The D23 Expo unveils … more of the same

On a technicality, I am a Disney adult.

I love “The Aristocats.” It is my favorite movie of all time. There’s just something about the softness of its lines and colors, its permeating Parisian aesthetic and its feel-good familial story that tugs at my heartstrings. To be fair, so do most other animated Disney movies, which is why I talk about them so often and stay up to date with new releases. I also adore the Star Wars franchise and follow Marvel films with good regularity. Naturally, the D23 Expo was an event very much on my radar. After scrolling through a 22-part TikTok slideshow of the upcoming titles, I was ecstatic. Seeing videos of “Zootopia 2,” “Incredibles 3” and “Toy Story 5” teasers, I began to experience critical levels of FOMO. When I looked up ticket prices for a trip of my own in two years, I shared my plan with my equally Disney-enthused partner, who only had one question: “Why?”

Why, indeed. Why do I want to go to what is ultimately a corporate event for a company I have no stock in? Ultimately, I want a first look at what will be a child’s first film — a film that will become the theme of their seventh birthday party, influence how their room is decorated or the image on their brand-new lunch bag. It’s a glimpse of a life-altering work. Then I looked once more at the list of “noun + integer greater than one” upcoming titles and wondered what “brand new content” was actually being revealed, if any.

Once you walk past the shadows of the larger-than-life intellectual properties getting even grander through sequels, threequels and the like, you’ll see the new ground being broken by the three new projects: “Elio,” a children’s sci-fi adventure; “Hoppers,” another girl-turns-into-animal-hijinks flick and “Win or Lose,” the first Pixar TV show. As a matter of fact, all three major nonadaptation works are by Pixar.

Walt Disney Animation Studios unveiled no nonadaptation works at D23; every single announcement was a reboot or continuation of existing works by the Disney brand. While understandable in instances like announcements of new TV seasons or works in the Star Wars and Marvel universes (where building off previous material is a base necessity), there were no new solo Disney movies announced. None! 

Am I happy my dear friend Stitch (Chris Sanders, “The Croods”) from “Lilo and Stitch” is here? Sure! But if I wanted to see him so bad, I could just watch his original film again and call it a day. My nostalgia doesn’t demand a CGI render of him to feel content, though you can bet it will push me to buy a collectible soda cup when I go see the remake opening night. As I said, I am a Disney adult and still actively find joy and entertainment in this content to this day, but I can only keep drinking the readaptation swill for so long. There hasn’t been a Disney princess announcement since 2019, but I guess you can maim people as Elastigirl when gaming now! 

I am experiencing a new phenomenon called franchise fatigue: I am tired of seeing the same stories told through the same characters over and over again. As mentioned, I will be there when the “Lilo and Stitch” remake drops, but I have avoided the new “The Lion King” and have no interest in Mufasa’s upcoming prequel. I enjoy superhero stories, so I’ll probably be there for the new “Incredibles” but not enough to go to theaters. I’ll just wait a few months and watch it on Disney+ during a slow day, and I might get to “Toy Story 5” (eventually) in the same manner if the spirit moves me. I never even saw “Freaky Friday,” so there’s no hype there, and now I’m basically at the end of the list.

As mentioned, I love “The Aristocats.” It’s a beautifully animated and orchestrated film that touches my soul in the deepest way imaginable and is only racist for about three minutes in the middle of its most memorable song, using a Siamese cat as an anti-Asian punchline. Recently, another animal-centric traditionally animated film that is similarly beautiful and also utilizes Siamese cats in a song for an anti-Asian punchline, “The Lady and the Tramp,” received a live-action remake. I enjoyed it quite a bit; the dogs were on model for the original film and it got me to relive a story I had mostly forgotten about from my childhood (minus those three minutes). It was a fine film. It also made me realize I unequivocally do not want a remake of “The Aristocats.” I do not want to see Duchess’s (Eva Gabor, “The Rescuers”) lifeless real-life, cat-accurate eyes gaze into Thomas O’Malley’s (Phil Harris, “The Jungle Book”) unmoving face under the Paris moon as three scrunched-up, unemotive kitten faces watch on from a distance. I do not want to finally be able to buy the Duchess plushie my heart longs for only for it to look like a realistic feline with white scleras instead of blue.

I have many times tried to draw Duchess, my favorite character of all time. I have many times failed. Like “The Aristocats,” all movies from Disney’s Bronze Age were made with physical cells and scanning technology that often left light traces of sketches and similar linework in the final product, giving it a “scratchy,” many-lined look (think “Robin Hood” and “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,” for example). I find it near-impossible to recreate the shifting pencil markings on paper. This movement is so cozy and comforting, harboring a subtle charm lacking in the modern, computer-assisted animation of today. It is also something that would be completely gone when an animal actor replaced the original character. 

There is something lost with every new installment and remake — through technological change or new storylines or marketable additions to new media, nothing’s going to be as good as what came before it. The charm of a children’s film as a child, whether it be a tangible difference or simply the effect of watching through a kid’s eyes, cannot be recreated. And that’s OK. That’s why — instead of trying to capture the same lightning for the quintupleth time — branching out to something new is the way forward.

A child going to theaters to see a Disney movie announced at this year’s D23 needs to do homework to enjoy the film because nothing upcoming exists as a standalone property. That should not be the case. I don’t think I can quench my creative thirst with the dregs that remain from the juice of a concluded franchise. Regardless, that is not our main issue. The deeper problem is that there’s a new generation of children growing up without films that are truly their own; “Toy Story 5” might be a children’s film, but requiring a 3-year-old to watch four films as a prerequisite stops that kid from being the movie’s target audience. 

The company is slowly abandoning children and instead turning its hungry maw to the adult consumer. Slowly, that nostalgia will peter out, the instinct to lunge at the familiar will wane and there will be nothing new for us to see. Just the same. Rinse and repeat.

I had a “The Aristocats” DVD, which is why it became my favorite childhood film despite coming out 34 years before I was born. But I feel a deeper connection to “Cars” because it’s the first film I ever saw in theaters. With the current D23 lineup, the opportunity to feel a similar connection to an original film is not available for today’s children. 

Managing Arts Editor Cecilia Ledezma can be reached at cledezma@umich.edu.

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