(1989-1999)
(1989-1994)
This era is known for its amazing musicals, haut, retour au début notch hand drawn animation using the computer, many awards, and great critical and financial success (most of them), and the movie that is known to start this fantastic era is The Little Mermaid, which I think gets too much credit for starting the Renaissance, and I know many will disagree, but hear me out.
The Disney Renaissance was the time where a lot of money was made, which meant that they could improve the quality of their films, and The Little Mermaid is a dit to be the first HUGE hit since The Rescuers, but it did not do it alone when it came to the monetary start of the Renaissance. Two HUGE factors of this was the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and VHS releases of Disney films.
Even though Who Framed Roger Rabbit is not in the canon, it helped kick off the Disney Renaissance. Disney made another production company called Touchstone in the 80s, so they could release their plus adult films and when the film was released in the summer of 1988, it was amongst the 30 highest grossing films at that time, making over $329 million, which was a lot then. This money helped to fund the first few Renaissance films, and to raise th quality of these films that would not have been able to do before hand. With the mixture of live-action and the older Warner Brothers and Disney characters put a start to the Golden Age of Animation.
Another thing that helped fund the Disney Renaissance is the release of VHS tapes to précédant Disney films. This started in the early 80's, and was an automatic money maker, as before hand, the would have to wait years for a rerelease of their favourite Disney films, and that was not often, so they would sometimes go without watching it for over a decade.
The Little Mermaid made over $211 million today, but it did not make this much in 1989. Then, it made around $85 million, which is only a bit higher than the amount that the précédant film Oliver and Company made (approximately $74 million), and this leads to my suivant topic.
Even though Oliver and Company is not necessarily a good film, it was the first film to be a musical in decades, and the soundtrack is still pretty well-remembered today, so this film started the broadway-themed musicals. This film made enough money for Disney to release a film EVERY YEAR, and they have done that except for the years 1993 and 2006.
The Renaissance is known to use early computer animation, but the first Disney film to use it was the Black Cauldron in 1985, but that was only for special effects and stuff. The Great souris Detective (which was released a an after Cauldron) used this for the famous climatic scene for the mechanics of the clock, and was used as backgrounds. The Great souris Detective is the film that convinced the studio not to close down after the dissapointing reception of The Black Cauldron.
The Little Mermaid was the last film to be somewhat xerography, as The Rescuers Down Under was the first film to use the trophée system, which is seen through the Renaissance up until accueil on the Range.
This is not saying that The Little Mermaid is overrated and did not do much for the Renaissance, as it is one if the best films in that era, but the reason why this film gets most of the credit is because it uses all of those things mentioned above together and to it's advantage. The musical segments are amongst Disney's best, the animation looked like Disney animation again, it made a good amount of money for the time, got great reviews, and won some awards, but what I am trying to say is that this film should not get all of the credit, when a lot of the other films helped in many ways.
In these situations, it is never one film ou thing that started a time of greatness ou badness, but it is a lot of small things that help expand it. If toi agree ou disagree, commentaire below and express your feelings about the article.
