Disney

Speaker A: 00:00:01

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Tom Spence and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing Encanto. Chris.

Speaker B: 00:00:29

Yeah so my two daughters have recently become a bit obsessed with watching Encanto like lots of lots of children. I should say for those who don't know this is probably the latest Disney animation film and I've watched it a couple of times now and I think it's a really solid Disney film and I was thinking and I thought well yeah this is probably up there with the classics this can go in the pantheon of Disney movies and so I then started thinking well what makes a classic Disney movie and I should just say you know in my definition of a Disney movie this is not a movie that comes out of Disney so I wouldn't necessarily count Avengers you know 17 the end of the universe or Star Wars yeah or Star Wars as being a Disney film I would and that in itself is an interesting question what is a Disney film.

Speaker A: 00:01:38

But I think also immediately we all kind of I think we probably all understand what you mean so I think that feeds right into this which may be what you're saying there.

Speaker B: 00:01:44

Exactly and so yeah I was thinking what makes a classic Disney movie but second to that what you know what makes something quintessentially of a particular school or you know a kind of theme where you say oh yes that's classic such and such and in this Ancanto felt to me like a classic

Speaker A: 00:02:10

Disney film. Nice look let's first of all I mean tell us about Ancanto what happens and what's it about briefly and I think you do think it is quintessentially Disney do you and if so and perhaps lead us in as to why that might be. No spoilers though please. Yeah okay well first of

Speaker B: 00:02:30

all we don't talk about Bruno. Right we don't talk about Bruno. Yeah so the film is essentially the story of the family madrigal of which is a nice a nice song which gives you their history and they are the grandmother the abuela of the family flees a revolutionary country ex could be I mean it's set somewhere in Latin America but in an enchanted valley and her husband is killed on this flight but she has triplets that she's carrying and she gets to this this place and sets up this community her three triplets obviously there's three of them they are they all have magical gifts of some description and then this propagates down through the generations and they set up this community all of whom rely on on these people with with magical gifts and it's this wonderful place but then there's there there's the classic

Speaker A: 00:03:37

challenge that you have within within before you before you go on what was I going to say it always sounds like the origin story of a major religion just give it a thousand years but

Speaker C: 00:03:48

it sounds to me like Gabriel Garcia Marquez has you know come back and started writing for Disney that sounds a lot like the plot of a hundred years of solitude I would I would say yeah I agree but

Speaker A: 00:03:59

actually like a lot of people I've started that book and really not got off you only got into three years of solitude yeah exactly yeah yeah um so that's the first thing secondly I hadn't understood that they'd left a country I miss I I haven't got that um you liked the film so you've have you seen it Nick no I'm afraid not okay I wouldn't well I don't particularly want to even though I know Chris likes it okay I've seen half of it just the other night because my kids wanted to watch it and I thought oh I better watch this to to do some research yeah because that's the kind of person I am dedicated um yeah and um I got halfway through and you know I had to send the kids to bed anyway we're going to probably pick it up tonight but I actually thought it was pretty

Speaker B: 00:04:36

dire I hated it but um but you liked it yeah yeah okay and so so yes coming back to why did I like it it's got some catchy songs in it uh and I liked the overall sense of um this this family that's carrying a community on their back it's got that that kind of old that more American sense of uh civic duty about it um there there are you know there are ups and downs I like yeah I I mean this is essentially I think it's got some good songs it's a good story it's a feel-good movie now none of those things uh there are other Disney films clearly that have tried to do that you know every film they would like to be a massive hit right or to be considered classic Disney but not all of them are so so it's difficult to determine what the um and and just briefly put

Speaker A: 00:05:35

in context it's been talked about as being more light or I don't know how you measure this if it's more uh it looks like it's earning more revenue than um what's that big snowy one um frozen frozen thank you uh I don't know if that's true or not but that's kind of that's what I hear

Speaker C: 00:05:49

I have a proposed metric for determining which films which Disney animated films are quintessential Disney and that is to use the uh sporkle quiz for can you name all the Disney animated films and look at the results uh so from that we can see which animated Disney films people remember the most and write down when they do this quiz um now if you want to test yourselves

Speaker A: 00:06:17

uh we can put a link to the quiz why does that tell you which is mostly Disney versus which

Speaker C: 00:06:23

is most widely recognized so that's why it's a proposed metric okay but if I if I read through the the most recognized ones almost 90 percent of people who do this quiz get Cinderella but how

Speaker A: 00:06:34

many so is it asking someone hey name all the Disney films is it that yeah I'm just out of

