Disneyfied - what exactly is it?

[mutantdonut]

"Disneyfication" is the common complaint i hear on the licenses purchased by Disney (Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, Fox) when they produce a piece of entertainment with their new license. I especially hear the complaint towards the latest Star Wars movies along with the Marvel movies. "Star Wars is ruined because it's too Disneyfied." So that suggests all previous SW movies before The Force Awakens were never Disneyfied. Am i correct on that?

It's a broad and vague term. I (maybe, sorta) have an idea what people's complaints are about but i'd like a more specified understanding of what "Disneyfied" means.

 

[OliviaClarke]

I think people just hate the idea of Disney owning so much, especially when it comes to their childhood classics. But I do feel like Disney takeover movies are a little cheesier and a bit more kid friendly somehow.

 

[JickyJuly]

Watered down for the masses. Without real heart or vision. Disney is a money making machine. They take creativity, run it through algorithms and spit out as much stuff as they can. Whatever. Moana is fantastic, and there is even more Star Wars stuff to buy at least? Bummer that such an immoral company steamrolls smaller successes, but that's capitalism. Same thing happens in all entertainment fields. Pop music sucks up other genres and sells them to soccer moms. Playboy made pornography palatable to the mainstream.

 

[DFT]

Disneyfication / Disneyfied is not specifically to do with properties bought by Disney. The concept is take a good story and ruin it in the last act by making it saccharine happy.

Although I'll give you a classic example that was Disney owned, Touchstone studios - Girl 3000, aka "Pretty Woman". Same story for most of the screenplay, but at the end of the original the cad throws her out of the car, tosses the money at her and drives away. But no, that story won't sell! Actually that's the story of Fantine in
Les Misérables which has does nothing but get remade and played on stages around the world for a century.

So they changed it so the call girl and billionaire lived happily ever after. From that we got Fifty Shades of nonsense and guys thinking cam sites are where they will find their one true love.

I liked back when Disney murdered the parents in the first act. /Deadpool

 

[zippypinhead]

I liked back when Disney murdered the parents in the first act. /Deadpool

Disney movies are still full of dead moms, I think.

It really is amazing just how capable Disney has become at making movies that seemingly are universally accessible, but "amazing" in a more old-school, witnessing-an-unstoppable-force-and-being-filled-with-dread kind of way. I think it's justifiable for people to complain about "Disneyfication". If anything, it's too mild a reaction to Disney gobbling up so much of the market share of popular culture at a time when popular culture is so perpetual and so powerful. There's definitely something insidious about the amount of resources and effort put toward creative expressions being produced and distributed at a breakneck rate, all to serve a singular vision, where the end goal is to make all the money and own all the stuff. Disney engages in literally rewriting history and restructuring cultural record to suit their corporate needs. The more you think about it, the more horrible the implications of this activity is, but they're great at normalizing it, as well. People are mostly fine with this sort of Walt-washing, as long as the Princess® sings a catchy enough song, or there are enough technicolor explosions in the the next Avengers movie.

 

[VeronicaChaos]

They take creativity, run it through algorithms and spit out as much stuff as they can

I think this is the best description. It's not one thing specifically, but rather whatever was popular/successful gets added to the algorithm to be used over and over, regardless of the franchise. A great example of this is Gaurdians of the Galaxy and Star Wars. James Gunn was great at that sorta meta humor, not quite Deadpool but breaking tension with something silly and unexpected. It worked great in Gaurdians, which was it's own new thing pretty much. But then you see that exact same gimmick in Star Wars, where it's confusing that a serious scene is interrupted by a silly joke. Disney isn't great at keeping their intellectual properties separate, and everything they touch has definitely gone through their machine, which is obvious the more current Disney films you watch.

 

[Dan Epstein]

I think it started about a century ago, when rather violent fairy-tales were cushioned from their Charles Perrault and Grimm versions.

 

[A214]

I take it to mean making something more mainstream, marketable. Instead of just making a great movie, they consider how many toys will it sell, how much buzz/social media can it create. Will it bring people to Disneyland? And what can we do to increase those numbers. That said, I do think Disney makes great movies and the term can be applied on a larger scale like McJob or McMansion has.

 

[barbeque]

It's not necessarily a bad thing. Star Wars now has a bunch of spin off movies like Solo after Disney took over. I heard they were planning to make Bobba Fett and Yoda movies.
I dislike this mass-market trend, but will I watch the movies? Probably yeah, but with mixed feelings.

Oh yes, and Star Wars now has its own section in Disneyland, where you can buy custom light sabers and jedi robes. *nerd screeching*