While it seems like the animation of it all has upgraded, current animated movies do not instill the same effect in the public as they once did. While animated movies are intended for a younger audience, old animated movies found a way to stay in the minds of the older generation. Movies like Spirit, Coraline, Bambi, Shrek, The Road to El Dorado, and more. Movies that adults, along with children, will re-watch over and over again when streaming services add them and remove them from their collection.
Plot lines in these movies were ones that would attract young and old minds alike. I would even say that they inserted more complex thought processes in children than movies do now. However, animated movies now have become too fixated on appealing to children and not on telling good stories. It seems like animation is now seen as something that is only directed and created for a young mind; however, young minds understand more than these new screenwriters believe they do.
An interesting example of this is the movie Encanto. While the idea of the movie seems interesting enough for older generations to try out, the movie has no stimulation whatsoever. Sure, the animation is beautiful, the colors are intriguing, and the content is safe enough to avoid any controversy while teaching a nice lesson. But the plot of the movie was predictable and anti-climactic. There was no conflict that led to a resolution; there was just a resolution that was reached with a little bit of talking. It lacked a strong villain. Not only that but the one surprising act, the destruction of the house, was minimalized in the way it was quickly resolved.
It seems that in trying to avoid topics of controversy and include fair representation, they forgot to work on the actual plotline.
The movie Ratatouille may portray a clear health violation, Bambi and The Lion King may introduce the death of a parent, Lilo, and Stitch may represent the feeling of a friendless creature with no family, Chicken Little may suggest talk of the end of the world, and let’s not even talk about Coraline; but these are things that happen in real life, things that children should receive more credit in being able to understand. Good animation and a lack of taboos should not be a substitute for actual conflict and story development, but it seems like that is the case, and people all over social media are noticing:
“The old animated movies were fresh and fun, those movies were tailored towards children, but they spoke to the child in all of us.”
“The old Disney movies are a thousand times better than the current Disney movies.”
