Challenge!!

This is a challenge that everyone should try. It consists on a bracket of movies that has different stages of the Disney movies. In  the upper-left corner there are the "Old School" movies, containing movies from 1940's to 1980's, such as Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers, and The Little Mermaid. On the next leg, there are the "Millennial Classics" movies. This one has movies from the 1990's, specially for the kids who borned in the late 1980's and middle 1990's. The picks are: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Toy Story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, and A Bug's Life.

On the other hand, in the upper-right corner, there are the "Toon 2K" movies for the 2000's generation, until 2009. There are a lot of Pixar movies that have been a hit. This selection contains movies as Monsters, Inc., Lilo & Stitch, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and The Princess and the Frog. Finally, in the lower-right corner, the last list of movies is called "For the Kids Today." This just contains 3 years of Disney movies since 2010 to the present, but still are great titles. Beginning with Toy Story 3, then Tangled, Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, Planes, Frozen, and ending with Monsters University.

In the picture the duels are settled just for the lovers of Disney could enjoy watching every movie. I hope you like this challenge, and let the best one wins.

Monsters University

Monsters University is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the fourteenth feature film produced by Pixar and is a prequel to 2001's Monsters, Inc., marking the first time Pixar has made a prequel film. The film received positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $743 million against its estimated budget of $200 million. 

This film tells the story of two monsters, Mike and Sulley, and their time studying at college, where they start off as rivals, but slowly become best friends. A young monster named Michael "Mike" Wazowski dreams of being a scarer (a monster who enters the human world at night to scare children so their screams can be harvested for energy) when he grows up, after visiting Monsters Inc.—Monstropolis' most profitable and best-known scaring company—on a school field trip. Eleven years later, Mike is a first-year scare major at Monsters University, where he meets a large, blue, furry monster named James P. "Sulley" Sullivan.

Sulley is a nature scarer, but does not knows the technique taught in the university because he thinks are useless and he is lazy. On the other hand, Mike does not have the talent to scare people, still he has the technique needed because he studies a lot a put all his effort to become the next scarer. After failing to enter the Roar Omega Roar's fraternity and failing the program, he decides to create a team called Oozma Kappa with rookies to prove to the rest of the monsters, and principally to Dean Abigail Hardscrabble, that he can remain in the program. His only important asset was Sulley, who decided to join the team in order to prove he can be a Sullivan just like his ancestors were. After many battle-rounds they became friends and finally won the competition. 

However, Sulley told Dean that he cheated in the competition so that Mike's scream will scare enough to win the final match against Roar Omega Roar. As Mike was so angry because he thought he was not scary enough, tried to scare some people in the human world by entering in a door located in the university's lab. Sulley follows him and after the reconciliation they realized they were trapped in the human world, and only with screams they were able to get back to the university. They make a plan to escape, even though they succeed, Dean Abigail expelled them from the university but also congratulates them for their work. They continue to be best friend as we can see in the movie Monsters, Inc. from 2001. 

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_University

Cars

Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy-adventure sports film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and directed and co-written by John Lasseter and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney. Cars premiered on May 26, 2006, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and was released on June 9, 2006, to positive reviews. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. 

This film is placed in a world populated by anthropomorphic transportation, including cars, trucks, fire engines, suvs, among others. The story is focused on a race car called Lightning McQueen, who dreams to win the Piston Cup in order to change his sponsorship. McQueen needs to win a race between Strip "The King" Weather and Chick Hicks, after a triple-tie. He wants to change Rust-Eze, a rust treatment for old cars, to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team.

This tiebreaker race will be competed in Los Angeles, and since it is a long distance, McQueen wants to travel in his big rig, Mack, the whole night. In the way to LA, the door where Lightning was sleeping opens, a he gets lost in the middle of the highway. He desperately tries to follow a path, and without knowing he arrives in a town called Radiator Spring. At first, he dislikes everything and everyone in the town, doing community service repairing the street. He takes orders from Doc Hudson, who turns out to be the "Fabulous Hudson Hornet", inspiring McQueen to do things better in the town and helping in the repair of the street by his own.

