When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)

[Ogrebear]

Nice that Eddie Murphy is getting some directing practice in on a show he likes. Star Trek can only benefit from the 'star power' as well.

Wonder if Paramount will spin off Star Trek into its own business unit to unite the movies and TV shows? Isn't the early 90's when the Vicom/Paramount/CBS mess started OTL?

Really hope the Union of Sovereign States can sort itself out esp Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The USS really need a massive constitutional conference to sort their internal setup out.

Even is this USSR breakup is less messy than OTL the risk of nuclear stuff and regular hardware going missing is very high it seems.

Somalia- well its a UN mandate so hopefully the US will not get bogged down too much. Doubt they will be able to slove Somalia's problems ITTL any more than OTL.

Happy New Year @Geekhis Khan

 

[Plateosaurus]

Isn't the early 90's when the Vicom/Paramount/CBS mess started OTL?

Yeah, but recall that Paramount and CBS aren't owned by Viacom ITTL and point.

A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)

If we are looking for an alternate Batman director? Alex Proyas. Hell, just to make things really wild, cast Brandon Lee as Bruce Wayne/Batman. I did a cursory google search and agree with this sentiment, but it depends on when the Great Khan plans to release Batman ITTL. Proyas had only...

www.alternatehistory.com

Boston – National Amusements Chairman Sumner Redstone announced the acquisition of a controlling interest in the Viacom media company. The deal brings with it several broadcast television stations and cable stations to include the Showtime premium channel[2]. The move marks a broad expansion of the Boston based company, which owns numerous movie theaters and other entertainment ventures.

[2] Notably does not include MTV and Nickelodeon, which were retained by Warner in this timeline. Viacom was acquired by Redstone in our timeline at about the same time.

 

[Goldwind2]

Happy New Year, all! Let's start with something fun: the news!

(Image source Britannica)

---

Murphy Outed as Trek Director!
From Entertainment Weekly, September 19th, 1992

(Image source “democratlive.com”)

Los Angeles – Are you a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Did you love “The Andorian Shuffle”[1] or “The Lasting Limits of Logic”? Well, have we got a surprise for you! Observant Trekkies may have noticed that these two episodes, among others this last season, were directed by “Murphy Edwards”, who also has a story credit on both “Shuffle” and “Logic”. Well, guess what: Murphy Edwards is none other than comedian and movie star Eddie Murphy! Yes, the celebrated A-lister has secretly been directing some of your favorite episodes alongside Jonathan Frakes and other cast-directors. Long known to be a Trekkie himself, Murphy starred in Star Trek IV alongside William Shatner and had an important cameo in Star Trek V. As such, it should be no surprise that he’d want to be involved in the popular television reboot. And given the second-class status of the small screen when compared to the big, you can understand why he’d hide his contributions behind a nom de plume.

Murphy in a Cameo in Season 2 (Image source Reddit)

While rumors of Murphy’s contributions in the series have circulated in the fandom for a while, exclusive leaked set photos and anonymous interviews by EW have revealed the truth behind the rumors. The staff here at EW are certain that he’s using the opportunity to hone his directorial skills, which were savaged following his box office flop The Cotton Club. But behind the scenes, the buzz is that this television sandbox is just what he needed. “He’s a delight to work with,” said one anonymous cast member, “and a skilled director. Great with the talent and crew alike.” Will this small-screen success translate back to the big screen, or will this “outing” doom Murphy with the stink of television? That remains to be seen. Until then, keep an eye out for “Murphy Edwards” in the credits of your next Trek episode.



Tensions Escalate in former Soviet Union
The New York Times, October 7th, 1992

Ethnic and political tensions continue to escalate across the Union of Sovereign States (USS; also known as the Union of Sovereign Republics, or USR, and CCC in Cyrillic), the federated union of nine former Soviet Republics and numerous smaller ethnic autonomous zones. The secession and attempted secession of many former Soviet Republics, exacerbated by ethnic, religious, historic, and strategic concerns, have led to unrest that threatens to spill out into the larger world, with some fearing that unsecured nuclear weapons could fall into dangerous hands.

