LAST EDITED ON Apr-23-01 AT 04:00 PM (EDT)

First of, this rant might not really belong here and I apologize for that. But this is the only place on the 'Net which I visit more often than once a month that hasn't got a rant about this. And I've got to let of some steam.

As I've mentioned in an earlyer post I live in Germany.
Mononoke Hime just hit the cinemas in Germany. That in itself is a Good Thing. But now lets look a little closer and count the cinemas which are showing MH. THERE ARE JUST THIRTY-FIVE OF THEM!!!! That really pisses me off, thirty-five cinemas, of which five alone are in Berlin. That leaves only thirty for the rest of Germany. I may not live in a big city like Berlin or Hamburg, but I can reach about seven cinemas within half an hour. But Mononoke Hime was shown in none of them. I had to drive for two and a half hours to reach a cinems which showed the movie. And there was no advertising. No posters, no commercials on TV, nothing. Is Buena Vista International in some financial trouble I don't know about? Because those fucking bastards could have done a lot better than this. They tell us that there will be new cinemalist next week. But I don't believe that the situation will brighten up. Well, they digged their own grave this time. The lynchmobs are organizing and prepairing for battle.

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Valkyries I saw, coming from afar,
Eagerly riding to aid the Goths

But they got all stomped by the mighty foot of Monty Python.

Sanity is an overrated concept.

>As I've mentioned in an earlyer post I live in Germany.
>Mononoke Hime just hit the cinemas in Germany. That in itself is a
>Good Thing. But now lets look a little closer and count the cinemas
>which are showing MH. THERE ARE JUST THIRTY-THREE OF THEM!!!!

If I remember correctly, it was only released to 150 theatres in the entire United States. North Carolina only had 1 theatre showing it. I was fortunate enough to live near it, but that movie was terribly under-released.

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Whoa! What IS it?!

>showed the movie. And there was no advertising. No posters, no
>commercials on TV, nothing. Is Buena Vista International in some
>financial trouble I don't know about?

Is the Disney Machine running out of money? HAHAHAHA! Sorry, not laughing at you, but, heh, that's funny. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, I see two things surviving nuclear war, bugs and Disney's money.

>Because those fucking bastards
>could have done a lot better than this. They tell us that there will
>be new cinemalist next week. But I don't believe that the situation
>will brighten up. Well, they digged their own grave this time. The
>lynchmobs are organizing and prepairing for battle.

Well before you go searching for the lynchin' tree for Buena Vista or Miramax or anyone like that, it has just as much to do with the exhibitors as it does with the distributors. If J. Random Theater Owner doesn't think he's going to make any money by putting a certain film on his screen, then it's not gonna fly. The only case where this isn't going to come into play is if the theater has a deal with a certain distribution company, which can be summed up something like "Sure, we'll let you run 'Lion King' and rake in your percentage of box office and all the concession money that goes with it, but in return, you have to run 'Operation Dumbo Drop' for at least four weeks." It sounds like a case of the man sticking it to the theater operators, but when you come right down to it, it's usually good buisness sense to cultivate relationships like that. The movie theater I worked at ran 'Apollo 13' for three months, and in the first month we had it, it pulled in over $100,000 on one screen for box office alone, and this was in Tallahassee, Florida. And for that, we ran our fair share of movies like 'Top Dog', 'Tommy Boy', 'Johnny Mnemonic', and the aforementioned 'Operation Dumbo Drop'.

They aren't gunning to make your life a living hell, honest. If they paid for a print to go into every cinema in Germany, they'd make no money back, and would not be encouraged to do it again. And especially with the way Disney works, I'm sure they had demographic charts out and pretty much almost every print that was released there was released with more strategic thought that your average military battle plan. Everything Disney does may not be fantastic, but you'd be hard pressed to find anything under the Disney umbrella that doesn't make money. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's just the way it is, and ultimately why they're even releasing the films in the first place.

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

Mononoke wasn't a Disney film. Disney would never make something with that much violence and ambiguousness as to who the viewer should root for. They're into sacchrine kiddy cartoons that little children love and their parents sit through with their brains oozing out of their ears. Disney wouldn't touch Mononoke with a ten foot pole.

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Duck? What duck? Ow!
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Y. Michael Chang
Laguna Hills, CA

>Mononoke wasn't a Disney film. Disney would never make something with
>that much violence and ambiguousness as to who the viewer should root
>for. They're into sacchrine kiddy cartoons that little children love
>and their parents sit through with their brains oozing out of their
>ears. Disney wouldn't touch Mononoke with a ten foot pole.

Funny thing that. Disney owns distribution rights to all Miyazaki films in the US at least. This includes Mononoke Hime and Kiki's Delivery service. Disney or at least one of their branches was responsible for the translation that came out here. I don't know how the global distribution fell out in the deal. Movies like Porco Rosso had already been released in other countries.

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Whoa! What IS it?!

>Funny thing that. Disney owns distribution rights to all Miyazaki
>films in the US at least. This includes Mononoke Hime and Kiki's
>Delivery service. Disney or at least one of their branches was
>responsible for the translation that came out here. I don't know how
>the global distribution fell out in the deal. Movies like Porco Rosso
>had already been released in other countries.