Later, he finds out that he is in a town that was famous because it passed through the U.S. Route 66, but when the Interstate 40 was built it disappeared from the map. Consequently, Lightning starts to be friendly with everyone, specially with a tow truck named Mater and a porsche named Sally; Mater is consider to be his best friend, while Sally his girlfriend. Finally when he is found in Radiator Spring he competes in LA against Chick and The King. In the middle of the race he wasn't focused until his pit staff talks to him and were Hudson with more friends from the town. In the last lap Hicks sends Weathers into a dangerous accident. Seeing this, McQueen stops just short of the finish line, allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish line. He ends up like a hero and receives an offer to sign for Dinoco, but he refuses and stay with his actual sponsorship because of the support given to him.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars_(film)

Pixar Association with Disney

Pixar Animation Studios, or simply Pixar, is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. Pixar has produced fourteen feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995), and its most recent being Monsters University (2013). All of the films have received both critical and financial success, with the notable exception being Cars 2, which, while commercially successful, received substantially less praise than Pixar's other productions. All fourteen films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least "A-", indicating a very positive reception with audiences. 

 The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction which made Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder. As of December 2013, its feature films have made over $8.5 billion worldwide, with an average worldwide gross of $607 million per film.Both Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, and all of Pixar's films are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films, with Toy Story 3 being the 2nd all-time highest, just behind Disney's Frozen, grossing over $1 billion worldwide. 

As it is established before, there are fourteen feature films. Here is the list: 

-Toy Story (1995)

-A Bug's Life (1998)

-Toy Story 2 (1999)

-Monsters, Inc. (2001)

-Finding Nemo (2003)

-The Incredibles (2004)

-Cars (2006)

-Ratatouille (2007)

-Wall E (2008)

-Up (2009)

-Toy Story 3 (2010)

-Cars 2 (2011)

-Brave (2012)

-Monsters University (2013)

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar

The Lion King

The Lion King is a 1994 American animated musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released byWalt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The Lion King was released on June 15, 1994 to a positive reaction from critics, who praised the film for its music, story and animation; it finished its run as the highest-grossing release of 1994. Following a 3D re-release in 2011, with earnings of over US $987 million worldwide as of 2011, the film is the highest-grossing hand-drawn film in history, the highest-grossing 2D animated film in the United States and the 19th-highest-grossing feature film of all time. 

This is definitely my favorite Disney movie. The plot is set in Africa in the Pride Lands, where a Lion named Mufasa is the king of the jungle. He have a son named Simba with his wife Sarabi. Simba have always been with his best friend Nala and protected by Mufasa's hornbill majordomo Zazu. When Simba grow up will be the king of the Pride Rock. This is seen with envy by Scar, Mufasa's brother. Scar killed Mufasa in a stampede produced by the hyenas who received Scar orders. In the stampede Mufasa saved Simba and Scar took advantage of this and told Simba that was his fault; thus, Simba left the Pride Lands.

Scar thought that the hyenas killed Simba, so he announced the death of Mufasa and Simba to take control of the Pride Lands. Still, Simba did not die and lived his whole life with a meerkat and a warthog named Timon and Pumba respectively, under the motto "hakuna matata" ("no worries"). Once they found with a lioness who turned out to be Nala. She asked Simba to return home because the Pride Lands were devastated under the command of Scar. He refused at first, but after finding with Mufasa's mandrill friend and advisor Rafiki, he saw his father's ghost and decided to return home. 

Finally, Simba arrived home with Timon, Pumba and Nala. In the Pride Rock they found Zazu, who helped them to fight against Scar and the hyenas. After a surprised arrival of Simba, Scar noticed that the hyenas didn't kill him and acted with sarcasm towards Simba. Suddenly, a fight between Simba and his uncle developed in the Pride Rock. Scar lost the fight and fell off the cliff, but he died because the hyenas ate him not because of the fall. The circle of life continues when Rafiki presents Simba and Nala's newborn cub to the inhabitants of the Pride Lands.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King

Tarzan

Tarzan is an animated adventure musical film that was produced and released by the Walt Disney Company in 1999 making it the 30th film of the Disney Animated Classics. This movie was based on the story of Tarzan of the Apes written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but they made a lot of changes in the movie. The Disney Adaptation tale is about an orphan named Tarzan that grew up in the remote African wildness and was raised by a gorilla named Kala. For a period of time, everything was perfect for Tarzan, he even believed that he was a gorilla too until a group of British entered the jungle. As a result of the invasion, Tarzan encounters a beautiful young lady, whose name was Jane, and realized that, like her, he was human. Time passed by and Tarzan fall in love with Jane and vise versa; the problem was Tarzan was torn between going with Jane to England, or staying with his gorilla family. At the end, Tarzan decided to stay and as a consequence of that Jane was completely upset; however, when they were really to go, her father encounters her to stay with the man she loves and that was exactly what she did. Jane and her father reunited with Tarzan and started a new happy life inside the jungle.  

