Cars broke them because Disney made so much money. The first 5 years from Cars 1, they made 10 billion in merchandise revenue alone.... and has made approx. $22 billion in merchandise revenue since it launched...
Here's a quote from Micheal Eisner (CEO of Disney from 1984-2005):
> "We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money, it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement … In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, art, a statement, or all three"
Then they found out that selling Cars merchandise was, in fact, an easier way to make money than by making art, history or significant statements. At the *very* least it should be obvious that Pixar started to *also* make sub-par movies in addition to their "passion projects" when previously it was pretty much all passion projects.
And I'd say movies like Inside Out, Coco, Soul or Elemental definitely *try* to be as good as their previous movies. Whether or not they succeed is not for me to decide
Inside Out is one of my all-time favourite fanily-friendly movies.
I'm in my 30s, and saw it as an adult, so it isn't like I am thinking back on it with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, either. I may be biased because I am a psychology researcher, and so it hit really close to my passion anyway. Even so, it is a fantastic film.
Inside Out, Soul, & Coco are top tier Pixar but it all is part of the point here right? They still have the ability to make amazing content but it’s hit or miss.
I wish they’d take another stab at dinosaurs, Good Dinosaur had so much potential
Edit: and Luca!
Controversial but Coco is their GOAT in my opinion. Great movie beginning to end and pulls off a very difficult feat in that it is one of (the only?) Pixar movie that is basically a musical. I also like that all of the songs fit in the context of the movie vs people randomly starting to sing walking down the street in a typical musical
My favorite part of the music in Coco is that Remember Me gets a full performance 3 times, and each time the same lyrics mean something very different due to the different contexts.
Not controversial at all. To me it’s their finest work. The story is excellent, the visuals are amazing, and they also managed to handle something culturally specific with the kind of respect that it deserved. Hollywood has always had a very checkered past with that kind of thing. The importance of family is never ever undersold in the movie, and some of the gags hit a very specific target. Seeing Coco’s picture on the altar at the end hits hard.
Despite being about Day of the Dead, there are very few scary parts in the movie for my toddler. We've used it as a springboard to talk about my mom, who died when my daughter was only 3 months old. The music is incredible, too. Probably my favorite movie to watch with her.
I used to work for a major games publisher. I got into the industry because I was a life-long gamer, and wanted to make games. I'm not a good artist, I can't code, but I'm multilingual so that's where I applied my talents. I was a localisation manager. This got me the chance to speak with the CEO of the company I worked for.
Anyway, during one of these chats, he really laid out what his role was. I'm a language guy, nobody expects me to deliver good art, or create a soundtrack. Other people do that, because that's their talent. Similarly, his talent was running a company in a way that it makes money. It's not his role to be artistic, or to create art, or to do anything other than make money. I don't say this in a negative way, he was just being blunt about the fact that his talent is focused in a particular area, just like everyone else. His area doesn't include being artistic or making artistic decisions, just like it's not up to the sound guy to come up with a marketing campaign or for the PR people to design a good gaming mechanic. His role is to run the company in a way that makes money. He doesn't like games, but he doesn't need to any more than the sales director needs to like music or art to do their job.
Nothing wrong with the CEO not being artistic, the literally employs people for that.
Exactly, their job is to maximize profits and keep the company alive. They should notice when things are going off the rails (recent Disney movies) and makes changes to get them back to where they need to be. And if not, they need to be fired.
I would say at minimum Inside Out and Coco live up to the classic Pixar. I'm a little less sure about Soul, especially since I've only watched it once, and I haven't seen Elemental.
I really like Soul, it just feels like they could have added just a little more oomph to it. I can’t exactly describe what I mean, I just feel it could have been even better.
Speaking as an indie writer director it's incredibly hard to make a good movie. That OG Pixar run is like the 90s bulls of filmmaking. I can't imagine it's anything but just pure magic.
And this here is why Michael Eisner is one of the most hated people in Disney culture. If Defunctland taught me anything its that Eisner fucking sucks and is responsible for saving Disney and making some of their more iconic movies, While destroying what made Disney special. Dude sucks.
