No time - all the time

Disney was never going to release anything close to the Nimona we got. It would have been sanded down until anything obviously queer or controversial was as faint and unnoticeable as possible by the casual viewer. And then they would still be too scared of any potential backlash. So they would have given the film a limited release at theatres, with no advertising, or social media or support.

Like what happened with Strange World.

You remember Strange World, right?

No?

That's because no one does.

And I believe that was deliberate, because that way Disney can go "Weeellll... obviously we would LOVEto take more risks and have more inclusive stories but that's clearly not what the public wants!"

Look at the original concepts for Wish. The evil royal couple? The peter-panesque star boy that would have made the gen zers go feral the same way millenials went feral for Jack Frost? These could have been the best things about the movie, and even they were scrapped, and replaced with something more homogenised. And those ideas are nowhere near the level of the concepts and discussions Nimona brought to the table.

Disney can barely have explicit gay people. Nimona has a gay south Asian man in a relationship with an east Asian man. As a protagonist! But more than that, you think Disney could ever come up with a relationship as complicated and difficult as Boldheart and Goldenloin's? They would never have the guts to show one love interest cutting off the other's arm in a straight relationship. Let alone a gay one! And then for them to be on opposite sides of the conflict, shifting between feelings of betrayal, and questioning each other motives? That's some adult dark shit for a kids film.

Asha as a character was forced into the quirky girl role that Disney has already flogged to death with Anna and Rapunzel. You ever think they would allow a Disney princess to be as dark and violent and nuanced as Nimona? You ever picture the titial character of a Disney film AS the third act conflict, rampaging through a city in a self destructive rage? Nimona is anti authoritarian, vengeful, bloodthirsty, a pretty explicit trans allegory, and even, by the climax, openly suicidal. You KNOW that terrified Disney.

I had a thing about the Director here too but I was shocked by how long that got so I'll have to save her for a different post.

My point is the things that make Nimona art, that make Nimona a great story, that make the film important and Oscar worthy, are all things that Disney has become too chicken shit to produce. If Disney had released a film called Nimona it wouldn't have been Nimona. I fully believe that if the film hadn't had been 90% finished it wouldn't have been shelved. It would have been lobotomised and vivisected. Everything special and vital about the movie and its message would have been removed, and no one would have known what could have been. Once again we would have gotten scraps and been thankful for them.

It makes me think about films like Wish (and others we don't know the name of, and never will) and think of what they could have been if studio's like Disney were braver and let their artists make art, instead of content.