On Being a Terrible Fan

I used to be a media fan, meaning that I spent a good amount of time and attention on engaging with particular pieces of media.  I went through distinct phases of being a Disney fan, a "Star Wars" fan, an "X-files" fan, a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan, and an anime obsessive.  I bought merchandise, read tie-in books, was actively engaged in the online fan communities, and even went to a convention or two.  And it was a lot of fun.

And now, as a thirty-something adult, it's hard to think of any movie or television franchise that I could count myself a fan of in that sense.  Oh sure, I still spend ridiculous amounts of time consuming media, but there are so many shows that I'm trying to keep up with, and so many movies, I don't devote much time to any one of them anymore.  I barely rewatch any media, to the point where I realized recently that I haven't seen a rerun of any show in at least five years (more on that in another post).  I don't bother buying any media, unless it's a gift for someone else.  The only media-themed merchandise I've purchased recently have been Disney toys for various younger relatives.  I had the oddest moment of disconnect when a friend sent me a couple pieces of "Firefly" paraphernalia as a Christmas present.  How long ago was it that I was a "Firefly" fan?    

I've always tangled with this issue to some extent.  When I was younger, I used to call myself "panfannish" because I dabbled in a lot of different fandoms instead of devoting the majority of my time to one particular franchise, the way that a lot of other fans did.  I was also a consummate nerd even among nerds.  As an anime fan, I was rarely into the most popular shows like "Naruto," but older series or the oddball, artsy shows that were aimed at more niche audiences.  And while I did like fanworks, I much preferred discussing and analyzing media.  And that could be difficult, depending on the fandom, when discussions among fans in many communities often got derailed by shipping wars or behind-the-scenes drama.  What I had the least interest in were toys, collectibles, clothing  or really anything announcing to the world at large that I was a fan.  I did try cosplay once - and that was enough to decide it wasn't for me.       

I collected media for a little while, during the DVD era, but found that I rarely went back into my little collection to watch anything after a certain point.  I was too busy taking Criterions home from the library, ten at a time, or trying figure out which streaming service was worth a subscription.  A few months ago, I packed all of the DVDs away to make room for a new scanner, and I don't think that they'll be back out any time soon.  To an outsider observer, there's almost no indication that I'm as well-versed in media as I am.  There are only a few framed movie poster prints on my walls, mostly tucked out of the way.  Among my friends, the close ones know that I'm a nerd, but there are only two or three who I discuss media with actively - the ones who are far bigger fans of various media than I am.  And that's enough for me.    

So I am, by most measures, an absolutely terrible fan.  I don't spend money on my favorite franchises beyond a movie ticket or rental fee.  I don't buy the merchandise, go to the events, or support fanworks.  And lately, I don't watch the specific films and shows I like often enough to really obsess over their fine details.  I only know the quotes and the memes once they become big in the popular culture.  I can still rattle off a bunch of my favorite quotes from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," but I couldn't do the same for "Orphan Black" or "Rick and Morty."  It's a little ironic that right around the time we started seeing media fandom become more mainstream is when I started checking out of it.  I think I'll always be a media obsessive, but I don't fit the definition of a media fan.             

Frankly, I don't particularly want to be a fan anymore.  I just want to watch and enjoy the media.

---

My Top Ten Episodes of "Everybody Loves Raymond"

I passed over this show repeatedly, thinking I hadn't possibly watched enough of it to make a Top Ten list.  I watched the first three or four seasons regularly, but that tapered off as the show's popularity grew.  But as I was scanning through nine seasons worth of episode descriptions, it was a surprise how many of them were familiar.  "Everybody Loves Raymond" quietly permeated the popular culture to such an extent, it was a hard show to miss.  I even watched the documentary about Phil Rosenthal's efforts to help launch the Russian version of the show a few years back, "Exporting Raymond."  So here we are.

The episodes listed below are unranked and ordered by airdate.

"The Dog" - Ah, Shmansky.  Robert's new canine pal causes tensions between him and Raymond, and we learn exactly how much Ray loves his brother when the real owner shows up.  Brad Garrett's performance sells this one for me, especially when he's reminiscing about his old dog, and when he learns what Shmansky's original name was.  It's also a lot of fun to spot Shmansky in various episodes as the show rolls on.      

