Where is all the 2D, Mouse?

After Home on the Range came out, Disney proclaimed that traditional animation was dead because the film performed poorly (we'll just conveniently ignore who bad the film was in general). When they tried again with The Princess and the Frog, they blamed the title (disregard the fact that AVATAR was out at the same time), hence why the following princess movies in the Disney canon use adjectives as named like Tangled or Frozen - its hip, yo. There was also 2011's Winnie the Pooh, but as charming as I found that movie to be, nobody who isn't babysitting would pay a ticket to see, regardless of what they used to animate it. So what's the excuse this time?

The vast majority of people I encounter about this subject, both online and in person, claim to be tired of *mainstream* CG films. I emphasise mainstream here because the big studios (Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Illumination etc) do very little interesting with their approach to 3D animation. The only exception is, somehow, Sony of all things. With the Tartakovsky-lead Hotel Transformation series and, of course, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse providing the only popular examples of what the medium is capable of. Pixar were innovators at one point, but audiences no longer care about how much hair is on Sully's back or how many ants you can fit on screen. So with audiences bored of the same, bland aesthetics, why haven't we seen a return to what many consider a more visually appealing medium? (I know you have the answer on the tip of your tongue, just bare with me).

To go back to Disney, look at all these live action remakes of their back catalogue.

Who wants these? They're ugly, drab, miserable and destined to be inferior to the originals. It's like Disney knows that there's mad nostalgia for The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and so on, but instead of realising that its the artistry of those movies that make them beloved, they instead give us Will Smith painted blue and a photo realistic version of Simba because we're adults now and everything must be taken seriously! Cartoons!? No thanks, grandma! I can tie my own shoelaces!

People want a new traditionally animated movie from the studio. Does this magically make a film good? Hell no. Again, see: Home on the Range. But Disney have had a fairly successful track record as of late; the last 10 years have been incredibly successful for them both commercially and critically (if only the same could be said for Pixar...) so I hardly see it as a risk to give people what they want. What? Are they afraid that they'll lose money? They own America.

That said, let's address the elephant in the room...

These movies, both the bland CG stuff and the live action remakes, make TONS of money. Like, billions each time, even though the seemingly unanimous reaction towards every sequential trailer for these things is: "why?". In a lot of cases, 3D is more expensive to produce than 2D. Note that I said "a lot" and not "all" so please don't crucify me on that statement. With that in mind, why go for the more expensive option? If mainstream animated feature films start to adopt more creative visual styles a la Spider-Verse than I'd welcome it with open arms, but the Western world of animated features hasn't seen a great, quality and diverse line-up since 2009. That year we got Up, Fantastic Mr Fox, Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells, Mary and Max, Coraline, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs... just an overall amazing year. What did 2018 bring? Isle of Dogs was great, but that's honestly it.

I think I went off on several tangents there, but point being: Disney, start making your kids movies to appeal more to me. Thanks.