John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, who we both now know are officially complete pigs, DID kill 2D animation at Walt Disney Animation Studios!
Hand-drawn animators such as Nik Ranieri had grievances about the treatment of 2D animation during production on The Princess and the Frog and how it seemed that Lasseter and Catmull were purposefully setting it up to fail in favor of moving to CG animation only.
One story I heard that Ranieri told was that when they were in the final greenlight meeting for Moana, John Musker and Ron Clements, who had been gunning for it to be made for ages, didn't know for sure if it was going to be done in 2D or in CG and didn't still when they were going to start it. This was JUST around when Tangled was coming out. Lasseter never let either of them speak and when the shareholders or whoever were getting the rundown of Moana, Lasseter just kinda pitched it, said "It's 3D" as an afterthought and didn't even get questioned. They greenlit it and after that, they couldn't take it back. Needless to say, Lasseter made that decision FOR Musker and Clements. He just... did it. A rotten move indeed.
Despite Lasseter and Catmull claiming to love 2D animation and wanting to bring it back to Disney, following the various allegations against Lasseter and Catmull being involved in the wage-fixing schemes amongst animation studios in addition to not actually fighting harder to keep 2D going at WDAS, it's clear now that they have lied and held a low-key hatred for 2D and wanted it gone from Disney, doing their darndest to phase out 2D and using the commercial failure of Winnie the Pooh as an excuse to declare 2D dead and shut down WDAS's hand-drawn animation department for good.
With Lasseter and Catmull now gone from Disney, perhaps WDAS, under the leadership of Jennifer Lee, will actually be much more willing to take a chance on 2D animation again and give it the push that Lasseter and Catmull clearly not only failed to do but also refused to do.
