I Will Forever Love Disney For Buying Marvel

[DT Winslow]

If you read comic books and watch animation, then you can praise the cartoons and celebrate it all you wish.

In a thread talking about why Pledging Fealty to the Feudal Master Disney for their Annexation of the Marvel Territory and why they would be a better and kinder master to the serfs, it's probably not the best look unless some basic facts are acknowledged.

Come on. Isn’t that a little overboard? Especially since you won’t clarify why you hate big corporations? Pledging fealty? With the caps like that?

[Amadeus Arkham]

The Mouse has too much power for my taste.

This. 100% agreed.

[Wildling]

The Mouse has too much power for my taste.

To this day I still like a bunch of Marvel comics (whether they were conceived before or after Disney doesn't enter my mind) and Disney/MCU flicks, while at the same time being wary about Disney as a company.

I'd think there wouldn't be anything controversial about that, but maybe we've come a way, negatively, from the time The Simpsons making jokes at the expense of Walt Disney's beliefs was seen as cool.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Especially since you won’t clarify why you hate big corporations?

In real life you don't need an origin story for everything. I wasn't dropped in a vat of acid by someone in a Mickey costume. I grew up read and followed the story of various creators some who work for Disney, some who work for other companies, and I realize that no company is truly valuable in and of itself.

The Mouse has too much power for my taste.

This. 100% agreed.

There's a lot of talk these days about "trust-busting" i.e. breaking up Google, Facebook, Amazon the way Teddy Roosevelt's administration broke up Standard Oil and Large Privatized Railroad companies.

I think it would be worth breaking up a lot of big media companies, and Disney especially. Certainly, that Fox merger and deal should never have been approved from a labor perspective. So many people lost real life jobs because of that, and getting to see a good portrayal of Dr. Doom in live-action just isn't worth any of that.

To this day I still like a bunch of Marvel comics (whether they were conceived before or after Disney doesn't enter my mind) and Disney/MCU flicks, while at the same time being wary about Disney as a company.

Exactly. I grew up liking Donald Duck comics and I still do, whether it's Carl Barks and Don Rosa, to me they did far better and far more important stuff than any of the cartoons that the animators did with Donald Duck.

I even like and love some of the Disney features, whether classic (the 1951 Alice in Wonderland is a favorite) or more recent (like Robin Williams' Genie in Aladdin, though otherwise that movie is maybe too racist), and I liked and enjoyed Frozen, Wreck-it-Ralph and Ratatouille.

But my liking for that isn't a validation of Disney. Disney doesn't always produce great cartoons after all. They had a big creative decline for some three decades between the '50s to the late '80s. They haven't always done the best things with their flagship characters.

Carl Barks was maybe the most influential comics artist since 1950, influencing anime and manga (via Osamu Tezuka who popularized the 'big eyes' look based on his liking of Barks), Underground Comics (Robert Crumb, Spiegelman) Lucas and Spielberg (Indiana Jones), and several other artists and writers across the field today. And he wasn't credited for his work in the 1950s, or paid enough for what he did with the characters. Crediting Walt Disney feels pretty disingenuous when their most forgotten and neglected product proved to be far more consequential and influential.

[Dreaded Porcupine]

It happened too late for Kirby but the Kirby heirs did eventually get compensation in 2014. Their case was on the verge of going to the Supreme court and Disney blinked since they had more to lose than the Kirby family.

Glad to hear the Kirby estate got something. Mighty Disney has power but the Supreme Court has greater power.

[Blue22]

I still wish the cartoons were better.

Yeah I've noticed DC and Marvel seem to be on opposite ends in that regard. Marvel has been fucking KILLING IT with their live action movies. But a lot of their animated stuff has just been..."meh". Meanwhile, DC's live action movies are....well we just don't talk about those right now. But their animated stuff is usually pretty amazing. Hell it may have been cut short in one of the dumbest ways possible but their animated movie universe was leagues better than their live action one.

[K7P5V]

This is what I’m talking about. Some of this Endgame is from the 1966 animation and it was remastered. It looks great. Disney needs to do the same thing to the originals. Plus the 67 Spider-Man.

In agreement with you about Spidey '67 being a definite classic. Cannot wait for it to be put on Blu-Ray

[K7P5V]

LOL. I have actually never heard that(even though I do love early Marvel animation, mainly for nostalgia). Not quite the quality we are hoping for in the future but still fun to see!

I know, right?! Nostalgia is a beautiful thing (IMHO):

[Dreaded Porcupine]

This is a mash up of the 66/67 animation but it’s awesome! It has the X-Men, Avengers, FF4, Spider-Man and even Iron Man in his original armor colored red and gold from the Hulk episode Enter the Space Phantom.

