A Limited World · 8:32pm Aug 18th, 2023
This is sort of a fusion news post/Op-Ed post. For a topic not quite developed enough to be a Being a Better Writer post. At least, not yet.
Let me cut to the chase (since I want to get back to Axtara): Earlier this week I went and watched TMNT: Mutant Mayhem.
I had a great time. Visually it’s quite unique, making full use of its medium to create some striking visuals. It was also clearly crafted by folks with a love for the TMNT franchise. Sands, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than one person in the writer’s room had brought a few of their old toys.
So yes, it’s good. But that isn’t what this post about. Instead, there was an aspect of it I really noticed that stood out. I’m not sure what to call this phenomenon yet, so for now I’ll just call it “The Franchise Desert.” I’ll see if there’s an official name for it later, or choose a suitable one.
Point being, there are several moments in the movie when the characters make pop-culture references, to people, events, even other animated characters (you may have seen a clip of the film on Youtube where a gangster, perplexed when the turtles bust into his chop shop, refers to them as “tiny Shreks”). But here’s what caught my eye about that.
Shrek isn’t a property owned by Nickelodeon, the studio who made this movie. Nor are many of the other references made across the film, all of which fit the characters and world to be referencing. But it stood out to me because … Well, have you watched a Disney property lately?
Disney films have become this sort of strange, commercial entity unto themselves where anything that is not Disney no longer seems to exist in any movie or property they make. Character talking about Sci-Fi movies or shows? Disney is going to let you know, once again, that it owns Star Wars. Or maybe Alien or another Fox franchise. But Star Trek?
We can’t let you do that. We don’t own it yet.
It leads to this strange vibe where the only properties that can be mentioned in a Disney movie, even one supposedly set in the “real world” (or something close to it) are other Disney properties. Which often you will be reminded are Disney properties.
Wreck-it Ralph 2 suffered heavily from this, and is one of the earlier examples I remember of Disney trying to establish that their “universe of stuff” is all there is. The first Wreck-it Ralph was stuffed to the brim with references to characters and properties that exist in the real world. But by the second? Those characters and their properties were sidelined for DISNEY. If you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I know there are plenty of areas on the internet that Disney clearly wouldn’t want to reference, but Wreck-it Ralph 2 made it look like there was shopping, YouTube, and DISNEY that made up the internet, and that was that.