This movie is considered to be the last of Disney Renaissance, "the era from 1989 to 1099 during which Walt Disney Animation Studios experienced a creative resurgence in producing successful animated films based on well-known stories". This was also the last major box office success of the Disney Renaissance with $448,191,819.

                                                

Reference:
"Disney Renaissance." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 July 2014. Web. 22 July 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Renaissance>

Toy Story

Toy Story is a computer animated buddy-comedy adventure film of 1995. It was directed by John Lasseter, produced by Pixar Animation Studios but in fact released by Disney Pictures. This movie was the first feature-length computer animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar. Toy Story is a movie about toys that come to life when their owner, Andy, is not inside the room or when he is asleep. The drama of the movie relies on the fact that Andy's birthday is coming up and therefore the toys are nervous due to the reason that he is going to receive new ones and they do not want to be forgotten or dispose. The "leader" of the toys was Woody, a cowboy, because he was the most popular since it was the one Andy care about the most. On the day of his birthday, Andy received a space ranger Buzz Lightyear action figure and Woody felt envy of him. He felt like that because Buzz was receiving a lot of attention from everybody given that Buzz believed that he was a real space ranger and that was the thing that got the attention of the other toys. In other words, Woody hated Buzz, but as time passes by they learned to appreciate each other and ended being best friends. 

When the movie was released worldwide it earn $361,958,736 an the reviews very positive, in fact, it was considered to be one of the best animated films ever made at that time. Because of the success it had, people started to create gamut from toys, video games, theme parks attractions, and two more sequels, one in 1999 and the other in 2010. Both sequels were very successful as well.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a 1953 American animated fantasy-adventure film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the 14th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and also the second Disney animated film starring Kathryn Beaumont, Heather Angel, and Bill Thompson after their roles in the animated feature Alice in Wonderland. 

The story tells about a kid who has never grown up and lives in a place beyond London called Never Land. This kid name is Peter Pan, and children in London love the story about him and the pirates, such as Wendy, who told the story to her younger brothers. One night he arrives at a nursery where Wendy and her brothers were sleeping, and with the help of his fairy friend Thinker Bell, the kids were able to fly to Never Land. 

Here starts a journey full of emotions and love, in a place that everything seems to be joyful and fun. Peter Pan had a crew of six boys called the Lost Boys, who enjoyed a lot to play and bother among them. Wendy and her brothers joins them to play, and also Thinker Bell was with them the whole time. This little fairy felt jealous of Wendy because she spent a lot of time with Peter, and Thinker Bell tried to killed her. With this trouble caused by Thinker Bell, Peter banishes her forever. With this, Captain Hook, Peter's main antagonist, plots to take advantage of Tinker Bell's jealousy of Wendy, tricking her into revealing the location of Peter's lair. 

The main problem found in the plot is the pirate's ship that is anchored off Never Land, commanded by Captain Hook. He wanted revenge because Peter have cut his hand before; thus, Captain Hook with the help of his pirates tried to kill Peter Pan by capturing Wendy. However, Hook's plan failed and Thinker Bell helped Peter Pan again to defeat Captain Hook and save Wendy. After all this adventure, Wendy and her brothers return to their house where their parents found them asleep as if nothing had happened throughout the night. 

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan_(1953_film)

Disney's First Documentary Film

The Walt Disney Company was recognized because of all their successful films, whether they were animated or life action. However, on the year of 1995, Disney released its fist documentary film with the title of Frank and Ollie. This film talked about the life and career of two animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson, who had work for the Disney Animation Studios since the beginning, up to their retirement on the late 1970's. Frank and Ollie was written, directed and produced by Frank Thomas' son, Theodore Thomas. The film consists of the anecdotes regarding their careers as animators in this company, it begins showing how they were hired to work there and then it shows all the difficulties and success they had throughout the years. Some of the problems that the film talks about are: the decrease on business due to the WWII and the unexpected death of Walt Disney.