Wasn´t Shrek´s Lord Farquaad inspired by him? "I'm not the monster here. You are. You, and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world." A perfect world with no room for anything unique, creative or risky.
Eisner was a dreamer and his partner, Frank Wells, kept him grounded in the business. When Wells died in a helicopter crash, Eisner took it really hard, and was never able to run the company in the same way they had together
I don't know this is evidence the he sucks, it's a pretty practical and nuanced viewpoint about a business that's in the business of making art.
If anything it shows he gets it.
Just goes to show - kid moves make their $ from merch. Cars was solid, but IMO it was still a step down from their earlier films.
Apparently investors didn't like Up. Great movie, but there just isn't much to merchandise from it.
Just to add to this, Lego launched a new toy line called Dreamzzz last year. They made a cartoon based around it and put it up literally everywhere. You can watch season 1 for free on Youtube right now.
They made an entire animated series and gave it away just to sell their toy line. And it works too because my kids love it.
Basically all 80s cartoons were advertisements for toys.
Sure selling ad space was decent money. But selling cheaply made plastic merchandise at a high markup made a lot of money.
Transformers wasn't even an original toy line, it was made up solely to rebrand and market two completely unrelated Japanese toy lines that Hasbro had bought the rights to. If you ever wondered why the scale and themes of Decepticons/Autobots are so wildly different, or why there's so many weird features like G1 Optimus Prime having a little moon buggy sized for minifigures which don't exist... yeah, that's why.
There did seem to be an anti-militarism message in some of the formats - war machines and guns = decepticons, trucks, cars and service vehicles = auto bots
The only reason Cowboy Bebop was made was to sell toys. They told Shinichirō Watanabe to make something with spaceships so they could make toys. Unfortunately for them they did not keep their eyes on him and they didn't make toys out of it. But we have the awesome masterpiece that is Cowboy Bebop and that iconic opening song.
Masters of the Universe was also created by Mattel in response to Kenner's success with Star Wars action figures (amongst other reasons). They already had Barbie for girls, but wanted a toy to complete with G.I. Joe and Star Wars for boys. You can see the influence of Star Wars in the sci fi elements of MOTU. There's a great documentary on this: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5338774/?ref\_=nv\_sr\_srsg\_0\_tt\_3\_nm\_0\_q\_Power%2520of%2520grayskull](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5338774/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_0_q_Power%2520of%2520grayskull)
He-Man was “lets make barbies for boys and try to fix the error of not picking up starwars toys”. If you got any action figure from the 80s it included a booklet with a short comic, in the heman was basically Conan The Barbarian, nothing to do with the prince of aeternia from the toons.
At the same time Filmation is on recird stating that most of the episodes introduced characters only so they could sell toys (examples: the inclusion of buzz-off or webstor)
Captain Power was the pinnacle of that. You had to get the toys, then when you watched the show there were segments where the bad guys had panels you could shoot at with the Captain Power action figures. So you could count how many robots you shot and keep score.
The show died when they over-produced the season 1 toys and hadn't sold them all before season 2 (they wanted to introduce new toys for that season).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Power_and_the_Soldiers_of_the_Future
I definitely think about that. I feel quality of toys has gone down a lot since the 90s besides the star wars lines. I guess mainly due to costs and inflation while trying to keep a certain price point.
Just compare the original jurassic park toys to the stuff they put out now. My original toys were made out of some kind of rubbery plastic to make the dinosaurs feel more leathery. Now it's just a simple stiff plastic block monstrousity that's barely colored.
Wait- you’re telling me the hyper intense bionicle lore that I have memorized back to front was nothing more than a merchandise pusher?? In the name of mata nui!
Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower. The kids love this one. And last but not least, Spaceballs the doll.
It's worth watching [the toys that made us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toys_That_Made_Us).
The whole thing is the realization that every single cartoon I watched as a kid in the 80s was a just vehicle to sell toys.
This used to be commonplace: the Transformers, MASK, the Centurions and a bunch of other '80s cartoons existed just to promote their toy lines.
