I had wondered for years why there was no sequel to Big Hero Six! It just kind of disappeared into thin air. I took my kids shopping for clothes this week. There should be merch everywhere of the latest Disney flick. Instead it was princesses from the 90s, generic Sonic the Hedgehog stuff, and Bluey. I know they've been making garbage movies every year, but Walmart has no sign of them. It was bizarre.
Do you have any insight into why the Ultraman production committee failed in the case of Ready Player One? For me, personally, having Ultraman was my favorite part of the book. But, apparently due to a legal battle over his international rights, they couldn’t get the character into the movie. Instead we got the Iron Giant, which was about as disappointing as when they took the original Ultraman off the air and replaced him with Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.
Ready Player One was a Warner Brothers movie,while they did use some IPs owned by other studios, Ultraman would have required script approval from the Japanese committee that protects it, Warner wanted no strings attached and neither side really cared all that much.
Interestingly, one of the Japanese franchises I'm most familiar with operates on a model that almost combines the auteur and committee models.
Dragon Quest. One of the biggest video game series in Japan, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year ... and due to the way things are set up, creative control still rests with the still-living original creator (Yuji Horii) and the heirs of the other two (Akira Toriyama, Koichi Sugiyama), as I understand it.
A franchise is a garden - and it requires gardeners. I like that.
~~American studios, by contrast, increasingly operate under the auteur franchise model.
Each new director or showrunner is encouraged to “put their stamp on the property.” The result is franchises that become vehicles for the personal vision of whoever happens to be holding the steering wheel that week.
Sometimes that works.
But more often it produces tonal whiplash and brand ablation.
[snip]
A Gundam showrunner cannot decide that mobile suits are suddenly powered by friendship magic. An Ultraman director cannot decide that Ultraman is secretly the villain. Those ideas would die in the committee room before they ever reached production.~~
Something else a lot of modern creatives have not learned - friction sharpens. Friction improves. In the modern era of wattpad and instant audience feedback, it's too easy for creatives now to create their own walled gardens to their egos where they never have to hear one bad word about something they've done. (and trolls can certainly encourage this tendency)
The problem is that's now how a person improves - at anything. You need that friction, you need that pushback to push yourself to be better. It's true for weights and exercise, it's even more true for creation. Almost always resistance and pushback to your ideas gets you to think in new ways and realize even better ideas and solutions than you would have on the first draft.
That's what is so frustrating when you see these "auteurs" complain about "canon" in the stuff they're working on - because the stuff they come up with ends up being so weak. As I tried to point out in this post:
Had Disney et al played within canon when they developed the SW sequels, they could have easily invented a structure that would have been an audience favorite that would have set up both the franchise and its tie-ins for success for generations.
It all comes down to the line from Jurassic Park: "So obsessed on whether they could, they never stopped to think if they should."
(Yeah, people can get so stuck in canon they get stuck on rails and end up just repeating things over and over and stagnating - that's why they usually need to bring in the auteur or young creative to provide pushback and friction the OTHER direction. Both sides are like the gas pedal and brake pedal on cars - if you're going to drive anywhere, you need both. Removing either of them ends in disaster.)
I would also like to point out that there is one other Disney Super-hero property that has this problem. "The Incredibles". It has 2 movies and 2 videogames costumes and toys. However, it was also created by a Pixar that guarded its movie franchises until Disney got desperate to milk them.
I also think that Disney simply has no idea what to do with property aimed at the male demographic. Star Wars and Marvel are indeed floundering because they have no guardian and they do not want to build, maintain, and invest in male entertainment.
They love the money that is there, but they buy "built in audiences" instead of brand stewardship. That is why they have gone off a cliff
I had wondered for years why there was no sequel to Big Hero Six! It just kind of disappeared into thin air. I took my kids shopping for clothes this week. There should be merch everywhere of the latest Disney flick. Instead it was princesses from the 90s, generic Sonic the Hedgehog stuff, and Bluey. I know they've been making garbage movies every year, but Walmart has no sign of them. It was bizarre.
