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Disney Buys Pixar
BlueDjinn writes to tell us that it appears a great deal of speculation over Disney's buyout of Pixar Animation Studios is in fact true. From the article: "[Pixar] is set to meet tomorrow to approve the company's $7bn (£3.9bn) takeover by Disney. The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Star Wars creator George Lucas."
Nobody deserves a few billion bucks more than he does, the way I figure it. If he manages to pull Disney out of their spiral of mediocrity, he'll have earned every penny...
Now we will see Nemo 2, Nemo 3 (dvd only release) and a Nemo tv series, with each one getting a little crappier. Same for all other Pixar films.
Disney will milk the IP till the cow dies and will probably not fund development of new IP.
1) Buy Pixar
2) Milk IP
3) Short-time profit
IAAL
It will be interesting to see to what extent Jobs tries to "bundle" products, with the new market-power. For instance, will Disney-related animation software for children be available only for the Mac platform? Will a Disney DVD be included with the future iMac mini PVR/media box/whatever? etc.
More remakes of 60/70 TV shows into bad movies starring the Bimbo of the Day!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
On one hand the biggest portable media gadget, on the other hand a massive media empire. hmmm. What's that Jobs guy doing now
Let me be the first to say...
NOOOOOOO!
Hopefully they won't do away with that Pixar lamp, I kind liked the little guy.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
you wanted to get the typical slashdot joke in there... and then you were worried it would just be modded down right away so you TRIED to add some value to your comment, but you sure didn't come up with much with your whole "but seriously why should we care" comment... but you had to submit it because you were worried if you didn't than you wouldn't still have first post. so sad.
This is something I didn't want to see happen... it's like taking the baby 3 months after birth and putting it back in the mother's womb. Only so long til something is bound to pop out again.
...tells me that pixar is for sale in 10 years for 10m.
on a sidenote, what happens to renderman?
As slashdot sees Disney as mostly evil, it should be noted that most of the sceptical activities of Disney can be attributed to one man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Eisner.
I have a good feeling about the new CEO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Iger
Read up on these completely different management styles and then take a look at Disney again. Iger was responsible for talks to continue with Pixar, so its no suprise that it might lead to this.
Disney is the true killer of humanity. We might see the Revenge of Nemo soon or something, with little murmaid being drawn with 3D graphics, and good-bye to old sketches... Pixar was doing fine by itself. It should have been the opposite, Pixar buying Disney....
http://naerey.switch-case.org
That was possible anyway. Disney's original agreements with Pixar gave them tremendous power over the works.
At least this turns Disney from a company who's business was pushing through ever more restrictive copyright legislation and manages a few theme parks into a company that makes something. Now, hopefull, their DVDs will be something other than awful.
Who knows, with people who've actually some ability to produce entertainment infusing the company, Monday Night Football next year might be something other than a tragic abortion.
The parallels here are almost amusingly similar to when Apple bought NeXT, ten years ago. Because so much of NeXT's advanced technology essentially displaced Apple's own struggling and dated codebase for the Mac OS to become Mac OS X, and Steve Jobs' own idea of a trimmed and stylish product line replaced the beige box Power Mac (insert four-digit number here), many industry analysts joked that 'NeXT had bought Apple for negative $400 million.'
Look at what's happening now! Like NeXT, one of Steve's projects, was bought by Apple, and its technology incorporated into the company to revamp its product line, Pixar, again a project of Steve, may very well save Disney. For the purists that either hate to see Disney's long-lived traditional animation replaced by computer 3D rendering, or fear that Disney will mishandle Pixar's talent and resources and bring an unfortunate end to the latter studio's remarkably successful run of films, consider two facts: since this isn't a hostile takeover, clearly the folks in charge at Pixar, Steve Jobs included, believe that this will be as good for Pixar as it will be for Disney. They wouldn't be doing this if they thought that Disney was going to ruin them. Also consider now that Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder at Disney. That really carries some weight. Steve has a reputation for getting what he wants, and I also don't doubt that he made this deal without knowing he would have a significant say in Disney's direction.
So really, guys, calm down! Just imagine the headline read, 'Pixar buys Disney for -$7 billion.'
Take off every sig. For great justice.
He now might have the single largest share in Disney, but does he still have enough shares to become a factor? Over at Pixar, he controlled a little over 50% of the share, which meant his vote overrides the other shareholders' votes. will it still be the same at Disney or will he become a non-factor in making decisions?
Steve Jobs will begin designing rides at Disneyland. You know there will be an acid trip ride, something Alice and Wonderland style. I can't wait.
This goes along with another post I made a couple of days ago. Jobs gets the job done. The current leadership doesn't.
Hopefully the merger won't affect Pixar's writers. As we saw with Chicken Little Disney does decent computer animation, but crap stories.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
This is quite a development! I suspect that Pixar will continue to operate (largely) autonomously, but there will undoubtedly be a good deal of knowledge sharing between Disney and Pixar. John Lasseter has often expressed his admiration for Disney's animators and their pioneering role in developing the medium. While there might seem to be a lot of enmity between the two companies, I suspect there's also a lot of mutual respect between the artists at both studios.
People may not like the management decisions made by Disney (which have often dictated the direction of their films) but the company still employs a great many talented artists. And of course, Pixar continues to benefit from Disney's considerable marketing muscle - few other companies know how to so thoroughly milk their products for every cent they can get (and I don't say that as praise).
Ah damn it I can't believe Jobs this. This is honestly dissapointing.
The least thing is that those mergers are highly stressfull for the company being acquired, since you can expect some of the staff to be layed off in the reorganisation, but most importantly, Pixar was the true opposite of Disney in terms of spirit and phylosophy about creating quality content.
This may leave lots of the artists in Pixar demoralized and maybe quit the company to open small independent studios.
Disney is way to greedy and too huge for its own good. It just got bigger.
Keep in mind that the Disney empire also includes ABC, ESPN, the go.com network, as well as a bunch of movie studio (Touchstone, Miramax, Dimension) and record company imprints. Several of these operate somewhat autonomously, but Jobs will have some say in things as the single largest shareholder in Disney. Gates wants to control the living room. Jobs will control the living room.
This guy's the limit!
This deal doesn't make Jobs $3.5bn, as the article claims. It barely makes him any money at all.
Pixar's market cap is just a hair under $7bn, about half of which Jobs owns. Disney is buying all $7bn worth of Pixar stock with $7bn worth of Disney stock. So Jobs isn't making any money, he's just changing the name on part of his stock portfolio (Disney's buy is a bit above market value for Pixar, so he does make SOME money, on the order of 1% of the $3.5bn the article mentions). He's also going from being a 50% owner of a $7bn company to a 14% owner of a $50bn company.
