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From groundbreaking CGI to touching cultural stories, Disney’s journey into the 21st century has been a thrilling ride of reinvention. Join us as we explore the studio’s experimental breakthroughs, iconic hits, deep dives into diverse storytelling, and innovative tech shifts that revived its magic for a new generation. Discover how Disney transformed challenges into cinematic triumphs and set the stage for a future full of fearless creativity!
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00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're opening the Disney Vaults for one final time in this series
00:10to see how Disney found its way out of its post-Renaissance identity crisis
00:14into the global dominance it has today.
00:23The turn of the millennium thrust the world into a digital whirlwind.
00:27The cozy analog comforts of the 20th century dissolved into a hyper-connected reality
00:32defined by the internet, smartphones, and a global culture that moved at warp speed.
00:37Full speed, Mr. Arrow, if you please.
00:39Take that away!
00:45Brace yourself, doctor.
00:47For the Walt Disney Company, this wasn't merely a change in how stories were delivered.
00:51It was a seismic upheaval of their very identity.
00:54Once again, the House of Mouse faced a pivotal choice.
00:58Cling to the familiar echoes of the past, or bravely venture into the uncharted waters of the future.
01:03Your voice is like a siren that guides me to royal uncharted waters.
01:11The 2000s.
01:12Almost there.
01:13Our journey into the new millennium begins with Dinosaur,
01:16a technical marvel that signaled animation's hyper-digital future.
01:20I heard you say something about nesting grounds.
01:24It is the most beautiful place there is, child.
01:28It was a bold gamble, as Disney plunged into the CGI boom while clinging to its storytelling roots.
01:33With a $127.5 million price tag, it became the priciest computer animated feature of its age.
01:41Rather than rely on fully digital environments like Pixar,
01:44Disney shot live-action backgrounds and composited CG dinosaurs using the high-speed dino cam rig.
01:503D workbook was basically the blueprint for our live-action team,
01:54but it also gave us a great idea of how the camera was going to move,
01:58where the characters were going to be throughout the scene,
02:00what the timing was, and the overall composition of the scene.
02:03Its ideological clash between altruism and social Darwinism refreshed Disney's enduring community themes.
02:09It ushered in a creatively daring, yet financially unstable era for the studio.
02:14This is a rough layout of what we were going to be creating in terms of the miniature.
02:19We created the miniature of the cave at 1-6 scale,
02:22because Baleen gets up on her hind legs and she'd be almost 100 feet tall,
02:26so we couldn't build anything that large or even find a cave that large.
02:30This period gave rise to a captivating blend of styles.
02:33Take the Emperor's new groove,
02:34famously transformed from a serious musical into an irreverent, fan-favorite buddy comedy.
02:40Don't tell me, we're about to go over a huge waterfall.
02:43Yep.
02:43Sharp rocks at the bottom?
02:44Most likely.
02:46Bring it on.
02:48Booyah!
02:51Then Lilo and Stitch shattered the classic princess mold,
02:54opting instead for a heartwarming sci-fi sibling narrative and the profound concept of Ohana.
03:00Ohana means family.
03:02Family means nobody gets left behind.
03:05Or...
03:06Or forgotten.
03:07Nestled with these, Brother Bear continued the studio's deep commitment to cultural authenticity.
03:12The creators toured significant sites across the Pacific Northwest for an authentic understanding of indigenous traditions.
03:19We did a lot of research on Native American myths and legends and that kind of thing.
03:22We discovered a lot of transformation stories.
03:25We found that they had these inherent stories of people that were transformed into animals
03:31in order to be taught an important life lesson.
03:33They also used a unique technical flourish, playing with the film's visual ratio to symbolize Kenai's spiritual awakening.
03:40His viewpoint is very narrow, so our aspect ratio is very narrow.
03:43It's 185, which is pretty standard.
03:54Behind the scenes, the studio was in flux.
03:57Ambitious ventures like Atlantis, The Lost Empire, and Treasure Planet veered into the exciting realm of sci-fi action.
04:04Treasure Planet in particular pushed the innovative deep canvas system to its limits,
04:08allowing hand-drawn characters to glide through immersive 360-degree painted 3D environments.
04:13While a technical tour de force, its box office struggles hinted at a deft knell for traditional 2D animation.
04:20You've got the makings of greatness in you, but you've got to take the helm and charge your own course.
04:27Stick to it, no matter the squalls.
04:30And when the time comes, you get the chance to really test the cut of your sails.
04:34Simultaneously, the internal Disney war between Roy E. Disney and Michael Eisner was intensifying,
04:40and the Save Disney campaign was officially in full swing.
04:44While Disney wrestled with identity, Pixar entered a golden age with groundbreaking work in Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The
04:51Incredibles.
