STRAIGHT TO VIDEO: How The Disney Renaissance Died

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All good things must come to an end. And for Walt Disney Animation, the Renaissance Era that helped save the company came to a close only a decade after it began. After years of animated feature films that failed to connect with audiences, everything changed for Disney during the 1990s. But why didn’t it last? Last year, in my video on the rivalry between Don Bluth and Disney Animation, I discussed how Bluth and his production company briefly beat Disney at their own game, finding success in the 80s as Disney struggled. Eventually, new leadership and a modern approach to animation revitalized Disney and from 1989’s The Little Mermaid through 1999’s Tarzan, Disney animation experienced the boom in popularity and quality that came to be known as The Disney Renaissance. But eras end, and the fall from grace after the Renaissance was extremely hard. But what led to the end of what many see as Disney animation’s greatest era? How did the straight to video sequel boom and increasingly poor leadership decisions cause the end of this period? And how have the mistakes made both during and after the era shaped the 2 decades of Disney since? This is the death of the Disney Renaissance. The Birth of the Renaissance The rise and fall of the Disney Renaissance happened entirely under the watch of one man: Michael Eisner. Eisner had risen to prominence as the president and COO of Paramount Pictures and, in 1984, Disney shareholders Roy E. Disney and Sid Bass used their power to bring in Eisner as CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company alongside Frank Wells as president. Eisner, in turn, quickly onboarded Jeffery Katzenberg, also from Paramount, as chairman of Walt Disney Studios, and Roy E. Disney took over as chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation. And ok, hirings and firings at movie studios can be really dry and boring if this isn’t your thing, but understanding this major shift in power at Disney is important to understand the many highs and lows that followed. After taking over as CEO, Eisner had considered actually completely shutting down the animation division following the massive string of disappointments that marked the Disney Dark Age. Roy, however, promised to turn things around as its chairman. Disney’s approach to its animation division changed almost overnight, with Katzenberg making his presence known by personally cutting 12 minutes out of The Black Cauldron after it had been completed and booting the animation department out of the studio lot in Burbank to a bunch of warehouses in Glendale. And this is where 2 very important decisions were made that expanded the impact of Disney animation. First, Roy’s Walt Disney Feature Animation studio expanded its team and sped up its production timelines to start making feature films much faster. Previously, Disney animated movies could take as long as 4 years to complete, but Disney’s competition with Don Bluth Productions, which was making animated movies much faster and beating Disney at the box office at the time, pushed the studio to make films faster, with different teams working on multiple films simultaneously. Starting with Oliver & Company in 1988, Disney has produced at least 1 new animated feature film every year except for 1993. Second, Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group was founded by Eisner with the intention of creating lower budget animated series and fully securing Disney’s foothold in television, which they hadn’t really done before outside of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and the Mickey Mouse Club. The first shows created were Adventures of the Gummi Bears, created by Michael Eisner literally because he liked the candy so much, and The Wuzzles, which was a thing, in 1985. Soon, DTVA’s output exploded, starting with the goat THE GOAT Ducktales in 1987. Eisner himself had intentions of being a TV star, becoming the host of The Disney Sunday Movie and the eventual Wonderful World of Disney. It was really nothing new for the company. Walt Disney himself was the host and star of the program previously, which had gone under several different names. Growing up, even I knew who Michael Eisner was as a little kid. Like, why would I know who a CEO was? And tying himself to the iconography and magic of Disney was a key decision made by Eisner to further cement his power in the company as the heir apparent to Walt. 1989’s The Little Mermaid is the beginning of the Disney Renaissance. With a budget of $40 million, the film was the long-delayed fulfillment of Walt Disney’s wish to adapt Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. And what made Little Mermaid drastically different from the decades of animated films that came before was a greater commitment to quality, including one of the biggest budgets for an animated film to date, a massive staff spread across both the main facility in Glendale and a satellite in Florida, the use of live action references, and the musical creations