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[BrerRabbit24]

[OT] Disney Shareholder Meeting 3/23/2011

[BrerRabbit24]

PS I will have my Encom badge and pins with me - I wish I had a Flynn Lives shirt to wear (esp since no signs or banners will be allowed) but I never was able to get one during the ARG.

Either way I will take good notes since no phones, cameras, recording devices or laptops will be allowed in the meeting.

[Gazbot]

our inside rabbit, I like it.

[dalamar23666]

This is a bit OT, but since you are going I figure I better ask. Please bring up the vote for Song of the South to be released. Hell Disney needs to just put it out there and know that people accept that we were racist.

Thank you for allowing the interruption, I now return you to your regularly scheduled activities.

[tronlives]

Thought this might be helpful:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=129198&p=irol-eventDetails&EventId=3567266

The meeting was recorded and by the sounds of things BrerRabbit got the last question. Go to 1.31 for the start of Song of the South question. Reaction to Tron question doesn't give anything away which isn't really surprising.

[IllusionOfLife]

If someone would be so kind to transcribe, or at least summarize the parts regarding Song of the South and TRON I'd really appreciate it. I'm on a Mac and I have a plug-in that's supposed to allow Windows Media Files to work, but for some reason I can't get it to play.

EDIT: Never mind, got it working, now just to wait for it to buffer.

[MrV]

I wouldn't waste much time asking about the next movie since (if it really did get green-lit) they are probably still writing out the script.

For the most part if they didn't state it up front, they aren't going to tell people about it. Especially when there are tons of people there that own just a single share.

As for song of the south... unless they could release it in a way that wouldn't offend people, it's not going to be released in it's original format. They probably wish they could burn it up and pretend it never existed.

[IllusionOfLife]

It was a little annoying how dismissive they were of the TRON 3 question, but I suppose it's to be expected because "I don't know," is probably the most honest answer they could give, save for "we'll see how well it does on Blu-Ray."

As for Song of the South, I was more than just a little annoyed by that response. I guess an outright "no" is better than just being strung along for years but if I was at that meeting I would have asked them point blank why the company feels the need to censor the work of artists of whom made the art of animation, let alone the company, what it is today. The fact that Fantasia still crops out "offensive" parts of the frame during a few segments, the fact that several of the 'package features' have been censored on all of their previous releases, and the fact that Song of the South will never have a home video release in the United States is an outright atrocity. They're not only pieces of the company's history, but valuable pieces of the history of the art form. To hide them away and hope people forget them is wrong.

[BrerRabbit24]

Yes, that was me at the end of the meeting with the last questions. And no worries about OT - actually, my top priority for the meeting actually was to ask about Song of the South. I too was a bit annoyed with the response by Bob Iger - I can now at least say I have conversed with the Pres and CEO of Disney, lol. If thought it was funny when he said he thought and was hoping I was referring to Peter Pan - I purposely swapped the movie title with IT in the quote I read to leave it hanging what movie I was talking about. One good sign - two actually - Both my question about Song of the South and the Tron question received lots of cheers and applause. So if anything, they know that shareholders are wanting both of these things. I might look into a shareholder proposal for next year to call for a Blu-ray release of Song of the South - I don't know if such a proposal has been tried. I would think it would very easily pass a shareholder vote.

As for Tron 3, I guessed that if it wasn't announced by them, they wouldn't say anything anyways - but my asking lets them know I(we) want to see it happen.

Other cool OT things about the meeting - Thor trailer was shown with footage that to me seemed new. At the end of Bob Iger's presentation, he surprised us with a screening of the first Toy Story Toon - Hawaiian Honeymoon. You will notice in the webcast that it was edited from the recording. I will say, it is very funny and will be worth the wait until Cars 2 comes out. Plus, during the Q&A, a long time share holder brought up the fact that when he first went to meetings long ago, Walt Disney gave everyone there a pass to Disneyland and called for them to do so since that is what Walt would have said - Have them go to Disneyland, and he said if not everybody, at least he and his brother and that he had a SASE - Chairman John Pepper asked for the SASE and then agreed that that is what Walt would have wished and decided that everyone in attendance would get a pass to Disneyland! Also, the ESPN montage shown had snippets of Utah College sports, including USU Aggies(woot woot!) U of U, and BYU's Jimmer.

[MrV]

[IllusionOfLife]

[BrerRabbit24]

Yeah, that was getting annoying. I know that may be the only place where they "think" they are heard. It seemed like every other question was a bell-hop and it was getting annoying. I wish it had left more time for other questions. I had also liked to ask about why more catalog Disney titles are not re-released on Blu-ray instead of just DVD, like the 45th Anniversary Mary Poppins that was put just on DVD. I had thought about including that in the beginning of my question but it was getting very short on time since it was after noon and I was just glad that they had kept it going long enough for me to get my questions in.

[MrV]

[MrV]

[BrerRabbit24]

Yeah, bellhop - most of the union issue questions were from guys that work as bell hops at Disney hotels. I understand their concern but for the rest of us there it got a bit annoying. Questions about movies may seem "off-topic" for you but they got some of the most applause since movies are a big part of Disney and what people are interested in. Union issues should be left to meetings with execs and others.

And to be honest, part of why the people bringing up union disputes were annoying was because they were the ones that took the most time and went well over the 2 minute limit. I tried to keep it short and would have liked more time but the dispute guys took WAY too much time.

Bottom line, Disney is different than other companies. We aren't discussing coffee or iPods or whatever - we are discussing movies and Parks - when it comes down to it that is the heart of Disney and where the most of the revenue comes from.