04:52It's a whole family of supers! Looks like I've hit the jackpot! Oh, this is just too good!
04:59Disney's live-action division found massive success with The Princess Diaries,
05:03The Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Chronicles of Narnia.
05:07Even the small screen etched itself into the cultural zeitgeist with the phenomenon of high school musical.
05:12Disney even showed it could laugh at itself with the cutely irreverent Enchanted.
05:16We adore each filthy tour that we determine.
05:20So, friends, even though you're vermin, we're all happy work.
05:27The push for a CGI foothold culminated in Chicken Little, Disney's first fully 3D animated feature,
05:34followed by Meet the Robinsons.
05:36Mid-production, Pixar's acquisition brought John Lasseter into the fold,
05:40leading to major rewrites and the introduction of the collaborative Brain Trust.
05:44The decade drew to a close with Pixar's relentless parade of powerhouses,
05:48including Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and the critically acclaimed Best Picture nominated Up.
06:02Finally, The Princess and the Frog served as a poignant farewell to traditional animation,
06:07introducing Tiana, Disney's first black princess,
06:10and signaling that, after years of turbulence, Disney had rediscovered its soul.
06:14Like I told y'all, kissing a princess breaks the spell.
06:19Once you became my wife, that made you...
06:22A princess. You just kissed yourself a princess.
06:27The 2010s, How Far I'll Go.
06:30Entering the 2010s, Disney stopped merely searching for its voice
06:33and instead decided to dominate the global conversation.
06:36If the previous decade carried misfit energy and technical trepidation,
06:40this era became known as both the Revival and the Monopoly.
06:43Under the leadership of Bob Iger,
06:46Disney transformed from a historic animation studio
06:48into a sprawling entertainment ecosystem,
06:51strengthened by acquisitions such as Marvel Entertainment,
06:54Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox.
06:57It's gonna... We'll get all of that if the deal goes through.
06:59It'll mean that Disney has a much broader, bigger, global offering
07:03that it can sell to people around the world.
07:05The decade began with Tangled,
07:07the film that gave us our first 3D princess.
07:10So what we would do in software is give them enough tools
07:13to be able to blend in and blend out of what's hand-animated
07:17and what's simulation.
07:19Using revolutionary non-photorealistic rendering,
07:22it made CGI appear painterly and lush,
07:25bringing Disney's hand-drawn heritage into the modern age.
07:28Then came Frozen,
07:29which deconstructed the traditional true-love trope
07:32by centering on sisterhood.
07:33You've sacrificed yourself for me?
07:37I love you.
07:40An act of true love will thaw a frozen heart.
07:44Technically, it pushed Snow Simulation forward
07:47with its Matterhorn system,
07:48while Let It Go became a phenomenon,
07:51signaling Disney's return to musical dominance.
07:54Let it go!
07:55Let it go!
07:57When I'll rise like the break of dawn!
08:00Amid this renaissance,
08:02Disney strategically leveraged its Marvel acquisition
08:04to create Big Hero 6,
08:06a cultural and technical shift for the studio.
08:08I loved two things when I was a kid.
08:11I loved Disney animation and I loved Marvel comics.
08:13Fortunately for me,
08:14Disney had just purchased Marvel.
08:15I started just making lists of Marvel properties
08:19that I thought would be cool.
08:20Featuring diverse, STEM-driven heroes
08:23and the sprawling hybrid city of San Fransokyo,
08:25the film showcased Disney animation's
08:27new rendering system, Hyperion,
08:29which used advanced global illumination
08:31to produce richer, more cinematic lighting.
08:34It allows a very realistic light simulation.
08:36We'd capture these skies in San Francisco
08:38and you could take that capture
08:40and feed that into Hyperion
08:42and it would just line up.
08:48Hyperion is our secret weapon, I think,
08:50to make the world seem, you know, vibrant.
08:53Behind the scenes, the Disney Story Trust,
08:55modeled after Pixar's collaborative brain trust,
08:58encouraged creative risk-taking.
09:00Wreck-It Ralph tapped into video game nostalgia
09:02with surprising emotional depth,
09:04while Zootopia tackled prejudice and systemic bias
09:07in ways that didn't talk down to its audience.
09:09I mean, it's not like a bunny could go savage.
09:12Right, but a fox could, huh?
09:14Nick, stop it.
09:15You're not like them.
09:16Oh, there's a them now.
09:18You know what I mean.
09:19You're not that kind of predator.
09:21Moana deepened Disney's commitment to authenticity
09:23through its Oceanic Story Trust,
09:25ensuring respectful portrayals of Polynesian culture.
09:28It also delivered some of the most realistic water
09:31ever animated.
