A Bolt from the red, white and blue

Europe is in the grip of recession, but you wouldn’t know it from the hordes at Disneyland Resort Paris, which is packed on a drizzly, nippy weekend in January.

The crowds are boosted by several hundred international hacks and a delegation of Yank film-makers, all here for the European premiere of Disney’s latest animated feature, Bolt. This costly comedy-adventure – internet chatter puts it as high $150 (€117) million – is a first on two fronts: it is the first Disney animated film completed and released since Disney bought out Pixar in 2006; and it’s the first Disney film to be made in 3D from scratch (as opposed to adding the 3D effects to a finished 2D film).

Disney is banking that Bolt’s timeless movie theme – a deluded hero is tossed out of his pampered comfort zone and forced to grow up in the real world – and slick visuals will work the expected Mouse House magic at the world box-office. In many respects, though, Bolt is a very American movie that gives off interesting, even uneasy vibes about the anxious state of the nation.

Bolt, a white Swiss shepherd voiced by John Travolta, has been raised to believe he is a genetically modified superdog who must save his owner, Penny (Miley Cyrus), from a megalomaniacal villain. In actuality, Bolt is the star of a violent, over-the-top smash-hit TV show; think Lassie directed by John Woo.

When the camera stops rolling at the end of each working week, Bolt is imprisoned alone in a Winnebago. Then he accidentally escapes and must fend for himself, still under the delusion that he really is a superdog.

Crossing the country to LA, Bolt is accompanied by a cat and a hero-worshipping hamster. The humans they encounter in the real world are invariably obese trailer-park crackers, and the American heartland is dotted with shuttered businesses and weed-strewn empty lots. The cat, an abandoned family pet, warns Bolt not to waste his time looking for love because there really is no place like home. In Hollywood, everyone is a bird-brain; even the clucking pigeons pitch script concepts.

So, does the film have something to say about modern America?

One of Bolt’s two first-time directors, Byron Howard, says it does nothing more than “poke fun at the Hollywood machine we’re part of – it’s a loving parody of the town in which we live”. And executive producer John Lasseter dismisses any social commentary. “It’s not conscious. It’s like if we made everybody in the movie skinny, then they’d say they’re not realistic, it’s idealistic. We’re 100 per cent focused on telling the main character’s story and getting the audience emotionally involved.”

Lasseter does acknowledge that the action is more intense. “We try to make our films in the spirit of Walt Disney. There are scary, dramatic, heartbreaking scenes in his films: Snow White, Pinocchio – these are seriously scary for little kids. It’s heartbreaking when Dumbo goes to see his mother, who’s tied up, and they can only touch with their trunks; Bambi’s mother being shot; the stepsisters ripping apart Cinderella’s gown, and the evil mother just lets it happen. Disney never pulled his punches. He believed in true drama.”

Lasseter drops uncle Walt’s name a lot. Since being named chief creative officer of Disney and Pixar after the $4.7 (€3.7) billion buyout, the 52-year-old Pixar co-founder has been determined to bring Disney back to basics. Even as Pixar continues on its merry way, Lasseter is pushing for a return to the classic, classy Disney animation of yesteryear.

From a folder he proudly pulls out examples of the studio’s new stationery; its letterhead has vintage Mickey Mouse drawings from Walt’s original.

“It’s meant to be inspirational,” he says. “This studio has the greatest heritage of any in the world. I do what I do because of the films of Walt Disney. They were my mentors and teachers. When I came back, the section was called Disney Feature Animation. Very corporate, very cold. There was this feeling that we don’t want to keep reminding about what we did in the past, that we want to look forward. I thought, that’s odd.

“Almost immediately we renamed it Walt Disney Animation Studios. This also raises the bar. It tells everyone that we can’t do anything that’s not as good as what they did.”

Of course, raising the bar has sometimes necessitated bringing it down on a few heads. Lasseter may be America’s most beloved animator, but he’s now also a mogul, with two large workforces to ride herd on.

The Mouse House bought Pixar, but creatively it appears that Pixar took over Disney. For example, thanks to Lasseter, Disney is out of the lucrative but cheesy direct-to-DVD sequels business. There was the expected anonymous grousing from Disney executives and animators who complained that Pixar’s culture was allowed to remain intact while Disney’s established operating systems were upended. Lasseter has also ruffled feathers by cancelling or revamping projects.

For example,Bolt was originally conceived as American Dog, written and directed by Lilo & Stitch’s Chris Sanders, with a vaguely similar plot. On his arrival, Lasseter viewed early cuts of the film and gave Sanders numerous suggestions on how to punch it up. When Sanders resisted, he was replaced by neophytes Howard and Chris Williams.

Not that Lasseter’s power has turned him into Captain Bligh. The novice directors, understandably, sing the boss’s praises. “John Lasseter never lets his films just be mediocre,” Williams says. “He demands that you over-deliver. It never happens that you present John with an idea and he says yeah, that’s good enough. It’s always this can be better.”

Lasseter is nonchalant about any hurt feelings. “Look, I believe strongly in a filmmaker-led studio, meaning the directors and producers are the leaders on a project. On Bolt, I worked with the directors. I inspired them. I told them it’s got to be great.”

Really, he’d rather talk about new movies. Pixar’s latest feature, Up, is due in May, Toy Story 3 in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011. “All the computer-animated films will be in 3D. We’re rereleasing Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D, and Toy Story 3 will be in 3D from the beginning.”

At Disney, The Princess and the Frog, set for December, is a hand-drawn 2D musical from the old school. “When you see it,” enthuses Lasseter, “on one level it’s really familiar, like classic Disney animation again at the highest level. Yet it’s brand new. It’s been so long since we’ve seen this quality of gorgeous hand-drawn animation, with painted backgrounds.

“You’ll wonder, why did they think that people didn’t want to watch this?”

Bolt is released on February 6th