u/HyraxFusion

Recently, my mind kept coming back to "What would a Disney or Disney-style animated film for adults look like?" I know there's different options for adult animation (Ralph Bakshi, various anime, Primal, European animation, etc.) but I'm thinking specifically Disney or Disney style.

At first, Disney would sound like the opposite of adult animation or maturity; they're predominantly associated with families and kids, stories with happy endings.

But at various points, Disney tried to explore different things artistically. Fantasia blended classical music and creative visuals, Sleeping Beauty used an art style more reminiscent of Medieval tapestry. You had some legit artists at the studio. I remember reading a book on Marc Davis and how he delved into different art mediums in his free time.

Many of them eventually left Disney to start UPA after the Animators' Strike. But that modernist influence eventually looped around to shape Disney as well. Ward Kimball took inspiration from UPA for his Adventures In Music shorts. Ward himself was very open to the influences of other studios like Warner Bros, UPA, and later Bakshi and Crumb.

The film that seems like a good template would be 101 Dalmatians. When I go back to 101 Dalmatians, the vibe feels a lot different from most Disney films. The vibe feels chill. Roger and Anita feel like two adults meeting rather than fairy tale characters. You have the opportunity to see Disney parents (Roger and Anita, Pongo and Perdita) showing concern for their children and pets instead of parents being obstacles.

And the art style feels particularly ambitious for Disney. They took advantage of the change to Xerox which allowed the animator's drawings to be faithfully reproduced on screen. This gave the characters a lot more vitality. There have been some divided opinions over the years as not everyone liked the scratchy outline. But in hindsight, it just adds a bit of grit and personality.

Check out this behind the scenes: Redefining the line: The Making of 101 Dalmatians. French animator Sylvain Chomet cited 101 Dalmatians as his favorite film.

When I look at Brad Bird's films, I can tell that he's someone strongly influenced by Disney (mentored by Milt Kahl, sought advice from Frank and Ollie) while still very distinct. He's frequently advocated for animation as a medium that can tell different types of stories, not a genre.

I don't think a Disney film for adults or mature audiences would necessarily be gritty or violent. But I'd be interested if they tackled adult themes in an understated way.

What do you guys think? Would it seem antithetical to Disney's mission? Or would it just be a matter of taking certain ideas further?

I'm not entirely sure what's the right trope for this so I've listed a few different related tropes: Watsonian vs Doylist explanations, The Anthropic Principle, Theory of Narrative Causality, Law of Conservation of Detail. All of these tropes deal with explanations for why things happen in stories.

While all stories are affected by these, I was wondering what the most blatant examples in the Friends storyline are. I've seen some recurring threads on topics that seem to circle around this motivation.

The biggest one is probably the "Will They Or Won't They" relationship between Ross and Rachel. The storyline has them behave in some toxic, frustrating, and illogical ways. In the years since, people have become more critical of the relationship and what it represents.

I suppose the in-universe reason for such a long storyline is that Ross and Rachel were both immature, prideful, and constantly had bad timing.

But at the end of the day, the Out-Of-Universe explanation from the writers seemed to be a matter of "Settling down is boring, it's more interesting and fun if there's conflict." So the writers tried to keep Ross and Rachel apart because they felt the chemistry was better.

If I recall, some of the writers even had a planned plotline where Chandler would cheat on Monica but it was shut down because Matthew Perry thought the audience wouldn't forgive Chandler. Ultimately, the Chandler and Monica relationship became a more stable foil to the Ross-and-Rachel dynamic. It had arguably become more well-liked as the years have gone on.

Overall, I can see how the writers had the motivation of inserting conflict to make things more interesting, but it also had the effect of audiences judging the characters and their flaws as individuals.

What are some examples you can think of?