[charliehustle415]

Yeah I've noticed DC and Marvel seem to be on opposite ends in that regard. Marvel has been fucking KILLING IT with their live action movies. But a lot of their animated stuff has just been..."meh". Meanwhile, DC's live action movies are....well we just don't talk about those right now. But their animated stuff is usually pretty amazing. Hell it may have been cut short in one of the dumbest ways possible but their animated movie universe was leagues better than their live action one.

I hope that one day we will have a Marvel Animated renaissance similar to the 90's Disney animated films and shows; I can only imagine Pixar taking on a Marvel property - once that happens I might die of ecstasy. I mean they kinda did Marvel before with the Incredibles, I would love Brad Bird directing a animated Marvel film.

PS: Congrats to Chloé Zhao for winning that Oscar gold we now have an Asian Oscar winner directing The Eternals
Talk about investing in talent early on the brass at Disney has been on a roll lately.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

PS: Congrats to Chloé Zhao for winning that Oscar gold we now have an Asian Oscar winner directing The Eternals
Talk about investing in talent early on the brass at Disney has been on a roll lately.

So now it's gotten to a point that you make Zhao's victory about a company that had nothing to do with the film that got awarded for?

Because it's not about a woman directing a female-led film to victory, right. Why make it about that, no conditions attached?

At this point, we are degenerating into sycophancy, or to use a metaphor against them, becoming LeFous to Disney's Gaston.

[Ravin' Ray]

You know, it could simply just be a case of charliehustle415 noting Disney's good fortune in having the director it hired winning an Oscar even if it was for a non-Disney film, without any taint of sycophancy in it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You know, it could simply just be a case of charliehustle415 noting Disney's good fortune in having the director it hired winning an Oscar even if it was for a non-Disney film, without any taint of sycophancy in it.

The sentence is "Talk about investing in talent early on the brass at Disney has been on a roll lately." It's making Zhao's victory about Disney's insight. As if making Nomadland and it doing well and winning awards, even though Disney had nothing to do with the production of that film, was down to that.

The truth is that Disney recruit low-budget independent directors because they are cheap and it's a kind of move that makes Disney look good even if it's a decision without any real weight to it. The fact is that a good chunk of "direction" on a Marvel movie is done by below-the-line personnel who start work before the director is hired. The directors have little say on the direction of action, use of sound, and workflow effects and generally speaking independent directors (like Zhao, Boden and Fleck who did Captain Marvel among others) have far less leeway in deciding the look of these films then they do in their own films made away from Disney.


One director, an Argentinian female director respected in international circles, pointed this out:
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/12/lu...es-1202027524/
“Companies are interested in female filmmakers but they still think action scenes are for male directors,” Martel said. “The first thing I asked them was maybe if they could change the special effects because there’s so many laser lights. I find them horrible. Also the soundtrack of Marvel films is quite horrendous. Maybe we disagree on this but it’s really hard to watch a Marvel film. It’s painful to the ears to watch Marvel films.”

So it's again a decision without teeth. These movies aren't really good for the directors who are hired to make these films fundamentally.

[Nomads1]

The Mouse has too much power for my taste.

Pretty much my take.

Peace

[FFJamie94]

It's a catch 22. On the one hand it means the comics are in a comfortable position. As long as there aren't any problematic issues, Marvel publishing can essentially publish what they want.

On the other hand it means Disney have way too much power over the entertainment industry. The problem with the politics of the MCU is that it tried to appease both sides without having an opinion. Falcon and winter soldier was ripe with that.
Like having an Asian main character is a step in the right direction, but it's not the big discussion it should be.
I don't know if this is entirely Disney's fault, a lot of the appreciation of the East in the West is surface level and they don't pick up on the smaller details.
However, Disney push out enough movies that they trample anything released by anyone else.
I would honestly recommend watching some Korean cinema in that case, it's often regarded as being the best cinema in the World and I'm going to agree.

I do wonder how the MCU would look without Disney, we wouldn't get Guardians of the Galaxy and Eternals that's for sure, at the same time, I kind of believe they would be closer to The Ultimates.
The only two movies we have as insights are Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, both released before Disney bought out Marvel, and while they are undeniably suited in the wider Universe, they both have smaller distinct differences that set them apart from the greater MCU.
For one thing, they are less interested in setting up future movies, with the original Iron Man being a largely stand alone piece that's actually more down to Earth when compared to the rest of the movies.
The Incredible Hulk itself feels like it doesn't belong in the MCU, not only because of a recast that changes the character of Banner entirely, but because it tells a much darker story than the MCU has ever told, with it being only comparable to Wandavision.

Honestly, I think things are better on the publishing side, we can be almost certain that comics won't go away anytime soon.
The Movies however will remain a constant, and one that is suffering from being overdone at this point.