Tempers continue to escalate in the east Baltic Sea as talks broke down between the USS Federal Government and the three former Soviet Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The three small states, which have their own history and culture, have long sought independence from the USSR and its Tsarist predecessor. All three have declared full independence and continue to rebuff advances by the USS to join the new Federal Union as member states.

The three Baltic Republics, which control the majority of access to the eastern Baltic Sea, also cut the USS off from its Kaliningrad Oblast, which represents the USS’s second most critical Baltic Sea port after St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). Talks to determine USS transit rights to and from the Kaliningrad Oblast have stalled, complicated further by ongoing efforts by the Baltic Republics to join NATO and the European Community, moves seen by Moscow as a strategic threat.

Similar tensions are persisting in the oil-rich State of Azerbaijan, which has remained in the Union but which for ethnic and religious reasons has a strong internal secessionist movement. Accounting for a large part of USS petroleum reserves, the loss of the State would have severe economic consequences were it to leave. Tensions between Azerbaijan and the neighboring Republic of Armenia, which did not join the USS, are exacerbated by territorial disputes that have led to sporadic violence, particularly in and around the heavily Armenian Autonomous Oblast of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Religious and cultural issues also plague many of the former Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, recently redesignated Autonomous Republics (AR) by Moscow[2]. For example, in the AR of Checheno-Ingush the populous is divided between those who seek greater autonomy within the USS and those who demand full independence. Former Soviet Air Force General turned Chetnik politician Dzhokhar Dudayev is demanding that the AR be made a full Sovereign State with co-equal status to the other nine USS States[3]. Protests in Grozny turned violent with many arrests made. The region, which borders Azerbaijan and the newly independent Republic of Georgia, is adding to the ongoing regional ethno-religious tensions.

Meanwhile, the Central Asian States of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, which have historical ethnic and territorial tensions of their own, are suffering from a refugee influx with fears of increasing regional violence due to continued internecine conflict in neighboring Afghanistan. With the feared rise of militant extremism in Afghanistan and with several thousand Soviet-era nuclear weapons suspected to still be located in the Central Asian USS States, world leaders have expressed “grave concerns” with the potential for such powerful weapons to fall into the hands of non-State actors[4].

US President George Bush was joined by President Elect Albert Gore in calling for calm. The US has been joined by the UK, France, and Germany in an offer to help negotiate tensions. USS President Gorbachev has so far resisted calls for external arbitration, but agreed to a multilateral meeting in Geneva this November to assure UN leaders that the internal strife will not bleed over into neighboring countries. UN Secretary-General Boutros…Cont’d on A2.



US Troops arrive in Somalia
Washington Post, December 4th, 1992

Outgoing President George Bush today announced the deployment of US military forces to the East African nation of Somalia. Dubbed Operation Restore Hope, the US forces will be tasked with reinforcing UNOSOM forces in order to maintain ceasefire in the war-torn nation and ensure that humanitarian aid gets to those who need it. Ongoing hoarding and belligerent actions by Somali warlords continue to hamper UN efforts in this regard, and it is hoped that the US forces will provide the stabilizing force necessary to finally enforce UN aims.

“We do not foresee major combat,” said President Bush. “Instead, our fighting men and women will simply be there to maintain the peace and restore hope and humanitarian aid to those who need it.”

Critics have expressed cynicism to the US involvement, with some claiming that the US plans to use their presence to gain concessions for US Oil Companies in the nation, which contains noteworthy reserves in the northern Somaliland region. Bush denies that this is the case, maintaining that the troops are there only to maintain the peace and enforce the UN mandate.

In an interview with the Post, US General…Cont’ on A3.

