It’s easy at times to perceive Disney animated films as being mostly adaptations of fairy tales, or else happening at either a particular period in history (1995’s Pocahontas) or some other fantastical setting (Treasure Planet, 2002).
But just as enchanting are their animated features set in the present day – relative to the time the movies each first premiered, of course. We’ll start off the week by doing a list of all installments of the Disney Animated Canon that can be construed to be taking place in modern times (at least when they came out in cinemas); no Pixar entries, however. Also, only feature-length films with a single narrative are listed.
- Dumbo (1941)
- Bambi (1942) (though you’d barely notice, seeing as the film’s set in the woods)
- 101 Dalmatians (1961) (the British novel it’s based on was published only in 1956)
- The Rescuers (1977)
- Oliver & Company (1988) (Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist with animal characters and set in the modern day)
- The Rescuers Down Under (1990) (contemporary setting update from the first film in 1977)
- Lilo & Stitch (2002)
- Chicken Little (2005) (anthropomorphic animals in a modern setting)
- Meet the Robinsons (2007) (part is set in the present, the other in the future year of 2037)
- Bolt (2008)
- Wreck-It-Ralph (2012)
- Zootopia (2016) (anthropomorphic animals in a modern setting)
- Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It-Ralph 2 (coming this 2018)
