on the other hand, I don't think Mickey should go public domain.
The people who grew up in the culture permeated with such stories are stunted expressively. Because they're denied the use of an ever-growing share of the tropes and characters of the common culture. Many Disney films themselves are retellings of classic stories in the public domain. If you want to reference the original Cindarella, or Greek mythology, or Oliver Twist, you're free to do so.
You cannot do that with Luke Skywalker, or Aragorn. Now, maybe you shouldn't be able to within the author's life. But how many centuries should we keep this privilege? Would you or I (or Disney) be able to tell a new story about Hercules if copyright had been around 2000 years ago? Imagine Shakespeare still under copyright! No Hamlet or Macbeth characters in any other works without permission. We can strike several important 20th century books right there. In the future, the equivalent of Shakespeare will still be under copyright long, long after they are dead. Derivation and reuse are normal in art. Disney can borrow from the public domain to make Cindarella, but it in turn will never become public domain.
Even then, it wasn't really what was being asked for by fans. The goal at that time was to get LucasFilm to release the pre-Special Edition versions of the movies, which were available on VHS and Laserdisc, on DVD at DVD resolution.
LucasFilm insisted that it was impossible to reassemble the negatives and that they had no suitable print from which to produce a new digital scan. Instead, they released digitized copies of the Laserdiscs on DVD bonus discs.
Since then, enthusiasts have managed to produce Blu-ray resolution versions of the original movies first by piecing together a variety of sources and later by acquiring and scanning surviving prints.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition
This, lets call it, "cross pollination" would be much more difficult today.
That's always my go-to example for copyright because:
1. Disney has benefited both from extending copyright and from the previous shorter duration of copyright
2. The fact that a work from the 19th century would still be under copyright in 1959 is astonishing to many people
3. Disney's Sleeping Beauty, despite opening to mixed reviews, is generally well received today and is a great example of what we are missing out on; this work (judged "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the LoC) could not have been made if today's rules existed in 1959.
If someone wanted to do "The New Stories of Mickey Mouse" they should be free to do so.
If someone wanted to act as Disney using Micky Mouse, then they should be sued into oblivion for acting as another company.
Everyone else is free to do with IP, do remixes etc. and if they make something with original IP that is better than originals, so be it ,competition actually working.
A trademark means if I buy AMD, I'm not getting "shitty rebrand of chip 10y old by jank fab". Or it means if I buy branded food, I know what I'm getting.
Trademarks are essential for the protection to know the goods you buy from a company are what you're expecting.
And that's why I'm realllllly curious when a whole bunch of big companies sue Amazon for allowing counterfeit co-mingling (or being charged $$$$$ for separate SKUs), relating to trademark dilution. This is straight up provable damage.