So maybe Jobs thinks he can get in and infect Disney with Pixarness and save it. Maybe he just wants to cash out and do something else, and figures he can sell 14% of Disney a lot easier than he can sell half of Pixer. Could be he thinks Pixar will do better with Disney behind it than with Disney as an enemy. Possibly there's another explanation. Let the speculation continue - we'll know in a few years what the plan was and whether it worked or not.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Don't know if this connection has been made before but if Mac moves to Intel architecture then both Windows and Max OS can implement the same Trusted Computing archicture, can't they? In which case won't the DRM fanatics have caught 99.9% of computer users ensuring a Linux lock-out? Could Disney's interest in Pixar and Jobs' interest in Disney been the real reason to shift hardware platform? Interesting times ahead.
What kind of geek doesn't know that! Just how well adjusted are you?
Is Disney going to keep selling PRman and PRman for Maya plug-ins? Will Catmull continue on with them? What's this all mean for Renderman? Will the software side split off into their own business?
I should say that the golden age of CG movies are now over. Now come the crap movies...the "me too" movies.
Honestly, has anyone really seen anything coming out that even remotely looks interesting? Chicken Little(already out last year)? Ice Age 2? Cars? Open Season? Over the Hedge? Any of these really grabbing you? How about Valiant(also out I believe...or did it go straight to video)? Or The Ant Bully? These are all coming out in the next few months. Have I missed any? Oh, forgot Hoodwinked, and Monster House.
Ah, the old Hollywood adage. If you can't make a buck with quality, then make it with quantity. "Teh peoples want teh CG! We gives them teh CG!"
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Disney anime is not bad but very childish. Pixar is a bit better but still far from japanese and french anime. Disney and Pixar today are for anime what Holliwood is for movies. That means not so much...
Million Dollar Screenshot
Although people might bemoan the takeover of one of the brightest purveyors of mainstream American filmmaking by the almighty Mouse, I can' help but think this is a good thing for all involved. Pixar has reached the pinnacle of their influence in the industry through a series of (mostly) brilliant hit films. I'm sure Jobs and Lassiter think the only way for their company to grow is to grow outward - take over the Mouse and whip it into shape. Jobs performed miracles with Apple. I really hope he and John LAssiter can bring intelligent and fun pop moviemaking back to Disney. And I would think this puts his other venture, Apple, into very sure waters in the content distribution marketplace. With whom does Disney partner now? I'm damn curious to see how it all shakes out!
If it weren't for the assholes at Disney (and the *AA), you'd already be able to have Steamboat Willie on your iPod, for free!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I don't think much of the success of Pixar is due to Steve Jobs.
Rather, the main man over there is John Lasseter, the legendary animator directly responsible for some of the companies most memorable movies. Would Pixar be anywhere today wasn't it for the brilliant movies?
Jobs is just this one guy who sees ahead better than most and invest in people who can make it happen, like Lasseter or Wozniak...
I don't feel like it...
Steve said they would be hiring new artists from Outer Tibet would could draw up to 5 times faster then current artists. Steve did warn though that there had been few increases lately in the performance of traditional American pencils and paper so the new artists might not be able to function to their full potential.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Loaded. In his house is a giant walk in wardrobe with a long line of turtle-neck sweaters, you fight through it all and at the back is a snow filled landscape where iPods grow on trees.
You see Steve Wozniak talking to a CGI lion on the technical production of blue boxes. In the background is a giant Intel factory, where little orange men are packing new iMacs into crates marked Nigeria...
Task Mangler
they could have bought one for only $1000 at http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
You have to hand it to that man. He starts a small IT company, which turns into Apple. Score 1 Jobs.
Microsoft Steal OS, Apple fucked, Windows releases. Jobs decides to do something else. Leaves apple
Forms Pixar. Makes millions.
Jobs decideds that he misses apple, so goes back (obviously at his old position). Makes iMac, iBook, iPod. Makes millions. Everything he touches turns to gold (Once Gates got there before Jobs, and melted down Job's gold and turned it into Windows.)
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
I understand that Pixar holds a special place in many people's hearts; however, at the end of the day, it all comes down to dollars. Don't fault Jobs for making the king of all no-brainer business decisions (again, that was 3.5 billion dollars).
...after-all as far as they are concerned Pixar *is* Disney. It's just us sentimental adults getting our knickers in a twist over it. We just got back from Disneyland Paris a few days ago and out of all the characters the kids have their photos taken with Sully out of Monsters Inc got mobbed, Donald Duck got a few hellos and Chip n Dale got ignored.... it's a child driven industry people!
Resident of Skara Brae since 1985
So, is Disney buying Pixar to incorporate their technology and mine their library of characters for licensing, or is Pixar infecting Disney with their understanding of the need for story to take priority over marketing? Given the nauseating uses to which Disney has put the Muppets, I am betting on the former. *sigh*
:-)
An apocryphal comment that I heard years ago: the "flavor" of Disney's corporate products was so numbing and restrictive that creative types within Disney referred to the place as "Mauschwitz."
Oops, does Godwin's Law apply to SlashDot? If so, the discussion is over, move along to the next article, nothing to read here....
Good move by Disney, they know that Pixar were one of the main reasons for them staying afloat and if they lost them they would really be in trouble as they don't really have any other profitable movie making things at the moment, other than Lion King 72 or Aladdin 94, they need to focus on original content rather than milking their old franchises.
Business Voyeur
"animation is, and will remain, at the heart and soul of Disney"
That's right Robert, say it with me, COMPUTER ANIMATION .
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Well, who cares anyway, this is Slashdot, you can post any rubbish here and still recieve hundreds of comments.
Market caps of Pixar is $6.95bn. There will be no $7bn takeover. Maybe a $10bn takeover, but not $7bn.
What I am concerned about is how the deal will affect the Studio Ghibli/Disney distribution deal. For many years, Disney has had wide distribution rights over Ghibli works. Sometimes this has worked out for the better (the heavily promoted Spirited Away), and sometimes not so well (Miramax requested, but was denied, many edits in Princess Mononoke).
A closer connection between Pixar and Disney will probably not harm Ghibli. It was noted that John Lasseter (founder of Pixar) had given very strong support to Spirited Away, and was a key driver of what success that movie had in North America. A closer connection between Pixar and Ghibli will probably result in an even stronger benefit.
Now, on notes of pure speculation, how might the Pixar/Disney merger benefit Ghibli going forward? Could we expect Miyazaki-animated short films (currently limited in distribution to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka City, Tokyo) put on sale on the iTunes Video Store? Or maybe distribution of older classic Ghibli films? Imaging having a copy of Gauche the Cellist on your iPod to perk you up on those cloudy days of life. Or how about strong promotion and wide distribution of the forthcoming Tales from Earthsea? With the combination of a a imaginative and sensitive director like Goro Miyazaki and effective marketing, I can't imagine how Earthsea wouldn't become a major blockbluster.
What else would you like to see come out of the Studio Ghibli/Disney/Pixar deal?