of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, jumping from the off-broadway Little Shop of Horrors to Disney. The Little Mermaid recaptured the epic fantasy that had defined the golden age of Disney animation and was a massive worldwide hit, becoming the first animated feature to cross $100 million, despite Katzenberg telling his staff that it was “a girl’s film” that would do poorly. And although the following year’s Rescuers Down Under was a disappointment, Disney created nonstop success with its features as Beauty and the Beast became the first ever animated feature film to receive an Academy Award nomination for best picture, a huge achievement that declared a new era of critical and commercial success was here for a company that had nearly stopped making animated movies a few years prior. And you know what? Beauty and the Beast deserves it, this is one of the best movies ever. The Peabo Bryson and Celine Dion cover during the credits? I cry every time! Aladdin and Lion King were also smash hits, setting a precedent for Disney’s use of established movie stars as characters, despite a major falling out with Robin Williams when they used his name as a promotional tactic against his express wishes. More on that in a minute. The Disney Renaissance was in full swing, but 1994 changed everything at Disney. On April 3, Walt Disney Company President Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash alongside his pilot and rock climber Beverly Johnson in Nevada after a skiing trip. After a decade leading Disney alongside Eisner and Katzenberg, Wells’ sudden passing left a power vacuum in the company. Before Wells’ death, Katzenberg had pressed to gain more power in Disney, asking Eisner to make him president and move Wells into the vice chairman position. According to Katzenberg, Eisner told him, “If for any reason Frank is not here … you are the number-two person and I want you to have the job.” But it was clear that despite their long-term working relationship, the two were consistently at odds with one another. And after Wells’ death, Eisner announced he would take on the responsibilities of the role instead of appointing Katzenberg. In the months after, Katzenberg and Eisner battled publicly in the media over who should have power at Disney, with both interviewed by the press to have their sides heard. But in August, Eisner announced that Katzenberg was leaving the company, with Eisner saying, “The job that (Katzenberg) would have wanted does not exist in this company. This is not a Shakespearean tragedy. This is people moving on with their lives, and doing new and interesting things.” In response, Katzenberg told the media, “Now it’s time to move on. I wanted a challenge beyond the job I’ve done for 10 years and Michael could not create that opportunity for me here at Disney.” Behind the scenes, it was both Eisner and Roy E. Disney that resisted Katzenberg’s play for more power, seeing him as hungry for fame and the wrong person to gain more control at Disney. And Katzenberg was not a popular figure in general at the studio. His push for more films drove the Renaissance forward, but he also constantly battled creators, having a huge fight with directors John Musker and Ron Clements when he demanded “Part of Your World” be cut out of the picture. Katzenberg would go on to sue Disney for his termination, getting $250 million in a settlement. It didn’t take long for the ousted chairman to find a new seat of power, forming Dreamworks Pictures with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen that October and immediately forming plans to rival Disney. The story of Dreamworks is a whole tangled mess that would need its own video and this is where we leave Katzenberg to return to Eisner, who bought Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $19 billion in 1995. Disney had only grown bigger. Cue Eisner hiring Michael Ovitz as the new president and 14 disastrous months in the position. But hey, he got a $140 million severance package out of it. Nice work if you can find it. Now, with little competition within the studio, Eisner could exert even more control over the direction of Disney. Coming to Home Video Despite making a long line of classic family films, Disney depended on theatrical re-releases for decades to keep their characters popular with new generations of fans. That all changed in the 1980s with the rise of VHS tapes and VCR players, with Disney releasing their first wave of home videos in 1980 and their first rerelease of a classic film in 1984 with Robin Hood under the title of Disney Classic. And thus began the concept of the Disney Vault, with the company reissuing their movies every 10 years and pausing distribution in between to create artificial scarcity. The tactic, and VHS as a whole, was a huge boon to the popularity of Disney movies, and this would soon be put to use for a brand new line of films. What’s important to understand is that The Walt Disney Company is a conglomerate made up of many different units that have their own products and specialties. Break it down like this: