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Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece
- javery 11y agoThis is why I bet they buy Nintendo at some point.
- olasaustralia 11y agoStudio Ghibli also seems like a good bet
- weisser 11y agoI hope they do. Nintendo has been pretty awful at hardware for a while now but I still love the characters. Rare being bought by Microsoft was very unfortunate, however.
- astrange 11y agoRare deciding to go for the "casual" market was apparently an internal decision, like Konami's. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/12/rares-management-to-blame-for-kinect-focus-and-not-microsoft-says-ex-employee/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/12/rares-management-to-bl...
- beedogs 11y agoIt's why I hope they're broken up under antitrust law at some point.
- rangibaby 11y agoI have been thinking that over the past couple of days too. In Japan, Disney everything is literally everywhere. How do you think that work out? Split into parks and movies?
- cronjobber 11y agoHey, why not just fix copyright and regain ownership of our own culture? But the ugly truth is that we will never fix copyright. Not within our lifetimes, not even within the life of our grandchildren.
- patch45 11y agoIt's fascinating how strongly we feel about things we were exposed to as children. Exploiting that seems inevitable.
- knughit 11y agoWhich is why the US original law put a 14-28 year limit on it
- e15ctr0n 11y agoWhat if Disney bought Netflix and/or Valve?
- jerf 11y agoNetflix would be a bad idea, if the next step after acquisition is that all non-Disney content providers announce that they will not be renewing anything. Valve hasn't got very much to do with their core "childhood" strategy; they hardly seem to make games anymore, and what does Disney need a PC game distributing network for?
- desdiv 11y agoThey can't afford Netflix, at least not any time soon. Netflix's market cap is almost a third of Disney's right now.
- sangnoir 11y agoThat's nothing financiers (banks) can't solve. There are historical examples of smaller companies buying larger one (especially interesting as a counter-maneuver to a hostile take over bid: though it doesn't usually end well)
- Archio 11y agoReading this gives me a chill down my spine. There's something about a corporation controlling, optimizing, monetizing, and branding dominant components of a childhood that just doesn't seem right.
- rayiner 11y agoIf we weren't raising our kids to be such consumers--turning stupid shit like Star Wars into "cultural experiences"-- Disney wouldn't have any power. They can't own sticks and dirt.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoYou know the worst part? You can't even prevent it if you are raising your kids otherwise. My 5 year old has never seen a Disney movie, yet she told me today that for her 6th birthday she wants a Cinderella shirt and an Elsa costume - both characters she has never actually seen on screen. Her friends at school all talk about it though and recount fantastic stories. I hear from people saying that we will raise a kid who is out of the loop, so she won't be able to relate and will be an outcast if we don't keep her up to date with all the trends like her peers. At a certain point as a parent, it's kind of like, it doesn't really matter what we do.
- JabavuAdams 11y agoYou really have to experience this to fully appreciate it. Social contagion is real.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoAs a developer, I do my best to engineer it into my product.
- JabavuAdams 11y agoHow could you shore up human weakness, instead of exploiting it? A question I've been asking myself...
- tunesmith 11y agoFYI, the first part of the article spoils some minor things about the new star wars film, for those who haven't seen it. I bailed out of reading it after that.
- rhizome 11y agoThis is super bad form, that sucks.
- beedogs 11y agoIf the name of a single character now counts as a spoiler, I don't think I want to live on this planet anymore.
- LukeShu 11y agoIt's more than just the name; the first part of the sentence is far more spoiler-y than the name at the end.
- oldmanjay 11y agoSpoiler alert: franchise soft reboots do the same thing as the original franchise because that's what puts ("record" number, in this case) butts in seats. I just ruined A LOT of movies from here forward.
- rangibaby 11y agoIt also makes more sense with Star Wars (1977), a simple and universal story (a fairytale, even) than say, Robocop.
- paulddraper 11y agoCould you spoil it for us with the name of the planet you do want to live on?
- rangibaby 11y ago
- olewhalehunter 11y ago"Inside Out" made me fucking furious. No child should have such an calcified perspective of mind or language shoved down their throat at such an early age by a global corporation.
- mintplant 11y agoCare to elaborate?
- codemac 11y agoI watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.
- olewhalehunter 11y agoEmotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to label as "Anger", what this film effectively did was create an false emotional framework for children to rely on in the future, which should fucking terrify you because so much of modern society and capitalism is built on neurological manipulation to get you to buy things and not disrupt systems of power. The movie was nothing less than brainwashing.
- DannoHung 11y agoDid we watch different films? The end of the movie was about realizing that emotional experiences are complex and that it's ok to be sad about things and that you shouldn't run from negative emotions. Every person had an anger too. Not sure how you got the notion that the film makers thought anger is bad.
- samfisher83 11y agoIt seemed like new star wars was a remake of the old star wars. I think people people know what they like and they just want it repackaged in a slightly different form. Surprised they haven't gone out and brought out hasbro and mattel.
- brazzledazzle 11y agoI know a lot of people are probably going to want to yell at me but I think it needed to be remade. And I say this as a fan. I don't think a non-fan would pour over Star Wars vehicle cross sections. What they did was remake it in the best way possible given their constraints (old diehard fans) and I think it was done smartly and tastefully. Done this way you get new fans without losing a lot of them to appeasing old fans and old fans without losing a lot of them to appeasing new fans.
