Sadly, his comments, delivered at last weekend's Siggraph Conference, are not meant to be looked upon as a call to arms. If anything, he's advising fellow studio honchos to bankroll effects-driven eye-candy as opposed to films that have stories to sell. In Hendrickson's opinion most people would rather spend their entertainment dollars on "spectacle," not storytelling.
Besides the fact that the use of that word is rather inappropriate for a conference, and as a representative of the Walt Disney Company, he also appeared to not only dissed movies made by Disney, but also in some way, insulted the audience who paid to see those movies.
Hendrickson even went so far as to bite the hand that feeds him. He used Disney's recent Alice in Wonderland as a defense of his theory: “The story isn’t very good, but visual spectacle brought people in droves. And Johnny Depp didn’t hurt.”
Of course, this whole philosophy severely contradicts the philosophy at Pixar and John Lasseter, where story is the #1 element of their movies (with the exception of "Cars 2").
Maybe Hendrickson should just stick with the "technical" aspect of Disney animation. I wonder if there might be a fall-out out of this thing, such as no more public engagement for him.
Zz.
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