Disney has had a huge influence on the world and the film industry. It inspired directors such as Tim Burton and has impacted every generations’ childhood by bringing animation films to the mainstream, but no corporation can go long without a decline in quality. Whether it was after Walt Disney died in 1966, since the 90s, or the early 2010s, it is strongly debated when Disney started to lower in quality. It’s been very apparent that throughout the years the heads of the Disney company let greed get to their heads but still hides it behind a family-friendly persona. 

On Dec 21, 2012, Disney finally obtained ownership of the Star Wars franchise for four billion dollars. Since Star Wars was doing great in numbers, Disney benefitted from this, making 12 billion dollars off of it. The company soon realized if they remade previously successful movies, they could put significantly less effort into their films for more money. It worked until “Solo: A Star Wars Story” came out and didn’t do so well, having a 6.9/10 in ratings and making 393.2 million dollars at the box office. Disney milked the franchise similar to the rest of Disney’s IPs creating Live-action after Live-action, and sequel after sequel, where the movies or series were poorly received because of the following reasons: Milking the IPs until fans got bored, low quality in the writing or animation, poor advertisement, and producing very similar films. No one wants to see something already done because it shows Disney’s lack of creativity, which is very obvious in certain films, such as Disney’s 100th-anniversary movie: “Wish.” Many people have been disappointed with this movie because its main character, villain, side characters, and lyrics are described as uncreative. Most expected this film to be traditionally animated, depicting the vast amount of effort that Disney would portray for their 100th-anniversary movie. People started saying it looked like AI-generated it. Wish has made 255 million dollars and is rated 5.6/10 on IMDb. 

Students and teachers of Castaic High School are part of the disappointed Disney fans and have noticed their decline in production for a while. These fans were asked how Disney affected their childhood and when they thought Disney started decreasing in quality.

“[Disney] got me into the MCU and post-end game,”

Terrence Thompson, Senior

“[Disney] exposed me to princesses which really impacted me and I thought Disney fell off in 2021.”

Anonymous

“Disney made my childhood more memorable and I think it started to decline after Turning Red”

Odessa Blackman, Freshman 

“My first word was Mickey so Disney has been a part of my life since I was really really young. When the Disney parks started pulling back on the live experience like performers, shows, and parades.”

Mrs. Allen, Teacher 

Most of all these people believe that a few years back, Disney was declining in quality due to their remakes of previous movies they have released. Even when they make original movies, they’re usually ignored because of poor advertisement and little to no interest from the public. Even though you can disagree and draw conclusions, such as saying Disney is still good or Disney’s magic is dead, the company’s quality hasn’t been the same for quite some time.