No media company is committed to the gilding of their own mythology as much as The Walt Disney Company, which extends to their PIXAR, Marvel and Lucasfilm operations too. Padding out their Disney+ shows have been a ton of making-of docuseries, behind-the-scenes looks at Disney parks and media operations, and general content about Disney. I've watched more than a few of these, which have existed in various forms long before there was a Disney+ streaming service. There's some good stuff here, as long as you understand what you're getting into.
Programs like "Behind the Attraction," and "One Day at Disney," about the Disney theme parks have a very familiar format, featuring insider looks at Disney operations, sometimes with a familiar face acting as host and tour guide, with a couple of celebrity cameos along the way. The parks have been in operation for over half a century, and have constantly been featured in specials for anniversaries, inside looks, and tech demonstrations. These have always essentially been commercials for the company aimed at Disney geeks. More stripped down versions used to run on the various cable travel and arts channels with different branding as easy filler.
The "Marvel Studios: Assembled" and "Disney Gallery" series are the kind of making-of material that are usually found as special features on the DVDs and Blu-Ray discs for various Marvel and Lucasfilm media, but are now content in and of themselves. "Assembled" in particular has gotten more elaborate over time as episodes aren't just devoted to the Disney+ shows, but also the Marvel features. Bruce Campbell acted as a host for the recent "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" episode. It's always a very slick, very cleaned-up behind-the-scenes narrative, with nary a negative comment about anything, but you're not going to get this level of access to the productions from anywhere else. Also, being on Disney+ means that the behind-the-scenes for a movie like "Turning Red" can expand into practically its own feature.
I like the more formal documentary series about various divisions like "The Imagineering Story" and the recent ILM series, "Light & Magic." These tend to approach their subjects from a more historical angle, the way that older Disney docs like "Frank & Ollie" and "Walt & El Grupo" have. I suspect that "Light & Magic" was released when it was in part to counter the less flattering Lucasfilm narrative found in the Vice docu series about the "Star Wars" franchise, "Icons Unearthed: Star Wars." "Light & Magic" covers some of the same ground in early episodes, as it examines the making of the original "Star Wars" in 1977. Where "Icons Unearthed" is more interested in playing up the drama of the production, "Light & Magic" is all about giving the hardworking ILM effects creators their due. There's a beautiful sequence in the first episode where Joe Johnston explains his design process for the Millennium Falcon, step by step. And if that's not magic, I don't know what is.
I also appreciate that there are some truly nerdy series here, for the Disney die-hards. "Prop Culture" unleashes movie nerd and collector Dan Lanigan on the Disney archives, and has him use props and costumes from Disney movies like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" as a starting point for interviews with artists and actors. "Sketchbook" shows you how to draw Disney characters, with actual Disney animators talking you through sketching the Genie, Simba, or Mirabel from "Encanto." You pick up quickly that the show is not really about the drawing, but to let Disney spotlight a bunch of diverse artists and their personal stories. "Marvel 616" is a docuseries about some of the more obscure corners of the Marvel universe, devoting episodes to a Japanese TV adaptation of "Spider-man" and the cosplay community.
I truly cannot imagine another studio like Paramount or Warner Bros. putting so much into generating this kind of content. Well, in a few cases I know they've tried, but it would never have the audience that Disney has managed to cultivate over decades and decades of carefully maintaining their sterling brand and family friendly credentials. No matter how blatant the advertising or the self-mythologizing is, all of these series are entertaining and high quality productions. They're made by people who you can tell care immensely about what they're doing. And for that, I salute the effort.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment