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The Top 10 from Disney Animation

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Friday, 11 December 2009 10:57

After more than five years and several films created through 3-D computer animation, Walt Disney Animation is returning to the medium it used better than anyone: ink and paint. Disney’s triumphant return to traditional cel animation, The Princess and the Frog, opens this weekend in theatres, making it the studio’s 49th feature-length animated movie. But before seeing if Disney animators have still got it, let’s recount their past achievements with a top ten list presented here in chronological order.

1) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

As recently proved with the re-release of Snow White on DVD and Blu-Ray, this film is still incomparable over 70 years and several technological advancements later. Snow White was a trailblazer and a vindication for Walt Disney who proved that a feature animated film could be viable and successful. The result was not only a wonderful film in its own right, but it built a formula that Disney would revisit again and again, up to and including its most recent animated feature. Hard to believe then that Snow White almost wasn’t the first animated feature. A few years before then, a group of animators tried to raise funds to produce an animated John Carter of Mars, but they were unable to collect enough money to start drawing. Going on to 80 years later, animators still haven’t given up hope but this time it’s the computer-driven artists at Pixar, a Disney subsidiary, that’s trying to make it happen.

2) Fantasia (1940)

For its third animated feature, Disney took a bold risk with a film made of a series of vignettes set to classical music, without any dialogue and clocking in at hefty two hours and twenty minutes. Fantasia was definitely a gamble for Disney, one that nearly cost him the company if not for RKO Pictures who stepped in to release a slimmer 81 minute version of the film in 1941 and 42. Still, Fantasia received special recognition by the Academy Awards for achievement in sound use in a motion picture and the creation of a new form of visualizing music. The film is not without its critics though. Many classical music purists believe that it was wrong for Disney to assign particular themes or edit the music to a visual narrative. Mostly though, the film remains praised for its singular artistic ambition.

3) Bambi (1942)

Generations of kids have experienced the mind-numbing trauma of hear the hunter’s fatal gunshot killing Bambi’s mom, which is why it’s strange that so many kids still grow up to be hunters. In fact, at the time of this film’s release, many hunters spoke out against Bambi saying that it was "an insult to American sportsmen." Based on Felix Salten’s novel Bambi, A Life in the Woods, Walt Disney, while overseeing the production, pushed his animators for greater realism than he had before in creating the all animal cast. Between fine-tuning the artwork, constant rewrites and the outbreak of World War II during production, Bambi cost the studio nearly $1 million to make, a rather handsome some for the time. Although not the success it could have been when released in August 1942, Bambi did go on to recoup its costs and went down in film history as one of Disney’s best.

4) Alice in Wonderland (1951)

While being considered a classic now, upon its initial release in 1951, the response to Alice in Wonderland could be considered lukewarm at best. In England, the homeland of Alice and her creator Lewis Carroll, the film was savaged as a bastardized (read: Americanized) version of the story. Part of the reason for the film’s commercial failure, said animator Ward Kimball, was that each of the film’s directors were trying to outdo the other with every sequence, thus taking the emphasis off creating a coherent story (Although one can argue that that’s part of the appeal for generations of stoners). Still, Disney’s version of Alice ended up emerging as down-right iconic with nearly every version of the story realized since paying homage in some way to this animated version.

5) Sleeping Beauty (1959)

In the choice between Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty wins out by a nose for a couple of reasons. First, a Fairy Godmother’s help is one night only, while the fairy sisters Flora, Fauna and Merryweather stay with you for life. In Cinderella, Prince Charming sends out the Grand Duke to find his woman, while in Sleeping Beauty Prince Phillip has to slay a dragon before he gets the girl, because that’s how real princes roll. Maleficent is also a much better villain than the Wicked Stepmother, although they both have a fondness for naming their pets after the Devil with Maleficent’s raven Diablo and the Stepmother’s cat Lucifer. Disney sure loved to invoke Satanism in his bad guys, just ask Cruella De Vil.

6) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

Although the film is mostly a collection of Pooh shorts released in the 60s and 70s, Many Adventures remains one of the most beloved of all Disney stories and creating an industry within an industry of Pooh programs and merchandise. The film was an end of an era on many levels. It was the final feature that Walt Disney himself had a creative say in since Disney has still alive at the time of the original release of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in 1966. It was also the final Disney film for the Sherman Brothers, the popular composers of hit songs from Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. It was also the final burst of creative relevance before a decade long drought at Disney Animation that ended with The Little Mermaid.

7) Beauty and the Beast (1991)

It what’s possibly the greatest achievement in both Disney artistry and commercialism for Disney, Beauty and the Beast stands as what is arguably the animation studio’s greatest success. Capitalizing on the victory of The Little Mermaid and the resurgence of the Disney brand, Beauty and the Beast set the standard for film animation for the next decade. Along the way it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, to this date the only animated film to receive that honour. It would also become the first Disney film to be turned into a Broadway show, one that ran for 13 years on the Great White Way. A 3-D re-release of Beauty and the Beast is expected to return to theatres on 2011 to commemorate the film’s 20^th anniversary.

8) The Lion King (1994)

For the first time, Disney tackled an original story for an animated feature in what was to become the pinnacle of the Disney Renaissance of the 90s. Based loosely on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the story followed a young lion named Simba through cub-hood, witnessing the murder of his father, his exile and triumphant return to the pride as its rightful leader. While being the most financially successful of the Disney animated features, The Lion King is also probably the most exploited with two direct-to-video sequels and a spin-off TV series featuring Simba’s own Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Timon and Pumbaa. It was also the most controversial with a claim that Disney had ripped off a 60s anime show called Kimba the White Lion. Still, the film made three-quarters of a billion dollars worldwide, and remains one of the most popular animated films ever made.

9) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

This adaptation of the Victor Hugo is probably the most unjustifiably overlooked film from Disney in the modern era, and considering Hunchback’s darker tone it’s probably easy to understand why. Although rated G for the kids, Hunchback dealt with themes of prejudice, social injustice, lust, infanticide and religious hypocrisy. Film reviews were overwhelmingly positive not just for Disney’s willingness to tackle darker material but for the artistry of the animation which included some degree of computer imaging. The typical happy ending and comic relief sidekicks in the form of three talking stone gargoyles may have angered Hugo purists. But Hunchback was a daring departure for the House of Mouse at the height of its power.

10) Mulan (1998)

At the time of its release, Mulan was considered somewhat controversial. Many saw this adaptation of the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan as attempt to appease a Chinese government angry with Disney for producing the Dalai Lama bio-pic Kundun. Others objected to the blatant racism in McDonalds promotion of tie-in Happy Meal toys; "Don't wok, run to see Disney's honorable new movie Mulan. It's China-mite!" it read on the back of millions of boxes of McNuggets. The film itself though was pure poetry. More story and action driven than musical in nature, the 6^th century legend of a young woman that posed as a man to spare her elderly father the rigors of military service, was a departure in many ways for Disney. Stylistically, the animators were inspired by Chinese paintings and water colours, while story-wise the movie featured a female character doing the saving rather than being the one saved.