Blog - Reviews and Commentary | Reid Carter Writes

Each of the eras so far has had a voice that distinguishes it from the others. The Bronze Age is unique in that it lacks any coherent through-line. Aside from one out and out strikeout (I’ll get to that in the next article), most of the films are at least solid, but nearly all of them feel rudderless – you can tell they were made by a studio in search of a direction after the death of their (profoundly racist) guide.

The films of the Disney Renaissance typify what we think of today as a Disney film, but the films of the Silver Age typify what we think of as Disney the brand. It’s the origin of their iconography, down to Sleeping Beauty’s grand, impossible castle persisting as their logo for decades. They take on extra weight in Disney lore as the final films ol’ Walt worked on before he (presumably) imagined his daughter kissing a blackman and his heart stopped.

Even the films that don’t work in this era have a baseline level of craft that was wholly absent from most of the Wartime films. Some of those films aimed for the bare minimum and achieved it. Some of these films worked hard and came out as a mess.

If this Disney rewatch plan was going to have a rough spot, at least I got it out of the way early. This batch of films is unique in that they aren’t really full movies, they’re hodgepodges made out of the scraps of abandoned projects and half-baked ideas.

Looking at these classics--or, in some cases, wannabe classics--with more mature eyes exposes the flaws in some and the insane level of craft in others. So far the experience has been pretty fascinating, and I’ve gained at least two new favorite films of all time.