Doug's explanation for the Disney sequels is wrong. He says that hand-drawn animation was dying, and Disney was losing money, so they were forced to make direct-to-DVD sequels.
But actually, Disney's movies entered a dark age shortly after the death of Walt Disney. By the late 80's, Disney had hired Michael Eisner to revive the company, and he made some big changes focused on generating as much money as possible. Eisner was responsible for Disney's push to TV animation, resulting in megahit shows like Duck Tales, and Disney pretty much owning the eyeballs of kids after school (which lasted until Eisner got in a fight with the Fox network, giving birth to Fox Kids). The second golden age of Disney films started in 1989 with The Little Mermaid.
Disney expanded during this success, and formed Disneytoon Studios, who (along with other smaller studios) made Ducktales The Movie. They also made a pilot movie for an Aladdin TV series called "Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar". After it was complete, Disney asked themselves "Should we release this in theaters or what?" but they concluded that the budget was too low to pass for a legit theater release, so they should just release it on VHS.
Aladdin 2 sold like crazy and earned Disney a whole bunch of money, so Eisner decided on a new, third way of making Disney animation. Disneytoon Studios would be exclusively tasked to take existing Disney IP and milk it for all it's worth, making low-budget direct-to-video sequels that weren't allowed to take creative risks (because that might damage the IP). Disneytoon Studios gets a lot of flak for the quality of the Disney sequels, but they were operating under absurd restrictions, like the writers and animators being told they aren't even allowed to watch the original movie before making it's sequel (seriously).
Disneytoon Studios operated in this way, getting no respect from anyone while injecting billions of dollars into Disney's bottom line, until Eisner jeopardized Disney's lucrative relationship with Pixar, and an uprising left Eisner's head on a pike and Pixar in control of Disney. John Lasseter shut down the sequel machine (as he found it distasteful) and fired it's Eisner-appointed head, while Disney Consumer Products (the machine behind "Disney Princess" marketing) suggested that Disneytoon should be given the "Tinkerbell" franchise, because Tink was marketed like a female Mickey Mouse, but in the last 50 years,
Steven Spielberg (founder of rival Dreamworks, co-founded by another guy Eisner pissed off) had done more with the character than Disney did. So with the help of Lasseter, Disneytoon made some great Tinkerbell movies.
Walt Disney Animation Studios (the core of Disney, the feature animation division) eventually started to decline, and was re-energized with the move to CG animation, but that was largely unrelated to Disneytoon and the direct-to-video sequels, which had survived the death of the Disney Afternoon, the decline of WDAS, the death of VHS, the death of Eisner, the death of 2D animation, and even the death of Disney sequels.
Faced with dwindling direct-to-video sales due to the public's disinterest in Blu Ray, Disneytoon was eventually ordered to get off the "Tinkerbell" train and jump to the lucrative "Frozen" train, and they've technically been disbanded and integrated into WDAS, to help speed the arrival of Frozen 2. (Is that irony, or just the proper application of talent?)
As for the review, I hated Peter Pan 2. I thought it was just terrible. And I like Disneytoon Studios enough to write long rambling posts about their history, and am the proud owner of six Tinkerbell blurays.
:blush: It was funny but also sad in places too, and had meaning for people who remember the older incarnations (I was born in '82 and watched Sesame Street, which still counts