The Walt Disney Company is the overarching organization. One of its divisions is Walt Disney Entertainment, with one of the units within this division being Walt Disney Animation Studios. And within this stood Disney MovieToons, founded in 1990 to make DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (a banger). Eventually, this division would merge with Walt Disney Video Premieres, with Sharon Morril becoming executive vice president of this unit and Disney TV Animation. The result was that this TV-based animation studio existed alongside the feature film-focused Disney Animation, not under them. By the time Aladdin opened in 1992, Disney’s animated series were finding real success with shows like The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Little Mermaid, so the company decided to spin Aladdin off into its own ongoing series produced by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove. During the brainstorming process, Stones came up with a story that would bridge the original film to the series. However, when Stones pitched the idea to Eisner and Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider, the executives believed that sequels would only hurt the Disney reputation. Still, they went forward with the film that would be The Return of Jafar in 1994 to make the series happen. Return of Jafar set the precedent for every straight to video Disney movie that followed. First, Robin Williams refused to return to voice the Genie due to a public falling out with how Disney promoted Aladdin using him as the key figure, so instead voice actor Dan Castellaneta voiced the Genie in both this sequel and the tv show. Second, basically all of the cast and crew had nothing to do with the original. Third, the budget and production schedule was way smaller than the feature film, costing $3.5 million compared to the theatrical film’s $28 million. Fourth, it stunk. And fifth, it was a massive success, making more than $300 million with more than 10.5 million copies sold, whereas Aladdin made $504 million. Despite their initial reservations, Stones recalls Eisner’s response to Return of Jafar’s success simply being, “Well, what should the next one be?” Cue the Disney straight to video boom of the 90s. The next to be made was Aladdin and The King of Thieves, an improvement for sure with Robin Williams back after getting a $1 million salary and a public apology. And then it’s sequel city baybeeeeeeee. Two Beauty and the Beast midquels that act like Brian’s Winter to the original Hatchet (that’s a deep cut 90s young adult novel reference), and then a whole slew of sequels to both recent and old Disney films. Here are the rest of the Disney straight to video sequels, all done in one single breath: Pocahontas 2, Lion King 2, An Extremely Goofy Movie (some might say TOO Goofy), Little Mermaid 2, Lady and the Tramp 2, Cinderella 2, Hunchback 2, Atlantis Milo’s Return, 101 Dalmatians 2, Lion King 1 and a Half, Mulan 2, Tarzan 2, Lilo and Stitch 2, Kronk’s New Groove, Bambi 2, Brother Bear 2, Fox and the Hound 2, Cinderella 3, and The Little Mermaid Ariel’s Beginning. That’s not including the films created as essentially pilots for tv shows, like Tarzan and Jane, and standalones made by MovieToons, like Mickey’s Once AND Twice Upon a Christmas. And, yeah, a lot of these are bad, but I just gotta say that “He Lives In You” from Lion King 2 Simba’s Pride is the best Lion King song. It’s so good they put it in the Broadway adaptation! Some of these were created to soft launch new animated series that could air on the Disney Channel or ABC, some were just one and dones meant to grab some quick cash and keep the properties alive for new generations of fans, leading to theme park appearances and merchandise. The problem with these movies, despite them being, you know, completely disposable ass, is that so many of them walk back the plot developments and character arcs that happen in the originals. These classic Disney movies tell complete stories with morals and lessons in line with their fairytale inspirations. Happily ever after is cliche, but it's an intrinsic part of the Disney formula. So how do you continue the story when your protagonists have already rode off into a perfect life? Well, here’s some of the absolutely insane stuff that happens in Disney’s cosmic gumbo of straight to video sequels. Pocahontas 2 decides to become kinda historically accurate and have our lead fall in love with the suddenly introduced John Rolfe during her trip to London. And the two sail off into the sunset. Uhhhhh you know she DIED right after that, right, Disney? Little Mermaid 2 has Ariel and Eric have a daughter and then hide her mermaid heritage from her for 12 years, cutting off all contact with Atlantis because of Ursula’s suddenly revealed evil sister. Hunchback 2 reveals that Quasimodo’s bell is actually filled with jewels, and is the target of a villain’s heist! There’s also a new love interest for our poor, rejected bell-loving dang-ass freak. Atlantis: Milo’s Return ends with Atlantis raised to the surface to be part of all of humanity. Don’t