---

[1] Alas, no Andorians appear in this episode (’92 is still too early for audiences to accept Blue Aliens again). Instead, it involved Riker and the crew running a long con to claim a MacGuffin from a troupe of Ferengi.

[2] The “Autonomous Republic” designation covers all of the old ASSRs. The USR also still retains the various strange historic cultural-regional designations like Krais and Okrugs and Federal Cities that have rough equivalence to a Russian Oblast in terms of internal authority and sovereignty and power. Autonomous Oblasts remain as culturally-unique Oblasts with special cultural rights and autonomy similar to their equivalents under the USSR. It remains a complex and Byzantine system of subtle differences in laws and rights that will continue to confound outsiders and complicate internal politics and economics, but resistance to change and the possible loss of special (often cultural) rights under the current system will hamper attempts to streamline it into a simple three-tier system of Oblast-Republic-State. Krais, Okrugs, and AOs have the right to apply for AR status and numerous ARs have been pushing for the right for ARs to apply for full Sovereign State status.

[3] He reportedly was pushing for the ASSR to be made a full Soviet Republic in the late 1980s, but moved towards pressing for full secession and independence in the wake of the failed 1991 coup attempt and its chaotic aftermath. Here the apparently stronger USS government means that he’s (at least for the moment) hedging his bets and continuing to pushing for Sovereign State status.

[4] Don’t you just love these Utopian Timelines?

I hope think will get better in the USS. I hope that Boris Nemtsov will end president . Based on my reshearch nemstov seam to be best to best to make russia a ture democratic state and not a nationlist orligagary

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 15: War Stories
Post from the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little

There’s an old story that’s been circling Disney Animation for years about the time that Card Walker walked up to Jim Henson with a request. You won’t meet a single eyewitness to the conversation, but there are plenty of folks who “heard it from someone who was there,” naturally.

The details change, but the general idea is the same: Card walks up to Jim and tells him that he has a request for an animated film for the WED Signature line. He says that if Jim backs him on the project, then he’ll throw whatever weight that he has left behind “any idea that [Jim] wants to back.” Sometimes they add “however strange.”

Jim agrees and askes the idea, and Card presents his idea for “War Stories”, an animated depiction of veteran’s experiences in World War II set to their voiceover telling the stories.

Jim agrees to the deal, shakes Card’s hand, and says he knows exactly the new project that he wants to do and wants Card’s support for: an animated feature called “War Stories.”

Some say Card smiled, some say Card cried, but whether there’s any truth to the tale or not, it’s a good story, so it sticks around.

Whatever its origins, War Stories was launched in mid ’90, and I got dragged away from Talespin and Lost in La Mancha to lead the animation on a segment about a Tuskegee Airman fighting over Germany in ’44.

War Stories began life as a simple series of vignettes. All digital-2D, naturalistic, frequently action heavy. By this point Softworks advances in real time digital input-output driven by digital puppetry was allowing us to digitally pencil in real time as well using a light pen or a stylus table. You could effectively hand draw right on the screen in real time almost as easy as paper, the prior image lightly superimposed so you didn’t have to wear out your wrist with the old “paper flip” technique, then ink and paint as easily as point and click. You could stretch and skew lines, zoom, move, and reposition and thus dynamically edit. And you could use layers to create a pseudo-3D effect like was done back in the day by the multilevel camera rig, and all at a cost lower than the traditional or fully-3D way at the time.

And in a huge boon to me as someone developing dynamic aerial dogfights, there was even the ability to build true 3D wireframes and movement vectors and a feature to allow you to “project” a 3D image onto a flat surface to create a 2D image with the appearance of 3D depth, essentially recreating what Richard Williams used to do by hand and eye alone. I honestly feel a little guilty about that.

As stated, we worked in teams, each assigned a specific point of view of a single warfighter. Each team had a single story to follow. All would be placed one after another. Each story would feed into the next. Rather than just stick to the American perspective, Jim wanted to tell stories from all sides, even the Axis, which caused some early controversy. When the full story was put together, in particular when “Werner’s Tale” was fully told, the controversy evaporated. I’ll explain later.