Speaker B: 00:06:39

or so in: 2010

Speaker C: 00:07:13

t are Fun and Fancy Free from: 1947

Speaker B: 00:08:14

they so since Cinderella was: 1950

Speaker A: 00:08:24

defining so yeah they kicked it off and they almost define the genre so interestingly this

Speaker C: 00:08:29

the the results of this this quiz that you can do match quite well with what are widely regarded as the two golden ages of Disney okay one is that um you know from the late 40s onwards uh into the kind of probably up to the early 60s when you had things like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, uh you know a lot of the kind of Pinocchio Pinocchio yeah um Peter Pan a lot of these classic fairy tale adaptations um and then the Disney Renaissance is like the noughties kind of thing or something well more than 90s into the early noughties when you have uh a lot of the classic Disney musical hits okay so Beauty and the Beast in 91 actually a lot of people kick it off in 89 with the Little Mermaid there Lion King in 94, Aladdin 92, Mulan, Tarzan all of those ones so yeah the these two periods are kind of critically regarded as Disney's best and are also the most recognizable

Speaker A: 00:09:28

per this quiz nice i like that nice little bit of information there i think it's slightly away from sort of the the central question but still what is it so i was i was going to use the results of

Speaker C: 00:09:38

this quiz to lead into and i actually i'm i'm tempted to expand this analysis more quantitatively into a blog post um so what i've tried to do is look at the consistent characteristics between some of the top and and indeed some of the bottom films on this list so the top five films all have a Disney princess i think if i were writing a recipe for quintessential Disney film it would need a Disney princess and similarly if you go a little beyond the top five you have a lot of other ones with Disney princesses including more modern ones Frozen, Moana, Mulan, Pocahontas comes in quite highly um and so on number two i think my second ingredient would be music now this is especially prevalent in those Disney renaissance era films but again looking at the films on the list Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, Frozen i'd say probably everyone here could name or at least hum a song from one of those right so i think a strong soundtrack a Disney princess and my third piece would be an adaptation not original plot so if we again look at the top ones a lot of them are from fairy tales or folk tales um you know a lot of them could be European ones but increasingly more from around the world that Disney has adapted into film plots so either stretched out or compressed as necessary if we there are a lot more of them are kind of Disney original screen what's what's this one about dog

Speaker A: 00:11:19

but and Eric the frog or whatever it was called what's the adventures of Mr Toad yeah you know

Speaker C: 00:11:24

i'm actually not certain of that but it's one of the it's one of the ones that more in the vein like Steamboat Willie kind of like the original um got it Walt Disney okay so i think that's a

Speaker A: 00:11:35

useful framework i think it's quite broad because i think there are some further things that can make something very specifically Disney um but i think that's a really good starting point um so

Speaker C: 00:11:49

f The Emperor's New Groove in: 2000

Speaker A: 00:12:25

my case that those are three components i wonder if but if there is there because that assumes a relation maybe between between quintessentially Disney and successful right yeah which i would

Speaker B: 00:12:37

question um anyway so i think a lot of the things that Tom has identified are sort of necessary but not sufficient conditions i think you know because i think most people would sort of you know in looking back through their mind go okay yeah i i think i know what the recipe is and obviously everybody else recognizes that but they don't always stick i also think there are exceptions so if i think of the two disney films that i think are most quintessentially disney they are um the jungle book which admittedly is a adaptation uh and the lion king which probably has its origins in some sort of you know well it is quite yes it is indirect indirectly but uh but yeah um but they're definitely not princessy films in fact the you know the main character is a is male in both in both cases and they are probably the the two biggest sort of disney films that i would uh kind of kind of think about so so i think yes you can sort of get these these characteristics but what i think it shows is how um how elusive that that sort of thing you're trying to to find it's not just about them being successful it's about really nailing them when you come down to it you can put together these criteria but if you just follow it as a recipe it's not it's not gonna it's not gonna

Speaker A: 00:14:02

work and why is that i wonder if it's you get this in other films as well it doesn't have to be disney so there's a certain tree cleaners i often find okay saccharine saccharine there you go that's the word i'm looking for um and there's also they're overly written that is overly controlled it's overly it's too tight sometimes the writing formulaic perhaps um i'm not sure i understand what

Speaker C: 00:14:33

you mean by that yeah i am assuming some of the listeners will be as confused as me no no no

Speaker A: 00:14:38

a hungarian um animation from: 1951

Speaker C: 00:15:43

but i think that that is almost a way we can differentiate because i think a lot of uh modern disney films well that's what i'm saying do suffer from that but do the classic disney films as well are you saying that that is part of what makes a quintessential disney film but