"Why Are We Here?" - Flashback episodes were a staple of "Raymond," usually saved for season finales for the extra emotional impact.  My favorite is still the first one they did, back when Debra was still on more friendly terms with Marie and Frank.  It's fun to look back a couple of years in the Barone's lives and look at how the family dynamics evolved.  The announcement of the impending arrival of the twins here is a highlight.    

"Marie's Meatballs" - Most of my favorite episodes involve incidents that could be easily mistaken for minor domestic tiffs, but they turn out to be vitally important to the characters and their relationships.  And so, Marie's sabotage of Debra's cooking lets us explore Debra and Marie's insecurities and Raymond's reluctance to choose sides.  And, of course, this was only the first of several other cooking battles to come.    

"Good Girls" - I thought that this episode came much later in the show's run, when Robert and Amy were a more permanent couple.  Instead, we find a new wrinkle in Debra and Marie's relationship fairly early on, in an episode where everyone talks about sex without actually talking about sex.  And it's one of the show's best moments when Frank spills the beans on Marie.  And somehow, the real loser in all this is Robert.  Of course.

"Halloween Candy" - I love that Peter Boyle gets to reprise Frankenstein's monster and make terrible jokes in this episode, which is actually about birth control.  Ray and Debra's sex life is in jeopardy once again, as Ray considers unappealing options.  I haven't said much about Ray Barone or Ray Romano yet, but his presence is such a big reason why "Raymond" works so well.  Here he proves as neurotic and tragic as any other Barone.

"The Can Opener" - Debra and Ray have a fight over a new can opener, which leads to a "Rashomon" style retelling of events from their two wildly different points of view.  All the Barones get involved by the end, culminating in Marie and Frank's glorious showdown over a jar of fat.  The plotting is so simple, but the resulting fireworks and the performances from everyone involved are just fabulous.  This is easily one of my favorites.

"Marie's Sculpture" - However, I don't think anything in "Raymond" can top Marie's uncomfortably yonic sculpture.  For a family friendly, PG rated show, they sure weren't shy about discussing sexuality, though usually in the sweetest and most inoffensive terms.  It's not the sculpture that's funny, but that nobody can bring themselves to tell Marie what's wrong.  Still, due to the subject matter, this episode wasn't shown in the UK for a number of years.  

"Lucky Suit" - Robert's big interview with the FBI is compromised by Marie, who ends up in the hot seat.  As you may have guessed, Marie is my favorite character.  As impossible as her behavior is, she's willing to go the distance for her boys every time.  Here, Doris Roberts is at her best as Marie tries to manipulate her way out of a bad situation, and finally has a rare moment of honesty when she realizes that she's outclassed.  

"Baggage" - It doesn't surprise me that the unpacked suitcase on the stairs came from the real life experience of one of the show's executive producers.  "Raymond" was always at its best when it felt the closest to reality.  However, the writers spinning that into Ray and Debra's epic battle of wills and resentment is what made the show so special.  It's one thing to be relatable, but another entirely to be so funny at the same time.

"Crazy Chin" - Robert's habit of touching food to his chin before he eats it is called out by his in-laws.  Suddenly, it's a big deal, prompting speculation, theorizing, and a trip down memory lane.  Amy and her family were later arrivals to the show, but they were a great new source of aggravation and character development for Robert.  It was great to see Robert grow a bit over the years too, proving he didn't have to be a sad sack to be funny and lovable.

---

A Film Worth Fighting For

Once in a while, we see critical reevaluations of older films that were too quickly dismissed when they were initially released.  Jean-Pierre's Melville's "Army of Shadows" is a good example, which was hailed as a forgotten masterpiece when it was loving restored and reissued in 2006, nearly forty years after its initial release in 1969.  I haven't run into many films I've thought were in need of a reevaluation myself until now.

The thing is, though, WWII film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" isn't an especially maligned film, and has gotten a fair amount of attention over the years.  True, Roger Ebert did give it one star and called it "one of the deadest, dullest blockbusters ever made," and the critical reception was very cool across the board, but it also nabbed five Academy Award nominations, all for technical categories.  It won the Best Special Effects Oscar for its recreation of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and clips were subsequently used in many other war-themed films and television shows in the following years, including Midway (1976) and Australia (2008).  It did decently well at the American box office, and was a smash in Japan.  However, its reputation in subsequent years has been decidedly mixed, and it never seems to come up in discussions of the great war films, which I'm convinced that this is.  

