Late Stage Disney | Renegade Cut 

Please don't write a comment that amounts to "Debate me!" and especially don't write multiple comments to spam my section. If you can't imagine a world without capitalism, that's called Capitalist Realism. If you want to know more, read the book of the same name. If you want to know more about what the world could be like post-capitalism, Google "post-capitalism" and start there. I'm an educator and a former classroom teacher. That means I'm a lecturer, not an individual tutor. If your comment is "Oh yeah? Then what do YOU think we should do?" then you're probably not asking in good faith because if you wanted to learn, there are infinite resources at your disposal outside a comments section. If you ask it that way, what you really want is (specifically) me to perform for you.

"I bet the new Lion King doubles down on its 'watch out for those dirty poors' message" YEP GOT IT IN ONE

Disney is trying to convince you they haven't become the villains their movies are about.

Disney is so "woke" that Kristen Stewart recently declared: "I have fully been told, 'If you just like do yourself a favor, and don’t go out holding your girlfriend’s hand in public, you might get a Marvel movie.'"

*Gives every woman a sword* There, gender equality

"Like most things in life, this is Tim Burton's fault" lol.

It says a lot that the MCU's Peter Parker now worships a celebrity billionaire in Tony Stark instead of his working class uncle. I guess they wanted to forget that whole "great power, great responsibility" thing. Now it's "more power, more fun!" Meanwhile, The Last Jedi showed a corrupt system perpetuated by greed and indifference...and people thought that was a waste of time.

lindsay ellis' essay on beauty and the beast, h.bomberguy's _woke brands,_ and this have really helped to put into words the ennui i feel toward this whole sequel-prequel-remake-franchise-nostalgia media market we're living in and, more importantly, the reasons it exists in the first place. so thanks you guys, i hate it

Mary Poppins Returns ret-cons the original Mary Poppins, completely undermining a key thematic plot point to make room for a more pro-capitalist plot to take place in the reboot. In the original, Michael explicitly does not invest his tuppence in the bank because he wants to give it to the bird lady. That's a _whole big thing._ In "Returns," it turns out he did invest the tuppence and earned massive interest, allowing friendly capitalist Dick Van Dyke to save them in the end, wrapping up the plot neatly.

Filmmakers making wink and nod jokes about Disney being a horrible company is akin to the wink and nod jokes about Harvey Weinstein. Because success excuses all wrong doing in the eyes of a capitalist.

I noticed the same "Good billionaire, bad billionaire " in Incredibles II as well. It added a layer of unease to a movie that was already a bit of a mess.

"Impovershed people do not have fifty years to wait for capitalists to have a come to jesus moment." LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK.

Plays five seconds of two men dancing in a 19th century film... DEMONITIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a big difference between greed and capitalism, the same way that there is a difference between murder and genocide. Capitalism is greed in a far larger, institutionalized level.

19:00 This is the exact same 'few bad apples' rhetoric people use to sweep aside concerns of police brutality. 'A few bad apples' means the whole system is corrupt enough to allow those 'bad apples' to get to a place where they can murder people with zero accountability. But, because not ALL of them are 'bad' that means the _system_ is 'good'!

YES!!! The feminism portrayed in these movies and so much other modern media is only FIRST wave feminism! I couldn’t pin down why it bothered me so much or put it into words until now, especially when the loudest voices criticizing it are incel types saying “why’s it gotta be a woman tho”. Thank you so much. This was very satisfying for my confusing frustration lol

Thomas Paine actually offered a critique of the monarchist system in his famous pamphlet "Common Sense" similar to yours of capitalism. To wit, he argued that for every good king it produced, the monarchist system positively groaned under the weight of the bad ones it elevated. Thus, the system was flawed and needed to be replaced. I get the feeling that the climate crisis will be the breaking point for capitalism the same way the World Wars were for monarchist and the remnants of the feudal system. It always takes an overwhelming crisis to make human beings change their tune.

