An Oral History of Disney's 'The Emperor's New Groove' | Hacker News Reader

An Oral History of Disney's 'The Emperor's New Groove'

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118 pointswallflower33 comments

This is my favorite Disney animated film. The story of its production is interesting but the end result is a very non-Disney film. I was never a big Disney fan due to preferring straight-up comedies as a child vs. drama/adventure with some token comedic relief character.

It is very self-aware and has humor Disney does not include elsewhere aside from maybe some Pixar films. I really recommend a rewatch as an adult.

Also as a Seinfeld fan, Patrick Warburton is always nice to hear.

I can't read this long article at work, so I've no idea what it says about the film. But this movie is also one of my favorites. My sisters loved it as kids and I know people who can quote it word for word.

I've seen this movie get flak for being uninteresting or one of Disney's forgotten endeavors but it's a gem.

It gets flak due to being unfinished (which is what the article is about). The movie itself jokes about it being unfinished a few times. It was also the first film released after Tarzan, which many say was the end of the 90s Disney Renaissance, so it was a tough act to follow and a tonal shift.

After Emperor's, we got mediocre films - with Lilo & Stitch being the only exception. Many consider Emperor's to be the first of this run.

Is it weird that the, apparently, unfinished bits and the jokes surrounding them are part of the charm of why I like the movie? The characters asking how someone got to a location and the other characters responding that it makes no logical sense and then moving on always gets a chuckle out of me. It always felt so naturally integrated into the humor I never questioned it.

It's what I like about the movie. I grew up with classic Looney Tunes and Cartoon Network cartoons. The humor is often nonsensical in the same way.

Also one of my favorites, although I’m a huge fan of more traditional Disney features. I owned very few DVDs, but I bought this one. I think I gave it as a gift too. 20 years later I was watching Archer, and I instantly recognized one of the minor characters as the voice of Kronk.

Lilo and Stitch is another very non-traditional Disney animated film that I think was quite funny and well-done.

You know it’s not your usual Disney fare when a character vomits on-screen in the first few minutes. (Granted, it was a robot vomiting gears, but still.

Thanks to you, I had to look that up. [1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYji9PECfH4

So...naughty.

"Yeah... he took the red one" is a great line, delivered perfectly.

“Abomination.”

“Stupid-head.”

In my mind there are two projects like that:

- Disney's "Emperor's New Groove"

- Rare's "Conker's Bad Fur Day"

Both out of nowhere. Both so uncharacteristic. Both fantastic.

Watched this with the family on Saturday after reading the piece in Vulture. I honestly was expecting a trainwreck of a film, but really enjoyed it.

The key take a away from the Vulture article for me was the Fulmer quote: "I met a very nice woman on a plane once coming back from New York, where we’d recorded Sting. She was like, “Oh, you work at Disney. What are you doing?” Blah, blah, blah. “Oh, my. So, what the movie’s about.” I feel like I talked until we got to Los Angeles, trying to explain it all. And I realized, Okay, this is not good. There’s too much here."

I think that applies to any product. If you can't tell the story in a concise manner, nobody is going to be interested.

>I think that applies to any product. If you can't tell the story in a concise manner, nobody is going to be interested.

I think this does not often apply in general to cultural productions - movies, paintings, literature, music.

It's really difficult to do that in a mass market (widest appeal) 'kids' film. Generally the core of a single film or episode for TV fits inside of an elevator pitch and everything else is an embellishment detail. An entertaining decoration on a well known recipe. Though deeper plot can make for re-watch-ability across a larger series, such as character development within the MCU.

well, sure and there are only a limited number of plots in the world and everything is an embellishment detail, and it is the embellishment details that make things interesting. You might get interested to make a movie based on its elevator pitch, but you probably won't be that interested in seeing it - unless you already know a lot about it, for example you might want to see an MCU movie based on the description The Avengers fight Thanos! But that's not because it's a concise description - in fact there's hardly any description at all, the sale is made by relying on a mind embellishing it themselves.

Right, but if you can't even give an elevator pitch, because the project is too unfocused, then that's a bad sign.

if you can't give an elevator pitch because project is too unfocused, yes that's a bad sign.