I think it comes down to "Tora! Tora! Tora!" not meeting certain preconceptions.  Firstly, it's an effects spectacular, produced by 20th Century Fox's legendary Darryl F. Zanuck's.  What made headlines were the cost of the picture, which was in excess of $25 million, and its three year productions schedule.  In order to tell the story of the Pearl Harbor attack from both the perspective of the Americans and the Japanese, the film was essentially two different productions, one American and one Japanese, each with their own contributing writers and directors.  The American director was Richard Fleischer, best known for adventure films like "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "Fantastic Voyage."  The Japanese director was initially going to be Akira Kurosawa, but he dropped out of the project, and the baton was passed to Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku.  Fukusaku, thirty years later, would cap off his long career by directing the two "Battle Royale" movies.

The trouble is, the film doesn't behave like any sort of blockbuster action picture of its era.  The nearly three hour running time is largely devoted to the political and military maneuvering that lead to the attack, with special emphasis on how the American government anticipated Pearl Harbor, but were tripped up by communication failures with the military.  There are a few familiar faces in the cast, but no characters who are really explored in any depth, no foregrounded melodrama to follow as the historical events unfold.  Instead, we largely see scenes of bureaucracy on both sides, as decisions large and small are made in the final fateful hours.  The tension doesn't really start rising until the second half, after well over an hour of sitting in on dramatized meetings and conferences with characters who are introduced with captions to help us keep them all straight.

The low-key docu-drama approach worked for me, however, and I appreciated the lack of the usual outsized melodrama and patriotic posturing.  And there are memorable personal moments of human drama scattered throughout the film: a white US soldier in Hawaii giving an Asian courier a suspicious look, efforts to track down an officer being stymied because he's gone horseback riding, and Japanese pilots enjoying the music they've picked up from Hawaiian transmissions.  It's remarkable how even-handed the film is throughout, especially as the film was made less than thirty years after the events depicted.  It's no wonder that it was such a hit in Japan, because the Japanese characters are allowed to appear downright heroic at times, and it's tempting to want to cheer for them as they pull off their raid on the Americans.    

And what an air raid.  The final forty minutes of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" can still be held up as one of the greatest action sequences ever captured on film.  The size and the scale of the production are still thrilling to see, with multiple scenes of aerial dogfights, bombing runs, and massive scale destruction of acres of expensive military hardware and property.  Famously, one of the stunts that went disastrously wrong was caught on film and included in the final film as part of the cinematic carnage.  Even forty-five years later, it's still impressive to take in.  I can't speak much to the accuracy of the events, but I do find it heartening that some of the movie's biggest fans are military enthusiasts.

I was so impressed after an initial viewing, I immediately started looking into why the film hasn't had the kind of attention that I'd expect.  People do regard it fondly, but it's seen as a popular success rather than a critical one.  The reviews of the day called it tedious and dry, a history lecture grafted to an exercise in expensive pyrotechnics.  I however, think it's one of the best war films of its era, and it holds up incredibly well today.

So, films nerds, it seems I've finally found it - an underrated film that really needs a second look.  

---

Dealing With the Disconnect

"Scrubs."  "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."  "How I Met Your Mother."  "The Office."  "24."  "30 Rock." "Lost."  "The Walking Dead."

As much as I like to think that the television  monoculture has gone away, that's not entirely true.  The shows listed above are ones I see referenced commonly in the larger media, but that I've never really seen.  Oh, there was an odd episode of "The Office" now and again in college, and I did make it through the whole first season of "The Walking Dead," but otherwise these are the shows that I see references to regularly, but I never bothered to connect with in any meaningful way.  More importantly, these are the shows where I don't particularly care to be in on the joke.  Every time I see "Parks and Rec" or "The West Wing" brought up, I make another mental note that I really should go watch it sometime.  With "Always Sunny"?  Not so much.  

Now, when I was younger this used to bother me more.  I watched several programs like "Beverly Hills 90210" just to stay in the pop culture loop, even though I didn't much like them.  Especially when it came to genre shows, I felt like I was letting down my fellow geeks if I didn't give everything promising a shot.  I actually felt guilty that I wasn't watching the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, even though I didn't have access to cable at the time, and was barely watching television as it was.  How could I call myself a sci-fi fan if I wasn't watching the biggest sci-fi show of its era?  During the anime phase of my life, I kept up with "Naruto" and "Inuyasha" and pretty much everything that was aired on Adult Swim because everyone in the wider anime fandom  watched  them.  The only anime I kept at a distance was "Dragonball" and its spinoffs, because there was just too much adolescent testosterone involved for me to take.