It should be called the Nostalgia Cash Grab Era

God this gave me flashbacks to my time taking a "history" class that the teacher lowkey turned into a platform for libertarian-ism. Dude would spend the whole class ranting about how "if we just let greedy-ass companies rule literally EVERYTHING then everything would only get BETTER FOREVER" and then loosely tied it into some shit that happened in the 17th century. God I can't believe the school let that man teach

Capitalism? More like crapitalism. Seriously though, great analysis. Depressing.

After you mention it, I started thinking about that Mary Poppins Returns bit and you're right. It's interesting, considered how similar the movie is to the original Movie. But while the original was about a very personal story, about family and parenthood, these weren't high stakes but high emotions. Now MPR is about capitalism and how it is bad, but not really, it had nothing to do with the children, the adults and their relationship to each other. They tripled the stakes but halved the emotions.

Damn. I knew about Disney's "wokeness", but I never realized it went so deep as to continuously prop up capitalism until you pointed it out. You also summed up their pandering to what's now considered the bare minimum of feminism but was considered radically groundbreaking circa 1920. And I think there's something to be said about how Disney figures like Mulan and Elsa are praised for being "strong feminist icons" and yet nobody these days talks about Esmeralda. My theory is that it's because she's not as marketable. She's not an aloof, queenly heroine like Elsa who spends most of her film suffering her burdens in silence and in the gilded cage of a palace. She's not an obvious badass like Mulan who has several awesome "transforming for battle" montages set to great music. Instead, Esmeralda is an ethnic and social minority in the world of her story. She's an outcast. An outspoken outcast who makes her opinions known through simple acts of kindness, brutally honest words, or blatant defiance, whichever the situation calls for. She displays compassion when it's unpopular yet doesn't fall for the man who sees her as an angel. She wholeheartedly embraces her sexuality yet would rather be burned alive than become another man's sex slave. She does find love, yes, but with a man who sees her as a woman, and she lets that relationship bud naturally without rushing toward it or making it the end-all, be-all of her existence. In short, Esmeralda is one of the few Disney characters--and even fewer Disney heroines--who is shown in her film to be fully human and thus, fully a woman, without any gimmicky winking to the audience. And that's why I think modern Disney and modern audiences have largely forgotten her. They don't want three-dimensional characters to look up to. They want hollow idols for their pop culture pantheon.

is weird how capitalists always talk about "rugged individualism" and then say its "individuals" not systemic stuff thats the problem.

I ask for a future with Hover boards, Jaws 3D, Shrek 12, cybernetic implants, replicants and all i get is Will Smith as the Genie

Petition to forever call Tim Burton: Timmy Scissorhands

I think this is a beautiful companion video to the one Some More News put out a few months ago about Disney and its attempts to become an entertainment monopoly. Cody is more focused on the facts regarding takeovers, and yours is more focused on the media criticism of the properties themselves Together, they work beautifully. So I do recommend that anyone here also watch the Some More News video, if you haven’t already seen it.

Watching Disney trying to triangulate grifting western audiences into thinking they're woke without alienating the international market is hilarious

Speaking as a member of the Lewis Carroll society, in regards to burton, his Alice is not a remake of the 51 film nor an adaptation of Carroll's novels, deliberately ignoring or disregarding established canon in regards to Carroll. It makes Carroll's novels normal, which is In my eyes unforgivable. In regards to monopoly, I'm inclined to agree with folktale scholar Jack Zipes's comments on Disney and their films. Namely that Disney has branded their versions of the traditional oral fairy tale as the "legitimate" version, thus making it harder for other versions of these tales to gain prominence. Late stage Disney's fairy tale films, wether reimaginings or straight remakes of their animations, remind the viewer of the monopoly they have on the fairy tale genre and assert their prominence.

why are we letting corporations tell our stories?

