Walt Disney Animation’s newest movie, Wish, is the culmination of the studio’s celebration of its own centennial. That project stretched throughout 2023, through projects like the short Once Upon a Studio, specialized merchandise drops centered around each decade the company has been around, and the rebrand of the iconic Disney castle logo. But Wish leans so hard on celebrating the better Disney films that came before it that it doesn’t have much identity of its own. It’s openly a nostalgia-fest, pretty much on par with the other ways the company celebrated its 100-year anniversary.

A Century of Disney

In 2023, Disney drilled in harder than ever on looking admiringly at its own history. And why shouldn’t it? The company has a full century of beloved movies, characters, and storytelling to mine for big emotion. Even people who’ve outgrown Disney probably still have residual fondness for at least one of the animated movies they watched in their youth. But nostalgia-bait isn’t limited to Disney’s big birthday celebration: It’s basically what the company has been selling for decades now.

While living in and echoing its own past has been profitable for Disney, it isn’t sustainable. And ultimately, harping so hard on its own glory days is pretty antithetical to Disney’s legacy. In order to move forward, it needs to shed the nostalgia — or at least not make it the company’s primary selling point.

From a moneymaking standpoint, it’s easy to see why Disney sticks to legacy-linked projects: They’re all but guaranteed to make bank. Disney’s live-action remakes and sequels consistently get mixed to poor reviews, but they make hundreds of millions of dollars. People will pay to see their faves on screens again, or to try to share their happy childhood memories with their own children.

At least, they will until they get tired of the diminished returns. The live-action remakes might make a lot of money in the short run, but all they’re really doing is reiterating what Disney has done in the past, without meaningfully adding to the original movies’ legacy.

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