And now?  Well, I've figured out that a little common ground goes a long way.  There are plenty of pop culture references that I do get from media I do consume - "Game of Thrones," "Rick and Morty," and "Breaking Bad," to name a few of the big ones.  More importantly, it's really not difficult to absorb the most popular references from media I don't have much familiarity with - the "Always Sunny" characters are all monsters, Barney from "How I Met Your Mother" is a suit-loving womanizer, Jack Bauer from "24" is an over-the-top badass action hero, and Turk and J.D. from "Scrubs" have the best bromance of all time.  There's rarely any reference that goes much deeper than that.  I've filled myself in on most running jokes with just a couple of Youtube clips.  It's incredibly easy to find the relevant information these days.  

Besides, if you're going to connect to someone over a piece of media, it's better to connect over a show or film that you have a genuine interest in.  Sure, a "Friends" or a "The Simpsons" reference is always fun to see, but it always feels a little more special when you find that rare fan of "Eerie, Indiana" or "Paranoia Agent."  Also, with the dismantling of the monoculture, and the new reality of peak TV, nobody really expects anyone else to keep up with what they're watching anymore.  Everyone goes at their own pace and plenty of people show up fashionably late to the party.  Mainstream culture more or less reflects that these days.  The only shows it assumes we're all watching are "Game of Thrones," "the Walking Dead," and "Stranger Things."    

And oddly enough, I really don't mind the unfamiliar references.  On the contrary.  I've found that they can be a good way to tell whether or not I'd enjoy a show, whether the humor matches my own, and what the fanbase is like.  For instance, I adore the gruff Ron Swanson from "Parks and Rec," despite never having seen a single episode.  I really will get around to it someday.  Promise.  And I know that I'd probably never be able to sit through any amount of "24" with a straight face.  

Besides, that is a show whose time has definitely passed.

---

Rank 'Em: Peter Jackson's Middle Earth Movies

Enough time has passed now that I think we can look back at Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" trilogies with a little more perspective.  As many problems as I had with the "Hobbit" movies, by and large they were pretty decent as blockbuster spectaculars go, and I'm sure that younger viewers especially will get a lot out of them.  Meanwhile, "The Lord of the Rings" remains a high water mark for fantasy in film, and have aged very well.  So, to talk about all of these films, I'm doing a "Rank 'Em" post.  After all, I think it's safe to say that we won't be seeing any additions to this franchise anytime soon.

The films are ranked below from greatest to least.

The Fellowship of the Ring - The first, the shortest, and the one with the dodgiest effects work.  However, it's also one of the loveliest, with its gorgeous opening scenes in the Shire, and our first looks at Rivendell and Lothlorien.  This was the film that sold me and many others on Jackson's take on Middle Earth, and I don't think he's ever really matched it.  The film was epic, but it was so much better grounded than the others, never letting the spectacle overwhelm the story of Sam and Frodo's journey together. The Two Towers - "The Two Towers" runs a close second to "Fellowship," though I think the split storylines and bleaker aesthetics ultimately hurt its appeal and rewatchability a bit.  Even if you're not a purist, the scenes with Faramir don't really sit right, and the business with the Ents is endless.  There's no denying, however, that the climactic  battle at Helm's Deep is one of the best sequences of the franchise.  Also, there's Gollum, who at the time was the greatest CGI character to ever appear in a live action film.  There still aren't many that match up.   The Return of the King - Despite the ridiculous number of Oscars, this is easily the least of the original "Lord of the Rings" films.  It's overlong, much too concerned with spectacle over character, and the narrative is much too lopsided in favor of the scenes of warfare.  I'd been looking forward to Frodo and Sam's journey through Moria for ages, and found it disappointingly brief compared to the other storylines.  Still, the film overall is very strong, with some of my favorite moments of the series.  Even the ending credits make me well up. The Desolation of Smaug - I love the entire sequence with Bilbo and Smaug, which is the high point of the "Hobbit" trilogy in my book.  Thus, I am willing to overlook quite a few of the film's flaws, including the shameless invented romance between Tauriel and Kili.  I liked several of the major action set pieces, including the barrel escape and the fight with the spiders.  Like the other films in this set, "Smaug" has too much padding, but at least the more episodic structure keeps the momentum going strong.  I was never bored, as I was occasionally with the other "Hobbit" films.   An Unexpected Journey - I thought the "Hobbit" films started out very well with the Shire sequences and the introductions of Bilbo and the dwarves.  Martin Freeman's Bilbo is perfect. However, it took much too long to settle back into the world of Middle Earth.  Peter Jackson's experimentation with the high frame rate format definitely had a negative impact on the visuals. However, I think the biggest issue was really all the new material meant to help expand the story, especially Gandalf's and Thorin's scenes, mucking up the narrative.  It took forever to get the plot rolling. The Battle of the Five Armies - I don't expect I'll ever totally forgive Peter Jackson for Alfrid, the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth.  This movie really never should have existed in the first place, extrapolating a lengthy war out of short section of the book.  More importantly, while watching it I couldn't shake the feeling that Jackson was doing all the greatest hits of the previous films, but they weren't working - spectacular warfare, Legolas doing impossible things, and loads of CGI beasties all felt underwhelming.  The ending came as more of a relief than anything else.

