Post #210169 by Tiki-bot on Tue, Jan 24, 2006 10:29 PM

I have a problem understanding the line "Disney also will surrender control of its world-famous animation studio". What exactly is being "surrendered?" The crew that made Chicken Little? The entire Disney vault of filmed animation? See my point? One is worth slightly more and demands responsible leadership in managing it. Will Dr. Catmull (seeing his name in print always cracks me up since there's a common 3D shader named after him. He's one of the old school pioneers of 3D development from the 70s, along with about 6 other geniuses. Those guys are legends in this arena.) and Lasseter actually create and oversee Disney's animation production schedule? That would be awesome if they did. But somehow I doubt the decades-entrenched Disney corporate culture would allow that to happen. No old guard likes to have some young whipper-snappers come in and tell them what to do, least of all Disney.

On the Apple site their press release quoted Jobs as saying something like "now we are free to fully collaborate with Disney on future projects". My understanding is that "collaborating" with Disney was one of the sticking points for Pixar and they fought Disney constantly over the horrible decisions they tried to impose on Pixar films. I dread to think what those classic Pixar movies would have turned out like if Disney had their way more often.