Waking Sleeping Beauty

I did love watching this as it showed us how intense the pressure wa for disney in tekhe 80s, but came back up with a resurgence of films.

I'm an avid fan of Disney and Disney history. I was elated to hear about this documentary and bought the DVD. Absolutely fascinating subject if you care anything for the history of Disney's place in the entertainment world. It was great to see all the archived footage from the 80s and 90s.

My only gripes with this doc is that there's SO much stuff to cover it can't possibly be done with the confines of a feature length. So to me it felt very rushed as they were pushing through subjects and materials really fast. You may think you'll get a lot of John Lasseter in this and Tim Burton but you don't. they only mention Nightmare Before Christmas and move on. A bit dissatisfying for me since I'm fascinated in the outside people who were working for Disney at the time.

All in all a great Doc on a fascinating subject. But it felt rushed and leaves out quite a bit of stuff I felt should have been mentioned. Maybe one day Ken Burns will make a doc on the subject and I'll finally get my 10 DVD box set! Until then, it's great for the basics. Still a MUST SEE for Disney fans!!! Go see it!

I grew during the Disney Renaissance, so I figured that a documentary about all the 1990s classics that gave my childhood fond memories sounded cool but it was bit disappointing. This is an interesting documentary and I thought that the behind the scenes footage and interviews about what lead to the Renaissance era and the making of some of their movies was good. However, the 87 minute runtime is too short and it's first 20 minutes is spent detailing the history that lead into the Disney Renaissance when that easily could've been explained in just 2 or 3 minutes. More time could've been spent discussing the making of each of the Disney Renaissance movies. Only the makings of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas get discusses in detail while other movies of that era such as Toy Story, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, etc. Barley get mention at all. This is still an interesting documentary nonetheless. I thinnk it'd be a cool idea if Disney made a drama film about the Renaissance in a style similar to Saving Mr. Banks.

The resurgence of hand-drawn animation in the 1990s, fueled by box-office success but burdened by egos. With animator Don Bluth vacating Disney in 1979, and somewhat unscrupulously taking a large group of artists along with him, the animation arm of the Disney Company was in turmoil in 1980. With disappointing returns from "The Black Cauldron" scalding the Ink and Paint Club denizens, Roy Disney, Walt's nephew and a major supporter of Disney's animated output, brought in Michael Eisner as CEO, who in turn brought in Jeffrey Katzenberg to head up the animation division. While Katzenberg immediately rubbed his artists the wrong way, he managed to get the company on the right track, leading to major successes "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King" in the 1990s. This fascinating documentary from Don Hahn eschews the usual talking-heads format, moving the piece along with home movie footage, news clips, and by individual interview voice-overs from all the principals. For Disney-fanatics, it's a treasure trove of facts and financially-driven fantasy. *** from ****

... from a workers point of view, at Disney as a business and the people running and leading this big-machine-of-a-corporation.

From the workers it seems that they were tossed back and fourth. they love their job, but it was and properly still is a very stressful place to work.

I didn't know all the facts of when it started, who they had been working with etc. and its really interesting to see that both Pixar and Dreamworks have been "insiders" at Disney from the beginning and themselves brown to so much. Disney have had some difficult years, but is now a very successful business again, it seems to be running smoothly.

I can only say, I love all the animations movie, and the ones from Disney have something special, Pixar and Dreamworks have their separate own style today and I love them as well, but there still is something special about a Disney release.

I must say, that their feature films of today are also very magical in a Disney kind of way, and that is also great to watch.

So to all your that was in this film and to the workers of today and tomorrow, Disney will always have a special place in many of our hearts, and it's because of all you hard working people, those who kept it together and stuck it out in the rough times and those who are still fighting this day today, to make Disney as vivid, groundbreaking and refreshing as it has always been.