[disease]

I feel like these points land harder when talking about animation rather than live action films.

Consider that when Disney made Bambi 2 in the 2000s, they came to the realization that their animators did not have the skill required to animate deer antlers and then basically had their hand forced into using CGI. In the 1930s this was not a problem: the film contains not just hand-animated antlers but beautifully painted backgrounds, an incredible score and some of the most expressive character animation ever produced.

It hardly seems to be a stretch to call animation done during Disney's golden age objectively better than what is being done today.

[throwawayboise]

I don't believe there are not artists today who could animate deer antlers or paint beautiful backgrounds. Disney did not want to pay for them or wait for the time it would take to animate a film by hand.

[judge2020]

Bambi lost $200k USD (as a result of being released during WW2) in 1942 when it released[0], the equivalent of ~$3.4 Million USD today, so I'm sure they were cutting necessary costs. It only recouped the losses with subsequent re-releases, which had the benefit of access to the European market.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney#:~:text=The%20mili...