---
patiwat
And we thought the world could not get any more scary!!!!...
The big difference here is that before Steve Jobs BOUGHT his old company as CEO of his OLD, OLD company. Steve will NOT be in charge of Disney.
The first thing you'll see is BAD, BAD story lines in Pixar movies. They'll all be the same formulaic, coming of age swill that comes out of Disney. They'll all start with an "I wish" song and end with a pop ballad.
Look for the great creative minds in Pixar to leave and find someplace else where they can make good movies instead of DISNEY movies.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Besides the fact that Disney is the "big evil", I used to go by the rule that Pixar = movies worth seeing, Disney = mostly crap that you should avoid. Now how am I supposed to tell what is worth seeing?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
You can't really call Mickey Mouse short-time profit. As a matter of fact, it's over-extended profit.
Wait.
We hate Disney.
We love Pixar.
What now? They're neutral?
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
I would imagine that even though steve will have a MAJOR role in Disney his work load will go down from what it is at the moment. Wasn't he actually running both companies as CEO (Apple and Pixar) at the same time? This will allow him to concentrate more on Apple and have major influence (but let others do the dirty work) at apple.
During the last (Q4) Disney earnings conference call, Bob Iger early on made the following statement:
"animation is, and will remain, at the heart and soul of Disney"
Note that animation is at the heart and soul. Which means that something else is the heart and soul of Disney.
This isn't surprising news, but it was surprising to hear it so forthrightly stated.
(His admission was perhaps inadvertent, and he didn't elaborate on just what is the heart and soul of Disney. Of course, something like "the heart and soul of Disney will always be...Walt's frozen carcass" isn't very kid-friendly or marketable. "Mommy, Mommy, I'm hot! At Space Mountain will you buy me a Walt-sicle?")
"I didn't say she was crazy, I said she was fucking Goofy!" - Mickey Mouse
"There are plenty of good ideas out there for movies. There are tons of good stories waiting to be told. There are plenty of people who would love to tell those stories. There aren't many companies out there willing to give those people free reign and fund them."
Welcome to the consequences of the "patron" argument for abolishing copyright.
My gripe with the Disney company is that the current management promised that they would invest more in motion pictures than animation.
Roy Disney where one of the last in the Disney family that was still in the studio and he wanted to push animation forward. He was also the first one to oppose the management suggestions to drop Pixar and let them "off" to sail their own sea. Big mistake, Roy knew it - and due to the management maximum age policy got laid off. Another big mistake.
Not more than a year later - the Disney 2D department where subject to severe reduction and closedowns, 80 percent of the animation staff where dismissed due to the decline in success for 2D-animated feature films, strange - when you think of that they just dismissed Pixar back then.
Now the management realize they have made a BIG boo-boo and desperately hook into Pixar again.
See why I worry? With management like that - and as an Animator myself - I do worry!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Woody Allen voiced Z (not to mention the rest of the cast), yeah, Antz wasn't really a kid's film. I like 'em both myself.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Hopefully not too much. Computer games for all of the recent Pixar movies are WIN/MAC. They're almost the only thing you can find for macs at Target/Walmart, besides Blizzard games (WarCaraft, Starcraft, Diablo).
I wonder if Disney will continue to sell Renderman and associated tools. Do other studios, like Dreamworks, buy and use Renderman so as to not need to reinvent the wheel? Theoretically given what Renderman can do, it's not a crazy idea to buy the tools of the competition and then try to do better with them. I could imagine some paranoid at Disney not wanting to give them that chance.
Just an aside: my daughter is a bit older, and I picked up a copy of "The House at Pooh Corner" for her. It (the original book by AA Milne) was so much better than the simpering Disneyfied versions you see in hundreds of illustrated books. Easy to read, yet full of subtle humour and wordplay. This I've found is a general rule: Disney cartoons are fine, but avoid their literature; go to the source.
That's a very good point to bring in. Perhaps if Disney produces new material, quality material, they will not depend so much on the old, and that would be one thing out of the way for a push for a public domain oriented reform of copyright law.
Content companies are beginning to understand what having a good reputation as corporates citizen means. That is certainly one thing Steve Jobs knows, and the board who decided to buy Pixar have taken decided so in full knowledge on what effect this style of management had on the fortune of Apple.
I think it is bad. Takes away competition and makes stuff boring.
Disney is well-known for producing worthless sequels and TV series (ex. Alladin, etc)
What's this "we", whiteman?
It's already too late. In reality, we are all just workers in salt mines that have been converted into vast, underground Disney factories. Old Walt's re-animated frozen head lives in a command center, connected by thousands of wires, which he uses to beam dreams of the above-ground world into our heads. Because Walt needs spice from the mines. Some of the miners have been able to peek outside the dream factory, but they usually die in horror within hours. When will our savior come?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Nnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Er, I mean....
Khhaaaaaaaaaaaaaann!!
bought out after the fallout between disney and the miramax heads over F9/11.
So one of the Majors got in bed with one of the Technological Gateway Keeper.
Why can't I feel so good about this ?
I do not want my children to pester me to get a "computer that really works" because they "need" to see the same DVD as their friends.
I guess there goes the last hope that this branch of "consumer electronics" goes the right way.
Please: Burn your iPod (but I know you will not).
I'll certainly miss it. Now, it will very likely be eaten up by the huge formula movie churning machine of Disney. So sad. It did bring a lot of new life to animation. I will mourn Pixar.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
I read somewhere that a rule-of-thumb for sequels is that each sequel makes approximately half the money of the one before it. Hence, you can estimate the number of viable sequels for a movie as:
log-to-base-2 ( takings / costs )
(That's the total number of movies made - including the original).
Toy Story made seven times as much as it cost: log2($356 million / $50 million) which is log2(7) - which falls a little short of 3. Toy Story 2 did about what the rule of thumb would suggest. It made three and a half times what it cost (grossed $485M and cost $125M) - almost exactly half of what Toy Story 1 made. Hence a third movie ought to make about 1.75 times what it costs to make - which is just about a reasonable decision - financially speaking.
This is something a big business like Disney can understand. Another sequel is a sure fire "limited success". It's not going to be amazing - but it won't flop disasterously either. They'll probably make a couple of hundred million out of it. If their own creative teams were to spend the production money on something else, it would be risky...lots of Disney movies are total flops.
But given Pixar's 100% track record (not one box office flop so far) - it would OBVIOUSLY be better to have their creative team make something new than to churn out sequels because a new concept can earn seven times what it costs (eg Toy Story), a sequel only three times and a second sequel only one and a half times.
Therefore, having Pixar turn out sequels is a STUPID idea. If they can make another new concept and earn 7x their costs - then Disney stand to make half a gigabuck more than they can get from a sequel with similar investment.