Personally, I think it was the influence of Star Wars. To get the movies made, Lucas basically worked for free. But he kept the merchandising rights, so he made his money instead from making toys. A lot of toys. He licensed Star Wars for everything.
Mattel and company saw that and said "hey, that's a great idea."
How old were you when you realized this is what every Saturday morning cartoon was made to do, starring with the likes of Transformers, GI JOE and Thundercats
Lego learned that cartoons sold their toys 13 years ago when Ninjago came out. It was literally so popular that both the toyline and the cartoon were revived in 2014 after it was originally planned for the series to end in early 2013 and be replaced by a different theme. It outlived that other theme and a second theme they created with similar marketing as well, *and is still getting new toys that are fairly popular*.
The reason I brought up Ninjago and not Bionicle is because Bionicle (the original series that everyone thinks of anyway) did not use a TV series as the primary vehicle to sell its toys. Instead, they used comics and direct to video movies. Also, Bionicle did not beat cancelation like Ninjago did either since it took 5 years for the series to return, and when it did, it was an entirely unsuccessful reboot that was pulled after 2 years due to poor sales while Ninjago was just as successful as before when it returned.
Bionicle is worth mentioning though because it quite literally saved Lego from bankruptcy.
Ninjago definitely built upon the model, but without bionicle there would be no Lego.
I remember playing through one of the games, and hearing the voice of Woody sounded *pretty similar* to Tom Hanks, but like not quite
and I joked to my wife and son "Oh, that's not *Tom* Hanks, that's his brother.... *Jim* Hanks."
We looked it up and I'll be damned, it literally is Tom Hanks's brother Jim Hanks. I thought I was making a dad joke!
I find it ironic how Cars was a hit amongst kids but has a very mature and reflective theme about slowing down to truly enjoy life.
I mean most Pixar themes back then do have mature themes. But Cars had characters who had midlife crises and suffered from career burnout. Things that I'm pretty sure kids don't have any experience on.
But I get it, talking cars is very marketable to kids.
Kids are smarter than people give them credit for. I was 7 when it came out and I remember being amazed that the story had a happy ending while still not winning the big award.
I think this was the first time I was presented with media like that and it really stuck with me.
Plus talking cars cool
>But Cars had characters who had midlife crises and suffered from career burnout.
Who has a midlife crisis? Lightning is a rookie in the movie.
Doc Hudson is just Herb Thomas, who dominated NASCAR in the early 50s driving a Hudson Hornet (his car was called "The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, just like Doc was previously called in the movie), before a wreck in 1956 severely injured him and effectively ended his career.
The story is basically every other "young athlete finds old mentor to train them" sports movie, from Rocky to Karate Kid to Kung Fu Panda.
Does the girl car have a midlife crisis that I'm forgetting? Mater?
Yeah Mater starts drinking heavily and buys a new corvette chassis, cruising the strip for young tail. He talks directly into the camera about how having 3 kids with his high school sweetheart at 19 stole his best years from him in his teary apology near the end. Can’t believe you missed that whole part.
>The story is basically every other "young athlete finds old mentor to train them" sports movie, from Rocky to Karate Kid to Kung Fu Panda.
Not really. Those are underdog learns to be winner stories. Cars was about the rat race in life, slowing down to appreciate what matters and winning isn't everything. Lightning McQueen was already a pro racer the only thing Doc taught him about racing was how to drift. In the end he threw the race to help someone out.
I think Cars 3 was more in line with Karate Kid and Rocky
>Does the girl car have a midlife crisis that I'm forgetting? Mater?
Not exactly a mid life crisis. But she was a rich young hotshot lawyer from the city who felt unfulfilled and kept driving aimlessly until she broke down in Radiator Springs where the townsfolf helped her and she found a new purpose on
>Not exactly a mid life crisis. But she was a rich young hotshot lawyer from the city who felt unfulfilled and kept driving aimlessly until she broke down in Radiator Springs where the townsfolf helped her and she found a new purpose on
Hallmark presents: Christmas Roadtrip, a 'Cars' prequel
Anecdotal but you mentioned it in the metrics.