During this documentary we were able to see various footage from different Disney films and interviews from other animators and their wives. Regularly, we would also see Frank and Ollie acting to describe some of the scenes of the movies and then show them from the film. This was to demonstrate how important acting for the animations too. The film was realize on September 1995 and was received in a positive way 

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is an animated musical romantic fantasy film that was produced in the year 1991 by the Walt Disney Animation. This movie was based on a very successful French fairy tale called by the same name. According to the Disney records, Beauty and the Beast was the 30th film that the company released. 

This classic of Disney talks about the story of Belle, a young beautiful girl who was imprison in a castle, and the Beast, a prince who used to be really good looking but was magically transformed into this creature because of his arrogance. The prince name was Adam, a young man who used to life a very interesting life because he had no love in his heart due to his arrogant personality. Due to this reason, the Enchantress decided to put a curse on his by converting him into a beast until he realizes that he is capable of loving too and she have him a rose as a time keeping. Beast needed to find love and earn love in return before the last petal fell, but or him, this was very frustrating because he did not know how any woman could be able to be with him while he looked like that. He had time up to his 20th birthday.

Ten years had passed since the day the curse fell on him and there was no sign of love. One day an inventor named Maurice got lost near his house and since it was late at night he ask for shelter in the castle, but the Beast was very angry because he had trespassed his territory and he imprison him. When Belle, the inventor's daughter heard about this, she offers her place in exchange of his. Beast so this as his last opportunity and for that reason he accepts the deal, but only if she remain in the castle forever. At the beginning she only saw him as a monster, but as time passed she realized that the looks are not everything, but what he had in his heart. The movie end with them falling in love and breaking the curse. 

Beauty and the Beast was a very successful movie and because of that, it became the Disney's first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway Musical .

Mickey Mouse Evolution

As most of us can imagine, Mickey Mouse have always and will always be the most important character of the Disney Corporation. Mickey Mouse is a animal cartoon created by Walt Disney in 1928, but have gone trough some changes as time passes by. This character is a little mouse that is usually recognized by the cloth he wears and his unique voice. 

Mickey Mouse officially debuted in the short film Steamboat Willie in the same year he was created and since then he have being included in around 130 films because of the acceptance and impact he has caused trough out the entire world. This mouse has lived around 87 years and, as we already said, has gone trough some changes; at the beginning he use to see him in black and white and did not always wear his gloves. He also went from looking very mouse like to being the Mickey Mouse we know nowadays. 

Regarding all of his films, Mickey use to appear just in short film but in 1940 the Walt Disney Company release its first film named Fantasia. All this success let ten of Mickey's cartoons be nominated for the Academy Awards. In other words, we can say that he became "the first cartoon character to have a start on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

The History of Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins was a book written by P.L. Travers on 1934. This book had a lot of success and for that reason Walt Disney decided that he wanted to obtain the film rights to her story. Even though it seems like a very fascinating idea, because of the impact it had and for the monitory issue, Pamela did not agree at first; it took 20 years of trying and insisting for Walt to finally acquire the rights, but under certain conditions. Travers was very doubtful about letting Disney to adapt her book because she really disliked animated films and that was what Walt was known for. However, the contract was made and since that moment Travers started to work with the team. As the days passed the team began to notice how personal the Mary Poppins story were to the Lady so they realized that all of the characters were in fact inspired by her own past meaning that they really existed. In effect, that was the real reason of her fear to letting Walt have the film right, she did not want the characters to be different from the book.

Mary Poppins was known as a magical nanny that was hired by the Bank family to try to calm down their children, children that use to get the attention of their father by making all the nannies wanting to go away. But every time Mr. Bank hired another nanny the children told him that it had to be someone kind and with imagination. When Mary Poppins arrived to the house she immediately got the attention of them due to the reason that she came down from the sky only with her umbrella and since then everything started to change in that family.

