Disney tracing their old works again and again

[Regulus Tera]

I hadn't felt this cheated since I found out the background bushes in Super Mario Bros. are just recoloured cloud sprites (http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1906578).

[Mike McC]

Really, this shows that the animators of Disney's Robin Hood are really just extremely lazy. While not the only case, It's certainly the worse.

Though, you can't really blame an animation studio for reusing/tracing over applicable animation frames if it saves time and it suits the film you're doing, so long as the film doesn't overdo it.

[TheSparrow]

When I read the title I thought that it was going to be about Disney movies having similar plots. You know, like how The Lion King is actually Bambi, rewritten.

[POS Industries]

When I read the title I thought that it was going to be about Disney movies having similar plots. You know, like how The Lion King is actually Bambi, rewritten.
You're partially correct. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_Lion)

[CelesJessa]

Though, you can't really blame an animation studio for reusing/tracing over applicable animation frames if it saves time and it suits the film you're doing, so long as the film doesn't overdo it.

Considering how many frames they have to draw (I think traditional Disney movies were generally 20-30 frames of animation a second, each hand drawn), I don't particularly blame them for using poses and motions that they used before to help save time and meet deadlines, especially since they're done in a way that's not that obvious unless you're looking at them side-by-side.

[Corel]

Isn't rotoscoping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping) a common technique used by animators? I would die too if I had to draw every single frame by hand!

I also thought Robin Hood itself was created on quite a small budget back when it was made, which would explain why the technique was employed.

[Mirai Gen]

Rotoscope is drawing over live action frames, whereas tracing is just drawing over another drawing.

And I'm not trying to brag but I did notice quite a few of the similarities between Robin Hood and Jungle Book as a kid, though I didn't notice the similarities between all of the movies in the clips till now.

[PyrosNine]

The story here is actually that they wanted to make another movie, but were kinda low on budget and needed some scratch to make their next movie, so all the really technical scenes that would have cost alot of money and time to draw, particularly dancing, they used old scenes and some unused scenes.

They were also without Mr. Walt Disney at the time, so the pressure was on. And when the pressure was on, you cheat a little.

Personally, this didn't upset me at all, as all the scenes I really cared for were original.

[RickZarber]

Weren't the early Disney movies rotoscoped over live action? It seems more likely to me that they reused the same live-action references multiple times rather than tracing from prior animation. I have no idea if this is the case, it just seems to me like it'd make more sense.

[Mirai Gen]

As I understand it rotoscoping means like you literally have someone do the action and you draw over them, meaning that you have an entire motion and scene acted out and you make an animated version of it shot-for-shot, plus or minus the artists' preferences.

This really does seem like why Pyros said, where its just being under pressure and a lower budget and a deadline upcoming combining to force them to cheat a bit.