Thank you, this really helps me understand my unease with these movies. I was recently wondering about the practice of big corporations owning TV shows that do show capitalism in a negative light, e.g. I was musing about The Boys by Amazon Prime. I thought that show was subversive and dark in its portrayal of capitalism, and I was wondering why a company like Amazon would do that. (I think it's slightly different to what you described with Disney). What I came to is that maybe it's not a threat to these companies for people to think the system sucks, just so long as they don't think there's an alternative. Because that way people will just be apathetic numb consumers not activists. I don't remember seeing positive portrayals of a transition past capitalism to a new system, in a mainstream TV show or movie. Anyone else think of any?

I had forgotten about Cinderella! When you showed clips about that film I thought to myself: "oh yeah that exists!". So forgetable.

"Forgettable, passable, and Aladdin." XD

Over the last few years, the plethora of brilliantly nuanced, insightful, educational and so very entertaining video essays has enriched my life SO MUCH.

"Like most things in life, this is Tim Burton's fault" LOL

This is an issue that definitely needs to be talked about just a little more when it comes to modern Hollywood filmmaking. Thanks for anther great almost half-hour of necessary depression, Comrade!

I like the little moments of Leon making a joke in his videos. “Timmy Scissorhands” is *chef kiss* magnifique

Thanks for articulating why I hate the "megacorp bunch" so much. This will come in handy in the discussions I have with my white, middle class friends while we enjoy drinks and technology we ordered on the evil A.

For a movie that critiques unemployment and capitalism, check out *Nightcrawler* (with Jake Gyllenhaal) pretty good movie imho.

"Watch out for those dirty poors. They are our food".

“Moychendising!!!” -Yogurt

Leon: I blame Tim Burton Me, in the middle of making my Beetlejuice costume: tbh, I do too

That groan at the end is the soundtrack of this century.

This video + Lindsay Ellis' "Revisionist World of Disney" pair very well together and especially help put into words the simultaneous enjoyment and unease I've felt about the themes in Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Returns (and Saving Mr. Banks too) -- any critiques they offer are of individual shortcomings and not the increasingly apparent systemic issues beneath.

Damn, that title screams "click me"

I mostly agree with you. The "but" comes in with the "'good' capitalist saving the day." Because, in both the cases mentioned, the "good" capitalist is at most mentioned in passing until the third act. While you gave what's probably the intended message, that still gives the audience's exposure to capitalists within the movie an overwhelming amount to the regular evil capitalist. While I can't speak for everyone's experience, Christopher Robin in particular was the one that I found a pretty distinct anti-capitalist reading with: all of Christopher Robin's problems (the PTSD, emotional repression, the main conflict of the film) are admittedly not explicitly stated, but the main conflict in particular is pretty clearly at the fault of capitalism, and while expressed in very capitalist terms because Disney, the solution comes in giving the workers rights (paid vacations) and resisting the capitalist while coming to terms with what is in our hellish world the least capitalist scenario a person could be in; the experience of a privileged child too innocent to understand economics. I'm sure it looks like I'm bending over backwards to defend Christopher Robin-and yeah, I probably am-but it's one of those movies that left an impact on me. I saw it when I was coming to understand that I've been struggling with depression my whole life and was unaware of it, and the movie gave me a protagonist who seemed to also be struggling with it, as well as a deeper appreciation for Eeyore. Edit: Not that Christopher Robin is above criticism, obviously. I have my own problems with how it can't decide if the Hundred-Acre Wood residents are actually real or in his head, and Leon gives some valid points. I'm just likely to defend it because of the extremely visceral reaction I had to it.

the only interesting thing about that basically world-ending situation we have is watching those giants mutate into disgusting monstrosities no longer resembling their former selves and spewing crap everywhere.

Well said! You articulated one of my major issues with Disney movies. I cannot watch them because I have a hard time looking past the Disney logo and what that stands for.

I called this trend the spawn of sequelism that we've seen in things like the pixar and such The logical next step is bend it twist it and weave it back together for esay profit

Half of these live action movies I can’t even remember (edit: I actually learned about remakes I didn’t even know about) Disney is going to kill movies, I’m already not looking forward to MCU phase 4 and Star Wars.

