PG, 86m, 2009

Starring Don Hahn, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney, Frank Wells, Peter Schneider, John Musker, Ron Clements, John Lasseter, Glen Keane, Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Rob Minkoff, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Directed by Don Hahn. Produced by Don Hahn and Peter Schneider. Screenplay by Patrick Pacheco. Music by Chris P. Bacon.

            For my entire life I’ve been a massive animation fan. As a kid I watched a lot of films released by the Wald Disney Animation Studios, on VHS. Sure, I had other animated and live-action films I enjoyed that weren’t Disney such as Babe, The Land Before Time and the Pokémon films, but the films by Disney and Pixar were by far, my go-tos for entertainment. I consumed so much Disney knowledge, that I was an ace at Disney trivia games. One source where I used to get some of my Disney knowledge was from the documentaries that some Disney VHS tapes had. I was born in 1996, so I remember a time when bonus content was rarely released on home video, since DVDs, weren’t super popular yet. These documentaries weren’t particularly long but, I enjoyed watching them because I liked learning more about my favorite movies. There was only one problem, these documentaries only came with films that were released way before I was born. Sure, I liked learning about the making of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Fun and Fancy Free and The Jungle Book, but I wanted to learn about newer animated films like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. I’d eventually get my wish when DVDs and Blu-rays offered tons of content about my favorite animated movies, but by then my taste and changed a little. I’ve retained my love for learning about films into adulthood and this is part of the reason I became a film critic. As I got older, and as I actually started studying the history of the Walt Disney Animation Studio, I learned of a time period known as the Disney Renaissance. The Disney Renaissance lasted from 1989 to 1999, The films released during this time were The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan. As I learned more about the Walt Disney Studio during the Disney Renaissance, I found out that there was a documentary called Waking Sleeping Beauty. It’d be several years before I obtained a copy of the film, but when I did, I was reminded why I fell in love with studying animation in the first place.

            During Walt Disney’s lifetime (1901-1966), the Disney Studio had its ups and downs. However Following Walt’s and later his brother Roy O. Disney, the studio started to decline in quality. This is most notable in their animated features. Compare films like The Rescuers, Robin Hood and The Aristocats, to films like Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi, and you’re going to notice a major difference in quality. The time period from the death of Walt Disney in 1966, to the release of The Little Mermaid in 1989, is sometimes known as the “Disney Dark Age”. It’s during this time that the film begins. The film covers the events from 1984, a year prior to the release of The Black Cauldron, to 1994, with the release of The Lion King. This time period was a tumultuous time in the Disney Studio. The animators who had worked with Walt Disney since the 1930s, and who had worked on some of the most iconic films in animation history were retiring, leaving the animation department to a group of younger people, who would go on to change animation forever.

            This film utilizes mostly stock footage filmed inside the Disney Studio, so as a result the film makes its audience feel like they’re actually at the story meetings and inside the recording booth. The director of this film is Don Hahn, who was a producer for films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. He along with Peter Schneider were working at the Disney Studio at the time and as a result, they’re able to bring in a personal insight that would have been lost, had somebody not involved with the Disney Studio during the time of the Disney Renaissance, created this film. This makes the events going on in the film, seem that much more personal and at times, even touching When the film uses clips from outside the Disney Studio such as news reports or programing from other television shows, it’s to serve a point. When the documentary is focusing on the name change for The Great Mouse Detective, they talk about the decision and the impact it had inside the studio. This incident became so well known that it was even a category on the game show Jeopardy. The filmmakers were actually able to find the clip of that question being asked on Jeopardy and include it in the film. It may seem inconsequential to some people, but when you know how much work and effort had to go into finding this clip and putting it into your movie, it just makes it even more astounding.

            A lot of people seem to think that most documentaries are dry and boring, and if they’re not about a tragic event, the documentary isn’t going to have any real emotional depth to it. Waking Sleeping Beauty suffers from none of these things. It shows everything exactly how it was back then, and it doesn’t hold back. This documentary clearly shows that the people working on these films had to sacrifice a lot in order to get these projects done. Towards the end of the documentary Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, has a conversation with the animators, and he asks them what it’s like to work at Disney. They reveal while they love what they are doing, many of them had to make sacrifices in their personal lives, which sometimes caused strains on their relationships with their families. This shows the sacrifices the people who worked on the films of the early Disney Renaissance had to endure. There are two people who are featured throughout the documentary, that died during the time period this documentary is discussing, and when they die it’s almost heart wrenching because you get to feel like you knew the person who died, and you got to hear humorous stories about them and what they were like while working. When a documentary can make you react emotionally to events or people that you never knew, that’s when you know you’ve got a good product on your hands.

            I only have a few problems with this documentary. At the start of the film they mention Don Bluth, who was an animator at the studio before he left in 1979, during the production of The Fox and the Hound. Bluth also took several other animators with him, and together they made their own animated films including The Secret of Nimh, The Land Before Time and An American Tail. For a time, the films made by Don Bluth were outgrossing the Disney animated films and was were even given more praise than the films produced at Disney. This competition with Bluth helped spark the Disney Renaissance and I would have liked to see some more scenes dedicated to the battle between Bluth and Disney, and who it ultimately ended. It also would have been nice to have the people on the competitors side like Don Bluth, featured in interviews as I believe that a few outside sources would have proved beneficial to getting a better look at the world of animation while all of this was going on. This could have also allowed for people who worked in other animation studios, to talk about how this affected their work and what kind of inspiration did it bring, I realize this is a documentary about the Disney Studio but, I would have liked to see how their work was impacting the world of animation.

            There’s actually a bit of irony at the timing of this film’s release. This film was released in 2009, and at the time the Disney Animation Studio wasn’t producing the great material they once were. However, later that year The Princess and the Frog was released and that ushered in a new period known as the Disney Revival, which is still ongoing as of the time I’m writing this review. The time period of when this film went into production and was released, in some ways mirrors the events of the documentary, and I just find that to be simply interesting.

            Foe people who love learning about how movies are made or the Disney Studio, Waking Sleeping Beauty is a must watch. It provides vast amounts of information on the Walt Disney Animation Studio, from 1984 to 1994. Several critics have referred to this film as “One of the best comeback stories in show business history.”, and I completely agree. The film not only touches on the production of some of the films released during this time, but the driving political forces by Disney executives to “reawaken” the Disney Studio. I normally don’t like inspirational films, but films such as this one touch me on a personal level and instills in me a desire to create new and better content.