We are the Disney generation. Weaned on the classics and spoon-fed the spinoffs, we lived and died by the annual summer injection of fresh animania. We knew the songs, we loved the characters, and for a few golden, glorious years, Disney was King. Roundabout the birth of Pocahontas, something went wrong; Disney hit a slump. Did we grow up? Or did Disney change? A little of both, it seems. Disney is for kids, and it made the mistake of trying to grow up with its audience.
Sex and Disney
And there are more questions: What of language and violence, remaining twin pillars of the entertainment trinity? The standards that compel Disney adaptations to adhere so closely to literature, do they also grant Disney the creative license to bastardize classics with talking gargoyles?
These flicks are relatively harmless, but from their beheadings, hangings and mock executions to their occasional high-speed underwater spaceship firefight, we can1t shake the feeling that Disney ought to ditch the drama and work on the little things. Like plot.
Props to Lilo and Stitch, however, for going back to the basics this summer. You1ve got your clichés<the broken family, the misunderstood heroine, the gentle, chiding morality. But Lilo has other elements in its favor: It1s crazy, but coherent. Characters are proportionate, in personality and in appearance; dialogue is smart and snappy, but tasteful. Disney toys just a bit with the death-doom-and-destruction scenario<we suppose they couldn1t resist<but keeps it light. Lilo isn1t watered down; it1s just intelligently made. What1s next for Disney is anyone1s guess, but if there1s more Lilo and less Mulan in its future, this deposed despot of the animation underworld just might be clambering its way back to the top of the heap.
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