Speaker A: 00:15:57

then are the classic ones quintessential yeah we're not saying good yeah this isn't a judgment about quality is it yes it's a judgment anyway about record well and something and there's one other at least one other thing and again it's going to sound negative i mean they are very moralizing but you know with stories with a moral that often is you know with a with a with a with folk tales and so on but also i'll just say it annoying right so for example there's um that's not a very good way of saying it well i was annoyed by the by the trailer for incanto which was as much research as i did into incanto because all of the characters were the same i've seen them a million times before the same sort of snappy you know kind of sassiness yeah but their lines and responses are kind of the thing that you wish you'd said when you were having a conversation with someone and maybe that's an american it's a kind of fantasy it

Speaker B: 00:16:51

was like it was like er when uh when they would be you know pushing somebody having a cardiac arrest down the down the aisle and they'd all be quipping one one-liners and you'd think actually you'd you know i'd rather they concentrated on resuscitating the person in front of them yeah but um what i what i think the reason i like uh encanto and i like disney films in general is uh i like the positivity right so most of what i consume in in fiction is is generally bleak and so it's it's uh it's a it's nice to have that that sweetness and not and to know this is all this is all coming good at the end uh and also um this what i think a good disney film does that the songs are um a major part of the story like a good musical you know it's not just an incidental hey look we're walking down the street you know what a great day everyone it's it's the tone and everything you know they're almost wagnerian in in the way they hit actually i typically i'm finding talking about disney tedious we're starting to there's just

Speaker A: 00:18:02

were started in the uk in the: 1970

Speaker B: 00:26:02

obviously they've set up a tv channel recently right and that was under the i think they lent into that when the pandemic they were sort of experimenting with it and then they lent into it they used it lion king one and a half for example was um was a straight to video release and that became a quite successful pride something like that yeah yeah um uh so that you know they they have obviously diversified to some extent but the question is with diversification as a strategy how random do you go you know like caterpillar i can see the link between a big digger and some sort of rugged boots even if they're being worn around the street by you know uh teenagers um so but if you go like virgin how do you stitch that all together it's i guess it's an attitude thing a man it's a it's a person and it's a and it's a cheeky you know against the the the the um

Speaker A: 00:27:01

establishment yeah you guys are germanophiles aren't you i think i think the word i'm looking for is chibo and i only know about this because i know someone who um who works for them marketing or has done at some point that apparently although they're a coffee company i think they um basically they're famous in germany as i understand it for having different themes where they go well this month it's all about um you know brown uh objects for autumn and and the whole thing will be themed around that another month it might be balloon animals or some other you know they'll they'll like have different kind of themes but the the theme is that there's a different theme each month go on fraser what's there so no we need to move towards wrapping up however before we do i've got a comment and then a question as a question i want to finish on um i think i don't really feel like i need any more points from you at the moment although maybe from tom um yeah just a quick comment so maybe a better example of what i was talking about something being overwritten yeah would be um because i use the hungarian sort of thing as an example wallace and gromit right maybe i'm trying to wave the flag too much wallace and gromit was literally written by one person he just came up with the whole thing and i just think it is really it is yes very english but i just think this is just an i think you've got an eccentricity there and an originality that you don't get with disney but maybe i'm talking about mcdonald's versus this wonderful little place down the road well no because i mean aardman are a yeah and now they are extremely recognisable and you know absolutely but of course got bought by disney right and then there was controversy because i think the first film they made was chicken run and they found the um the transition process really traumatic because of all the reasons you might imagine okay um so that was just that second thing um yeah i i want to see if you have you got anything to say at all because then i've got a question i i do but it's it's jumping

Speaker C: 00:28:55

back a bit which is to to your point about kind of you know as if it's overwritten overly saccharine i think i would tend to agree with the modern disney films but i don't think if you look at what a lot of people consider to be you know emblematic the classic disney films that is true and that can be something that you know is a classic disney film one that doesn't suffer from that problem you know something like aladdin is actually very snappily written something like the lion king similarly whereas yeah i know entirely what you mean like the modern ones being like you know almost written by a team of sitcom writers even crack sitcom right yeah yeah top sitcom writer sitcom writers um so yeah i think that's that's an interesting one because i most people would agree that you know the films that are classic quintessential disney films are those ones from the 90s and some of the early ones as well um which comes back to our original question of is incanto a quintessential disney film will it be viewed in five years time as one of the disney classics or will it just be viewed as another film they made

Speaker A: 00:30:02

and also will it could bother mr toad that's gonna come in as a new classic or is it you know 10 15 20 years hence from now that um you know what's considered a classic now frozen um is it

Speaker C: 00:30:15

will that have foot of yeah well is it is it benefiting from you know a recency bias do people think of it because they remember it because kids never stopped singing it um lots

