Western Animation PODs?
- Thread starter Hadley
- Start date
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
There's a whole thread on one good PoD idea in particular, where John Carter of Mars gets an animated movie in the 1930's...
My Step by Step Timeline, has some interesting changes for both Stop Motion Animation and regular Animation.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=254952
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=254952
I'd like that very much. I loved Titan A.E.
I think Titan A.E. is why Fox Animation Studios was shut down.
1: Ralph Bakshi goes as all out for the hand drawn aspects of his adaption of Lord of the Rings as he does the rotoscoped elements and the storyboards. As a result, the estate of J. R. R. Tolkien doesn't turn to Rankin-Bass for Return of the King, this means that their version of The Hobbit never happens either. Have we also butterflied away The Last Unicorn, A Flight of Dragons, and Thundercats? What about the merger with Filmation that allowed Star Rangers and Bravestarr?
2: The Nine Old Men retire right after The Aristocats, which means that Don Bluth and Brad Bird never feel the need to leave Disney and strike out on their own. Does this mean that The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, The Iron Giant, and Rock-A-Doodle happen as Disney films? And how will this affect the OTL Disney Animated Features from The Rescuers to Treasure Planet? The Simpsons?
3: The near merger of Don Bluth Animation and Studio Ghibli in late 1984 actually happens. What happenes when Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Grave of the Fireflies, and Porco Rosso are released in the U.S. when they were first produced, and An American Tail, All Dogs go to Heaven, and Thumbelina aren't Disney-Style Musicals?
4: Rankin-Bass/Filmation doesn't go bankrupt and its assets acquired by Warner Bros. Will there still be a Thundercats revival? Will they sue Nightow Masamune over Trigun?
2: The Nine Old Men retire right after The Aristocats, which means that Don Bluth and Brad Bird never feel the need to leave Disney and strike out on their own. Does this mean that The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, The Iron Giant, and Rock-A-Doodle happen as Disney films? And how will this affect the OTL Disney Animated Features from The Rescuers to Treasure Planet? The Simpsons?
3: The near merger of Don Bluth Animation and Studio Ghibli in late 1984 actually happens. What happenes when Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Grave of the Fireflies, and Porco Rosso are released in the U.S. when they were first produced, and An American Tail, All Dogs go to Heaven, and Thumbelina aren't Disney-Style Musicals?
4: Rankin-Bass/Filmation doesn't go bankrupt and its assets acquired by Warner Bros. Will there still be a Thundercats revival? Will they sue Nightow Masamune over Trigun?
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Filmation didnt go bankrupt, they were bought out by L'Oreal. However, it would be interesting if the buyout DIDNT happen. Considering the quality of their later work like Bravestarr and Pinnochio and the Emperor of the Night, i can see them making even more improvements, kind of like Hanna-Barbera's revival in the 90s with dexters lab and power puff girls. But why would they sue over Trigun?
Walt Disney gets additional funding for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and never leaves Universal Studios. Interesting to see how the company develops from there.
The Fleisher Brothers at Paramount-Dave and Max merge with Disney and take Popeye with them.Popeye and Mickey Mouse and possibly Superman.They started doing the latter character in 1941 OTL.Also, Disney had labor trouble and a lot of artists, etc.left the studio and later founded UPA-the studio of Mr.Magoo and Gerald MCBoingboing.WI further he settled with them and they remained at the studio with no future UPA?
In my Timeline, Step by Step, The Fleisher Studio end up teaming up with RKO and doing some other DC heroes animated films including Doctor Fate and Green Latern. They also do a John Carter of Mars Movie, and A Martian Odyssey short film before WW2 and Three 5 part adaptions of the first three John Carter books during the 1950's.
As you suggested above, they would hired a lot of the Disney people who would leave so UPA never developed as a separate company.
Planning for some latter segments to have Fleisher become RKO animation in the mid 1950's and in the 1970's work with Don Bluth on a Three Movie Lord of the Rings Animation films, to be follow with a three part adaption of Loyd Alexander Chronicles of Prydain. This would free Disney up to do a 1980 sequel to Fantasia.
Problem is, there's nothing you can do to the original premise to tweak it to make it any better.
If you introduce Pocahantas' actual groom John Rolfe, you make the narrative too clunky by violating the Principle of Minimalism. If you age her down to her actual contact age of twelve, "Colors of the Wind" would turn her into an underage yandere and Captain or Liutenant John into a pedophile. And adding the John Candy talking turkey character that was written out of the final draft of the script woyld be like adding Br'er Rabbit to a Disney Animated Musical of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
If you make it into the Tragedy the real life version actually is, it would win the Palm D'Or at Cannes, and the Blue Ribbon at Sundance, and maybe even the Best Picture Oscar that was denied to Beauty and the Beast, and then flop hard with American audiences for the same reason Grave of the Fireflies and Here and Now and Then and There did when released on video.*
Walt Disney Studios' animation division is simply too big to make true cult classics that don't rely on camp. Their economic model simply won't support it.
So, instead, how about... well, no, an animated Three Musketters would have been perfect (and I could have sworn that Disney actually did one in the Sixties, but that turned out to have been Freling-DePattie) except that it would have suffered from comparisons to the Live Action movie version the way the Disney version of the Twelve Labors did to Hercules: The Legendary Journies.
So, which animated film does Disney do instead?
*That said, I would have loved for such a film to have been made, with the closing credits done to Niel Young's "Marlon Brando, Pocohantas, and Me."
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I think they brought in John Rolfe for the direct-to-video sequel, but because they'd set up John Smith as a love interest, they had to have some drama.
Given it was a Disney direct-to-video sequel, it probably wasn't very good.
Given it was a Disney direct-to-video sequel, it probably wasn't very good.
Saw it last week with the kids. Yes, they brought John Rolfe into the series and it was an OK movie.
Torqumada