Soon George Lucas found out about the project and wanted to see the storyboards, which were being managed by Glen Keane as Head Director. George saw the storyboards, and was not impressed. “There’s no story,” he said.

“No, there are several stories,” Glen replied.

“There needs to be one,” George said.

I should know. Unlike the earlier tale with Card and Jim, I was in the room where it happened. And what George meant was that it needed a sense of narrativity. Like the Ken Burns Civil War documentary that had been all the rage on PBS the year before, George felt that we should mix up the stories, overlap them. Like Ken Burns, we could tell the whole story of the war, from the rise of Hitler to the Atomic Bomb and VJ day, through the individual interwoven tales. Glen was now the “Supervising Director” and suddenly all storyboards from the individual tales would be duplicated for the “master board” that Glen controlled.

We soon found ourselves mixing up the stories, following a vaguely temporal line, as if we were seeing the whole war unfold before us, the battlefront and the home front, through the experiences of several people’s stories. We began with Werner, a young and naïve German man, whose father died in the first world war. Through him we see the struggles of the average German during the difficult Weimar period and the prevailing mood, and can see through naïve young Werner how he, like so many, got seduced to disaster by the siren’s call of the Nazis.

The larger story expanded, bringing in additional viewpoints: a British woman, a Polish pilot who escapes to fight in the Battle of Britain, a French soldier turned POW turned Underground fighter, a Japanese Navy sailor, a Jewish child from Lodz (Jack Tramiel of Commodore, one of our principal financers). As the war went on and expanded, so did the points of view: a Russian soldier on the Eastern Front, an American sailor at Pearl Harbor, a Marine at Guadalcanal, a Navajo “Code Talker”, a navy carrier crewman (Card), a Black man training at Tuskegee, Alabama. Then deeper into things: the trials of the Home Front in multiple theaters, a Japanese American child sent to an internment camp (George Takei), the horrors of Auschwitz (Jack), a Japanese Hiroshima survivor. The storyboarding was carefully interwoven, the whole war, one piece, one point of view at a time. The highs, lows, horrors, and triumphs, and most importantly where those things blurred together.

We could have ended the film on VJ day or Hiroshima. But instead, somewhat controversially, we went right back to Werner, with whom we began, now a disabled veteran of the Eastern Front, a man riddled with guilt and trauma after what he’s witnessed and what he’s done, which we have witnessed with him. And his last discussion is about a single empty storefront in his small home town. I’ll copy his words here, because I couldn’t do them justice:

“I looked at the storefront where once Frau Appelbaum’s shop was. As kids she gave us treats. She was a kind old woman. As teens we did nothing when the Brownshirts smashed her windows. We did nothing but look on as she was taken away by the Gestapo. She was ‘going to a new home in Israel’ we were told. She instead went to Treblinka.

“I expressed my guilt to a friend of mine who also survived the war. ‘That was not us,’ he said, ‘that was the Nazis.’

“‘No!’ I said. ‘We killed Frau Appelbaum when we did nothing to stop the Nazis; when we looked the other way. We killed her as sure as if we’d pulled the trigger ourselves.’”

War Stories got a lot of attention, even if it wasn’t coming close to the top 10 in sales. I won an Annie award for the aviation sequences on the Tuskegee tale. The film won numerous Annies and the Oscar for Best Animated Film. The Smithsonian and other museums still play it. It even made a fair profit over the years. But none of that matters as much as the fact that we did something good. Not just good animation, but good for the world. Good for society. Good for those Veterans trying to deal with the pain of their experiences, regardless of the wars they fought.