worry guys, I’m sure humanity won’t rob you of your resources and persecute you for being different. Mulan 2 has Mushu break up Mulan and Shang to create a bunch of romantic tension in an arranged marriage story. Lilo and Stitch 2 is actually a banger and so is the show and its spinoff movies. Brother Bear 2 once again has Kenai consider turning back into a human, this time for love, and we already did this, Disney. Lion King 1½ is basically Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. I actually really liked this one as a kid. Cinderella 3 is a time travel story that changes the events of the original. One of Cinderella’s step-sisters, Anastasia, who used to be a piece of shit, is good now. People can change! A lot of these movies actually take place in the middle of the originals, with creators wising up that they couldn’t really continue the story of a lot of these movies. Given that quite a few have a time skip with kid versions growing up into their adult selves, there’s an opening for another story to take place. Enchanted Christmas, Lion King 1½, Tarzan 2, and Fox and the Hound 2 all do this. Of course, given that these stories are already set in place, not much can actually happen, in fear of creating a time paradox. That could destroy the entire universe! So these have no stakes. Belle’s Magical World, Cinderella 2, and Atlantis: Milo’s Return are actually just multiple episodes of canceled tv shows smashed together. And it’s very obvious. Almost all of these movies were poorly received by both fans and critics, but they also all made tons of money with little production cost. In a time when Disney was more popular than they had ever been before, straight to video movies were another resource stream adding to a juggernaut gaining speed. Reputation be damned, they were here to stay. Disney Outside Animation Animation sits at the heart of Disney. I mean, it’s the reason it exists at all, but as a conglomerate encompassing live action films, tv, theme parks, and all sorts of acquired businesses, Disney under Eisner did a lot more than just animation. And the 90s was when Disney began its true aspirations to become a corporate titan. Touchstone Pictures was founded in 1984 by then-CEO Ron W. Miller shortly before his ousting in favor of Eisner, but the new heads of Disney decided to continue with Touchstone as a way for the company to produce non-family films and establish the Disney foothold in PG-13 and R-rated pictures that could be distanced from the Disney reputation. Here’s a few of the major Touchstone films released in the 80s and 90s: Splash, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Color of Money, Adventures in Babysitting, Three Men and a Baby, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dead Poets Society, Pretty Woman, What About Bob, The Rocketeer, Father of the Bride, Sister Act, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Con Air, Face Off, Air Force One, Kundun, He Got Game, Armageddon, The Patriot, Rushmore, Beloved, Bringing Out the Dead, and The Insider. Touchstone was also expanded into Touchstone Television for a massive amount of live action sitcoms and dramas. And of course when you talk about Disney in the 90s, you have to talk about The Disney Channel. Launched as a premium cable network in 1983, the Disney Channel began shifting to basic cable in 1990 before becoming fully available in 1993. At first, the channel was the place for original animated series to premiere before moving to network TV, like TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, and the eventual movie spin offs like Aladdin and Hercules. But by the end of the 90s, The Disney Channel became defined by live action, with series like The Famous Jett Jackson setting the precedent. And of course, there’s the Disney Channel Original movies. I’m talking stone cold classics like Under Wraps, Brink, Halloweentown, and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. Disney’s acquisition of ABC in 1996 gave it another outlet for its growing TV production. The crazy success of the Disney Channel in the 2000s is a topic for another day, but its expansion in the 90s made it possible to become its own mini universe of live action films and shows that shaped a generation of both audiences and stars. Disney theme parks, on the other hand, were one of the company’s major struggles in the 90s. Eisner’s push for new attractions led to a collaboration with George Lucas resulting in Star Tours, the Indiana Jones Adventure, and Captain EO, but it also resulted in the launch of Disney Cruise Line and 5 new parks opening during his tenure as CEO - Disney/MGM Studios, California Adventure, Animal Kingdom, Euro Disney, and Hong Kong Disneyland. However, almost all of these new openings struggled, Euro Disney in particular was an embarrassment, leading to reactionary cost cutting at other parks and increased prices, with things like the disastrous Tomorrowland revamp and the poor initial layout of California Adventure due to Eisner’s dual approach of vast expansion and little budget. All of this was