I have to say I quite enjoyed this video quite a lot. Personally I think the live action remakes are going to stop at some point once Disney has a new guy in charge. Some of you may recall that Disney's tried this sort of thing before, only they released a series of direct to DVD sequels and/or prequels instead of doing live action remakes. What stopped those wasn't the reception they got (which wasn't especially good either, though they tended to be better received than the live action remakes), but from a 'changing of the guard', I think it was the CEO at the time. That being said, this makes me even more annoyed at the live action remakes than I previously was. The system of capitalism is quite flawed, yes, though I do think there's some aspects to it that aren't all bad, personally I think a Social Democracy would make a much better system than capitalism does, or at least an open market with various restrictions meant to keep unethical or greedy people from gaming the system as they are currently. Still, hopefully Disney cuts this crap out, or at least starts making the remakes better.

I had no idea The Sorceror's Apprentice was based on Night on Bald Mountain.

17:13 I am disappointed you didn't take the opportunity to say "We've come full *circus* , haven't we"

Happiness is what we sell. That's why everyone loves Buy n Large

You summed up exactly what i've been feeling about Disney and their attempts at Wokeness. Great video look forward to more videos like this

Lmao! These get more engaging each week. Again, I love the personality you've been adding. The point about capitalists, despite their outward demeanor, only operating within the interests of the system is something I've been echoing in discussions for the last year. It's so odd that people can't understand that the disposition of someone can conceal dubious intentions.

A discussion of late stage capitalism in Disney and you didn't even have to touch "Tomorrowland." Good job!

I like the Cinderella remake because it was the only one that felt like they tried. The rest? Throw in the trash.

I remember when I was younger and disney bought Lucasfilm, I joked about them taking over the world someday like some dystopian novel....but those jokes are honestly kind of scary now. I only ever go see these remakes just bc "it's disney". It's so sad to think that such a huge part of my childhood isn't concerned about making something new. All they care about is money, not to mention the fact that one company owning so much of the entertainment industry means less creative freedom. This comment is kind of long, but the people I see these movies with are just a part of the average public. They think it's silly to question and dislike what Disney is doing. Anywho, I absolutely love ypur videos and this one was no exception.

14:09 15:38 the good cop, bad cop routine 19:26 I just wanna watch a movie with Eva Green and Tom Hiddleston

Yeah, Aladdin... I'm currently working as an English teacher in Japan and people over here LOVE Disney, which means a lot of my students happily watch and enjoy everything they put out. I happened to see the Aladdin remake with my (now ex) girlfriend and my opinions were, well, pretty much this video. Anyway, now I get to hear from all my students how much they loved the movie. I smile. I nod. I lie and say it was decent but that I just like the animated movie better. Every time I die a little inside... I will say that, if anything, I actually enjoyed the Prince Ali musical number. It was at least big and bombastic, more like a Bollywood musical. If the rest of the movie had been like that maybe it at least could have been entertaining as spectacle.

"The Aristocats" is pictured with the caption "dark ages"? But that's the best Disney movie there is! Eta: I hope they never try to make a live-action version of it!!

"Like most things in life, this is Tim Burton's fault." Why the hell did this line make me laugh so much!? So hilarious. Great video by the way. Well thought out analysis presented in a very accessible way as always.

