Jim on Film: Bolt: Beginning of the Beginning
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A scene from Bolt
(c) Disney

Story and visual development artist Sue Nichols describes the atmosphere vividly in the bonus features of Dream On Silly Dreamer when, in 2002, she compares the story-building process to making a cake. She says, �You can�t bake a cake without first baking the cake. You need that recipe . . . The development department�s job is to find that best recipe so production can bake the cake and then post production can put the frosting on, that zing that is going to make it a blockbuster and make everybody want to go buy the toys. Nowadays they�re making the frosting and wondering why their frosting is flopping because they don�t have that solid cake underneath the frosting . . . What we used to do is we would take an idea�love triumphs over evil�you know, something simple�and try to find a story that best tells that one idea, that one little morale that a kid is going to take away with it . . . The zing, that wonderful marketability actually falls into place after that. Unfortunately now they are looking for the marketability. They�re taking that frosting and running with it and forgetting that you need that cake underneath to keep it up, you need that solid story thing that every character, every line that character says, every movement, every color�the sunset, the wind blowing�every physical thing in that picture has a reason there, to help tell that one particular story. It�s just not a bunch of fun fluff stuff that�Ooo, kids will be wanting to be saying this [slogan] over and over again and they�ll want to buy that character because that character�s funny�it�s everything is there solely for the purpose of telling this one story.�

While Treasure Planet and Brother Bear were able to survive such an environment to become magnificent films, the following films didn�t quit make it. There�s some charm in Home on the Range, but it�s clear the film wasn�t even like among the artists. In the bonus features of Dream On Silly Dreamer, when the California clean-up department has its going away gathering, you hear the artists� vivid dislike for the cow movie.

In Disney history, The Black Cauldron is seen as the turning point in Disney animation. And while many animation fans like the film, the studio itself and many of the artists seem to look at it with regret. Yet we look at is as significant because it was the final chapter before a bright new beginning as new blood was transfused into the studio with the management of Jeffery Katzenberg, Roy Disney, and others.

If John Lasseter is the equivalent of this blood transfusion (though probably a better one), then Chicken Little is clearly The Black Cauldron of the new generation, and Meet the Robinsons is the new generation�s The Great Mouse Detective, though, strangely enough, The Black Cauldron is light-years more entertaining than either Chicken Little or Meet the Robinsons (as is The Great Mouse Detective).