09:32With many, many levels of control
09:34so that we can balance out the colors,
09:36we can balance out the movement of the water
09:38in a way that is going to give us
09:40the exact effect we're all looking for.
09:42So these various colors here
09:44represent those different mats and so forth
09:46that we have control over individually.
09:48As the decade progressed,
09:50Disney turned its gaze toward the consequences
09:52of the digital age.
09:53Ralph Breaks the Internet expanded its universe
09:55into a satirical exploration of online culture,
09:58consumerism, and algorithm-driven identity.
10:01Congratulations, you're a winner!
10:03Really?
10:03These 10 child stars went to prison.
10:05Number 6 will amaze you.
10:06That sounds interesting.
10:07Want to get rich playing video games?
10:08Click here to find out how.
10:10Ralph, come on!
10:11There's a lot of cool stuff here!
10:12They used special animation tools
10:15to create 150,000 different background internet characters,
10:19capturing the overwhelming scale of the internet.
10:21The era culminated in Frozen 2,
10:23which matured along with its audience,
10:26exploring themes of indigenous displacement
10:28and environmental responsibility.
10:30To animate the film's elusive wind spirit,
10:32artists developed Swoop,
10:34a tool capable of rendering invisible forces
10:36with striking realism.
10:37That's the animation?
10:39Yes.
10:41That's animation?
10:43It will be the time.
10:44That's all we keep saying
10:44because we've seen them in front of us.
10:46Meanwhile, Pixar entered its own high-concept phase.
10:50Inside Out anthropomorphized human emotions
10:52with psychological sophistication,
10:54while Coco became a vibrant cultural tribute
10:56to Mexico's Dia de los Muertos.
10:58The sense that you're not making
11:00The liberties you're taking
11:02Leaves like a bitch who's shaking
11:10To create the glowing Land of the Dead,
11:13Pixar pioneered point-based global illumination,
11:16bringing the Land of the Dead very much to life.
11:18These films moved beyond the cartoon label,
11:21building on the prestige established
11:22when Toy Story 3 followed up
11:24as the Best Picture nominee,
11:25and Toy Story 4 ultimately closed out the decade.
11:28He's not lost.
11:30Not anymore.
11:34To infinity and beyond.
11:38We also saw Disney ride a double-edged sword
11:40with its live-action remake boom.
11:42Sometimes, I believe as many
11:45as six impossible things before breakfast.
11:48That's just an excellent breakfast.
11:51Alice in Wonderland launched the trend
11:52with a darker reimagining
11:54that proved audiences would embrace reinterpretations.
11:57Maleficent reframed a classic villain,
11:59Cinderella earned praise for sincerity and elegance,
12:02and the Jungle Book impressed with groundbreaking CGI.
12:05But later, entries like Beauty and the Beast
12:07and Aladdin were criticized
12:09as visually lavish yet narratively safe.
12:11While the VR-based,
12:13The Lion King became a lightning rod for debate.
12:15Technically stunning, but lacking in emotion.
12:18It's a line.
12:19Yeah.
12:19It's a meaningless line of indifference.
12:22And we're all just running towards the end of the line,
12:25and then one day, we'll reach the end,
12:27and that'll be it.
12:28That's it.
12:28Line over.
12:29While some critics argued these films lost the soul of the originals,
12:32their box office power and technical ambition were undeniable.
12:36By the time Avengers Endgame and Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker
12:40ended the decade,
12:41Disney had evolved from a film studio
12:43into a full-scale lifestyle brand,
12:45paving the way for the launch of Disney Plus
12:47and the streaming wars ahead.
12:48I'm going to find you,
12:50and I'm going to turn you to the dark side.
12:53When I offer you my hand again,
12:56you'll take it.
12:59We'll see.
13:012022 Today.
13:02What else can I do?
13:03As a global pandemic threatened the very existence
13:06of the theatrical event,
13:07the studios were thrust into a high-stakes hyper-digital pivot.
13:11This era wasn't about saving the world,
13:13it was about the internal work of saving the self.
13:15Say hi to dad for me.
13:19No, you go and say goodbye.
13:21What?
13:22I had someone who looked out for me.
13:24Someone who pushed me to be more than I ever thought I could be.
13:28I never had a dad.
13:31But I always had you.
13:33The decade dawned with Onward,
13:35an unexpectedly timely film about grief.
13:37Unfortunately, though,
13:39its theatrical run was cut short by lockdowns.
13:41This retreat into the living room
13:43transformed Soul into a digital trailblazer.
13:45As Pixar's first film with a black lead,
13:48the studio worked carefully to avoid past missteps
13:50and to honor authentic African-American culture.
13:53I wonder why sitting in this chair makes me want to tell you things, Des.
