While I agree to some extent, this just begs the question of why
The Little Mermaid restored Disney's reputation, especially if it wasn't a box office hit. It's possible that
P&tF will have the same effect on the next hand-drawn animated movie, but the fact that it's Winnie the Pooh, a well-established moneymaking franchise, will badly throw off any assessments of P&tF's quality affecting the next movie.
As I point out in the article, that also doesn't explain the success of
Tinker Bell on video, unless you believe that the new DTV movies are being linked to the classic film in people's minds.
While I appreciate your concerns for precision, accuracy, and succinctness, the "apparently" you cite is there for very specific reasons. The assessment that the movie turned off boys is Disney's, not mine, and I have no idea whether this is something they arrived at on their own or if they have market research to back it up. Either way, I don't entirely agree with the conclusion, so "apparently" was inserted at that point in the sentence as a succinct way to express my doubt about the accuracy of the statement and my general disagreement with it.
If there is doubt to be expressed, I don't understand why words that express that doubt are superfluous. I think only exceptionally poor journalists declare certainty when there is none. Would you have me declare that hand-drawn animation IS equivalent to black-and-white film as a turn-off to audiences when I am not sure that it's true? My selection of words in that section also express a lot of doubt, but that's because I find the conclusion doubtful. Opting for certainty there in an effort to be "more worthy of trust," as you put it, would change my meaning entirely and would not accurately express my thoughts on the subject.
I also find it hard to believe that anybody would not remember Dr. Ed Catmull's first name when it's mentioned in the sentence immediately before the one you quoted.
And, since you asked, I'll use "however" as an alternative to "but" so I'm not just writing "but...but...but...but" all the time. I'm pretty sure there's a "however" in part 2, so I just wanted to make sure you were ready for it and had the reason why I opted to use it ahead of time.
This is definitely a contributing factor that will turn an average performer into a box office disappointment and a disappointment into a flop, but it only pushes the problem downfield. Why did audiences decide
The Princess and the Frog (and
Bolt and
Meet the Robinsons) weren't worth seeing in movie theaters? It's not a general problem -- as I stated, the Chipmunks sequel racked up more than P&tF's entire gross within two weeks, and the
Twilight movies are making money hand-over-fist in theaters.
For what it's worth, there was something in the article at one point that dealt with home video's impact, but it was ultimately cut because I felt I was running too long already and it doesn't really answer the question.
I don't know, I think that's akin to saying, "The Alvin sequel was a failure because it made less money than
Avatar." The facts are true, but the conclusion seems off the mark. Disney was clearly hoping P&tF was going to be a grand, triumphant return to hand-drawn animation and it wasn't, at least financially. Your examples are hand-drawn animated features at their lowest point creatively and at the box office, so of course P&tF will look better by comparison. I think the better comparisons would be to movies like
Tarzan or
Mulan, which I would say
P&tF compares quite favorably with as a film, but all of which were more successful at the box office.
Just to throw something else out there, I was going to cite
Hercules as well, but
it didn't make back its production costs by a whole lot, and worldwide domestic gross (in 1997 dollars, admittedly) wasn't much better than P&tF. Maybe I'M not looking back far enough, either.
Anyway, there's more coming in part 2, including some other points raised in this thread and why I think the decision to change
Rapunzel to
Tangled was the right decision for the wrong reason.
Anyway, I'll admit to being one of the people who never bothered to see it in theaters, mainly because I'm just not into Disney Princess movies (even if it was one of the better ones, in my opinion). The race factor didn't really bother me so much as the marketing behind it. I felt all the push behind 'The First Black Princess!' was pointless and thought that it would obviously lead to backlash. They didn't do that stuff for Mulan, Pocahontas, or Jasmine to my knowledge, so it seems pointless and akin to a kid saying "Ooh, look at me" to get attention. I also will say Disney really doesn't have name recognition in theatrical animation anymore; either through bad reputation or just being too old-fashion for people today. Pixar's namebrand seems to sell movies a lot better these days than Disney's.