- Alex3917 11y agoExcept for that it wasn't supposed to be a remake, rather this was just a case of everyone involved phoning it in. I think Andrew O'Hehir said it best, "it's the Citibank of movies, literally too big to fail." Right now everyone has been brainwashed into loving it because of Disney's billion-dollar marketing spend. But much like Bush's popularity after 9/11, sooner or later reality is going to catch up. As a kid part of the magic of Star Wars was that you could sort of imagine there was an entire universe of interesting stories and characters beyond what was pictured in the movies. But J.J. Abrams has made it abundantly clear that no, actually, there was never anything else there.
- knughit 11y agoThe books and TV shows and video games and their consumers disagree with you
- dlp211 11y ago[STAR WARS: TFA SPOILERS AHEAD] I don't understand how you got to this conclusion. There were more interesting characters and missing backstory in this single movie than in the OT. Characters like Phasma, Maz, the old man that give Poe the map, Poe, Snoke, and the rest of the Knights of Ren. And while there were many parallels between the new movie and the OT, it also introduced and developed a ton of extremely strong new characters, namely Finn, Kylo, Poe, and Rey. My biggest gripes with the new film was Death Star 3.0 and the helo pan at the end, neither of which were really intricate to the story. Also the acting was head and shoulders above any of the previous films and the most impressive thing was how real everything felt, from the Stormtroopers humanization to the land battling and dog fighting.
- joering2 11y agoMany of you will downvote me for sharing this, but parents will appreciate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUwchCeeI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUwchCeeI4 DO NOT let your kids watch Disney!
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoSaving you a click, the title of the video is "Illuminati Hypersexualization of Children Exposed! Disney Pedophilia and Satanic Rolemodels".
- joering2 11y agoDid you watch it? Since when is youtube about reading titles?? This title is misleading; it's all about Disney as empire.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoThe abstract is "Exposing subliminal sexualizing content aimed at young children from Hollywood, TV shows, Movies, and the pedophile fashion industry. Disney channel and Disney movies exposed. Young girls being turned into miniature sex kittens. Illuminati brainwashing and destruction of Morality", and the preview image shows a young girl drinking out of a penis-shaped bottle. Furthermore, there are comments (never read the comments) like " This truly shows we live in a sick ass perverted world even looking at the scene from a reality show at the 28:00 mark that the fat bitch is telling little girls they should make the audenice think they are naked to that i say sick ass world there would be no way in hell that this type of shit would've been on tv 30 years ago & if it ever did make it on tv back then every tv watchdog group across the country would have called for the networks to take shows like this off the air....." Even furthermore, the suggested video page has videos like "Dead babied in Your Food", "Martin Lawrence EXPOSES Illuminati", "Lil Wayne says the Illuminati is changing the world for the Mark of the Beast". EDIT: One of the suggested videos is of clear importance to the Hacker News community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbldNqL6LOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbldNqL6LOI
- cup 11y agoWhats the point in putting a complex image up if I can't zoom in to read it.
- zekevermillion 11y agoThere was some magic to the 80s childhood movies -- Star Wars, ET, Last Starfighter, Goonies -- that I don't think can be bottled. Whatever stories hold that place for our kids, I don't think they will be the same movies that did it for us. There's just something about seeing Star Wars in the context of that time, and it's not the same as seeing it now.
- rdtsc 11y agoPart of it was that other magic out there wasn't of the same quality. Now there are video games, phones, internet, it is not that movies are not as cool, but there is more stuff competing with it.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoIt's because you were (presumably) a kid back then - and everything was much more magical then because it was your whole world and imagination. Just like old people now state how much better the 50s were, because that's when they were children. I pretty much discount anytime someone says "It was better when I was a kid."
- zekevermillion 11y agoThat's a different argument. I'm saying that I am not concerned with Disney monopolizing the rights to my favorite stories, b/c my kids will enjoy different stories that appeal to them b/c of the context they are growing up in.
- isolate 11y agoI know what you mean, but sometimes it isn't pure nostalgia. I like hand-drawn non-CG animation a lot, but there aren't a lot of animated movies coming out now that have it. And cultures can change dramatically too. I liked it better when people weren't so distracted by their cellphones. (This is a fairly small change.)
- EGreg 11y agoIf you really want blatant commercialization, see Pokemon, Digimon, Yu Gi Oh etc. The latter at least had an interesting plot, and deeper characters. But both are basically cheap adaptations of Japanese anime -- draw a few frames with action lines, sell millions of trading cards. Compare that to, say, Spiderman for FOX Kids in the 90s. Every scene was carefully animated and the plot was deep. And to prove it's not just nostalgia, there were cheap shows back then too, like all the Power Rangers knockoffs. Anyone remember "Samurai Pizzacats"? Kind of funny, but mostly repetitive power rangers formula. Even Japanese anime knockoffs were better before -- like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There is still good stuff today but it's few and far between. I'm inclined to think the business objectives have changed more than the kids' tastes. It's like people used to play immersive 3d games, real time strategy games, and now so many play addictive pay-to-accelerate casual nonsense like Farmville or Boom Beach or whatever. Did people simply change their tastes to get ripped off? No, it was directed by business. Actual quality is secondary now.