Maybe this will be kind of a hot take or maybe I'm just crazy, but I kind of see something similar in the new Star Wars trilogy. In particular, I see it as an ode to Capitalist Realism and Hauntology, as envisioned by Fisher. I don't think the theme I'm going to present was intentional, but since we live in late capitalism its culture can unintentionally transpire. Hear me out: The new civil war is not a rethread of the old one, as many have said. It's an exact repetition (and the characters openly admit it, from Snokes to Ren to Leia). And an obsessive repetition at that: the reason why the old civil war was fought can't apply to the new one, so this new war seems to lack the meaning the previous one had. Almost as if the Galaxy is stuck repeating the same past culture over and over again, because it's the only thing that seems to make sense. Does this remind us of something? *looks at 80s nostalgia* This seems eerily similar to our condition in the neoliberal era: the predominance of short term solution has favored the rehash of older approaches and solution, and this tendency has spilled over our culture, which seems stack recycling old cultural trends, unable tro present new ideas. You might think that the New Star Wars might be critical of this condition, but I'd say that on the contrary it's trying to convince us that this situation is an ideal we should aspire to. This is because of the way they handle Rey, the heroine of the story. The first time we see her, she is not simply a random scavenger on Jakku: she has no connections whatsoever, no relatives, no friends, no mentors, no past. Her only connections to the outside world is through her job and her employer. This ends up being an apt metaphor for the neoliberal condition: evey man for himself, work is all that matters. Her only other connections to the world are the stories of the old war. A war that was fought to improve the conditions of people like her, but ultimately failed to deliver that promise. And when she gets involved into the new civil war, she doesn't seem to fight for Justice, Freedom or personal reasons. She seems to fight it because the only way her life can have meaning is by mirroring the path of someone else that came before her (in this case: Luke). And the movies seem to say she's right: Rey is proven right over and over again, while everyone that strays from the path of rethreading (like Luke or Kylo do in TLJ) are wrong and must redeem themselves. In other words, the message of the new Star Wars seem to be: the world is stuck in an endless present, and it's perfect this way. If you want your drudgery of a life to have any kind of meaning, you have to take part in the endless repetition. There can be nothing outside of it.

Comment to feed the algorithm

Sanders / Warren 2020 - Break up the Monopolies!

Wait, Tim Burton had appeal as a subversive creator, and here I just thought his style of gothic whimsy was all that made him popular.

I just found your channel last night and I've already watched a half dozen videos and shared two. Great job!

Your comedy is at peak timing in this video. Well done.

I'm always skeptical when I see these type of videos in my recommendations due to them having the possibility of not being more than some guy showing of how supposedly more clever than you they are in a sort of condesanding manner or a video that does not go deep or gives any kind of opinons on the subject with a kind of "YOU, THE VIEW DECIDE IF THIS IS RIGHT OR WRONG" I was pleasantly surprised to find that you not only did neither of theese thibgs but made a compelling a and entertaining video that had a lot of good points. Well done! Sorry if my english is a little broken, its not my native tounge :P

I feel like Disney would save a ton of money if they rerelease the old films in the theater instead of remaking them. They don't need to be remade, they are pretty much timeless. Lastly, I upset about the Lion King remade. Making it real CG just take away the charm, now it just a boring looking retelling of Kimba The White Lion. It looks real, but that all it going for

I'm surprised you didn't mention that these movies also mean they're able to basically make the same movie twice, without paying the original scriptwriters as animation scriptwriters have a different union. So the whole thing is an act of ripping off their workers.

403 People have drank the capitalism brand kool-aid.

The thing that dismays me the most here is the idea that we will never have a stable economic system that won't need to be replaced someday. Is it always going to be just a matter of having to change the rules whenever a big enough number of people have learned how to exploit the current system? Are economic systems doomed to be treated like updating your antivirus software, by hand, every few centuries? If that's the case... then so much for the hope of society someday achieving a self-sustained Utopia.

My favorite thing about movies like Christopher Robin is just how lowkey hypocritical they are in general. The entire conflict of the movie is that Christopher is working too hard and spending too much time at work and not enough time happy and with his family. This is portrayed as bad, and he has to learn the lesson about holding onto his childhood and remembering how magical family can be. Yet, ironically, if you asked Disney and companies like it to raise their wages and ensure that their workers could get enough time off to have meaningful relationships and not work themselves to death, they’d laugh you right out of the office. Based on their movies, it’s the worker’s fault for working too hard and not being there for their family, not the system’s. The boss could easily just give Christopher Robin the vacation time he was supposed to get, but he uses his power over him and essentially forces him to stay behind and work. Yet the one having to learn a lesson about it in the end is Christopher, even though he literally had zero options available to him that wouldn’t result in someone getting hurt. Either he goes with his family and they potentially lose their source of income, or he stays behind and his family gets upset with him for it.