We didn’t try to make the war into something to celebrate or something to condemn, only something to remember. We made no efforts to editorialize or inject opinions. We let the narrators tell their tales and gave each veto over their own portrayals. We didn’t shy away from the horrors or the controversy. The graphic animation ended up receiving a T rating and came close to an R, or so I hear. Truth was the core philosophy of the project.

If there’s a central lesson, it’s that war truly is hell and that human resilience can be an amazing and wonderful thing.

During production, Card, whose own story became a part of the film, had some hesitance about some of the Axis perspective pieces at first. But as the full narrative unfolded, his reticence drained away. He saw that we were playing fair and acting in good faith to let the people tell their own stories, including his.

Whether there’s any truth to the origins of War Stories, I can say as an eye witness that, at the original test screening at the Dopey Drive theater, as the lights came up, you could see Card Walker and Jim Henson, eyes wet with tears, embracing one another as everyone, myself included, gave a thunderous standing ovation all around[1].

---

[1] War Stories will have an Arthouse release in the Spring of 1993 under the WED Signature line and will go on to win Best Animated Feature in 1994, soon gaining a wider release. It will become popular with veterans groups and schools and will eventually prove mildly profitable through home media sales.

 

[Plateosaurus]

Fascinating, noble read.

I am particularly fascinated by the mentions of Academy Award for best Animated Film and that War Stories plays in the Smithsonian. For the former, it started in 1990 yet we haven't seen a single Oscar list a la the TL Player II Start. Back to the subject of Best Animated Feature, I can bet that Don Bluth's Prince of Egypt won it or at leasrt was a high contender.

For the latter, it only lends credence to my guess that Disney will found the Smithsonian Channel IOTL due to how many times they've showed up to collab with Disney (just a handful, but that's enough not to be a coincidence).

 

[MatthewFirth]

Fascinating, noble read.

I am particularly fascinated by the mentions of Academy Award for best Animated Film and that War Stories plays in the Smithsonian. For the former, it started in 1990 yet we haven't seen a single Oscar list a la the TL Player II Start. Back to the subject of Best Animated Feature, I can bet that Don Bluth's Prince of Egypt won it or at leasrt was a high contender.

For the latter, it only lends credence to my guess that Disney will found the Smithsonian Channel IOTL due to how many times they've showed up to collab with Disney (just a handful, but that's enough not to be a coincidence).

Well, having asked @Geekhis Khan earlier about Oscars, I believed he said he wouldn't do them unless someone did a guest post...

 

[Plateosaurus]

Well, having asked @Geekhis Khan earlier about Oscars, I believed he said he wouldn't do them unless someone did a guest post...

So, wanna make one with me?

 

[MatthewFirth]

So, wanna make one with me?

Sure. There are loads of hints within both threads I think...

 

[Geekhis Khan]

So, wanna make one with me?

Sure. There are loads of hints within both threads I think...

Go for it. PM me. 👍

 

[Shiny_Agumon]

But instead, somewhat controversially, we went right back to Werner, with whom we began, now a disabled veteran of the Eastern Front, a man riddled with guilt and trauma after what he’s witnessed and what he’s done, which we have witnessed with him. And his last discussion is about a single empty storefront in his small home town. I’ll copy his words here, because I couldn’t do them justice:

“I looked at the storefront where once Frau Appelbaum’s shop was. As kids she gave us treats. She was a kind old woman. As teens we did nothing when the Brownshirts smashed her windows. We did nothing but look on as she was taken away by the Gestapo. She was ‘going to a new home in Israel’ we were told. She instead went to Treblinka.

“I expressed my guilt to a friend of mine who also survived the war. ‘That was not us,’ he said, ‘that was the Nazis.’

“‘No!’ I said. ‘We killed Frau Appelbaum when we did nothing to stop the Nazis; when we looked the other way. We killed her as sure as if we’d pulled the trigger ourselves.’”

Is someone cutting onions in this thread?

War Stories really deserves to be in the WED signature series, what a powerful piece of film.

