This week on We Want The D we're going back to a simpler time. A time when Disney animation was crisp and beautiful, with nary a hint of xerography. A time when you could make a movie about a princess who only says about sixteen lines of dialogue. A time when film run times were tight, villains were straight-forwardly evil, and you could arrange a marriage between two children while one was prepubescent and the other was fresh from the womb. If you haven't figured it out by now Vicky, Nolan and Jill watched SLEEPING BEAUTY, and like all of Disney's classic its cause for celebration of what the studio was able to achieve with animation, but with more than enough fuel for oddball digressions on the etiquette of baby shower invites, the merit of spells as gifts and whether pink or blue is a better aesthetic choice for Aurora in the scope of the Disney Princess line-up. Keep those eyelids from drooping, there's no time for sleep when there's a new We Want The D!

It's the conclusion to We Want The D's Summer of Pirates and much like the franchise, our hosts are all worn out. For a series that start on a such high note of optimism and celebration, things sure have come a long way. Last week, Vicky, Nolan and Jill raged against the fourth installment of Disney's mega-franchise - this week it's a sad acceptance where all they could do is laugh at the ridiculous of Jack Sparrow's latest non-adventure. Considering this fifth movie both relies on and completely ignores the story set up in the original trilogy, it proves understandably frustrating for anyone who expects even the smallest amount of continuity in a mythology. Instead we get a completely broken timeline, character motives based on nothing, and a general wet noodle of a movie. 

The Summer of Pirates continues on We Want The D with the fourth installment of the franchise, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES. The people may have been hungry for more Jack Sparrow after the conclusion of the initial trilogy, but Vicky, Nolan and Jill can't imagine anyone who felt satisfied by this high budget television episode of a movie. Disney managed to pull off a film that sorta looks like a Pirates movie and sorta sounds like a Pirates movie, but by no means comes even close to what came before. How could it, when the central character is sidelined for Penelope Cruz, time is endlessly wasting on a pointless mermaid/missionary love story, and the Spanish are just hanging out, popping in and out whenever they are needed. There are few franchises that can sustain themselves indefinitely, but for a series of films that started out so strongly, this one has worn itself out rather quickly. 

Vicky, Nolan and Jill have made their annual pilgrimage to Bob's Lake, which means its time to check in on the Szalinksi family one last time in We Want The D's first foray into direct-to-video Disney. HONEY, WE SHRUNK OURSELVES lacks the budget and much of the cast of the first two films; but what it lacks in those areas is more than makes up for in product placement and some unfortunate implications as to what happened to the older Szalinksi children and the original Diane. We're just saying, its weird that Adam's older siblings are barely mentioned. And who is this "Gordon Szalinki" who seems to have appeared out of nowhere? If we didn't know any better, we'd say that maybe Wayne Szalinski cracked a bit in the intervening eight years between films, but that can't be true...can it?

We Want The D presents another history lesson on the turbulent tenure of Disney CEO Michael Eisner in this special mini-episode. This time, we learn about how Roy Disney leveraged his family name and legacy to oust the man he believed was destroying it.