directly linked to Eisner with his regular appearances on The Wonderful World of Disney, touting the latest and greatest updates to Disney parks under his watch. But just as quickly as the 90s had brought new levels of success, the end of the decade would turn the tide against Disney once again. Death and Beyond No one declares the actual end of an era right when it happens. These things are always defined in retrospect. The death of the Disney Renaissance is a slow wind down that started with Pocahontas in 1995. Pocahontas was the passion project of Katzenberg, who saw it as the heir to Beauty and the Beast and a serious, sweeping romance that he favored over Lion King, telling the company that Pocahontas would be a huge hit and that silly lion Hamlet movie would definitely not be. As a result, Disney Animation put their full weight behind Pocahontas with a bigger, more experienced team and a higher budget. Of course, Lion King was a sensation, making $763.5 million and being critically acclaimed while Pocahontas made $346 million and had a very mixed reception. Disney wasn’t hurting for money, but it had made its first major misstep of the era. Afterward, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan all had slower box offices, but still ALL had straight to video sequels. Mulan 2 came out all the way after in 2005. Why?? I guess that’s not as bad as the 64 year gap between Bambi in 1942 and frickin Bambi 2 in 2006. Bambi has hit retirement age. WHY is he getting a sequel??? The reason the Renaissance truly died can be attributed to several factors all coming together after a decade of classic films and poor business choices: The straight to video business model had sped up to be faster than the theatrical model. From 1998 through 2006, Disney MovieToons, eventually renamed DisneyToon Studios, made 28 home video movies, with 20 of them being direct sequels or prequels to feature films. Now, the sequel strategy blamed on diluting the Disney brand was bigger than the original movies they were diluting in the first place. And like Disney’s theatrical output, the straight to video movies’ sales dwindled, too. The Renaissance approach to stories was getting stale. Essentially, the outsider discovers a new world, finds romance with a kindred soul, is attacked by a villain whose romantic interest has been spurned, all packaged within a musical formula was used way too often. The Renaissance movies have a sort of swooning romance that harkens back to the Disney Golden Age, but it eventually became cliche. It didn’t help that Howard Ashman, who set the precedent for the types of songs that defined the era, passed away in 1991 due to complications from HIV. Yes, I love plenty of the songs in Lion King, Hercules, and Tarzan (you’ll be in my heart? I cry every time!), but they aren’t Ashman. And finally, the hand drawn animation that had been perfected through the use of the CAPS system was beginning to fall behind the times as other studios like Pixar innovated with digital animation. As the last Renaissance film, Tarzan uses by far the most digital animation of the era to bring its jungle to life with Deep Canvas for 3D backgrounds that emulated painting, resulting in what was at the time the most expensive animated film ever made at $130 million. The post-renaissance era saw Disney embrace straight to video releases even more, experiment with story structures to not seem out of touch with audiences, and begin to create fully digital films outside of their collaboration with Pixar. It was also filled with swings and misses that saw the studio struggle to find a hit. While Fantasia 2000 was the first film released in the Post-Renaissance Era, and was a flop that barely made back its budget, The Emperor’s New Groove is the true dividing line, as it began its troubled production in 1997 and was delayed until the end of 2000. Don’t get me wrong, I love Emperor’s New Groove! (Pacha and Kuzko going back to back to climb up the canyon wall? I cry every time!) But this is definitely a different mode of Disney movie than the prestige of much of the Renaissance. Actually, Emperor’s New Groove was originally set to be a much more epic story along the lines of Lion King originally titled Kingdom of the Sun, but major production problems and the underperformance of prestige films like Pocahontus and Hunchback caused Disney to completely rework the film into the screwball comedy it became. Sting was NOT PLEASED. On top of that, New Groove had the worst box office performance of any Disney animated movie since the Dark Ages in the 80s. In total, the post-renaissance era included 11 animated feature films. And while these involved a variety of directors and styles, their unifying theme is Disney struggling to find a new successful approach and most of them being financial disappointments outside Lilo and Stitch. And there are a huge number of basically forgotten Disney animated films from this time. Dinosaur, Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, and Meet The Robinsons all feel like they could have come from a rival studio and have