Please, Disney realise that the very best you can do with your new investment is LEAVE IT ALONE. Let Pixar be Pixar - don't exert any corporate influence whatever. It's what the public wants - but it make sound financial sense too.
www.sjbaker.org
They don't want him to leave.
I'd be surprised if there is significant change at Pixar.
If there is, you can count in seconds how long it would take for someone to offer John Lassater an animation studio of his own. Heck, with the profits from this, Lassater can probably finance his own movie if he really wants, and he'd drag half Pixar's crew along with him.
That's why things won't change. Well, maybe they will. I'm betting everyone gets raises.
Steve Jobs is a great man, but in Pixar his primary responsibilty was negotiating great contracts. Let's hope this is another one of them.
As for Steve taking over Disney, I don't think it's impossible, but I'm hoping he keeps focus on Apple, where - as we all know - he's been doing great.
I do think Steve's likely to become an influential advisor and board member, but probably not CEO. Remember, John Lassater and friends basically ran Pixar, which is why Jobs could be CEO of two companies and preserve excellence. I don't think he could do that with Disney.
D
We've all been talking about the feature-length movies - but IMHO, they are not Pixar's best work.
Pixar's best work was undoubtedly the 5 minute shorts they did for SigGraph audiences every year: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B, Luxo Jr (now seen in the intro to all Pixar movies), Red's Dream, Tin Toy, KnickKnack...to name but a few. Those are little gems of movies. The full length stuff they have done since with Disney has been pretty good - but sustaining the quality and humor for that amount of time is hard.
Luxo Jr was nominated for an Oscar in '86 - Tin toy won "Best animated short" in '88
If you havn't seen these yet, there is a collection of them under the title "Tiny Toy Stories" - although I've only seen it on VHS (Amazon has it on sale for $0.50!) - I highly recommend them.
www.sjbaker.org
Both Viacom and Time Warner have the distribution networks to handle Pixar. Why would Pixar agree to be acquired for such a nominal premium with other potential bidders?
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Mark my words. It will be attempted in the next 3 years.
And 7 billion? That's all Pixar's worth? Geez.
I did like "The Emperors New Groove".
I think they got this pretty good story past the Disney anti-quality sensors by pretending that the Emperor "character" was a Llama and hence an annoying sidekick.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Care to substantiate that with, well, anything?
Walt died in 1966. That was well before all the nasty stuff you know of as being Disney...and he wasn't much interested in the business side in the first place. His brother Roy was in charge of that; Walt was the ideas man--much like Steve Jobs.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Animation isn't getting worse. It's getting better. Very talented people combined with evermore powerful systems have produced absolutely stunning animation. The quality improves with every new release.
The problem with Hollywood animation is with the writing. As many have pointed out here, the latest batch of releases, animated and non-animated, have terrible story lines. And that brings up another question. Has our fascination with technology somehow stunted our creative writing ability? Or is Hollywood so politically correct and careful about its message (good and bad) that it just can't tell a good story?
Great actors can't save a poorly written screenplay. Expert animators can't save a poorly written feature either.
The first order of business will be to create a CGI animated movie about a cute baby animal whose parents are killed or lost. This prompts a quest which results in the main character meeting a zany sidekick, singing some lame songs, and narrowly escaping a few dangerous situations. In the end, all of the characters are safe and have learned a valuable lesson about life. Some fast food tie-ins will bring in some additional cash.
Come to think of it, Pixar has been as bad as Disney recently, in every nontechnical area...
word.
for particularly large values of 7.
Steve will own stock in Disney, not own Disney, and he doesn't own Apple. The two companies will in no way be assosiated. And with around 8% of stock in Disney he can't even begin to try to misuse his possition in such a way.
Does this mean that Disney cartoons will only have one mouse?
purchased back their rights from Disney and completely went on their way. Lassiter and Jobs can build an empire together. Lassiter will now make Disney all the money instead of Pixar. They are going to hate all the red tape and politics at Disney
Better go buy your ObL pennant and jersey, then; corporations have had legally recognized status as persons, with all kinds of rights, since the late 1800's. That's why junk mail is legal; prohibiting it infringes on corporations' "free speech rights". The Supreme Court case is Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
Antz a knock-off of "A Bug's Life"? Why? Because it was also an animated movie about insects? That's the only thing they have in common. Antz being funny, and "A Bug's Life" being absolute and utter crap.
Worse will be the corrupting influence of Disney "creativity" on Pixar. Rather like watching a virgin being sacrificed to Fat Bastard.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think what will happen is that we will see John Lasseter take overall control of all Disney animation divisions.
This is actually a GREAT idea, because the hallmark of Pixar is the great storytelling of their movies. Lasseter could even help Disney revive traditional animation at Disney, too.
I think people forget that unlike Michael Eisner, Robert Iger tries to be as much hands off as possible, letting each Disney division run by their own managers. This means Mr. Lasseter will have free reign to rebuild Disney's animation tradition. (big thumbs up)
Here's some evidence. Disney has been stealing from the Public Domain ever since it was founded (not by making the movie itself, but by subsequently claiming copyright on the original story).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
While I agree that John Lasseter is an important part of the deal, he's only one part of the "Pixar Trinity".
A lot of the technical innovations behind Pixar's success are due to the efforts of Ed Catmull. Jobs made the deals, Lasseter made the stories, and Catmull made it work.
Guys like him will allow Disney to stay ahead of the competition.
-ch
How can that be? What about the piece I own? It's only worth a few thousand but until they tear that stock from my fingers they won't be sole owner.
-- SIGFPE
Utter nonsense. As a young animator, Walt lost control of one of his early creations, Oswald The Rabbit, and was determined to never let that happen again. Late in life, when asked what he was most proud of, he pointed to his studio. Countless independents had gone belly-up or been absorbed into far larger, anonymous, corporate entities. His alone survived, with its identity and market intact.
Wouldn't be a first. About six years ago, I got an iMac DV (I believe it was the first Gumdrop-shaped iMac with a slot-loading DVD drive) that came with "A Bug's Life" DVD in the software envelope.
I had never heard that Disney attempted to claim copyright over the Brothers Grimm's works; care to cite a real source for that, or would you prefer to just keep pointing me to IMDB?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Snow White is an old tale (re)told by the Brothers Grimm. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/042.txt
I know that our courts and copyright system are a big mess, but I can't concieve how Disney could claim ownership of Snow White without being laughed out of court. Indeed too many movies to mention have been made under that title by studios other than Disney -- just do a title search on the IMDB.
But they can't vote yet. At least not officially.
But the distribution deal Pixar signed means that Disney *already* owns the rights to derivative works of their films. Disney is doing Toy Story 3 already, for example, without Pixar's input. If this all falls through and Pixar signs a new distribution deal through somebody else, that makes it even more likely that we'll see Toy Story 8 and Nemo 17, because the only reason for Disney not to do them -- the potential for aggravating the Pixar relationship -- will be gone.