Also I love the ending, it feels like something Bertolt Brecht or Kurt Tucholsky would write and it sounds so powerful.

The whole film actually with all these people, famous or not sharing their experiences, good and bad.

Powerful chapter @Geekhis Khan

I need a Kleenex.

 

[GrahamB]

Bloody hell, Geekhis, you've dropped another masterpiece on us. Well earned for the WED silver silhouette box. I know a couple of history teachers that would have scooped up a copy out of their own pocket so they could show it at school.

Disney combining their histories in documentary filming and wartime animation (I can imagine a few 'cameo' composites of new animated characters watching vintage Disney war cartoons 'in theatre') is a masterstroke, something probably only they can do as a studio. Wasn't expecting George Lucas to make a cameo, but there he is and doing good work.
Well done using poor Werner as bookends, the perspective of one of the kids sucked into, chewed up, then spat out by the Nazis is a rare one in English Language films.

That small glimpse Terrell gives us about the bleeding edge of animation technology is revealing, seeing him working on the first lightboard tablets in the early 90s when that tech is only now becoming affordable 'prosumer' tech around 2020.

Great post all around!

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

[1] War Stories will have an Arthouse release in the Spring of 1993 under the WED Signature line and will go on to win Best Animated Feature in 1994, soon gaining a wider release. It will become popular with veterans groups and schools and will eventually prove mildly profitable through home media sales.

I can also see this possibly getting at least one "sequel" if not being the first of a series as more veterans the world over wish to share their stories.

 

[WhovianHolmesianChap]

Some fan-art I've done of Supes and Spidey:
(Sorry for the B&W for Downey, it was the only way I could match up the skin tone.)

green-as-spidey hosted at ImgBB

Image green-as-spidey hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

downey-jr hosted at ImgBB

Image downey-jr hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

Okay, finally got the images properly up (albeit slightly lower res):

 

[Pesterfield]

I can also see this possibly getting at least one "sequel" if not being the first of a series

That would be interesting, though the next one should be a "prequel" get WW1 stories before all the veterans die.

The Hello Girls are worth a story, telephone switchboard operators that worked on the Western Front.

 

[Arrowfan237]

Did they receive any pushback from anyone in the public (political organizations, foreign countries, random people, etc.) about specific choices made in the narrative (ex. The decision to include the Nazi point of view, potential whitewashing of the racism experienced by the Tuskegee airman character)?

this would be an incredibly important film to get made but not everyone may agree.

 

[Arrowfan237]

That would be interesting, though the next one should be a "prequel" get WW1 stories before all the veterans die.

The Hello Girls are worth a story, telephone switchboard operators that worked on the Western Front.

Or an animated adaptation of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien but also including the Vietnamese point of view, student protests in the home front, and maybe even the point of view of the Cambodians.

 

[Denliner]

What a great start to 2022, Geekhis!

I'm glad that Eddie Murphy is having fun with these Star Trek episodes. Although I get his concern for working in television as opposed to a theatrical project, it's Star Trek! You can't go wrong with directing something that you actually like. Hopefully he gets rewarded with a Star Trek film someday, but let's see if that happens.

As for what's happening with the Sovereign Union, I guess that's inevitable as there are many conflicts that need to be resolved between it and the post-Soviet states that decided on independence. Same with Somalia, although I am crossing my fingers that we can avoid something like Black Hawk Down.

---

War Stories was completely unexpected to be honest. I was a bit at a loss when Card Walker supposedly asked Jim Henson to make this, but I am glad that it was made. Seeing Card Walker and Jim Henson literally cry their eyes out during the test screening definitely hit hard.

However, the fact that it was a film is a bit perplexing, in my personal opinion. This kind of premise screams TV miniseries format to me with all of the POVs amidst such a huge conflict such as WWII, but I can see Disney try to find ways to not make each POV too brief while interconnecting the narrative into a cohesive story as best as they could. Considering that it was a smash hit OTL, I guess I can't be too worried about the project.