mostly not been translated by Disney into the rest of their multimedia empire. Not even a straight to video sequel. Eisner had been a controversial CEO for years, but the string of big failures finally cost him his job, with an internal shareholder revolt leading to Eisner officially stepping down in 2005, replaced by Bob Iger. And Iger’s rise brought fast changes. DisneyToon’s focus on making direct sequels to theatrical films came to an end in 2006 when John Lassetter was appointed chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. And Lassetter made it explicitly clear that he felt direct to video sequels were hurting Disney’s brand. At the time of Lassetter’s takeover, DisneyToon was working on The Tinkerbell Movie, but the new head deemed the version that was being made as "virtually unwatchable," demanding the film undergo major revisions and firing Sharon Morrill as the DisneyToon head. The last video sequel produced by DisneyToon was The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning in 2008, with DisneyToon afterward focused on CGI spinoffs, with the reworked Tinker Bell movie being the source of most of these films. The Disney Vault practiced continued through the DVD and Blu-Ray eras, and actually only stopped in 2019 with the debut of Disney Plus. By the time DisneyToon Studios was closed in 2018, it had made 47 films, with “Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast” being its last. As for Lassetter, he was ousted from Disney after his decades-long series of allegations regarding sexual misconduct were revealed to the public. RIP bozo. While it's easy to demonize the home video section of Disney Animation, you shouldn’t forget the people who worked there, trying their best to make fun films for children that had limited budgets, short schedules, and were seen as the B or C team. Also A Goofy Movie is a jam. (Eye to Eye? I cry every time!) What I think is hilarious is that the long-derided focus on straight to video sequels that brought about the end of the Disney Renaissance has essentially returned in new packaging. Pixar pumps out sequel after sequel now instead of the original ideas that made them the heir to the renaissance. The never-ending parade of really bad live action remakes are trading off the iconography of the originals like the straight to video sequels did. And Disney Plus has multiplied the footprint of money making IP to keep audiences buying merch but instead of sequels to feature films, it’s live action miniseries spin offs of major properties like Marvel and Star Wars. Meanwhile, animation has taken a massive downgrade in Disney’s priority, with then-CEO Bob Chapek saying, “Our fans and audiences put their kids to bed at night after watching Pinocchio, Dumbo, or Little Mermaid, then they’re probably not going to tune in to another animated movie, they want something for them.” Animation fans were NOT PLEASED. With animated films meant for theaters like Turning Red, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Encanto given little or no time in theaters and then punted to Disney+, it’s clear that something has fundamentally changed once again in Disney’s views on animation. The Revival Era that reinvigorated Disney once the post-Renaissance doldrums were over is at an end, whether or not it’s been officially recognized. Call it the Post-Revival era, that’s kinda boring, call it The Streaming Era, that’s a little on the nose, call it The Descent, oooh yeah that sounds spooky! In any case, Disney seems to be in the midst of making the same mistakes that ended the Renaissance. The only difference is that they’re too big to fail now. At the time of this video’s publication, Disney is celebrating their 100th anniversary, and across that century, the company has served as everything from a pioneer to a failure to a corporate giant, with each era being as unpredictable as the last, and each shifting on seemingly simple but important decisions on how the company handles its most important properties, with animation always at the center, no matter what the company says. Will Disney continue its downward spiral? Or will passionate artists and the belief in making something better turn things around once again? One thing’s for certain, all good things must come to an end.
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Channel: Matt Draper
Views: 294,385
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: disney renaissance, disney renaissance explained, disney animation, disney animation history, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast, aladdin, disney sequels, disney video sequels, disney straight to dvd sequels, disney straight to video sequels, why did disney renaissance end, michael eisner disney, michael eisner disney sunday movie, disney sequel reviews, worst disney movies, worst disney sequels, disney behind the scenes, katzenberg disney, disney history, animation
Id: oiV9bRkIReI
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Length: 32min 7sec (1927 seconds)
Published: Wed May 03 2023
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