I feel like this idea can be applied to so many things in the west right now.
What is that Some Guy (TM) warned about stupid, un-creative subversive spite prowling around any Good Thing seeking to devour?
Good warning.
Do you have any insight into why the Ultraman production committee failed in the case of Ready Player One? For me, personally, having Ultraman was my favorite part of the book. But, apparently due to a legal battle over his international rights, they couldn’t get the character into the movie. Instead we got the Iron Giant, which was about as disappointing as when they took the original Ultraman off the air and replaced him with Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.
Ready Player One was a Warner Brothers movie,while they did use some IPs owned by other studios, Ultraman would have required script approval from the Japanese committee that protects it, Warner wanted no strings attached and neither side really cared all that much.
Script approval for a character with zero lines sounds absurd enough to be true.
Interestingly, one of the Japanese franchises I'm most familiar with operates on a model that almost combines the auteur and committee models.
Dragon Quest. One of the biggest video game series in Japan, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year ... and due to the way things are set up, creative control still rests with the still-living original creator (Yuji Horii) and the heirs of the other two (Akira Toriyama, Koichi Sugiyama), as I understand it.
What happened with the live action Mario movie with Dennis Hopper? Were Nintendo to weak at the time to reject that script?
I love your use of the word Khesterex! Sadly appropriate, too.
A franchise is a garden - and it requires gardeners. I like that.
~~American studios, by contrast, increasingly operate under the auteur franchise model.
Each new director or showrunner is encouraged to “put their stamp on the property.” The result is franchises that become vehicles for the personal vision of whoever happens to be holding the steering wheel that week.
Sometimes that works.
But more often it produces tonal whiplash and brand ablation.
[snip]
A Gundam showrunner cannot decide that mobile suits are suddenly powered by friendship magic. An Ultraman director cannot decide that Ultraman is secretly the villain. Those ideas would die in the committee room before they ever reached production.~~
Something else a lot of modern creatives have not learned - friction sharpens. Friction improves. In the modern era of wattpad and instant audience feedback, it's too easy for creatives now to create their own walled gardens to their egos where they never have to hear one bad word about something they've done. (and trolls can certainly encourage this tendency)
The problem is that's now how a person improves - at anything. You need that friction, you need that pushback to push yourself to be better. It's true for weights and exercise, it's even more true for creation. Almost always resistance and pushback to your ideas gets you to think in new ways and realize even better ideas and solutions than you would have on the first draft.
That's what is so frustrating when you see these "auteurs" complain about "canon" in the stuff they're working on - because the stuff they come up with ends up being so weak. As I tried to point out in this post:
https://natewinchester.wordpress.com/2022/02/07/my-jedi-academia/
Had Disney et al played within canon when they developed the SW sequels, they could have easily invented a structure that would have been an audience favorite that would have set up both the franchise and its tie-ins for success for generations.
It all comes down to the line from Jurassic Park: "So obsessed on whether they could, they never stopped to think if they should."
(Yeah, people can get so stuck in canon they get stuck on rails and end up just repeating things over and over and stagnating - that's why they usually need to bring in the auteur or young creative to provide pushback and friction the OTHER direction. Both sides are like the gas pedal and brake pedal on cars - if you're going to drive anywhere, you need both. Removing either of them ends in disaster.)
I would also like to point out that there is one other Disney Super-hero property that has this problem. "The Incredibles". It has 2 movies and 2 videogames costumes and toys. However, it was also created by a Pixar that guarded its movie franchises until Disney got desperate to milk them.
I also think that Disney simply has no idea what to do with property aimed at the male demographic. Star Wars and Marvel are indeed floundering because they have no guardian and they do not want to build, maintain, and invest in male entertainment.
They love the money that is there, but they buy "built in audiences" instead of brand stewardship. That is why they have gone off a cliff