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Step into the golden age of Disney's '90s Renaissance era, where groundbreaking animation and unforgettable Broadway-style songs redefined storytelling. Witness how Disney blended traditional hand-drawn art with cutting-edge digital technology, bringing classics like "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King," and "Aladdin" to life while embracing global themes and bold new directions. Join us as we explore this magical and transformative decade!
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00:00Be. Our. Guest. Be our guest. Put our service to the test.
00:07Welcome to Ms. Mojo. And today, we're taking a trip back to the 1990s, to Disney's Renaissance era.
00:14Yes, you'll be in my heart. Yes, you'll be in my heart.
00:24Disney's Renaissance marked the moment the studio remembered who it was and then decided to level up.
00:29Well, it's my favorite. Far all places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise.
00:36Animation and live action stopped feeling like separate departments and started working together like a perfectly choreographed Disneyland parade.
00:43Broadway-style songs, big emotional storytelling, and bold tech innovation all collided at exactly the right time.
00:50The world was changing fast, globalization was accelerating, the digital age had arrived,
00:55and once again, Disney decided to put all of that into movie magic.
00:59We felt that the palette was really limited in animations up to that point of what kind of stories we
01:04were getting.
01:04So it was a real conscious effort with Toy Story to just do something different.
01:091990 to 1993, a whole new world.
01:13Technically, the story begins with The Rescuers Down Under, a film that rarely receives the praise it deserves.
01:18Bernard and I have decided to accept the mission to Astrid.
01:24Astrid?
01:24Oh, good show. Now you must try out immediately.
01:28As the world became more interconnected, Disney expanded its storytelling horizons geographically as well.
01:34The film delivered a powerful conservation message, and more importantly,
01:38became the first feature totally created using the cap system developed with Pixar.
01:42Her name is Marahute, the Great Golden Eagle.
01:45Where is she?
01:46She's caught high on a cliff in a poacher's trap.
01:49You're the only one who can reach her.
01:51I'll get her loose.
01:52Right-o. Hop on.
01:53No time to lose.
01:54That meant the end of hand-painted cells, at least for now.
01:58Suddenly, animation could move with the freedom of a live-action epic.
02:02Vast landscapes, dynamic tracking shots, a sense of scale that felt enormous.
02:06Disney wasn't waiting around to get eclipsed by films like Home Alone anymore.
02:12Then 1991 arrived, and with it Beauty and the Beast.
02:16Ma chère mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight.
02:24And now, we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair.
02:28Released during the height of the AIDS crisis, its themes of isolation, fear, and a literal ticking clock
02:33carried a weight that extended beyond the screen.
02:36Lyricist Howard Ashman, who passed away from AIDS-related complications before the premiere,
02:41infused the film with a breathtaking soundtrack alongside Alan Menken.
02:45Those moments of writing these songs were so infused with both the beauty of the moment
02:52and the pain of the ephemeral nature of life.
02:56Technically groundbreaking, the sweeping ballroom sequence blended hand-drawn animation with CGI,
03:02creating something monumental.
03:03The film earned a historic Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards.
03:07Meanwhile, its accompanying song won in its category.
03:10Certain as the sun
03:15Rising in the east
03:18Tale as old as time
03:20Song as old as rhyme
03:23Beauty and the beast
03:26Elsewhere, Disney's live-action division was thriving in its own lane.
03:30The Mighty Ducks transformed an underdog sports story into an actual NHL franchise.
03:35That's synergy with skates on.
03:37Cool runnings proved international stories could connect with everyone.
03:40Even movies that stumbled at first, like Newsies and Hocus Pocus,
03:44eventually found immortality as cult classics via the burgeoning home video market.
03:54Then came Aladdin, bursting in with energy and color.
03:58Robin Williams' genie redefined animated voice acting and ushered in the era of celebrity casting as a marketing tool.
04:11The film moved fast, joked faster, and felt distinctly modern.
04:17At the same time, operating on a global stage meant heightened scrutiny.
04:20Lyrics in Arabian Nights were altered following criticism,
04:24signaling that Disney now existed within a worldwide conversation.
04:33At the same time, projects like The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Nightmare Before Christmas
04:38showed Disney stretching stylistically.
04:41One honored Jim Henson's legacy.
04:43The other embraced stop-motion and a growing love for all things festively spooky.
04:48The sights, the sounds, they're everywhere and all around.
04:52I've never felt so good before.