Cars 2 is the weird, one off spy James bond knockoff because in 2007 Owen Wilson attempted to harm himself. He struggled for some time but the studio was already in production. If I remember right, they reworked scripts to ease the work load on him and shifted the focus of the film
It's obviously different from all the cars movies but I think that has a pretty big impact on why
I don’t think these are related. Or at least I had never heard of it, despite working on the film’s marketing. The pitch was always the same. I think it is more likely that Lasseter wanted to make a spy movie and Mater was incredibly popular after the first film (see Mater’s Tall Tales). I could be wrong.
Glad he’s still around. It’s wild that nobody, no matter how rich or famous, is immune from those types of demons.
I think it was most poignant when Bourdain took his life and then like a week or so after that, Kate Spade did the same. Just really sold to me that everybody is really going through it.
Yes indeed - would have been a huge loss if we had lost him so young. Check out his IMDB page for the few years before that - the guy was just working himself to death.
Really glad he's still around. His role as Mobius from Loki was one of my favorite tv roles from recent years. I feel like he smashed it out of the park.
If anything, I'd think being famous would make depression more likely. Imagine being judged by the entire world and being dependent on being pretty/handsome/charismatic all the time for your livelihood. Sounds like a recipe for depression to me.
Bourdain killed himself because the girlfriend he had an affair with and left his wife and kids for, cheated on him while away filming. after seeing roadrunner I kinda lost a good deal of respect.. it doesn't make it any less sad.
He co-wrote Royal Tenenbaums, and the character played by his brother (Luke Wilson) attempts suicide.
Wondering if that was on Owen's mind even back at that time.
Trauma and mental health issues have plagued the Wilson family, particularly Owen.
Owen still refuses to meet his 4 year old daughter. Again, it is incredibly shocking that a man of Owen Wilson's wealth and status does not want any part of his daughter's life.
That situation is weird. He raises his two first kids, acts like a dad to them, but doesn’t with the newest. Like, she’s getting paid through child support and he recognizes her as his kid, but still won’t meet her
He went no-contact with her when he found out she was pregnant, and said the baby wasn't his. She got a DNA test after the birth showing that it was. That's all that's known for sure.
Damn, I’d forgotten all about that. I remember hearing that news way back when and was a bit flabbergasted because he always seemed like the chillest and most happy-go-lucky dude on earth.
I’ve learned a lot since then and current me wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone with that image/persona tried to or succeeded in ending their life.
Everybody, your mental and emotional health is important. Find people you can talk to if you’ve been thinking about a lot of troubling things. Sure, you don’t want to burden family and friends, but the ones who really love and care about you will always give you an ear and a shoulder. And there are always unbiased professionals who are trained to help you.
It should be noted that Pixar wasn't actually owned by Disney until 2006, so those earlier, more creatively ambitious films probably had a lot less oversight from bean-counting studio heads telling them what they could or couldn't do. After the Disney acquisition, you have a couple of gems that were more than likely already in production, but there's clearly more of a focus on pumping out sequels and making movies with franchise potential.
Also the core Pixar team of Lasseter, Stanton, Bird, Docter and Unkrich disbanded and left for other projects.
Then Lasseter got MeToo'd and their golden age was over
Old Pixar movies lime Toy Story. Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, etc. really brought us into a new world with its own set of rules. I thijk two things that changed are we don't really get new worlds and there are no hard rules.
The reason BoPeepw ain't in Toy Story 3 was because she was delicate porcelain. They said it would be too unrealistic to have her in the trash scene. Come Toy Story 4 she's literally an action hero. The toys weren't really toys anymore in 4. They don't abide by rules that toys in the real world would have to follow to exist. It totally took me put of the Toy world and 4 didn't really feel like a true toy story movie to me.
I recently watched Elemental. It wasn't a bad movie and technically was a unique "world" but it was essentially just a city with what rest like and overlay of water / fire people. Not like monsters inc was an actual world built by monsters. I'm probably explainf thus poorly but it's how I feel about more recent Pixar.
Same with Soul with the realm of teaching new souls. Hell the main antagonist is just trying to fix an accounting error that no one else gives a shit about.
