Milt Kahl

One of Disney's nine old men.

The Aristocats (1970) -- Co-directed by John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reithermann, and Frank Thomas. This is the first animated Disney movie made after Walt's death, which begins the question of what to do with Walt's "vision" now that he's gone. I'm not the one who came up with this criticism, but I believe it: that in an effort to preserve what makes a Disney film a Disney film, the people who took over the movies decided to only do what they had done in the past. This means only stagnation, of course, since the point of Disney (at least early on) was to keep making things new each time. The company claims that it does that today in terms of technology (which it does), but technology isn't everything, and so we usually just end up with the same old crap dressed up in fancy computer graphics. In this case of The Aristocats, we have a rehashing of The Jungle Book (the previous one) with the focus on genre music, this time jazz. It's not too bad, but it's not too great either, even with a couple of good songs.

The Rescuers (1977) -- Co-directed with Don Bluth, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reithermann, Art Stevens, and Frank Thomas. Not too bad, not too good. I might need to see it again. (See Hendel Butoy for the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under.)