Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Disney self-plagiarism

If I hadn't seen it, I don't think I would have believed it. Now that I've seen it, I'm not really upset...but it is very interesting.

6 comments:

Kevin said...

Interesting.
This looks like basically 3 or 4 different films. I wonder if they were made in the same era or back to back etc.

Okie said...

Here's the films shown and their chronology:

* Snow White - 1937
* Mr. Toad - 1949
* Sleeping Beauty - 1959
* Jungle Book - 1967
* Aristocats - 1970
* Robin Hood - 1977
* Beauty & The Beast - 1991

The three most blatant look-alikes were indeed created one right after another (Jungle Book, Aristocats, & Robin Hood). It's also interesting that these are the first 3 films released after Walt's death (although Disney was involved in the production of Jungle Book...it was his last film).

Wikipedia explains the reuse of material here as being due to Robin Hood having a small budget.

Alea said...

Oh wow. Yeah reusing stuff like that would save tons and tons of time.

Lisa Moore said...

Wow! That's very interesting. I would never have noticed that.

Sadako said...

Okie--I'd heard that, too,that it had to do with them kind of leaderless after Disney died.

And I also heard that the Sleeping Beauty/Beauty and the Beast was less self rip off and more homage.

Okie said...

Yeah...I know the Disney studios really struggled to find a direction through the 70s and 80s. Walt's death really caught them off guard.

Cool that B&B was a homage to old school design. I like that. :)