If you can't give an elevator pitch because the project is too rich. Then that might imply greatness.

so often an elevator pitch for those productions of the human mind generally referred to as works of art is useless.

What's the elevator pitch for A Tale of Two Cities?

> What's the elevator pitch for A Tale of Two Cities?

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." London and Paris through the revolution.

I love this:

David Spade (Kuzco): It was me and Owen Wilson. We were going to switch jobs. I was an emperor and he was a peasant, and Carla Gugino was a princess. The first time I did my voice, I was naïvely saying, “What do you want? This kind of guy? A deep voice? Or an emperor like, ‘Ooh,’ a highfalutin guy?” And they said, “No, just your nasally, normal, annoying, sarcastic voice.”

I watched The Sweatbox: A documentary posted on youtube re-telling the story of the making of the movie by Sting and the animators. It is a sad story. I loved when Sting reacted to Disney's decision of canning all his songs and come up with 1 song (obviously so Disney can put his name on the credits) instead of sending them their way he said: "I am a craftsman" I gather he meant that he will give them their song because they ask him for one. Great intro song he gave them.

Since it appears that it was removed from youtube, you can find The Sweatbox on archive.org here:

https://archive.org/details/TheSweatboxDocumentary_201704

I was talking about this movie the other day, and I hypothesized that it was so successful (most people I know have fond memories of it) because it struck a cord with those of us who came of age with Disney movies. In other words, this movie felt like it was addressing a teenager generation that was OK with watching a cartoons movie.

I presume that, if this is correct, the article hints that this happened by accident.

I re-watched The Emperor's New Groove with my kids a year or two back. Still a great film as an adult.

Just don't watch Krunk's New Groove (the second film) it just isn't the same.

Came across this on Reddit yesterday, was a fantastic read. Added The Sweatbox to my "to-watch" list as well, looking forward to it.

I remember being in high-school when this came out, and wandering into it with a couple of friends because it was the only movie on at the time we hadn't see, and it would pass the afternoon.

The three of us laughed continually through it, to the point we were getting death-stares from the tweens who were not finding it funny at all.

And, 20 years later, I still find it hilarious and love watching it with my kids.

It's great to have a Disney movie that's well written, but doesn't take itself so seriously. It's written to be fun, to be light and enjoyable, in a way that most other movies weren't, and aren't. I find too many current cartoon movies try too hard to hit the right cultural note, to make the right pop-culture references, and catch the moment, and it all falls flat. This was more like the Animaniacs, that feels timelessly, daftly hilarious.

It's amazing to compare this to animated movies before and after - it really paved the way for zanier, more off the wall humor in children's movies. I can't imagine Shrek being made without The Emperor's New Groove. Necessity breeds invention.

It's also amazing how many good principles you can learn from this process: the value of iterating often, working quickly but precisely, knowing when/how to pivot, etc.

I thought it was funny, but I did not find it as funny as everyone else, so I'll just own that I am the weird one. From reading this history, though, it seems like the only people who enjoyed making it were really the writers.

No idea Disney was that disorganized. Read Chuck Jones's autobiography. They were under almost military discipline at Warner.

But this is the writer side of Disney. Not the animator side. The animation side is a grind.

Such a great movie!

I keep wondering what would happen if Disney were to do a live action remake. I don't think it can be improved upon, though.

Shame about Sting, though; really feels like he got the short end of the stick.

None of their animated films have been "improved upon" by the live-action (or in The Lion King's case, """"live-action"""") versions. Most have lost something to the constraints of looking more realistic, especially any energy or style they might have had.

A live-action ENG would absolutely ruin the pacing and energy of the movie.

I admit that I liked the live action _Cinderella_ better than the animated version, but that's because the director made it different. In fact, I would have been okay if he had removed the mice entirely.

Oh, and it's a film where the phrase "Every Frame a Painting" [1] is very true. Nearly every frame looks like a Baroque painting, and it's gorgeous.

Other than that, yeah, Disney screwed up the live action versions.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting

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