by Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Moana 2 It is a huge film that made history, in collaboration with evil and The second wrestler To contribute to the most successful Thanksgiving weekend in cinematic history. For Disney, this is another sign that 2024 is the company's return to form after a lackluster, bomb-filled 2023, which is all the more impressive because there will never be a sequel for Disney. Moana. Developed as a Disney+ streaming series, Moana 2 It became a successful feature film thanks to rushed production in February of this year, thanks in large part to overworked, non-union employees at Disney's Vancouver studio.
From streaming series to feature films
On the one hand, this is the first successful feature film for the Vancouver animation studio, but on the other hand, it only happened due to the surprise decision of Disney executives to bring it to theaters after an initial test showing. If you have seen Moana 2you can see where the seams connect the TV to each other. It's a testament to the talent of the creative team behind the film that it's as good as it is and considered “pretty good” by most fans and critics, but kids who loved the first movie don't have to worry too much about things like disjointed narration or songs that fail to match the tone and power of Lin-Manuel Miranda's score. origin.
I know kids are the target audience, and it's great that they like it, but behind the scenes of the rush work, there's another problem, one that has helped contribute to labor strikes in the past. Disney's studio in Vancouver is not part of the union, while its main animation studio in Burbank is, meaning one of the biggest companies on the planet has found a way to make a standard-issue movie while paying less than its creative talent. If other studios follow suit in using non-union talent by making the “snap decision” to move from a TV series to a feature film, which can have different pay structures, it will punish animation studios that are overworked and underpaid for that. Contracts.
They are underpaid and overworked
Moana 2 It's not the first animated film to go from a TV series to a feature film; In particular, The secret life of pets 2 It was designed as a series, but this time at least, it was converted early in production. Again, if you've seen the film, you can tell that it's three distinct stories welded together, and the pre-production issues are evident on screen, but it's not rushed out in a matter of months. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Illumination pays its animators less than most studios, thanks to being based in France and having a history of low budgets, but unlike… DisneyThere was no bait and switch.
Disney had already gotten into trouble for dealing with visual effects studios that were forced to work twice as fast, at half the speed marvel Movies, incl Wakanda forever and QuantitySo utilizing an animation studio is par for the course. Moana 2 It should remain an extreme case, and one that other studios cannot follow. The real problem will come when other studios start digging around in their vaults to assemble a feature film from discarded anime parts; After all, if Disney was rewarded for this, why wouldn't it work out for them?