- freshyill 11y agoNot going to read it due to the spoilers, but I give Disney a lot of credit. They've done pretty well by Pixar, and exceedingly well by Marvel. Disney is certainly a corporate behemoth out to make a buck, but I really believe that it's accompany that understands these properties, and wants people to love them. Disney knows fans will not continue to flock to prequel-quality Star Wars films. Even the die-hard fans have a limit. These movies need to be excellent if they're going to continue to draw audiences. George Lucas himself doesn't understand what makes the original trilogy so special to fans, which is why Disney is putting fans like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson at the helm of these new movies. It seems like they're off to a great start. I have faith they'll continue to be great. Edit: First sentence: I, not u. Yikes, what a typo.
- swang 11y agoThey only did well by Pixar once Eisner left (or moreso, forced to leave). Edit: just realized that most of what I wrote is already mentioned in article.
- Jtsummers 11y agoIf you're worried about the spoiler that some people seem to think is in the article, skip the first paragraph. It merely starts the narrative, it doesn't contain any content pertinent to the discussion of the article beyond that it may or may not contain a spoiler.
- deciplex 11y agoBasically nothing about Disney's strategy would be wrong, or even harmful, provided copyright terms were something reasonable rather than infinite as a practical matter. By now anyone should have been allowed to make "The Force Awakens" and without paying $4.1 billion for the privilege, either.
- cwyers 11y agoI'm not so sure I agree. First of all, it's not like anyone could have made this movie without significant financial resources -- reportedly it cost $200 million to make, and it looks it (not to mention, Harrison Ford isn't coming back for cheap). Nobody without a large commercial stake in it was going to be able to make a movie like this. That doesn't justify current copyright laws (trademarks alone might be sufficient to keep someone from making Star Wars VIII even if copyright was allowed to lapse on ordinary time rather than being constantly extended to keep Steamboat Willy out of the public domain), but collaborative works of fiction require big financial commitments sometimes to get made.
- deciplex 11y agoYou're assuming that the monopoly on IP is necessary to get a good return on a film like this. It's also arguable that copyright law made this film more expensive than it otherwise would have been - I don't think your $200 million figure includes the cost of buying the franchise in the first place.
- oldmanjay 11y agoYou are actually talking about how you believe you should be able to profit selling the original movies, if you're complaining about copyright. Trademarks are what prevent you from making a new Star Wars movie and those don't expire on a schedule.
- deciplex 11y agoIf you make a movie called "Star Wars", sure. But (and please correct me if I'm wrong) making any derivative work, i.e. using the characters and stories - fan-fiction basically, would fall under the copyright regime. That's what I'm talking about.
- swang 11y ago> Marvel turned the story of a second-tier character, Iron Man, into a blockbuster. Iron Man was popular enough to have a 90s cartoon made for him. I'm not sure how he is second-tier...
- eru 11y agoDefinitely second tier in mainstream culture compared to Batman and Superman---which are universally known.
- Animats 11y agoWhen Disney acquires Barbie, their domination will be complete. (Check out "Hello Barbie", in stores now.[1] Now your kids can talk to Barbie and she'll talk back. Barbie has a WiFi connection to servers back at Mattel HQ running AI software. "ToyTalk, the tech company that partnered with Mattel to bring Hello Barbie to life, stores by default everything the doll records for at least two years to help it better analyze children’s speech." Coming up next, Cognitoys, plush animals powered by IBM's Watson system and able to answer hard questions.) [1] http://shop.mattel.com/product/index.jsp?productId=65561726 http://shop.mattel.com/product/index.jsp?productId=65561726 [2] https://cognitoys.com https://cognitoys.com
- angersock 11y agoI'm somewhat reminded of Harrison's "I Always Do What Teddy Says" (https://opalcp12.wikispaces.com/file/view/I+Always+Do+What+Teddy+Says.pdf https://opalcp12.wikispaces.com/file/view/I+Always+Do+What+T...).
- StavrosK 11y agoSPOILER ALERT! The story was a bit hard to believe, as it claims that everyone who wasn't conditioned against it (like none of us are) would just grow up to be a sociopath and kill their parents without second thought.
- EGreg 11y agoI don't know. I loved some Disney movies and appreciated their art growing up but never bought the action figures or anything. I also went to disneyland once and disneyworld once to check them out, but I went to six flags twice. Oh, and I visited disneyland while in Paris, to show the girl I was with from Moldova, who had never been. I guess maybe it's because I'm a child of immigrants. I don't see what the big deal is. Everyone commercializes and ties stuff in. Many if you are probably users of the whole Apple ecosystem.
- free2rhyme214 11y agoIs the only way to beat Disney to build another Pixar?
- Super_Jambo 11y agoIt is down right perverse that you have a discussion of how Disney is buying childhood without a discussion of copyright laws they're also buying...
- rasputhin 11y agoIsn't this what all profit driven companies targeting children would do? Should do?