Write Only Memory: Another pointless blog.
Or anywhere else? Fox, MSNBC ...?
One wonders how far this goes beyond rumor.
Walt's anti-union activities in the 30s is the stuff of evil, IMHO. His collaboration with the House Un-American Activities Committee was pretty despicable too.
I can't concieve how Disney could claim ownership of Snow White without being laughed out of court.
Disney owns the U.S. trademark on PINOCCHIO for dolls, and trademarks can be renewed indefinitely.
It depends on whether the shareholders can vote their shares cumulatively for a staggered board. If so, owning 29% of outstanding shares gives some a "controlling stake" (even though you don't perceive it as a majority). They can control the board by cumulatively voting their shares to elect a majority of the staggered board at each shareholder meeting.
Also, there are many provisions (and suggested provisions) in corporate law that a person (or coalition) with more than 5% be able to, say, propose changes to the bylaws or corporate charter. So, owning a 7% stake would be very significant, especially in terms of agenda setting (even if he weren't on the board....being on the board is just that much more power).
The question is whether Steve Jobs will decide to hold on to his large stake in Disney so as to affect some change there, or simply dump the stock and cash out. Disney's a big company and it's hard to change a company that large. He might find it tougher going than he's used to. Of course Apple's currently bigger than Disney by about 30%, but he's not trying to turn Apple around. He's had decades to mold the culture there. If he decides to sell, obviously the stock price is going to suffer unless he can find a large investment bank to take him out of his position.
One thing I'm not seeing being discussed in the press is the fact that Bill Gates and Ballmer over at Microsoft must be pissed over this. They want to take over the living room, but now Jobs is part of Disney, who owns ABC, ESPN, Miramax, etc--he IS the living room. So he's got the content, and Apple will provide the means. Microsoft's road to the living room just got even tougher.
I wonder if Ballmer will Fucking Kill (tm) Disney over this.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Gotta bound, bound, bound and rebound.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Mickey and Woody shed a tear....
This is a terrible day in 3D animation...
Pixar HATES that Disney makes something like Finding Nemo 7 a DVD only thing that is just using the name to sell a few copies. that was part of the reason that the partnership was in bad shape (as reported here on /.). Disney did not consider sequels part of the contracted number of movies, and would not invest the money or time into them. Steve Jobs and Pixar felt it diluted the brand and quality associated with the original.
not that i care much of anything about Disney, but maybe Pixar will teach them how to expand instead of digging through their closets and wringing every bit of potential out of pre-existing ideas. tons of crappy sequels, movies based on 50 year old rides etc seems like they lack some good ideas.
Pixar = movies worth seeing, Disney = mostly crap that you should avoid. Now how am I supposed to tell what is worth seeing?
Look for "Dreamworks".
More seriously, it's likely that DisneyCo will distinguish between WDP and Pixar the way it has distinguished between WDP and Touchstone.
you still haven't given an instance of stealing or claiming copyright.
Pixar, we were glad to have known you and we're sorry to see you go.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Lasseter and friends quit and go on to form their own company. Once the news gets out that the former Pixar gang (with mentions in press releases about their previous work on Toy Story et al) is out on their own they will once again own the market.
I would buy their stock.
qz
Disney's copyright is based on the studio's unique interpretation of the story. You might as well complain about Rogers and Hammerstein's take on "Cinderella" or Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride"
The title is incorrect. According to the article: "The board of Pixar Animation Studios, the digital animations company, is set to meet tomorrow..." The article is making the assumption that the buyout will go through, but it has not occurred yet. If it had happened already, you would see it on Google News.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Many here proclaiming the death of Pixar are overlooking something very important -
"...deal will make Steve Jobs... the single largest shareholder in Disney"
If he's the largest shareholder, don't you think he'll have a say in how they proceed? In fact... aren't you considering the idea that this was his idea?
"Steve, please come save Disney."
"OK, but you need to buy my company and give me a controlling interest in Disney."
- I am made of meat.
I hate to break it to you, but Corporations were given "personhood" (human rights) a very, VERY long time ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
Let's get some basic math resolved. Steve Jobs owns 50.6% of a roughly $7 Billion publicly traded corporation, PIXAR. Assuming this rumor is fact and that the combined valuation of the merger is $60 Billion (Disney at $54 Billion + $7 Billion in Cash--no stock swap) then Steve owns no matter how you swing has (.506 x $7 Billion) / ($60 Billion Valuation at time of merger) = 5.9 % of DIXSNAR's/PIXNEY's total company value. If it is a stock swap then it becomes .506 x 7 / 53 = 6.68%: close but no cigar.
Both Steve being majority owner and 7% as highest individual stock holder are incorrect. What is most pitiful is the fact that PIXAR built a brand new corporate headquarters a few years back, became the powerhouse in Software Animation Films for both content and presentation, publically denounced their partnership with Disney and publically focused on a new roadmap for this highly creative and technically sound corporation all just to merge with the enemy? Pathetic. Disney has everything to gain and PIXAR has everything to lose. Distribution channels that everyone brags about with Disney are overvalued, especially in the emerging distribution mechanisms gaining ground today--Podcasting/videocasting, etc.
What I find most disturbing is the many enthusiasts discussing Steve Jobs becoming Disney's CEO and steering them like he has done with Apple. Get something straight. As Steve said, "Apple is my old girlfriend I haven't seen in 20 years but I want to give one more shot." PIXAR never was Steve's main focus. It was either NeXT or presently, Apple. He loves making the big partnerships but much prefers driving the mechanisms and tools that let the Producers produce over attempting to drive Producers and retool them into his Vision. He's best when he gives the creative minds the means to be their most creative, period. The day Steve would rather give a Keynote about "Goofy in the 21st Century" over "OS X Lion" will be when they take him away to the Insane Asylum.
Oh, I'm sure Steve has thought about the deal very, very carefully. The one reason why Pixar makes such great films is STORY, and Jobs knows it. (Compared to that other studio, SKG which churns out volume in the hopes of having a hit. No, really, Mr. K. said just that in an interview).
I'm sure he makes sure he still has control over at least the Pixar unit. Pixar will be the only profitable unit and he knows it. What this does give him is control over Disney's vast media library.
iTunes + Disney (guess which TV station Disney owns + many films which are not directly under the Disney name) content.
Is it Disney buying out Pixar? Or Steve Jobs taking over Disney?
Hahaha! World Domination!
+5 funny "the 'vote'" *snicker* The vote stopped meaning anything relevant a long time ago. It's a sop to keep the serfs thinking they aren't being ruled. I still "vote" so that in any political discussion no one can accuse me of "not voting". I haven't thought it did anything practical for around 30 years or so now. In close very local races it's still somewhat useful, but even that has eroded as the fed corporate crooks have taken over and give "suggestions" to state and local governments. When outsourcing and walmartization is considered a "good idea" and the same bozos who profit from it tell you to "compete" with two bucks a day and rent all of dozens a month, I just got to smile at the citizens naievete in the whole matter.