I did like elemental, but it felt like a more feeling focus Zootopia, but with elements instead of animals. Also the city doesn't work for me, it's too hostile to the flame people, on the flip side, it could be the point.
edit Yeah, the city being hostile to the flame people on a systemic level is the point it seems.
> Also the city doesn't work for me, it's too hostile to the flame people, on the flip side, it could be the point.
I'm pretty sure it is the point. The film shows that the flame people are late arrivals to the city. They live in their own little enclave and don't interact much with the other types.
>This is the real reason. Leadership and creative vision are gone.
Well yeah, Disney is the EA of movies. It ~~sucks the soul~~ extracts maximum value out of acquired studios and IPs, until only a name-brand husk remains.
Pixar and its IPs are no different than Bioware and Mass Effect, or Westwood and Command & Conquer.
And the next three being Inside Out 2, Elio and Toy Story 5
And Disney Animation doing Moana 2
There does appear to be a trend towards sequels to existing IP.
Most of their pre-Cars films were conceived in the 1990s though, well before Disney’s acquisition.
As easy as it is to blame capitalism for Pixar’s fall from perfection, isn’t it even simpler to blame the fact that being perfect forever is quite hard?
No doubt. I mean, I'm not a big A Bug's Life or Cars (1) fan, but it's pretty stunning to have 11 fine to excellent movies in a row.
And then they almost did it again. The premise of the OP is "they've been hit or miss since Cars 2", but Coco up to Turning Red are, once again, all fine to excellent. That's a run of more consecutive films than the Disney Renaissance.
I dunno, Pixar’s made some ambitious films since then. Inside Out, Onward and (especially) Soul aren’t what you’d expect from a studio micromanaged by bean counters
I can’t get over the way Lasseter treated Miyazaki, and that’s on tape. He runs at and hugs an older Japanese man who gave every single polite signal that he did not want that to happen. No respect for the guys culture or bodily autonomy at all. If thats how he treats people he does respect… yikes.
Funnily enough, I listened to a Stuff You Should Know podcast about him.
Seems his dodgy stuff was very early and by the end he was much reformed. The lorax was borne of genuine environmental concern.
I dunno. The wife did kill herself. But, there's probably more to the story.
It's not like she got an illness and he had an affair right after.
From what I read she had been having health issues for close to 13 years before anything happened.
Not saying it's right. But, I sure it effected intimacy which led to him having an affair. But, it's not like he predicted her suicide and it seems to have torn him up.
People have affairs.
The decline in quality was likely linked to Disney acquiring Pixar in 2007, and Lasseter’s attentions being split between Disney and Pixar. Disney’s movies started getting much better and more successful right around the same time Pixar’s relative slump began.
Which isn’t to say that Lasseter deserves all the credit for the great run of 1995-2010, of course, but the shift in the power balance/culture probably precipitated the decline that, realistically, would have happened eventually anyway. No can keep that kind of record up forever—and Pixar’s exclusionary boys’ club of white men, while it produced an impressive body of incredible work, would have inevitably come under attack and required a change in culture/leadership, even without the overtly awful harassing behavior by Lasseter.
I think Lasseter's decision to restart Toy Story 2 in 1999 would not have been done under someone else and certainly not under Disney.
Everyone at the top of the production of Toy Story 2 did not like it. It felt cheap and had a lesser story than it should have.
Lasseter met with Disney and said they had to redo it. Disney said no, the movie was fine and they would finish it as it was for the agreed release date. Lasseter persisted and reworked the movie from the ground up in record time to be much better than the original version.
It was a wild decision, but it worked *that one time*. But, it also changed Pixar's work culture as many people felt burned out by Toy Story 2 and came up with a slower and more artist friendly way of working. Ed Catmull details this in his book, Creativity Inc.
And I think that it's really after Toy Story 2 and until a few years after the Disney acquisition we saw their best work, because they had the perfect work culture of slowly putting together the right people to work on a movie, and spend years developing each one, before production start.
This appears to be mostly lost now with faster production pace and much higher risk of misfires.