---

A Groaner of a "Ghost"

Now, if I had never heard of "Ghost in the Shell," I would think that the new film from Rupert Sanders, about a cyborg woman named Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johanssen), was a perfectly typical sci-fi action thriller.  The story, involving a corrupt technology company, a killer on the loose, and the Major looking for answers about her past, is mediocre but serviceable.  The hologram infested Asian cityscapes look like a variation on the ones from "Blade Runner," and the stylish action sequences are similar to what you'd expect from "Resident Evil" or "John Wick."  It's only the effects work used to realize the robots and cyborgs that stand out.  Sanders knows how to deliver some striking images, if nothing else.   

The trouble is, of course, that I'm very, very familiar with the "Ghost in the Shell" universe, enough to realize that Sanders is too.  And as a fan of the property, the choices that he makes with this new film adaptation often border on the bizarre.  He more or less relays an original story, but then uses existing pieces of the anime films and television series to tell it, including several extremely faithful recreations of shots and scenes from the original 1995 "Ghost in the Shell" film.  And I don't mean just once or twice, but at least a dozen instances of directly lifting images from the original.  Of course, that just made the problems with the new film more obvious.      

The story is dumbed down, which I expected to some extent, as "Ghost in the Shell" is notorious for its heady existential and philosophical storylines about the blurring of the lines between man and machine.  Mira questions her existence in about the most basic and straightforward terms possible,  by searching for a past she doesn't remember.  However, the way the film contrives to give her satisfying answers is pretty dodgy, especially as it puts some racial identity issues uncomfortably at the forefront of the story - which the film would have probably been better off ignoring because it fails to deal with them in any meaningful way.  Johanssen's performance is decent enough, but the character of the Major feels compromised and diminished.

What the film does get right, however, are several of the side characters, namely the Major's partner Batou (Pilou Asbaek), a much more relatable human figure who makes an excellent secondary protagonist, and Chief Aramaki (Beat Takeshi), who runs the militarized security force that the pair work for.  Takeshi is allowed to be a proper badass while never obligated to utter a single word in English.  The main villain Kuze (Michael Pitt), is also given a few good moments, but is otherwise underdeveloped.  He's a very odd choice of villain when you look at the other franchise favorites that "Ghost in the Shell" had to choose from.  I suspect he would have been more successful if he'd been an entirely original creation.    

Again, I want to emphasize that a newcomer to this material likely wouldn't have the same reaction to the film.  However, this feels like a movie made for the fans, as it includes so much that only the fans would notice and appreciate.  The filmmakers were clearly concerned with fidelity to their source material, but only up to a point.  Similar to Zack Snyder's "Watchman," all the little details and homages are perfect, but the larger work is lacking.  And it's very difficult to enjoy the things that the film did right, like the beautiful update on the opening sequence, when the fundamental themes are so mishandled.  It's frustrating to see so much misplaced ambition, so many good intentions that ultimately came to naught.