13:56That's the magic of the chair.
13:58That's why I love this job.
14:00I get to meet interesting folks like you,
14:02make them happy,
14:03and make them handsome.
14:05The film performed well,
14:07but the move to streaming became a catch-22.
14:09While it boosted Disney Plus numbers,
14:11it also risked de-eventizing its own brand.
14:14This era also birthed new kinds of storytelling.
14:18Turning Red redefined Disney realism,
14:20tackling culture, tradition,
14:22and even puberty with an anime-inspired edge,
14:25while replacing traditional villains with relatable family conflict.
14:28I see you, Meme.
14:30You try to make everyone happy,
14:33but are so hard on yourself.
14:35And if I taught you that,
14:40I'm sorry.
14:42Similarly, Encanto addressed the weight of generational trauma.
14:45It also signaled a new level of cultural care.
14:48Disney formed the Colombian Cultural Trust
14:50to ensure its magical realism felt authentic.
14:52Our country's magical.
14:55Believe that our landscapes are special,
14:57and believe that we can be happy here,
15:00no matter what happens.
15:01So magical realism is not only a literature genre,
15:05it's a way to live we have here.
15:07Elsewhere, Elemental later utilized
15:09volumetric neutral style transfer
15:11to turn fire and water into living illustrations.
15:14It also taught us that there's always common ground to be found,
15:17and apparent sacrifice is a gift, not a debt.
15:20The shop was never the dream.
15:23You were the dream.
15:25You were always the dream.
15:33Behind the scenes,
15:35the House of Mouse became a political pressure cooker.
15:37Backlash over Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill
15:40led to internal walkouts
15:41and a historic open letter from Pixar staff.
15:44Today is the culmination of their week-long protest,
15:48many saying that they're partaking in an all-day walkout or sickout.
15:52This friction culminated in Lightyear,
15:54where a restored same-sex kiss became a flashpoint in the culture wars.
15:58These tensions, paired with the financial nightmare of the live-action Snow White,
16:03led to a period of reckoning.
16:04Even earlier successes like The Little Mermaid
16:07were caught in the crossfire of public debate.
16:09Watch and you'll see
16:14Someday I'll be
16:19Part of your world
16:26In 2023, Disney also celebrated its centennial with the release of Wish,
16:31as well as the short Once Upon a Studio,
16:33which bridged the gap by blending 543 hand-drawn and CG characters to honor the studio's roots.
16:40This momentum carried into Inside Out 2,
16:42which spoke to a post-pandemic mental health crisis through anxiety,
16:46spending nine months as the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
16:50Joy, I'm sorry.
16:53I was just trying to protect her.
16:58But you're right.
17:00We don't get to choose who Riley is.
17:04Today, it seems like the tech has finally caught up to the heart.
17:07From Elio to Hoppers,
17:09Disney's embracing its roots in collaboration with an AI-driven future.
17:13After a half-decade of relentless upheaval,
17:15the studio enters its second century,
17:17proving that the most powerful magic is simply the courage to be authentically yourself.
17:22This place is amazing.
17:24But Earth is...
17:28home.
17:31I didn't give it a chance, but...
17:35now...
17:37I want to try.
17:38Disney's evolution shows the House of Mouse has never been static,
17:41but a living response to the world beyond its gates.
17:44100-year group photo!
17:46And the sun's going down!
17:47Come on, let's hop to it!
17:49Ooh, a bunny pun!
17:50Heh heh, gotta like that.
17:53From the Great Depression optimism of Whistle While You Work
17:56to the magical realism of Encanto,
17:59it has mirrored cultural change,
18:01recalibrating its moral compass and storytelling for new audiences.
18:04It's gone from hand-drawn animation and the Xerox revolution
18:07to neural rendering and AI,
18:09but the goal hasn't changed.
18:11Connecting dreamers to dreams.
18:13We may not be as strong, but I'm getting wiser.
18:15We can't eat sunlight and fertilizer.
18:17Come on, let's win some new and watch it fly.
18:20Straight up to the side.
18:22Even as the line between real and digital blurs,
18:25the tools evolve,
18:26but the human need for wonder stays constant,
18:28guiding Disney like a second star to the right.
18:30When you wish the balls come,
18:36your dreams come true.
18:47What are your hopes for Disney's future?
18:49Let us know in the comments.
18:50Let us know in the comments.
18:51Let us know in the comments.
18:51Let us know in the comments.
18:54Let us know in the comments.
18:54Let us know in the comments.
18:54Let us know in the comments.
18:55Let us know in the comments.
18:55Let us know in the comments.
18:55Let us know in the comments.
18:55Let us know in the comments.
18:56Let us know in the comments.
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