It's over, the people have lost, the corporations and fascists have won, copyright extensions are just one of dozens of ways that show this.
And Jobs did it with one thing: Quality. And Marketing. Ok, two things.
They invested a ton of effort to get an easy human computer interface, which got them the MAC. Jobs re-did that success to a degree with NeXT, which didn't pay off right away but got him even more money when NeXT becamse OSX. He bought Pixar while it was struggling, and helped drive it into one of the most creative, quality-focused entertainment companies in the world. The iPod was designed and re-designed and recieved constant feedback from Jobs himself... when was the last time you heard about Ballmer getting dirty in the trenches? Same with iTunes.
Years ago Jobs and Apple realized that quality and clarity commanded a premium, and have been working dilligently to create and milk that. MS's strategy has been to crush the competition from a business legal standpoint. The former has made Jobs and Apple welcome in new areas and businesses, while the latter leaves Microsoft having an uphill battle every time it enters a new market.
MSNBC was an interesting idea, but it didn't do anything better or more original than the competition.
I'm glad to see that sometimes quality is rewarded.
The ______ Agenda
This is very true. John Lassetter, Ed Catmull, Eben Otsbey, Alvy Ray Smith, David DiFrancesco, Tom Duff, Malcolm Blanchard and George Lucas were Pixars real pioneers.
Jobs however deserves a lot of credit for keeping Pixar going, even with his own money, at an early time when things looked bleak.
I agree that Lassetter et. al. deserve a lot of credit for the vision they bring. But it's equally visionary to give people like this money at a time when no-one else can yet see the vision.
Jobs deserves just as much credit as he's gotten, if you read the history of Pixar.
It was somewhat sad Lucas had to sell Pixar, but it was to pay for a divorce sttlement and if he'd not sold them he wouldn't have had any money to keep them afloat.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For me, the news is a bit depressing for me. I doubt that Disney will dilute Pixar's creativity. However, this deal pretty much destroy whatever hope I have that Disney will revive their hand-drawn animation studio. I'm a huge fan of Disney's original big-budget animations. IMHO, only Atlantis and Home On the Range were misses. I know it's highly unlikely, but I was hoping that if Disney failed in creating their own internal 3D Studio, they would give animation another chance. I was underwhelm by Chicken Little and previews of their next two 3D movies were hardly impressive. Now that they have Pixar, there is no chance for an animation revival.
But on the same token, Jobs is nothing without those great people as well. No man is an island.
"For the entire month of December 2005, there was a new iPod being sold every 2 seconds!!"
--The idea, of course, being that iPods are suddenly this brand-new giant ten million user-huge market which Apple has unique content-control over, which in turn, it is supposed by the media gods, means that ten million people are just begging to be advertised at. Sadly, the logic is pretty solid. Ad driven content is on the way. (In economic bubble-form of course, which naturally will burst in a big messy splotch, but not before Apple has ballooned into something larger and even stranger than it already is. .
So Jobs now has a controlling hand over at Disney? When the heck did Apple become a world-shaping media-production company? Why wasn't I paying attention. Pixar kind of just crept up all quiet-like. When a big media company starts making good movies, it pays to watch out, because there's some big sneeze coming along a few years down the road!
And what a world it will be! Media and Advertising already smack of the same dumbed-down, candy-coated, lowest-common-denominator brain-goo which Apple has been peddling since the first Mac graced the scene. --That is, to people who like big glossy companies to do their thinking for them. (Ooooh, it's so hard to plug an inexpensive hard drive into an IDE port. Bite me.)
--And while we're at it, gag me with an iPod. What's next? Nuclear Devastation of a large American city at the hands of some Pentagon-funded fake-Islamic covert group? Well, yeah, but. . .
So unless it runs Linux in some flavor, Apple can go blow. I can't stand the idea of Apple having a direct line into the public subconscious. Ugh.
Think:
If you own and love your iPod, does that make you a, "Pod Person"? Well, duh. Of course it does. If the term 'Pod' doesn't twang the creepy-chord deep in your belly, then you're simply not paying attention, or you are and you've chosen to ignore the queezy body-snatchers vibe and opt into Stepford-ville with your eyes open. Congrats! --Anybody who doesn't respect metaphysical etymology is missing a whole mess of clues. . . iPod = "The Aliens have gained control of my brain by implanting a small device on my head. I am now very submissive. Allow me mod points, beloved overlord, in service of the empire. Fantastic Lad irritates us."
-FL
(Sorry. I've been frustrated lately by the shape of the world, and my posts have reflected this through a higher toxicity content. My apologies. I really do love you all. Well, most of you, anyway.)
Disney, which has in many ways been somewhat of an evil corporate empire despite it's kid-friendly spin, now owns Pixar (which is quite a promising company). That's not really a good thing.
However, Jobs now has his fingers in a big piece of the disney pie. That being so, he still has roots in Pixar, and more control over Disney as well.
So really, a lot of this now hinges on Jobs himself... perhaps a better headline would be "Jobs aquires massive disney shares, merges Pixar." If he now has enough power, perhaps he can bring back a nicer disney, rather than allowing them to corrupt Pixar.
Steve's genius is finding amazing people and putting them in positions of power, then keeping them happy.
That's why John Lasseter is responsible for Pixar. That's why Woz designed the Apple II. That's why Jonathan Ive has free reign over Apple's hardware.
The CEO of a company doesn't need to be a genius himself, if he can recognize talent when he sees it and can drive that talent in the direction he wants to go. Jobs has a history of finding amazing people and driving them to do amazing things.
And that's exactly what Disney needs right now.
The ______ Agenda
Didn't Disney get rid of Pixar last year? Sounds like symbolic buyouts are the future.
Gee, was Walt really anti-union? Good for him!!
...Jobs as crazy as he is... loves art. The problem with Jobs and we know from Apple's past, hi s manaical nature to do things his way. They say he's changed somewhat, but whatever.
Jobs certainly deserves credit for keeping pixar alive, but also... staying out of the way of Pixar and letting John and his boys do their thing so gracefully.
I didn't make it clear in my post, but I agree Jobs deserves as muc hcredit for being more hands-off with the Pixar guys as just funding them - perhaps more so since it's against his nature to do so I think.
I'll bet part of that is Lassiter himself, he strikes me from interviews as having more than a strong enough personality himself to handle Jobs and keep him at an appropriate distance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So the Micky Mouse logo that appeared when you looked at the G3 case logo sideways, was an Omen?
Go and have a history lesson youngling. The activity of unions in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century brought you many of the things you presume to call rights in the modern era. Unions in the 30s were fighting against what would these days often be considered criminal neglect and exploitation. Your bias against modern unions is (probably) based on a very different kind of unionism to what Uncle Walt was against during the depression.
