lord-of-sith wrote:Disney's Divinity wrote:
While I do have a group of my favorite films, I do not have a "ranking" for them. I like the movie Death Becomes Her, but I also like The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't have one ranked above the other, because it's a tough comparison.
While you have a point that the new era films have some similarities, I don't think they're nearly as alike as the Renaissance era films. Tangled and The Princess and the Frog didn't have surprise villains. To kind of clarify why I think the Renaissance films are similar, here's the plot structure I'm using:
*opening song introducing the fantasy world of the movie*
*introducing hero/heroine who wants more than the life they've currently got*
*introduce obvious villain whose motivation stems from revenge/greed*
*scene where hero/heroine interact with obvious villain*
*scene where hero/heroine' life is drastically changed, though not the the way they had initially anticipated*
*hero/heroine is assisted by comical sidekicks while adjusting to their new life*
*villain enacts their plan fueled by revenge/greed*
*villain is defeated by the hero/heroine and/or their love interest*
Thrown in at various times you can find "villain song," "comic relief song," and "academy award winning ballad"
Obviously this is a generalization, but pretty much all of the Renaissance movies fit into that structure with little adjustment. I think people just like them more because of nostalgia and that they have a more timeless approach to the art. Not because they're innovative. And, again, I find myself preferring to Renaissance films. The modern era movies just have a lot more to offer than being alleged Pixar rip-offs.
I would agree that the nonprincess Lasseter Disney films may be more different from each other aside from the buddy thing, but all the princess films have most of the above, plus the road trip element.
*opening song introducing the fantasy world of the movie* - Frozen, PatF, from the sounds of it, Moana; also, BatB did not have that, unless you count 'Belle' but in that case you need to count Rapunzel's song too
*introducing hero/heroine who wants more than the life they've currently got* When will my life begin, Almost there, arguably Do you want to build a Snowman or For the first time in Forever
*introduce obvious villain whose motivation stems from revenge/greed* A villain is either an obvious villain or a surprise/not so obvious one, unless there's no villain at all which hasn't happened yet in the Disney movies. I wouldn't say that just because two of the Lasseter Disney movies have an obvious villain and the rest don't, that that is an example of how different they are from each other. And the villains in the Lasseter Disney movies are also motivated by revenge/greed
*scene where hero/heroine interact with obvious villain* Ok, so villain is not always obvious in the Lasseter Disney movies, but again, they're either obvious or they're not, and hero/heroine interacts with villain in just about every movie with a hero and villain, including the Lasseter ones
*scene where hero/heroine' life is drastically changed, though not the the way they had initially anticipated* Most of the Lasseter Disney movies have this too
*hero/heroine is assisted by comical sidekicks while adjusting to their new life* all the Lasseter princess movies also have comical sidekicks
*villain enacts their plan fueled by revenge/greed* most hero/villain movies have this, and so do the Lasseter Disney ones.
*villain is defeated by the hero/heroine and/or their love interest* most movies with a hero and villain have this, and so do the Lasseter ones.
Thrown in at various times you can find "villain song," "comic relief song," and "academy award winning ballad" Patf, Tangled, and Frozen all had at least 2 of those things.
I like the current Disney movies a lot, but in the case of the princess movies, I really don't think they are more different from each other than the Renaissance ones. The non princess ones, maybe. I also feel that Disney was more daring back then, trying different art styles and stories. They tried to deviate from their supposed formula and character designs with movies like Hunchback and Treasure Planet and Atlantis and more. Can't imagine them daring to do something like Hunchback today. It's just that those efforts were much less well received and pretty much marked the end of the Renaissance.