I'm not sure that 'Frog' was ill-conceived or silly... I thought it was pretty good actually. And you could argue that Pixar was 'going back to the past' with their Toy Story sequels, but those movies still managed to succeed in every sense of the word. So I don't see anything inherently wrong with Disney trying to do a fairy tale story or re-capture some of that old magic. 'Frog' did kind of give me the sense that the studio was given a laundry list of notes to hit, so the movie did lack a certain spark, but there were some high points as well.

I feel like Disney is always looking to the past these days, be it 70 years ago or 7. Too concerned with catching up than innovating. I'm saying that without any real insight whatsoever, just a casual animation fan.

And as for that whole 'education' angle, I've heard some really cool things about the Pixar crew, like going out at 5 in the morning to study landscape drawings on some 'just because' shit. It takes a special kind of person to have that level of devotion to their art and it seems like Pixar has managed to staff themselves exclusively with those special types of people. And not just that, they've provided an environment where those people can grow, be challenged, and, you know, make movies that BANK