Speaker A: 00:30:27

of weird fan fiction stuff out there about frozen by the way i'm gonna choose not to just let it go um um question this is what i want to feel and it's the kind of question i used to ask in the past on uh on on these episodes but recently have not done so so much don't have to maybe you think a better question i don't know um what is the film and now it's not what you think i'm gonna say what is your favorite disney film that is not a disney film looks like it's quintessentially disney and actually people might assume that it's disney but it's not okay well i was gonna because i was gonna go how did you interpret oh i was gonna say uh i i really love the parent trap i think it's a lovely film it's by uh by disney studios but it's a live action it's got um what's the name in it you can answer either way let's say no no actually but i think i like your question better actually what's the because actually it's interesting there was the um talking of brand coherence that the aardman animations people did an advert in the 80s or late or early 90s about heating creature comforts they had creature comforts and there was a there was a turtle who was saying oh it's turn it on unofferable and everyone thinks that that was for british gas and it was actually for heat electric because people associate gas with all the warmth and everything and that's that's they just think flames and fire and hearths and all of that electric stuff that doesn't have that same it's just an interesting parallel um you know that actually but you could imagine people thinking that a film was by disney when it wasn't and yeah i'm not sure what so what's the most disney film that isn't by disney is that is that what you're saying oh i know i could tell you the answer right but before you do are you able to you're gonna be able to participate yeah yeah i think okay the railway children one of my favourite films of all time um and it's it's got the missing parent who's removed it's got that bit that we all cry at you know we know that we know the bit yes i get teary just thinking about i get so you're just thinking about it um and uh so you've got so you've got the missing parent you've got the uh sudden impoverishment um you've got the being moved to a different environment they're all things you get in in disney films and then of course you have all the antics and the scrapes and the peril and all of these things what you don't have is an antagonist that's the only that's the only thing missing which would make it a perfect disney film but you certainly have all of the other you've got the comedy sidekick who's of course mr perks played by um uh bernard cribbins and and so you know it's got it's got all the things you want from a disney film actually but it's not by disney so i'll take that yeah yeah yeah i was gonna say when i think quintessential disney it feels like animated but then that just narrows us too much so so yeah i

Speaker B: 00:33:13

like that um chris yeah i'm gonna go for the sound of music um yeah because i a it's got julie andrews in it so you know that in my mind i've linked that to sort of mary poppins uh it's hugely feel good it's a it's a it's a musical you've got the best baddie in the world which is the nazis and uh yeah it's um it it's it's sort of if somebody told me it'd been made by disney i'd

Speaker C: 00:33:43

i'd probably believe them yeah yeah yeah um tom so i'm actually going to go for animation that's surprisingly not disney and i think the the easy option for that is any dreamworks film because i think a lot of people confuse dreamworks and disney pixar films all the time they often release them on the same topics the same year and compete but when i was a child we used to have on video quest for camelot which is an animated adventure film um that until a few years ago i thought was a disney film and i was very confused when i tried to enter into that quiz and it didn't accept it turns out it was by warner bros feature animation a little substudio of warner bros which for a little while yeah for a little while in the 90s was really trying to compete with disney very similar animation style similar plots and everything and the quest for camelot turned out was one of those awesome i think that's the best answer that's probably

Speaker A: 00:34:39

the closest what i was looking for when i ask these questions i never know what i'm going to say by the way um and actually given that that sort of question is a hark back to the past it reminds me now that my answer is also the kind of answer i used to give which is that i want to answer the opposite so my my answer to what film is most like disney but it's not disney is actually a film that is clearly never going to be disney dad but it's um spirited away

Speaker C: 00:35:09

okay oh okay right go for it yeah counterpoint spirited away was distributed in the united states by disney i mean so there is a connection they probably saw a commercial chance there sorry it is studio right but they actually distributed a lot of studio ghibli films because they had the recognition for animated so actually i've answered the question beautifully

Speaker A: 00:35:32

yes yeah um disney marketing executive couldn't have couldn't have come up with a better yeah um and the only thing about that film is i mean i do love it again it goes back to that eccentricity thing and also it is that thing that sometimes where we in the west encounter something in the east um and just go what the hell is going on and what i like about it is who's bad and who's good is an irrelevant question and it's kind of actually like that japanese answer which is mu are you familiar with that concept yeah so i think correct me if i'm wrong it's if i ask you a question you know um i think if you can try and define it you've missed the point i think so i wouldn't bother yeah all right fair enough thank you as always for listening to the cognitive engineering podcast i'm fraser mcgrew we've been here with tom spence nick hare and chris ragg until next time goodbye