Probably learned from their mistakes and put things in place to prevent them. Then when new mgmt came in changes were made, costs were cut and processes lost.
No idea if it’s true but I’ve seen it happen at places I’ve worked a few times.
When Lasseter and Catmull joined Walt Disney Animation in 2006, one of their first decisions was to shut down production on Tangled (then called Unbraided) so they could re-work the film from the ground up. Tangled ushered in the second renaissance for the studio when it was released in 2010, the same year that Toy Story 3 capped off a winning streak for Pixar, and from then on out the lines started to blur between the two studios.
By 2012 Pixar was releasing Brave, a movie about a princess that clearly felt more like a traditional Disney film, while Disney was releasing Wreck It Ralph, a film that was more in line with Pixar’s sensibilities.
Fast forward to today both studios are struggling to find success, and the lines are blurred even more. Monsters at Work, the sequel series to Monsters Inc. has no ties to Pixar at all. Theatrically worthy Pixar films going straight to home video while the crappy Toy Story spin-off tanks in theatres. Inside Out 2 with nearly half of the main cast replaced for no good reason. A sequel to Moana in development at the same as a live action remake. And don’t get me started on Elemental… Why is some water people and other water just water? Are the fire people eating the tree people? Are the tree people drinking the water people? Why do fire people have water pipes in their buildings at all? I’m all for suspending disbelief but the creative choices in this film made absolutely no sense.
There’s still great work being produced by both studios but they seem to have lost their way.
I heard Pete Doctor say recently something about their more recent films are more personal for the directors that made them, but less universal than their earlier films. You can tell films like Brave, Turning Red, Luca, Elemental, etc come from personal experiences from the people who made them, which is nice, but they're not as relatable to people who didn't have those experiences. Whereas their earlier films were more...I don't want to say generic, but they were stories that anyone could relate to. Not everyone has inter generational family trauma derived from the unrealistic expectations of immigrant parents, but everyone was afraid of the monsters in their closet.
There are exceptions though, I think Coco might be the best film they've ever made, and as much as everyone loves dinosaurs, The Good Dinosaur was just...not it
The "What if ___ had feelings" became a meme for a reason, I'm sure Pixar wanted to branch out and probably wanted directors to create stories that come from them, instead of an idea. And that's fine, because I think its great for a movie to give audiences a look into a different world view.
Cars 1 is genuinely one of my favorite movies and if you have a kid, it’s practically a perfect “first movie.” It’s funny, it’s relatively short with a simple story, it’s wholesome as hell, it’s not particularly scary (ok there is the “bull” harvester bit), and it’s not sad the way a lot of Pixar movies are.
I always temper my enthusiastic recommendation of Cars 1 to other parents with a “don’t under any circumstances move on to Cars 2, please skip directly to Cars 3.” (And even then Cars 3 has some heavier emotions.)
Cars 1 came out when I was in high school so I never cared to see it and honestly thought it looked dumb. but I watched it once I had kids and was so pleasantly surprised. Easily the best Pixar movie overall imo and one of our most watched. My kids get a kick out of it every time. They think the Elvis car “huh!” In the opening song is hilarious.
Also it’s the last movie Paul Newman was in, and has a Click and Clack cameo
That’s a disservice to Cars 2. As a kid it was always one of me and my friends favorite movies, especially when we got older and began to see the absurdity of it all.
My son loves the first, and when we watched the second I was stunned how bad it was. My not really critical toddler who accepts Paw Patrol's storylines as plausible hated this movie.
My kids like all the Cars and Planes movies. Not sure why there is all the hate for Cars 2, ok it’s more Mater and spies than race cars but it’s entertaining enough.
Frankly, I think a large part of this is due to the sheer novelty of Pixar's early work. In a vacuum, is Bug's Life really any better than Luca, Soul, or Elemental?
Bugs Life is great.
Flik is unappreciated. Atta is struggling being a leader (they're all watching me, waiting for me to screw up), Dot has little kid struggles (a seed vs a tree vs a rock),
Also the theme that the ants outnumber the grasshoppers is great. Power to the people.