All available data suggest that regardless of any of this, the sun will still come up tomorrow.
Congrats, you ripped off a bunch of word-for-word text from the Apple-X news post on this subject, the mods fell for it, and now you have a +5 comment. Bravo.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I suddenly realized nobody reads article links, so before someone mods down eoban's post without reading the link, the joke is that he wrote the same thing for Apple-X.net in his news post. Nearly word for word.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Disney = STUPID. Everything they produce is stupid, and is more-or-less either a sequel (Lion King ad-nauseum, Mickey/Donald/Goofey forever, etc.) or based on some (previously) public domain concept (Cinderella, Winnie-the-pooh and so on). Disney exec's possess about as much imagination as an iPod.
If Disney understood the finer points of your analysis, then we wouldn't be burdened with the perpetual copyright extension of Mickey Mouse (himself a pilfered idea, if I recall: see the history of "Steamboat Willy"). There have never been new ideas coming from Walt Disney, let alone the company. I doubt Pixar is going to change it, or if it does, I doubt it will be any better than "Robots" by the time it's been through the Disney meat-grinder :-(
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
No. It was like Nemo and Sharks Tale. Dreamworks decides to do a movie in the same theme as a contemporary Disney movie, but does so much much better but aimed at an older audience.
:)
I've seen both "Finding Nemo" and "Shark Tale", and I deeply and truly wish I hadn't spent the time seeing "Shark Tale". I understand that there's room in the world for all sorts of tastes, but I honestly don't see how anyone enjoyed "Shark Tale" more than "Finding Nemo".
Antz was one of the first big non-Disney cartoons, and as such didn't do very well.
Antz earned $75 million in domestic release, even more from DVD. It's done much better than it deserves (I don't care for late Woody Allen, nor did I think much of Antz).
As an aside: until now, Pixar films have not been Disney films. Just like Miyazaki films are not Disney films. For Pixar films, Disney has been in charge of distribution (theaters and DVD's) and selling plush dolls, themed pajamas, and action figures. They haven't had a say in the movies, and that's probabaly been for the best.
The last really good Disney animated film was "Lilo and Stitch" (4/5 Disney 2002).
The rest has been dreck (and I include the very successful recent "Chicken Little" in that assessment).
Here are my personal opinions on the movies of Pixar and Dreamworks Animation:
Pixar:
"Toy Story" just incredible and still fun to watch (5/5 Pixar 1995).
"A Bug's Life" story, characters, great humor (young and old) (5/5 Pixar 1998).
"Toy Story 2" a sequel better than the original (5/5 Pixar 1999).
"Monster's Inc." more for kids than adults, still smart (4/5 Pixar 2001).
"Finding Nemo" absolutely amazing (5/5 Pixar 2003).
"The Incredibles" freaking awesome (5/5 Pixar 2004).
Dreamworks Animation:
"Prince of Egypt" good if you're into religious apologism... (1/5 Dreamworks 1998).
"Antz" uh... well... I got nothing here. (1/5 Dreamworks 1998).
"Chicken Run" off the charts hysterical (5/5 Dreamworks 2000).
"The Road to El Dorado" still searching for characters, plot, etc. (1/5 Dreamworks 2000).
"Shrek" damned funny, simple but solid story (4/5 Dreamworks 2001).
"Spirit..." not much for adults here (2/5 Dreamworks 2002).
"Shrek 2" to be gentle, abysmal (1/5 Dreamworks 2004).
"Shark Tale" unfunny lowbrow humor (2/5 Dreamworks 2004).
"Madagascar" had lots of laughs but the core story was weak (3/5 Dreamworks 2005).
"W&G Curse of the Were-Rabbit" smart and funny (5/5 Dreamworks 2005).
I think it's interesting to note the two best animated films that Dreamworks has made (IMNSHO) were both Aardvark productions, though the relationship between the two companies was different from "Chicken Run" to "...Were-Rabbit".
Not until lately have people realised that Disney now suck and Dreamworks rocks. I call it post-Shrek
Have to admit, I don't see it. Well, I understand that Disney Animation hasn't done anything decent in some time, but to say that Dreamworks has put up anything truly notable is a stretch. And Pixar has made substantially better films than either of them.
Regards,
Ross
Why bother with voting when you can buy whoever wins the election?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
1941 [to the tune of "Red Wing"]
There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.
CHORUS:
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.
This union maid was wise to the tricks of company spies,
She couldn't be fooled by a company stool, she'd always organize the guys.
She always got her way when she struck for better pay.
She'd show her card to the National Guard
And this is what she'd say:
CHORUS
You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me;
Get you a man who's a union man and join the ladies' auxiliary.
Married life ain't hard when you got a union card,
A union man has a happy life when he's got a union wife.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Ye have a funny perspective on things... :)
:) Apple is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. They've always had a major role in media production and once again are dominating many production areas, besides 3D. Suddenly happened with the iMac back in 98.. Now I'm just going to ramble.
:p It has been a huge sucess for Apple, for more than 4 years now and has by far outsold even Sony's Walkman.
Have you been sleeping for twenty years?
I for one love my iPod. It does exactly what I want it to do, without the BS like the horrid Sony device I own along with others that were utter garbage all around. So if owning a device that works absolutely great and makes it extremely easy to get my CDs onto it in a format I like, even the CD's own format, then I'm a Pod Person.
And if you were refering to running Linux on an iPod? It has been done and available for some time now; http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipodlinux/
Pixar has been around for 2 decades now and pioneered many of the 3D techs that are used in various software packages and video cards. Toy Story is considered a classic. Their story telling and quality of production is second to none and they've managed to produced some of the best movies over the past decade. So I hope that this merger means that Disney will regain some of the magic it lost well over a decade ago.
I for one would rather see Apple out front over most other companies. They do have their evil side, but they're not nearly as bad as others and have only made my life easier and more productive with their products. Consider the alterantive; Another company which has billions just to blow Balmer's nose has done very little to make our lives better and would eventually ilke to reach a point where we're all paying them a monthly fee and they're no longer innovating.
Blah, I'm done rambling.
<]=)
-Make the internet a cleaner place, stop browsing with Internet Explorer.
Without a genius to suck the juices out of ( Wozniak Lasseter etc.) Jobs is nothing. Maybe he's selling pixar cause he's sucked Lasseter dry.
Zzzz -whazzit- I'm AWAKE! What did you say?
Oh. Well, there's a big difference between making cameras and making movies. Yeah, Apple has affected media production by selling tools, but now it's poised to cross the boundary in a somewhat more significant way than Buzzy Lightspeed, or whatever the character was called.
Jobs/Apple makes a brand new and very proprietary medium; Miniature TV sets. Jobs/Disney owns a behemoth of distribution plus a hundred and one property-rights. Hence, Mickey Mouse will be on iPods everywhere. Complete with adverts. Go, America!
