Drawing the Line 2
                   "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." -G.K. Chesterton

                                               

                                                        Bad icing on a Good Cake


Over the past 20 years, Disney has been doing remakes of it's animated classics. Now, some of the remakes I've actually enjoyed like Alice in Wonderland, but on the whole, I can't help feeling(and I speak for a lot of people) that most of these remakes are no more than bad icing on a good cake.

Let me explain, let's say you have two cooks wanting to make a cake. One cook takes all the time, thinking,  mixing the batter, adding the right ingredients and making their cake wonderful and original. But the other cook is too lazy and greedy to want to go through all the work while being original, and takes the cake the one cooks has already worked on just adds their own icing on it.

This is how I feel about too many Disney remakes. Even if the icing is nice to look at, there is no real originality. Disney was once a company where risks were taken and ideas were explored. People experimented with art and music combined like Fantasia, Melody Time and Make Mine Music. But it seems like nearly every studio, especially Disney, today has fallen prey to the 'play it safe'-'make a fast buck' routine.  The Disney Channel is no better, what with the same dull show idea of good-looking girls going only after the good-looking guys while doing stupid dances or wanting to be the next big rock star or cheer-leader.

I can still remember way back as a child in the 80s and 90s when movies were more original and fun.  Whether it was the Lion King, Toy Story, Jurassic Park or Babe, each studio had unique stories to tell. And even movies that weren't block-buster hits could still be fun to watch.
We've lost originality because we've lost taking it slow and THINKING.

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." -Henry Ford

If we want to see great books and movies again, we have to go against the 'play it safe' grain, take our time and think through what can be original.  Nothing in life worth doing is gonna happen over-night.  Just like Rome, Disney, Star Wars and Pixar were not built in a day. This notion that you can have something without work is no more than a house on sand.

For aspiring artists and creatives out there, I urge you to be yourself in your work, dare to be original, dare think, dare to take your time.

That's all for now. 'Hope you enjoy my blog. Share comments down below. 

-K.Carver-artist, animator + writer