[SallyintNorth]

Woodland Turnery (the folks with the big stand next to Spinners' Corner at the Festival) have managed to track down the remains of some of those wheels bought up by Disney for Tim Burton's Sleeping Beauty movie.  (We now discover it's called Maleficent.)

Joan has confirmed that they have met up with a bloke who bought up 60+ wheels for Disney.  Disney took the 44 best and most antique and burnt them.      The ones Disney rejected are now in such bad shape (stuffed into bin bags, most of 'em, pieces all jumbled up...) that all but one are irrecoverable.     Woodland have bought the one salvageable one and are restoring it.

The handspinning community is hurting badly about the loss of these craftsman-made beautiful old wheels.  But we don't know what to do - we can boycott the movie, of course, but Disney won't care a jot.  We could stage a demo outside the premiere - but that'd just increase the publicity (maybe) which, if it happened, would be to Disney's benefit.

And nothing we do can bring those beautiful old wheels back to life, in any case. 

I have written a post on Facebook and asked everyone to share it to at least spread the word.  Other than that I guess I just wanted to  amongst people who'd understand. 

[Bionic]

Oh, that is sooo sad.  If they were going to burn them why on earth couldn't their props people make them. 
Unfortunately I don't think there is anything we can do and we certainly can't bring the burnt ones back to life. 
Sally

[Rosemary]

Bloody heathens

[Fleecewife]

Bloody heathens

My thought exactly 

[Ina]

They must be making too much money with these films, to be so uncaring about what they do...

Idiots.

[SallyintNorth]

It's a 'price cost and value' thing, innit.  They cost Disney very little, far cheaper than doing an animation or probably than getting replicas made up.  But the value of the old wheels to people who spin and historians... and just lost forever.

[colliewoman]

I can now stand fully justified in my belief that the only good thing that could happen to disney would be a flamethrower
 
 

[SallyintNorth]

I'm also upset because Imelda Staunton and Miranda Richardson are both in the movie.  I expect they wouldn't even have known about the oh-too-authentic bonfire, but even so...

[Dans]

:-( Just so wasteful, and such a reminder that many people have no respect for history and tradition.

 

Dans

[FiB]

There is a facebook page http://www.facebook.com/DisneyMaleficent  - we could all start asking the question on that?  I have.  Bar#####s.

[SallyintNorth]

Ah, well done FiB - you clearly know your way around Facebook better than I do.

Let's see how/if they respond, then.

[FiB]

Ah, well done FiB - you clearly know your way around Facebook better than I do.

Let's see how/if they respond, then.

wow they responded REALLY quickly!!!  By removing my post (I only asked them why they had to do this... , and pasted a link to this post)!  I might re post
 

[bloomer]

bad news is disney won't take critisism in a public forum like facebook, they will just keep deleting you...

[Bionic]

FiB, I looked for the post and couldn't see it. Now I know why.

[jaykay]

Yes, there was a lot of discussion about this on Ravelry over the spring and summer, while he was buying wheels. I was in the market for a saxony with a large drive wheel at the time.  Fuggeddit, everything got bid up, since that was clearly what he was after in terms of 'look'. Timbertops, Norwegians.......
People on Ravelry then knew that the ultimate destination was a bonfire!

As other people have said - money. Costs way less to buy old wheels than to have someone manufacture lookalike props or animate something.

Criminal.