With that success, I'm actually stoked that they could make a sequel as a film or miniseries. A show about WWI is a great idea, although I am personally more inclined towards a Vietnam War/Gulf War production seeing how audiences are more familiar with both wars and have personal connections to those that did suffer during those conflicts.

I also love the decision to add in the Axis perspective into the film, it's not everyday people get to see the view of the opposing side, especially one as sympathetic as Werner. Hopefully it's the standard for any future wartime productions for Disney.

Regardless, it's a fantastic addition to the Walt Disney Signature Series collection, Geekhis!

Oh by the way...

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks, all on the kind words. War Stories was one of those ideas that just seemed like a natural follow-up to what came next. I figured Card, still miffed about Grave of the Fireflies, would want to see WWII vets honored, and that led naturally to the idea. Figuring out the execution became a challenge. I'm glad it seems to have worked out.

Yes, Murphy is "outed" as a TV Director. We'll see what comes next. He's still starring in some upcoming feature films, so how they do may determine his future bankability.

Does this incident still occur on Saturday Night Live in TTL:

The problem nowadays is seen not as the fact that she did it, but that she didn't provide context for it (the reason why she tore up the pope's photo was that she was protesting the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandals in 1992--and she would be vindicated a decade later). Maybe, in TTL, she explains why she is tearing up the pope's photo, especially with the earlier #MeToo movement...

I don't know if this will be enough to save her career, but she will hopefully still have one in TTL...

I saw that one live, and I was like "WTF? What's her issue with the Pope? He seems like a nice enough guy", so yea, having some background or nuance would have helped defray a lot of the anger and pushback. Like most viewers, I didn't see that and say, "wow, child abuse in the church is bad, the Pope needs to step up" I thought, "wow, she hates Catholicism." I started to think that she was a Protestant Unionist at the time!

Well, with the Catholic Church, at least in the US, forced to reckon earlier with the abuses, I can see her perhaps being already known as an outspoken critic of the abuses the whole time. Perhaps she chooses the picture of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick or another now-infamous accused abuser. Perhaps she has a song specifically about the abuse scandal. There are certainly better options to make a point without pissing off hundreds of millions of people.

Perhaps not but I mainly posted this to suggest that Disney could be the main English dubber for the Asterix animated films:

List of Asterix films - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I thought so, given what you had under that cover.

And for what it's worth, Disney IOTL did try and make Marsupilami a household name in the 90s. Sure, that plan backfired and blew up in their faces simultaneously, but it's the ambitions that count.

Marsupilami OTL was an Eisner thing, given his Francophilia, and he secured the rights. I'd expect Hollywood Animation/DiC to do the dub iTTL. Same for Astrix. Perhaps done in partnership with Pathe to defray risk.

This really isn't any different from OTL except that the "Soviet" state is stronger and probably better able to control nuclear material than IOTL (still problematic, but not as much). I would expect a large amount of effort from the United States to prevent weapons from getting out of the USS, including both direct measures like buying nuclear material to keep the nuclear infrastructure gainfully employed (hence less likely to slip away) and reduce the number of weapons floating around and indirect measures like bringing the USS into the ISS program to keep rocket engineers similarly gainfully employed. This was a huge foreign policy thing in the 1990s IOTL, it'll be the same here.

Even is this USSR breakup is less messy than OTL the risk of nuclear stuff and regular hardware going missing is very high it seems.

The biggest difference from OTL was that the Central Asian SSRs went fully independent, and part of the deal was that they had to give up the nukes. Here, the nukes are still in place and while I know the general perception is that the USS is "stronger" than the OTL RF, there's still the issue of the many republics still in the USS that have major internal secessionist movements, including the CA States. So in some ways Moscow is stronger, but in other ways it's stretched thinner.

Recall the Chechnyan War. Imagine that writ larger, and with Nukes at play. It's very possible.

