Blogs and Ends: The Disney Deathcart (Our 100th Post!)

Any organization that does not have anti-Leftism explicitly built into it, will be taken over by Lefitists. 

When Walt Disney fired half of his company in 1947 you’d think Communists would have taken the polite hint.  But staying away from places they aren’t wanted could not be more contradictory to their nature.  And Leftists are drawn to the entertainment industry like moths to a lighthouse.   If you are completely corrupted by the sin of pride, there is no better place to indulge your vice than Hollywood.  And there is no better way to shout your virtue from the rooftops than showing how good of a Lefty you are.

The thing is that back when Lefties were plain old Communists, they were at least functional.  

Today Lefties are SJWs and they aren’t functional at all.  Once SJWs take over an organization, their fantasies become the company’s business plan.  Their fever dreams take precedence over the everyday reality of staying in business and the business goes Woke. Take a look at any Woke commercial, nine times of ten you will hard be pressed to figure out what hell the company even sells, let alone why you should buy it. 

Eventually an SJW converged company will no longer be able to fulfill its core functions and fail.

Disney Entertainment has almost reached this point. Before this new decade is out, the company will have declared bankruptcy.  Here are some of its recent fails.

FIRST

Pixar’s Soul

I tried writing a review of this movie but I couldn’t get much past, “this is an hour and a half Pixar short.”  That honestly is what it feels like.  What mattered to the makers of this film was Wokeness.  That was what came first and foremost.  The plot is that a Jazz pianist has finally gotten a “good job” with benefits as a high school music teacher.  But out of the blue, he gets offered a gig with a big-time Jazz quartet.  He wants to take the gig, ditch his “good job” and hit the road.  His domineering mother wants him to take the job and forget his dream.  And then he falls in a manhole and dies.  One convoluted contrivance later and the music teacher is in the body of a cat while an unborn soul is in his body.  

I’m actually getting bored again trying to write about this.

Because that is what this film mostly brings to the party is unrelenting boredom.

He is supposed to be acting as a mentor to the unborn soul to try to show it all the reasons it should choose to be born. He does this by experiencing music and watching computer-animated vistas. 

It’s competent and I can give it a rating of The Dark Herald Recommends with Reservations.  Except I can’t really recommend it because you will likely be watching this with your kids, and they are going to hate it.  This film, while acceptable for children was not made with them in mind at all.

Pixar has reached the point where self-indulgence is more important than entertaining their audience.   This trend started with Inside Out.  John Lasseter was able to keep the worst of this under control, which I strongly suspect is why he got #METOOed.  But now that he is at Skydance he is happily poaching Pixar’s best talent.  Leaving the drones that got him fired at his old studio.  

Woke Disney will want to keep Woke Pixar in business as long as possible, but their studio is based in the hideously expensive Bay Area.  It’s a five-hour road trip for anyone going up from Disney headquarters in Burbank. Even after Disney gets its bailout check, Bob Cheapek will have ample reason to be looking at closing the studio down and moving it in with the rest of the Disney animation department.  

In the Nineties, Pixar releases were special events because each release showed just how much farther computer animation could be taken.  But at this point, there is no qualitative difference in animation or storytelling.  And frankly, the storytelling has gone noticeably downhill with Lasseter’s departure.   

Pixar will be strictly a software company sometime in the next five years.

NEXT

A much bigger indication of Disney’s organizational dysfunction was amply demonstrated by some of Lucasfilm’s employees after the Mandalorian’s season finale.  

The redemption of Luke Skywalker in the last show of the season had many longtime fans of the show in literal tears.  Star Wars nerds were jumping and down and shouting in beatific joy as their childhood hero was suddenly reborn before their eyes.  No longer the blue milk swilling hobo they last saw in the Last Jedi.  This was the real Luke Skywalker finally completing his hero’s journey (which he never quite did in the first trilogy) becoming the redeemed and the redeemer with the power and gifts to save all mankind.

Not to mention saving Disney.

New subscriptions are the All and the Everything in this brave new world of streaming.  The old rules of broadcast TV don’t apply now.  Forget about building an audience and charging the advertisers premium rates for a long time running shows with guaranteed eyeballs.  The battle cry now is “what have you done for me lately?” If you aren’t delivering new subscriptions, you are dead to Netflix.  It’s why their shows rarely last more than two seasons.  Stranger Things is Netflix’s biggest hit, and its writers are careful to never end a season on a complete cliffhanger.  Sure, they leave a door open for next season but not more than one.  Even being the number one show, they don’t know for sure if they are coming back again next year.

The new streaming world is brutal but highly rewarding. With the goal of $20 billion in annual revenue on the line, everyone needs to deliver.

And boy, did Luke Skywalker do that.  Most of Disney Plus’s subscriptions were from loss leaders and giveaways like the Verizon deal but the Return of Luke generated NEW subscriptions.  Disney hasn’t released any numbers but the execs at Fort Mickey were doing cartwheels and handstands when they saw them.

Disney is in hideous financial shape due to Covid-19. On top of that, the company has had a string of disasters both in terms of money and PR.  From the NBA’s failed mini-season to Mulan’s catastrophic debut on Disney Plus to the massive lay-offs at Disneyland.  There hasn’t been any good news for the House of Mouse this year.  Until Luke Skywalker blew the doors off and dragged in a buttload of new subscriptions for Disney Plus.  

Hero Luke’s critical importance to Disney at this juncture can’t possibly be overstated.

Then, out of the blue, members of Lucasfilm started going after both Hero Luke and the fans that were brought to tears by his return.  

The lead writer for StarWars.com, hit all of the shill outfits, declaring that disgraced and failed Hobo Luke was still the future of this character.  The CCO of Lucasfilm took to his Twitter account to smear at the Star Wars Theory channel guy for tearing up when Luke appeared on the season finale.  All of the old wounds from The Last Jedi were suddenly reopened and the old school fans were looking at Disney and demanding to know, what the fuck!?!?! 

The shocking thing isn’t that these SJWs attacked their own brand’s success and that of the company that employs them.

No, the shocking thing is that these employees of Disney are STILL employees of Disney!  

Any functional company would have had them out the door by lunch.  The executions would have been as bloody as they were public.  But because these attacks came from SJWs, Disney is keeping them on the payroll after a stern talking to.  Because at this point Disney can no longer fire SJWs for their public activism without creating massive blowback within their own company.  

LAST

Marvel Studios is under no obligation whatsoever to follow where the comics leads.  

It would be insane to do so.  Marvel Comics destroyed their sales completely five years ago by going super Woke.  Getting rid of the characters that built their company and replacing them with revolting SJW caricatures of them.

Yet these characters that wrecked Marvel Comics are being brought to the small screen.  Iron Heart, Squirrel Girl, Hulkie McBeal, Kamala Khan, and many other disastrous failures are heading to Disney Plus. Girl Thor is headed for the big screen (currently).

And it’s not like Disney doesn’t know that they’ve failed.

Historical writer Barbara Tuchman defined folly as: “the pursuit of policies contrary to (an organization’s) interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives.”

It’s happening over and over to our pop-culture and its IP owners know it’s destructive, yet they are absolutely powerless to stop it. They keep pursuing these policies contrary to their own self-interest despite the fact that they are so corrosive they end in the IP’s obliteration every time.

Disney could save itself. Easily.  But the company is so converged they would rather go bankrupt.

Okay, I’m done here.  

See you Monday.