Disney's Highest Gross Earning Animated Film

“Remember how far you’ve come, and you won’t have to rely on a destiny for your future. It will come on your own.”  - Shannon Thompson. As we can imagine, one of the main things that gathers the majority of money for the whole Disney Company are the movies. Throughout the years we have seen how this company managed to be the leather in most of the things they do and that is the result of the  process of innovation they use. It is unbelievable to see how there is not a single Disney movie that had gone trough any kind of problem, but it is more incredible to see the amount of money a single movie is able to raise. 

One of the most resent films, Frozen, is considered as the the highest gross earning animated Disney film of all times for the reason that their box office was of $1,267'838,009; $400'738,009 in North America and an estimated $867'100,000 in other countries. Frozen was written Jennifer Lee and directed by both Chris Buck and Lee. This is a story that talks about a fearless optimist teenager named Anna that went on a journey with the help of Kristoff and Olaf to find her sister Elsa, whose ice power have trapped the Kingdom in eternal winter. They have to be together and battle in order to save their world. As a result of being the highest gross earning animated film, Frozen won two Academy awards, the Golden Globe Award, The BAFTA Award, five Annie Awards and two Critics Choice Awards.

References:

"Frozen." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 17 July 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/>.

Disney's First Movie

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated filmed produced by the Walt Disney Production in the year of 1937. This movie was was an adaptation based on the fairy tailed written by the Grimm Brothers, writers that contributed to other Disney movies too like Cinderella for example. Since the movie was the first full length animated film, it is considered one of the Walt Disney Animated Classic series even though they have created many new different versions throughout the years. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had two premieres; the first one was in Hollywood on December 1937, and because of its success they decided to release it nationwide on February of the following year. Success was not only within their country, but internationally as well; the earnings were of $8 million and therefore assumed the record of highest grossing sound film on that time. 

The achievements that the Walt Disney Productions had was not only monetary in view of the fact that they were awarded with and Oscar and nominated for the Best Musical Score. It is amazing to see the impacts that this movie brought to the people due to the reason that it was something new. Disney's first fairytale result in the creation of the popular theme park attraction, Snow White's Scary Adventure; a video game; and some Broadway Musicals. 

Disney Princess

The Disney movies have some iconic characters that children have always recognized as "Disney characters." One of the best examples are the Disney princesses. The princesses are a franchise from The Walt Disney Company and is named as Disney Princess. Moreover, in the tematic park called Magic Kingdom, there is a castle in the middle of the park. This represents where the princesses live, and that there is a specific place for them.

The princesses' franchise began in the late 1990's, consisting on some fictional heroines that belong to the Disney movies since the first in 1938. Each Official Disney Princess must: A) have a primary role in a Disney animated feature film, B) be human or closely human-like, and C) not appear primarily in a sequel.The chronological order of the princesses start with the Princess Snow White. She is the first Disney princess from the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Nowadays, there are 11 Disney princesses but there were originally 8. The first 8 princesses start with Princess Snow White, and the second is Princess Cinderella, which is part of a film that almost every girl love to watch. Then the others are: Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Princess Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Princess Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Princess Jasmine (Aladdin), Princess Pocahontas (Pocahontas), Princess Mulan (Mulan).

In the latest years the franchise acquire 3 other members. The 9th princess is Princess Tiana from the film The Princess and the Frog released in 2009. In the film Tangled the 10th princess joined to the rest of them as Princess Rapunzel. And the last one to be part of this franchise is Princess Merida. She is the main protagonist of the Disney/Pixar film Brave, making her the first Pixar Princess. With this 3 additional princesses the 11 are complete, but there is a possibility that Princess Anna of Arendelle from the film Frozen become the next "Princess" to be part of this list. 

The Walt Disney Company

Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on October 16 of 1923; even though, the company was recognized under the name of Walt Disney Studio. Later, they acquire the name of Walt Disney Productions. Nowadays it is known as The Walt Disney Company after they legalized the name in 2007. The Disney brothers started this company with the objective of making cartoon and short films. Their principal entertainment character was Mickey Mouse, and since they were having a lot of success they expanded to the big screen. On 1938 they made their first movie, and since then they have not stopped. As we can imagine, this company generates a lot of money, but it is really fascinating to realize that the revenues they had on 2013 were of $45.041 billions.