2D or 3D - The Luck of the Draw

Disney has been doing nothing but looking at demographics for the past while.

Please observe: Toy Story, Shrek, Finding Nemo - all blockbuster hits, all 3D. Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Sinbad - didn't do so hot, also 2D.

These are the demographics Disney is going by. What gets me is how they're immediately crediting the movies' successes to their medium. Or does anyone recall "Lilo and Stitch," "Emperor's New Groove," and "Tarzan," which all did decently well in recent years in comparison - or did they happen to fall 300 million dollars short of box office revenue in Disney's expectations?

Or looking back - "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin," and "The Lion King" - four of Disney's best movies ever made. Disney saw the success of these movies and somehow determined people wanted to see more wacky sidekicks and musical numbers - and then somehow opted to get rid of the musical numbers and throw in heavy-duty (and highly expensive) CGI action sequences.

In short - Disney doesn't see the most obvious key to success which is: a good story with socially rewatchable value. The real difference between the most successful CGI movies lately, and the 2D bombs was simply that the 3D movies somehow wound up with really good stories, and the 2D ones were either too artful, preachy, or just plain experimental.

"No, no," said the Disney people, "it's because they were hand-drawn, and everyone wants to see pretty CGI."

Yeah - "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," "Jimmy Neutron," and "Jonah: A Veggietales Movie" support your arguments well.

Here's the clincher:

Hypothetically, what if the script for "Finding Nemo" somehow wound up in the 2D department before Pixar got their hands on it? What if "Finding Nemo" was released as a 2D film with the exact same story, characters, dialogue, and all? What if the same had happened to "Shrek?" Would we even care if it was 2D if we were still busy laughing our butts off and having a good time? In fact - screw 3D - what if a live-action movie like "Pirates of the Carribean" had been released in a 2D format? Who would care if everything was still the same? If Johnny Depp's character still had those quirky mannerisms and funny attitude, would it still bomb like recent 2D movies?

Let's look at some real reasons some movies bombed:

BROTHER BEAR: Holy crap, this was a dark movie. Good, but the story themes are too preachy and better meant for mature audiences. Plus, it had Phil Collins, and Disney already had Phil Collins four years ago.

SINBAD: I thought this was darn good movie - but the actual premise of Sinbad is not a story that sells considering it's been remade a million times already to the point where no one even knows the real story. Plus, marketing put too much emphasis on that wacky dog - and putting smiley faces on every character in the posters.

TREASURE PLANET: "Treasure Island" has been retold way too many times in the past while. In fact, I'm sure most audiences are still recovering from "Muppet Treasure Island." But either way, it's the exact same story, and not a fresh re-telling like they would have done in the earlier days. They also spent 120 million on this movie, when they could have just as easily done it for 60-80.

LILO AND STITCH: This movie would have made a LOT more money if the movie AND the previews didn't shove that whole "Ohana means family" theme down our throats. You've got a little girl and a bloodthirsty alien - that premise should have sold itself without appealing to the family demographics.

SPIRIT, OSMOSIS JONES, and THE IRON GIANT: Three of my favorites were trampled by one key thing: really, REALLY bad marketing. They over-fantasied the awesome action-adventure "Spirit," over-grossified the cleverly written comedy "Jones," and every commercial for the "Giant" focused more on giving away the ending rather than focusing on the brilliant nature of the story.

Plus, all of these movies could have easily been toned down to a G-rating the way they were advertising them - but heck, nowadays "The Cat in the Hat" can't even stay G-rated for some reason.

Then again, maybe they just need to cut back (REALLY BACK) on the straight-to-home-video movies, which usually end up destroying the novelty of the original film.

But to break it down again - calling it quits on 2D is a bad move on Disney's part, and they'll see it when 3D movies finally hit the same dry-spell with their movies. Dreamworks is still coming out with the 2D "Over The Hedge," and I'm hoping Jim Carrey will somehow help save the genre. But I don't recommend boycotting good 3D movies or going out and buying bad 2D movies to show support. If you want to show support, let's just try to focus on supporting good animated films in general and stop trying to draw a line between mediums.

~But hey - that's just me.~