I just caught wind of a rumor the other day that the Criterion people are looking at doing a My Neighbor Totoro dvd. Just thought that might be a good one to spread to you guys, as it would rock if it happened.

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

>Disney wouldn't touch Mononoke with a ten foot pole.

... uh, except that they did. Princess Mononoke was localized and released in the US by Buena Vista, which is a division of Disney.

Next time, consider doing a little research before spouting. Thanks so much.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>Disney wouldn't touch Mononoke with a ten foot pole.
>
>... uh, except that they did. Princess Mononoke was
>localized and released in the US by Buena Vista, which is a division
>of Disney.

Buena Vista is the main distrabution company for everything. Luckily, at least in the US, the movie itself dealt with through Miramax (also one of the many offshoots of Disney), so it was given a lot more attention to detail than it might have been otherwise, as Miramax still has a decent amount of artistic integrity.

Disney owns about 49% of this town. If you see the Hollywood Pictures logo before a movie, the checks were signed by Disney. If you see a Touchstone logo before a movie, the checks were signed by Disney. 'Nixon' was paid for by Disney. The upcoming 'Pearl Harbor' was paid for by Disney. Disney owns a major network. (Of course, I watch so little network tv I can't remember which one they bought...like duh.)

I wonder if the Justice Department would finally do something if Disney tried to buy AOL/Time Warner...the old MST 'ComHugeCo' joke would be a reality at that point.

>Next time, consider doing a little research before spouting. Thanks
>so much.

You guys rock, what do I owe for services rendered? ;)

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

>>for by Disney. Disney owns a major network. (Of course, I watch so
>little network tv I can't remember which one they bought...like duh.)

ABC

And, by extension, ESPN*, and any other properties ABC had their hooks into. Remember when Disney was pushing Go.com - ESPN contantly reminded you that "Espn.com is part of the Go.com network."

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>>for by Disney. Disney owns a major network. (Of course, I watch so
>>little network tv I can't remember which one they bought...like duh.)
>
>ABC
>
>And, by extension, ESPN*, and any other properties ABC had their hooks
>into. Remember when Disney was pushing Go.com - ESPN contantly
>reminded you that "Espn.com is part of the Go.com network."

Right, thank you.

I know a few digital artists who have worked over in the feature animation department over there, and a Disney contract is a frightening thing to behold. Basically I've been told that if you sign into one, put all other personal projects on hold until such time as you finish the contract and leave, as they are very, very good at claiming that anything you do while working for them is, in fact, theirs.

That and there's a dress code, and all of management does the permanent smile 'We're Disney, We're Happy!' thing all the time. My best guess is that the people who have popped and blown away co-workers there have been exquisitely covered up, because it has to have happened under those conditions.

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
------------------------------
Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

>That and there's a dress code, and all of management does the
>permanent smile 'We're Disney, We're Happy!' thing all the time. My
>best guess is that the people who have popped and blown away
>co-workers there have been exquisitely covered up, because it has to
>have happened under those conditions.

They're bagged by the retrieval teams, carted off to the secret Disney training facility under Disneyworld, brainwashed, and recruited into Disney Black Ops. Once they're fitted with the drug collars, they become much more tractable.

Ebony the Black Dragon
aka Draco Draconis Ebenium
known to Arasaka Black Ops as Aaron F. Johnson,
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com

(And let me tell you, it's embarassing to get your butt handed to you by guys in combat armor and mouse ears....)

LAST EDITED ON Apr-23-01 AT 09:34 PM (EDT)

>I wonder if the Justice Department would finally do something if
>Disney tried to buy AOL/Time Warner...the old MST 'ComHugeCo' joke
>would be a reality at that point.

The Onion had an article in which only one corporation remained in the world, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be in their archive. The article to which it was a sequel, "Just Six Corporations Remain", is still there, but the subsequent one seems to have been removed. Sad Onion. Incomplete archiving.

There's a print version of the one-corporation article in "Our Dumb Century", though.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>Hmm, now that's damn peculiar - why, I wonder, is one of those links
>working and the other all screwed up when, as far as I can tell, I
>coded them both correctly?

The 'HREF link with text display' as stated in the HTML Reference is handeled differently in 'forum code'. I wrestled with this last week. It's actually easier than the HTML version, but you have to know about it first. :)

Just Six Corporations Remain

Our Dumb Century

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

>The 'HREF link with text display' as stated in the HTML Reference is
>handeled differently in 'forum code'. I wrestled with this last week.
> It's actually easier than the HTML version, but you have to know
>about it first. :)

What's really weird, then is that one of mine actually worked. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>What's really weird, then is that one of mine actually worked. :)

I think you confused it into working, which is indeed damn impressive in it's own right.

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

I came in late, but I want to know what Mononoke is! I know its a movie, I've never heard or seen it. maybe it just wasn't released out in Canada.

Xervis
AKA
The Chrono Shifting Trigger

>I came in late, but I want to know what Mononoke is! I know its a
>movie, I've never heard or seen it. maybe it just wasn't released out
>in Canada.

http://us.imdb.com/Details?0119698

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"You're a louse, Roger Smith."
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company