Legendary filmmaker John Musker has called out Walt Disney and claimed they have been putting political messages ahead of storylines in its recent film releases.
The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Moana, The Princess and the Frog and Hercules filmmaker expressed that he felt the company needed to steer away from pushing woke messages and focus more on the characters and storylines above everything else.
He told Spanish outlet El País at the Animayo International Summit in Gran Canaria last week: "I think they need to do a course correction a bit in terms of putting the message secondary, behind entertainment and compelling story and engaging characters."
Musker discussed the "wokeness" at Disney and brought up criticism that the film about a Black princess was woke and added: "We weren’t trying to be woke, although I understand the criticism.
"The classic Disney films didn’t start out trying to have a message. They wanted you to get involved in the characters and the story and the world, and I think that’s still the heart of it.
"You don’t have to exclude agendas, but you have to first create characters who you sympathize with and who are compelling."
Musker's comments come after the film giant has faced a significant amount of backlash in recent years from critics arguing that the media giant has promoted a woke agenda for a number of years.
It has experienced a number of box office disappointments - including 2022's pro-LGBTQ Lightyear — and taken part in massive layoffs and a loss of 2.4 million subscribers from its Disney+ streaming service.
The 70-year-old added that the political agenda was never as aggressive as Disney's during his prime time in the 1990s and 2000s as it is now, but he admitted he did need to alter some content for the sake of political correctness.
One example that he gave was that he needed to change the name of the city of Baghdad to "Agrabah" in Aladdin because of the Gulf War happening at the time.
"Because of the war, we couldn’t even go there to do research. Our big research took place at the Saudi Arabian expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center," Musker revealed.
Musker also collaborated with fellow director Ron Clements on The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Treasure Planet (2002).
Elsewhere in the interview, Musker also touched on his opinion on Disney’s live-action remakes and added that companies are always thinking of how to make more money on their biggest-selling films.
The filmmaker criticised the 2023 live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid - starring Halle Berry - and added: "They didn’t play up the father-daughter story, and that was the heart of the movie, in a way.
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"And the crab — you could look at live animals in a zoo and they have more expression, like with The Lion King. That’s one of the basic things about Disney, is the appeal. That’s what animation does best."
GB News has contacted Disney for a comment.