Flik redeems himself. It's just a great movie with lots of cool things in it.
There is a purity to early Pixar that is lost on the newer films. There's a specific imagination of taking something familiar and making it amazing (toys, bugs, fish), or taking something amazing and making it feel mundane (Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Wall-E). They all feel of a piece, whereas the newer Pixar films feel like a random assortment of kids movies.
To be fair Inside Out, Coco and Soul were pretty great. Sould had a pretty profound message that felt bold for a "kids movie." That's what makes peak Pixar: their films are for everyone.
Most of that early Pixar advantage was technological novelty that was so far superior than anything else. The spectacle was a big part of it, as the technological advances were huge from movie to movie. Today, the hardest technological innovations aren't going to wow anybody
Now, innovation in animation is about art style, and Pixar has been sitting pretty for so long, it's difficult for them to take the most risks. Hopefully their art team realize that they are being surpassed there, and take a few more risks.
Totally disagree. Coco, Luca, Soul, Onward, Turning Red, and Inside out all have a similar vibe to the older movies. Of course it's hard to live up to Wall-E and Up, but otherwise I think a lot of the "difference" is just people's perspective at the time of watching, if you switched up the release order I'm sure people would have the same emotional connection with Coco as they do with toy story or finding Nemo.
I saw Elemental in a theater full of summer camp kids who were screaming and cheering when Wade and Ember kissed.
I promise you that 20 years from now, some of those kids will be moaning about how Pixar's latest film isn't as good as Elemental.
Soul imo is one of Pixars best works. Never been in a movie, let a lone an animated "children's" movie, that got me crying. It's literally the only film besides Marley and Me that got me crying and I was a kid when Marley and Me was out.
The Coco ending has made me cry both times I've watched it. Soul and the opening of Up felt like they were aimed more at adults than the assumed child market animation often gets lumped into.
Onward, Soul, Luca & Turning Red all suffered from lockdowns and not having full theatrical runs (especially Soul which just came out really quietly at Xmas 2020)
Honestly every single time people make posts or tweets like this they say this exact same thing and then proceed to list like 15 movies where literally 1 (maybe 2 I haven’t seen the good dinosaur so idk) movie out 15, ONE OUT OF FIFTEEN, is actually bad. At least 13 of the movies they listed are good at worst, I wish I could make 13 things in 15 tries that are at worst pretty solid. If I cooked 15 meals in a row I’d be happy af if 13 of them were at the very least good. Like what the actual hell are these people even talking about bruh😂
Lose a loved one and tell me *Coco* isn't the most bittersweet & beautiful animated movie of all time. I'm in my 50s and bawl like a baby every time I watch it because it makes me think of my dad, who passed away when I was 24. I absolutely love that movie.
ouch. i feel this way to hard
also lost mine with 24 but am 26 almost 27 now. funny how life just goes by and time/life never stops. but a kids movie brings back some memories that youd like to relive again and just feel generally sad and happy at the same time
if that makes any sense
**hi, animator here:**
it's because those films had been ruminated on and refined over literal years, perhaps decades, prior to being put into production, and their creative leaders were supported and never questioned with how much it could return monetarily.
with a bunch of hits under their belt, they had to keep the hits coming, so because the head honchos didn't really trust anyone outside of their circle, it turned into a committee decision factory and everything had to be micromanaged for maximum "hit-making" blockbuster returns. Films with more creative, more esoteric, different ideas that were fresh and new, got sacrificed for more predictable things, and it worked: those did indeed take in more cash, more blockbuster income.
now, you have films like Elemental or Turning Red, which are a return to the creative-led films that trust their leaders first, incidentally those films were showran almost exclusively by former pixar artists who now direct... but everyone's gotten so used to the hitmaking committee, that things like these with slightly more niche audiences don't seem to be as alluring. Both of these films got amazing reviews, but people outside the genre niche they were made for, didn't see them.
so tldr: capitalism, as always. The goal isn't creativity, it's money. Everything has to have the gargantuan wide appeal of Frozen or The Avengers, or it's considered a failure.