04:54This empty place inside of me is filling up.
04:56I simply cannot get enough.
04:58Behind the scenes, things weren't all fairy dust.
05:00The War of the Michaels turned the studio into a pressure cooker,
05:04with crunch time peaking during Aladdin's frantic Black Friday rewrite.
05:07And the idea of starting over again was daunting.
05:10I was not looking forward to it.
05:12So they had to scramble very quickly and try to rethink and rework almost the whole movie.
05:18And the schedule never changed.
05:20Yet out of that pressure cooker came brilliance.
05:22By fusing hand-drawn artistry, digital innovation, and bold expansion,
05:27Disney rebuilt its crown as the world's most beloved storyteller.
05:31A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view.
05:381994 to 1996, Can You Feel the Love Tonight?
05:42Audiences were still very much feeling the love by 1994,
05:45with the volcanic success of The Lion King.
05:58No one, not even Disney, fully predicted how massive it would be.
06:03Internally, it had been considered the secondary project compared to Pocahontas.
06:06It's a hit. It's got a hit written all over it.
06:09Lion King, on the other hand, it's kind of an experiment.
06:12We don't really know if anybody's going to really want to see it.
06:16Externally, it became a phenomenon no one fully predicted.
06:20I'm gonna be the main event like no king was before.
06:24I'm pushing up, I'm looking down.
06:27I'm working on my board.
06:29Both films centered on nature's balance and cultural storytelling,
06:33reflecting a continued commitment to global themes.
06:35But once Simba was raised above Pride Rock, history had been made.
06:46The emotion, the animation, Elton John's music,
06:50that wildebeest stampede pushed digital tools further than ever before.
06:53It apparently took five animators and over two years
06:56to create that sequence that still haunts us today.
06:59Right there, on that tree!
07:01Hold on, Simba!
07:10Oh, Ska! This is awful!
07:12What do we do? What do we do?
07:14Ironically, Pocahontas, which had been positioned as the frontrunner,
07:18faced criticism for historical inaccuracies and a heavier tone.
07:21Technically, it was stunning.
07:23The painterly shading and animations truly showed us all the colors of the wind.
07:27Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
07:32Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
07:39But audiences didn't embrace it as much.
07:42However, Disney was now seeing more eye-to-eye with the kinds of stories their audiences wanted.
07:47That's Matt! I know you!
07:49There's a reason why for the first time I've ever seen it.
07:53You did it!
07:55During this time, tragedy struck when Disney president Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash.
08:01That loss triggered a power struggle that would ripple through the rest of the decade.
08:05Ever since Frank's death, Jeffrey was lobbying for Frank's job as president of the company,
08:09but Roy wouldn't have anything to do with it.
08:12He already felt uncomfortable with the amount of press that Jeffrey was getting.
08:15By the mid-90s, Disney stood at its commercial peak and at the edge of seismic change.
08:20The goal of this group has been to do an animated feature from the day I started.
08:25This was the holy grail of computer graphics, to get to the point where you could do the feature film.
08:30That change arrived in the form of Toy Story.
08:33Created in partnership with Pixar, it became the first fully computer animated feature film.
08:38It was also a massive success.
08:40Suddenly, the future wasn't inked and painted. It was rendered.
08:44While hand-drawn musicals continued to perform well,
08:473D animation felt undeniably modern and impossible to ignore.
08:51Our imagery was lit, textured, and rendered.
08:55No one had ever seen anything like this before.
08:58It had the feeling like you could reach up there and touch those toys.
09:02Live-action successes continued with the Santa Claus and the 101 Dalmatians live-action remake.
09:07But behind the curtain, fractures deepened.
09:10Jeffrey Katzenberg departed and co-founded DreamWorks, creating a legitimate rival.
09:15The animation giants now had competition, and it was personal.
09:19I didn't want us to tell fairy tales.
09:21I wanted us to try and pick an interesting, dramatic, epic, embracing all the technique of animation.
09:28The Hunchback of Notre Dame was easily one of the boldest swings of the Renaissance.
09:33It went darker, deeper, and more intense than anyone expected from Disney at the time.
09:38The themes were heavy, the music was powerful, and the animation was breathtaking.
09:44Destroy Esmeralda, and let her taste the fires of hell, or else let her be mine and mine alone.
09:53It definitely made fans wonder how far Disney could push mature storytelling while still keeping that classic family-friendly magic.