The live action "Ghost in the Shell" isn't the disaster I was preparing myself for, but it is a significant disappointment nonetheless, and there's plenty of blame to go around.  As Hollywood continues to run into trouble adapting Japanese media, I have to wonder how feasible similar projects are going to be in the future.  In some ways, "Ghost in the Shell" had every advantage and everything going for it - big stars, a big budget, and director with his heart in the right place.  But in many ways, they was the reason for the film's downfall too.  

---

Disney and PIXAR's Animation Schedule

While I've still got the Disney animated features on my mind, let's take a look at what's coming up next for the studio.  The last time I checked in was 2013, when their schedule of future films looked like this:

Frozen (2013)

Big Hero 6 (2014)

Zootopia (2016)

Giants (2016)

Moana (TBA, likely 2018)

Untitled Dean Wellin Animated Feature (TBA, likely 2018)

And they mostly stuck to that, aside from swapping the dates for "Moana" and "Giants."  Now, after their April update, their schedule of future films looks like this:

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 (2018)

Frozen 2 (2019)

Gigantic (2020)

Untitled (2021)

The "Untitled" entry is probably still the Dean Wellin space-themed film, but we have no way of knowing for sure.  Also, there's another project Lin Manuel Miranda is working on with "Zootopia" director Byron Howard in the pipeline.  The only big news here is that "Gigantic," formerly "Giants," based on "Jack and the Beanstalk," has been pushed back again to 2020.  Note that this isn't rare for Disney, as retooling on these films happens all the time, often with very good results.  However, this does create a somewhat worrying situation, especially when you also take a look at PIXAR's schedule:

Cars 3 (2017)

Coco (2017)

The Incredibles 2 (2018)

Toy Story 4 (2019

Untitled film (2020)

Untitled film (2020)

Untitled film (2021)

The two 2020 films are planned to be originals, and nothing is known about the 2021 film.  However, it's clear that aside from this fall's "Coco," we're not going to be seeing any animated originals from either Disney Animation or PIXAR until 2020.  That's something to be concerned about, especially since there wasn't a single sequel on the Disney Animation slate back in 2013.  

Theatrical sequels have been pretty rare birds for the Disney, usually left to smaller satellite studios like DisneyToon Studios, which handled  "Return to Never Land," "The Jungle Book 2," and numerous direct-to-video sequels.  They've always been eyed with some suspicion by both fans and artists for generally being lower quality, and treated by the studio as a way to make a quick buck during the '90s and 2000s.  To date, the only ones counted as official Disney features are the ones with production actually handled by Walt Disney Feature Animation: "The Rescuers Down Under," "Fantasia 2000," and the 2011 "Winnie the Pooh."

However, if the new "Wreck-it-Ralph" and "Frozen" movies are successful, and there's every reason to expect that that they will be, sequels will become the new status quo like they are over at PIXAR.  And while I've liked some of the  PIXAR sequels and prequels like the later "Toy Story" movies and "Monsters U," I'd rather have a mediocre original like "The Good Dinosaur" in most cases.  Also, keep in mind that Disney, unlike their competitors, relies heavily on their animated output as source material for a whole multimedia empire including theatrical shows, television series, and now live-action features too.  

Sequels, no matter how strong, threaten to dilute that.  There was a "Shrek" musical, remember, but it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to make a "Shrek 3" musical.  "The Lion King" is being remade as a live action feature in the same vein as "The Jungle Book," but we're not going to see remakes of its sequels, "Simba's Pride," or "The Lion King 1½" or "The Lion Guard."  Heck, it's even odd to run across the branded merchandise for "Despicable Me 2" or "Ice Age 4" because there's such a clear cultural expiration date that comes with those movies.    

The only exception would be if the sequels turn out to be massively different from the originals, and the previous Disney feature sequels were actually pretty good at that.  "The Rescuers Down Under" shifted settings entirely to from the Southern bayou to the Australian outback.  "Fantasia 2000" really only used the same conceptual framework as the original.  I'd feel a lot more comfortable if  the new Disney sequels were spaced further from the originals like the PIXAR movies, and there were a greater sense of separation.  

Still, if the sequels help ensure that the original films keep getting made at the level of quality I want them to be, I can't complain too much.  And two or three years between original films is actually about the same rate that they came out back in the studio's glory days.  As long as the studio is still in the business of taking chances on movies like "Moana" and "Zootopia," I guess I can live with the inevitability of a "Big Hero 7."

---