I think this is driven by copyright laws. If Disney doesn’t make use of its copyrighted properties before the monopoly-the copyright-expires. Exercising the copyright-making a new movie as opposed to just re-releasing an old movie-resets the copyright clock.

Thx again for a great analysis...always depressing in what kind of world we are living right now. I can imagine a world without capitalism but i can't imagine the way to get there...i hope we will find it sone, before its to late

Can that Gilibrand speech please be more of a meme it's such bullshit I love it in its own lie-full way

I’m principally concerned with how Disney effects the movie industry as a whole. No more major 2D animation films in the west, a forever season of superhero flicks while other genres die out... ugh - it’s all so frustrating.

I also feel like there’s a deliberate choice to frame movies like Christopher Robin and Mary Poppins Returns in the past despite not necessarily requiring a set time. It’s like Disney is telling us that yeah not having vacation time was a bad thing but Christopher Robin and Pooh fixed it so it’s not actually an issue in 2018!

"Like most things in life, this is Tim Burton's fault." - I chuckled.

Doesn't Mannerism follow Renaissance?

This is by far the best video I have seen on the Disney Live-Action Remake trend. No fluff, no bullshit. It just goes straight to the bone and lays out exactly what's fucking wrong with cinema today. You've earned a sub, sir.

Your content has gotten a lot funnier since you rebooted Renegade Cut. Really been enjoying your new content.

@14:07 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 I’ve been noticing THIS pattern a LOT lately. I discuss it with my mom sometimes. It’s a very transparent scheme. I’m happy you touched on it!

Last week I saw the trailer for Maleficent 2 and lost all hope in the future when I read the comments of people who 'cant't wait' to go and see that movie. It made me feel dead on the inside. When I look at their older movies, there are a lot of projects that feel like the animators and the rest of the staff felt very passionate about telling those stories. (I love, love, love 'The Sword in the Stone' and The Great Mouse Detective' and many other movies released by Disney.) Now they are just going trough the motions. A lot of actors I admire give they worst performances in recent live-action-remakes. And they kind of look like they now its bad. I don't now. Disney is dead to me.

5:09 This man has THAT much money and you hear stories of his employees forcing themselves to work without bathroom breaks? Sheesh, this really is a crippled system, isn't it?

This is so good! I'm so glad Lindsay Ellis tweeted this out! Subbed ❤

disney is an evil corporation to me, truly. i loved your video, it's always encouraging to hear from other anti-capitalists or people who are critical of captitalism; it gives me hope for the future.

Anyone know the names for the eras between renaissance and late stage Disney, I feel like it's two eras

The algorithm demands a comment, and feed it I shall. Excellent video, gave me a lot to think about. So glad I subscribed to you :)

Looking at the movie industry makes the work:'capitalist realism' of mark fisher look like the texts of a prophet.

I love your critique of capitalism, good stuff as always.

The fuck is art, anyway? --Just a miserable pile of secrets-- Just a billboard for shaving cream or something

What about the time in Christopher Robin where CR fixes the capitalist system by flipping a picture of a trickle down pyramid upside-down and suddenly the capitalist bosses are like wow yes let's just pay the workers more how did we not think of it?? I love Winnie the Pooh but it was such a lazy critique of the system

I can't put into words how good this video is. I loved it. Thank you for all the work you do!

Anyone know what this clip is from? The being held back BT the woman. 7:03

Stop feeding the monsters: stop buying. And vote for rigorous antitrust enforcement.

I have to ask you; does the synthwave raster scanline filter over your third party footage keep the youtube copyright bots away? If so thats a great way to not only filter that nonsense out but also a cool looking visual signature of your newer videos.

Watching in late May 2020, because late-stage capitalism is the least heavy thing I can be mad about this weekend.

OP, many of your submissions are affront to the way I grew up. Thank you for your thought provoking content. I am learning a lot.