culture that refuses to grow up. The cabal of Disney adults in their thirties who believe these films and shows are for them over new gꦫenerations, who deserve fresh stories and characters instead of retreading the same ground we were introduced to in our youth.
It’s sad to consider that my g🐼eneration saw the end of Disney as a creative powerhouse, before it became a faceless corporate giant obsessed with content and profits. It isn’t the most magical company on the planet anymore. If anything, it’s laughably obvious in its corporate intentions and how this isn’t about telling stories or relating to different characters, but making a lot of money and maintaining a cult of personality we should be smarter than to reinforce.
I fear we’re heading towards some sort of nostalgic singularity, a status quo where the only new entertainment being created that the vast majority of society consumes is familiar and doesn’t take risks, try new things, or even challenges you. All of those things risk tanking a potential profit, and corporations aren’t going to make that sort of move without resistance. All the while they🐈 outsource work, make use of artificial intelligence, and continue to screw over workers, which it knows it can get away with, because the fans keep on cheering.
D23 should have been a celebration for the past, present, and future, but instead it felt like the safest glimpse of what’s to come I could🐷 ꦬpossibly imagine. Disney is beyond parody in how it has weaponised nostalgia and defined the years to come as a constant stream of predictability. It is slowly but surely destroying my relationship with modern media, and right now it’s hard to figure out how or why that trajectory will change.