10:00But as the 90s went on, audiences felt more connected to stories about challenging authority and standing up for the
10:06underdog.
10:06You mistreat this poor boy the same way you mistreat my people.
10:10You speak of justice, yet you are cruel to those most in need of your help.
10:14Silence!
10:15Justice!
10:161997 to 1999, Go the Distance.
10:20This latter stretch often feels like the Renaissance's curtain call.
10:23Hercules reflected a world increasingly obsessed with celebrity branding.
10:27Come on here with speed and royalties, our hurt had cash to burn, now news for Grecian famous, he could
10:36tell you what's a Grecian art.
10:39Its classical-inspired aesthetic departed from the soft Renaissance look.
10:43The Hydra sequence required sophisticated digital mapping to animate its many heads seamlessly with the hand-drawn characters.
10:49Despite its wit and style, it signaled a cooling period.
10:53The musical formula didn't feel quite as aligned with late 90s pop culture.
10:57I would go most anywhere to find where I belong.
11:06Like Pocahontas before, Mulan offered a more global perspective, telling a legendary Chinese story with sweeping battle sequences made possible
11:14by advanced crowd simulation software.
11:16It was a major hit in Western markets, though in China, many felt the story had been too Americanized.
11:22Just trying to help her father.
11:24But if she's discovered, Baju will be forever shamed.
11:27Dishonor will come to the family.
11:28Traditional values will disintegrate.
11:31Around the same time, the so-called animation wars heated up when Pixar's A Bug's Life and DreamWorks' Ants battled
11:37for insect supremacy.
11:38Yes, DreamWorks had essentially become the snake in Disney's boot.
11:42I get it.
11:43There's a snake in my boot.
11:45Then Tarzan swung in as a technical and emotional finale.
11:49It introduced the groundbreaking Deep Canvas technology, which allowed 2D characters to swing through fully realized 3D environments, blending the
11:57two mediums more seamlessly than ever before.
11:59Deep Canvas allows you to move an animation the way you've never been able to move before.
12:04And it's just like taking a camera and moving it through a painting.
12:08You go straight towards the painting, but then you can make a left turn, a right turn.
12:11You can look up or down.
12:12You can completely turn around and have more painting behind you.
12:15With a Phil Collins-led soundtrack that ditched the singing character Norm, Tarzan became a massive global success.
12:22You'll be in my heart, no matter what they say.
12:31You'll be here in my heart, always.
12:39Simultaneously, Disney's live-action game was strong.
12:42Leaning into high-concept remakes like The Parent Trap and the tech-heavy Inspector Gadget, proving the studio could still
12:48dominate the family market.
12:50Behind the scenes, the era was defined by the Save Disney seeds being planted.
12:54The toxic rift between CEO Michael Eisner and Roy E. Disney reached a boiling point, eventually leading to a leadership
13:00crisis that would end the Renaissance era.
13:03I believe it's time to take action, and we could use your help.
13:07If you're a Disney shareholder, in my view, the best way to help save Disney is to vote no on
13:14the re-election of Michael Eisner, George Mitchell, Judith Estrin, and John Bryson.
13:19Ultimately, by 1999, the hand-drawn crown was passed.
13:23As Pixar's 3D worlds became the new standard, Disney's final Renaissance film stood as a gorgeous, high-tech farewell to
13:30a century of traditional artistry.
13:32An amazing chance to move through this world and see these two worlds colliding, and it's always fluid.
13:39There's so much going on all of the time.
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13:57The Disney Renaissance was pure pixie dust magic, restoring a studio that had nearly lost its sparkle, and giving it
14:03a brand new happily ever after.
14:05After all that drama, the late nights, the cold pizza, the bruised egos, and all those hours away from family,
14:11in the end, nobody will remember who did what to who.
14:14But they will remember the characters who leapt from a pencil onto the screen and into the hearts of the
14:20audience.
14:21With unforgettable songs, breathtaking animation, and Broadway-sized storytelling, Disney rediscovered its heart.
14:27Blending hand-drawn artistry with groundbreaking digital innovation, it launched a new era of animated storytelling.
14:33But as the millennium approached, Disney faced a crossroads, cling to its beloved musical fairy tales, or leap boldly into
14:40computer animation.
14:42Here goes, better throw my hand in, wish me happy landing, all I gotta do is do!
14:48What's your favorite movie from Disney's renaissance? Let us know in the comments.
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