Remember the days of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast? Remember how celebrated and genuine these films were? Every year we couldn’t wait to see what animated film Disney came up with next.

Then, Monsters Inc. happened and, needless to say, everything bit the dust. Not that Monsters Inc. was bad; it was the last great and memorable animated film for a while— a long while. Sure a couple films hit the mark like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E, but Disney went through a dry spell for about 10 years until Toy Story 3 grabbed our hearts again. Then, the very next year, Tangled happened.

My point in all of this is Disney seems like its breaking the sucking-streak and we are now in the next memorable age of Disney. This is the first cluster of Disney movies that consistently hit it out of the park since the late 90s-early 2000s. We have Tangled, Wreck it Ralph, Brave, Monsters U, and of course Frozen.

What’s the common factor of these successes? The lack of Pixar. Note that not all CG animated films are Pixar; Pixar is just a company owned by Disney that specializes in CG animation. Three of the five films I named were non-Pixar films, and strictly Disney’s own creations. For most of the ten year dry spell, Disney became too heavily dependent on Pixar due to their Toy Story and Monsters Inc. success, and started pumping out garbage like Cars and Cars 2.

Disney has now realized how much Pixar is holding them back, and have gone back to their roots of just being Disney. What’s the significant feature of this new era of great Disney films? Characters. Most of these new films seem to lean more towards two characteristics: strong females, and sarcasm. Gone are the days of Cinderella waiting to get rescued.

In Tangled, Frozen and a little in Wreck it Ralph we see women taking the initiative and becoming the heroes instead of the men. We also see dialogue and humor more common in our society today. In Tangled, we see Flynn Rider talking like a hot-shot, rebellious teenager, and in Frozen we see Anna be an awkward teenage girl.

These are the things that makes this new era of films successful and we can look forward to seeing in future Disney animated movies. For the first time since 2001, we welcome Disney back in to our homes again and again.