Okay, finally got the images properly up (albeit slightly lower res):
View attachment 707737
View attachment 707738

Looking good, Whovian, thanks!

Did they receive any pushback from anyone in the public (political organizations, foreign countries, random people, etc.) about specific choices made in the narrative (ex. The decision to include the Nazi point of view, potential whitewashing of the racism experienced by the Tuskegee airman character)?

this would be an incredibly important film to get made but not everyone may agree.

Yes, not everyone celebrated, naturally. For example there was still some pushback for even letting a "Nazi" talk, even if the portrayal of his actions was not justified and "Werner" himself (fictional and invented for the TL) was in "confession" mode and fully cognizant of what he and his fellows did wrong. Others disliked that the horrors of Dresden and Hiroshima were explored. Also, some on the far right tried to downplay or deny the Japanese Internment Camps or even (on the far-far right) the Holocaust itself. But the nuance and the horror and the crimes were fully explored. The racism faced by the Tuskeegee Airmen was openly explored. The horrors of being on the receiving end of bombs, be they Allied or Axis, including Hiroshima, were explored. And yes, several parents and parents groups complained about the graphic violence.

However, the fact that it was a film is a bit perplexing, in my personal opinion. This kind of premise screams TV miniseries format to me with all of the POVs amidst such a huge conflict such as WWII, but I can see Disney try to find ways to not make each POV too brief while interconnecting the narrative into a cohesive story as best as they could. Considering that it was a smash hit OTL, I guess I can't be too worried about the project.

With that success, I'm actually stoked that they could make a sequel as a film or miniseries. A show about WWI is a great idea, although I am personally more inclined towards a Vietnam War/Gulf War production seeing how audiences are more familiar with both wars and have personal connections to those that did suffer during those conflicts.

It was a long movie, probably 2.5 hours+, but yes, a chief complaint was that it occasionally seemed "rushed". Careful editing kept things moving forward and there were no "Narrator breaks" like in Ken Burns to explain things, just story-to-story-to-story letting the magic of the visuals immerse the viewer. Use of largely-still images "panned across" for the horror aspects were used to heighten the horror and both reduce cost/time and reduce the amount of time that the poor animators had to spend working on them and exposing themselves to the horror.

Let's say that an Extended Cut animated from "leftover" interview audio and new viewpoints makes a later appearance as a miniseries/VCD release and some later wars are shown. A WWI set would be good, with dwindling people to talk to.

The film itself took a long time to make a profit, so while officially not a "flop" it wasn't any real return on investment for a while and Disney took most of the production cost as a loss with some charitable donations for Disabled Vet causes.

 

[GrahamB]

And yes, several parents and parents groups complained about the graphic violence.

Cartoon = "For Children" after all, T-rating and entirely unsubtle warnings on the box be damned.
I think this is also why this could only be made as a theatrical film and not a television series, to address something @Denliner brought up. 'Television animation' is still double-deep in the Animation Ghetto, even in this timeline, so 'arthouse film' is probably your only way to get it released and have an audience arrive with appropriate expectations.

As for a follow-up, I think it would best be handled for significant anniversaries. This probably means you're unlikely to get living veterans of the First World War for the Centennial production set for 2014, but you can do worse than setting animation to the letters people wrote during the conflict, something like the remarkable "Letters Live" videos I've found on YouTube. You can sidestep translation problems then if you're using readers.

[Like this, but letters from a generation earlier.]

Personally, I'd like to see one for the Korean War, which is so often overlooked in most popular histories, despite having so many participants.

 

[Arrowfan237]

As for a follow-up, I think it would best be handled for significant anniversaries. This probably means you're unlikely to get living veterans of the First World War for the Centennial production set for 2014, but you can do worse than setting animation to the letters people wrote during the conflict, something like the remarkable "Letters Live" videos I've found on YouTube. You can sidestep translation problems then if you're using readers.

Maybe an adaptation of Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old.