Some advice that is very good for on, and off, the field

There are many places where we could physically gain insight, balance, perspective, wisdom, and patience (and modesty) that could foster positive forward-thinking---and encourage others to do so---if we take the opportunity. One such place is especially competitive sports. For good sportsmanship is not only an admirable behavior displayed on a pitch in a small moment of time: it can also be an ethic, a lifestyle, that transcends and informs (and even transforms) many activities and interactions. Here are some valuable tips I found.

In the Spirit of Mickey Mouse ... and the Newer Disney

Ever since Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's old movies had generally three main components: (a) a central solemn plot that laid out a moral or two, (b) character growth that developed and reinforced the morals, (c) and a musical score created specifically for the movie and supported by an orchestra that provided a light-heartedness to balance (and deflect away a bit from) the heaviness of the movie's themes and characters' ordeals.  In the early 1990s, the movie animators started to experiment with CGI (computer-generated imagery)---especially in a few scenes in Aladdin (the carpet ride through the Cave of Wonders); Beauty and the Beast (the panorama of the ballroom dance scene); and The Lion King (the perilous chase through the Elephant Graveyard)---and so we had 3-D rendering in its infancy. 

With Toy Story, everything changed.  CGI had taken a bigger role---in a fact a dominant one---as 3-D rendering, shading, movement, coloring, and lighting swept across the movies' storyboards.  Even the basic movie formula mentioned above was not spared.  Now, it's not that I don't welcome advancement; certainly Toy Story is valuable for what it offered on the screen and for the further potential it (and subsequent animated movies) have promised.  Indeed, I count the Shrek series, Monster's, Inc. (a Disney/Pixar flick), and Kung-Fu Panda among my contemporary favorites.  But the changes these features brought along are so huge in proportion to their time spans, so revolutionary, that they are worth twirling with in mental gymnastics (I will briefly continue to elaborate on only a few observations).  And despite going through some rocky and tumultuous periods, there is no doubt that Walt Disney Studios still captures much of the lead in major motion picture animation, and that it will be very unlikely for this trailblazer to easily relinquish that highly-coveted hold.  

Long gone are the solemn plots, now replaced largely by comedic effect.  So too are orchestras, the emphasis on characters singing, and the creation of songs specifically for a given film---all of whom have bowed out to insertions of already-published professional albums.  As for character growth and development, few post-Toy Story movies I can think of (or I am aware of) display the depth (or something close to the depth) of the old classics.  One memorable contemporary movie for me is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs---not a Disney move to the best of my knowledge; it combined a solemn theme with character development and a dose of light-heartedness (absent, of course, musical scores).  If there is a way that Disney (and others) could combine (and continue to combine) the old and new formulas of animation, I would imagine it bearing spectacular fruit for all to enjoy and to be enriched with.   

As I read though the countless comments of many people posted on social media such as You Tube or Facebook pages, I am led to believe that there seems to be a consensus that a similar drastic change in substance and editorial prioritization has taken place in Disney TV programming.  I have noticed this myself, as I struggle to search for the Disney character cartoons of old (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, and the like).  These trademark Disney creations have been replaced by some cartoons, but especially (and more significantly by) pre-teen-and-teen-oriented comedy shows, several of whom which bear little (if any) resemblance to the classic and conventional formulas of family sitcoms.  This is not necessarily a bad phenomenon, though---in trying to put it mildly and diplomatically---I am not deeply attached to much of the  current teen-and-pre-teen lineup.    

Perhaps the frustrations, alerts, and confusions about these new Disney directions will prove to be little more than merely the outgrowth of generational tensions in the response against, and in the reception for, changes.  And yet perhaps, as in other generational tensions, there is merit to the concerns held and voiced by the older groups.  However these dynamics ultimately play out, change is inevitable; what matters is what shape a transformation will take, how it is/will be critiqued, and what guidelines is/will be developed to differentiate between that which is worthy of critiquing and that which can be tossed aside.