I figure that, barring unforseen weirdness, it should only be a very short matter of time before the Pods will be part of the cell nets, with people eager to plunk down cash for high-speed access via microwaves. And then I'll have to shoot myself.
The prospect of a fast-cooked society of people walking around with their eyes and ears filled with the tender messages of the Beast at all times makes me feel all gushy inside, --though not so much in a warm & fuzzy manner as in a 'filled with worms' sort of way. I find it fitting that Apple and Disney are positioning themselves to be largely responsible fuzzing out the minds of the entire Western populace with electronic cotton candy. They're both happy-happy-bliss-bliss kinds of companies with too much shiny plastic and annoying function-removing fool-proofing. "Don't worry about our proprietary rights management system. You just listen to your music and we'll take care of everything for you."
Ugh.
And who the heck likes wearing head-phones anyway? No, seriously. . !
I never did like using Walkmans. They were certainly cool devices, but I could not stand having an artificial wall of noise separate me from reality. I only used my walkman because it seemed like the right thing to do after spending $200 on a portable tape player, but honestly. . . who actually feels good walking around in the world with their hearing deliberately rendered useless? Drove me bananas.
-FL
Disney being in a block of ice in a secret castle room is a myth.
It'll be a cold day in hell when Walt Disney's head becomes frozen.
So Jobs now has a controlling hand over at Disney?
No. He would have about 7%. Well short of the 51% required for a controlling interest.
When the heck did Apple become a world-shaping media-production company?
They haven't. The issue at hand is Disney buying Pixar.
Why wasn't I paying attention.
Drugs?
Pixar kind of just crept up all quiet-like.
Yes. By releasing all those blockbuster hit movies. Very stealthy.
grib.
maybe
Uh oh, looks like Jobs is becoming the man. Disney owns a lot of stuff, TV stations, Radio and a whole host of other stuff. Not a bad takeover. This is like the dog that caught the car.
Don't worry, it will be fixed whenever a major corporation's valuable copyrights are nearing their expiry date, by the simple expedient of shifting the binary representation of the current value one digit to the left.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
And yet, at the same time, I secretly salivate for a sequel to The Incredibles... something which gives Edna Mode, throwaway gag fashion designer with the equipment aesthetic of a coked-up mad scientist, not just more screen time but an actual part in the action. (I guess it's not such a secret now. C'est la vie.)
Sequels are not always tired old rehashings of the same story. Sometimes they tell whole new stories while taking elements of the old story's setting and expanding them. If the old setting is a skeleton, a good sequel can give it new life. A bad sequel will just wrap it in new skin and teach it the same old dance steps; it may look fresh, but there's still an aroma of decay about it. Or something.
Sequels promote laziness, in the form of the temptation to tell the same old story or use the same old elements (or worst, both), but a #2 film can still be damn fine viewing if the storytellers can resist that temptation, or the corporate office lets the storytellers exercise the full potential of their creativity.
Whether Pixar can work without being led by the nose by the corporate office will depend on the board... and the former owner is now the largest stockholder on that board. I look forward to the massacre.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
What does my insurance agency (AAA) have to do with extending copyright?
And thought of the scene at the gas station when the car drives away.
Buzz: "Sheriff, this is no time to panic!"
Woody: "This is the perfect time to panic.!"
Toy Story was a great movie, filled with the universal truth about men *if* you read between the lines:
The main character, like most boys, was truely happy with a Buzz and a Woody.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I mean, seriously, what's wrong with it?
It's not golden age Termite Terrace or Batman Animated but it's no where near the level dreck that's run on Fox Kids or CN over the last 3-4 years. Christ have you _seen_ the sad state animation is in these days?
iPods are suddenly this brand-new giant ten million user-huge market which Apple has unique content-control over
What are you babbling about? Of the 36GB of content in my iPod not a single file was obtained from Apple.
+++
NO CARRIER
actually, have you ever been on ANY of those rides? Especially the older ones, I have to say... Pirates, the Peter Pan ride... nice blacklights, dude! Woah!
See, that's what Steve would do to Disney. Return control to the creative types, and make Disney a force to rule the world !
Then and only then will Steve be safe to land the mothership.
Just how much is everyone down in Emeryville freaking out right now?
As someone who was seriously considering working there, I really do want to know...
Um, would that mean John has to move ? Or would Disney relocate resources to the SF bay area?
What would this mean for people working at Pixar ? How much are they freaking the hell out right now ?!?
Would Steve really have that much sway at Disney with 7% of the company's stock ?
Either there's more to this deal than is reported here ( Chairman of the Board Steve Jobs, anyone? ) or I'm having a really hard time processing this. I mean... Steve is, really, the kind of guy who already has more cash than he wants to think about. He just enjoys being a mover and a shaker. What good is 7% of Disney to him if he can't decide it means Disney has to license everything for the iTMS or something like that ??
Of course, OS X runs on Intel hardware now, I suppose Steve really *is* capable of doing anything...
Your knee jerk anti-union stance is ignorant and factually wrong. I attended an event, sponsored by the international animation organization (I forget the name, it's some initials in French) about the animation union strike against Disney in the early 40s. This was in the late 80s and there were people there who were part of the strike, and they told their stories. Strike leaders had their houses shot up by machine guns at night. Disney called all the union member communists. Actually, there were some radical left supporters in the union, but it was a smear campaign against all the union members. And here's the real deal. When Disney studios finally had to accept the union, they made a demand the union head be someone that Disney could work with. He wanted a guy from Illinois who was IN JAIL at the time for union racketeering. Yes, Disney wanted a corrupt Mafia controlled union. He would rather dead with known violent criminals then a left leaning legal union. He knew he could bribe a Mafia controlled organization, and that's what he wanted. Wow, I wish I had an online reference for this, but I haven't been able to find anything quickly. Maybe I'll check with my contact at the animation union and get some references. If I do I'll put in a follow up post.
in all it's wisdom, that if Pixar makes great 3D technique movies, and we (made) great 2D movies... then if we buy Pixar we can corner the market on 5D movies!!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Dear Steve: 10 years ago, the Quacky1 mentioned to a number of Disney animation executives that in order to secure the future of animation, Disney should buy Apple. 5 years ago, when Pixar movies were performing so well, the Quacky1 mentioned to a number of Disney animation executives that in order to secure their future distribution channel, Pixar should buy Disney. Either way, as a shareholder I believe that you would make a great addition to the management team of Disney. And I hope that when you come on board, you will remember that there is at least one Disney employee that you need to fire, because he embarrassed your company publicly on the Internet - and both he and his boss were promoted for it. Just in case you forgot, here's a link to an article the Quacky1 published about the incident so you can jog your memory. Good luck in your future endeavors. Sincerely, The Quacky1 http://duckau.com/?page_id=9