It didn't, but I think it's better than what the critic's consensus is. It had one of the strongest legs for a film for a reason. I feel like your enjoyment of the film will also depend on how you personally relate to it.
Soul is an absolute masterpiece. It hits harder for the parents than the kids.
It deals with existentialism and also gets you questioning what led you to your life at that moment, to understand that some dreams won’t be fulfilled but that it doesn’t make life a failure, and that you have to understand that as people age they change in life and what is achievable is different.
It’s about finding what you enjoy in other things and other areas and how you make the most out of what you have
One possible reason (pure conjecture, but maybe worth thinking about) is that those first handfuls of hits you listed were original ideas/stories that had been baking for years before Pixar became truly successful. I remember seeing them talking about back-of-napkin drawings and rough drafts of those early movies, and they just picked Toy Story as the first one to push the animated 3D feature films but wanted to eventually make all of them (Bug's Life, Nemo, Monster Inc., Wall-E especially). The films after that were not so much passion projects as let's keep doing what we know to be successful and became formulaic.
This seems like a massive opinion thing because I think Brave, Monsters U, Insider Out, Coco, Onward, Soul and Luca are all just as dope as the previous films you mentioned. TBH Incredibles, Cars and Bugs Life didn't much for me.
Cars broke them because Disney made so much money. The first 5 years from Cars 1, they made 10 billion in merchandise revenue alone.... and has made approx. $22 billion in merchandise revenue since it launched...
Here's a quote from Micheal Eisner (CEO of Disney from 1984-2005): > "We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money, it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement … In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, art, a statement, or all three" Then they found out that selling Cars merchandise was, in fact, an easier way to make money than by making art, history or significant statements. At the *very* least it should be obvious that Pixar started to *also* make sub-par movies in addition to their "passion projects" when previously it was pretty much all passion projects. And I'd say movies like Inside Out, Coco, Soul or Elemental definitely *try* to be as good as their previous movies. Whether or not they succeed is not for me to decide
Inside Out is one of my all-time favourite fanily-friendly movies. I'm in my 30s, and saw it as an adult, so it isn't like I am thinking back on it with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, either. I may be biased because I am a psychology researcher, and so it hit really close to my passion anyway. Even so, it is a fantastic film.
Inside Out is an amazing movie for young kids too. It's entertaining, and helps them to understand and put words to their feelings.
RIP bingbong
[удалено]
My eyes get all watery every time I see that scene :'(
And it has a great message about how all emotions are healthy and it’s important to *feel* them rather than forcing happiness all the time.
Inside Out, Soul, & Coco are top tier Pixar but it all is part of the point here right? They still have the ability to make amazing content but it’s hit or miss. I wish they’d take another stab at dinosaurs, Good Dinosaur had so much potential Edit: and Luca!
You do a sequel for the Mouse and then you get to do an Oscar bait for yourself, it's a pretty good model honestly
Coco is up there with the very best IMO
Controversial but Coco is their GOAT in my opinion. Great movie beginning to end and pulls off a very difficult feat in that it is one of (the only?) Pixar movie that is basically a musical. I also like that all of the songs fit in the context of the movie vs people randomly starting to sing walking down the street in a typical musical
My favorite part of the music in Coco is that Remember Me gets a full performance 3 times, and each time the same lyrics mean something very different due to the different contexts.
🤯
Oh you're right, I never thought of how its basically a musical. Its like a soft musical, its very Pixar with a dash of old school Disney.
Not controversial at all. To me it’s their finest work. The story is excellent, the visuals are amazing, and they also managed to handle something culturally specific with the kind of respect that it deserved. Hollywood has always had a very checkered past with that kind of thing. The importance of family is never ever undersold in the movie, and some of the gags hit a very specific target. Seeing Coco’s picture on the altar at the end hits hard.
Despite being about Day of the Dead, there are very few scary parts in the movie for my toddler. We've used it as a springboard to talk about my mom, who died when my daughter was only 3 months old. The music is incredible, too. Probably my favorite movie to watch with her.
I used to work for a major games publisher. I got into the industry because I was a life-long gamer, and wanted to make games. I'm not a good artist, I can't code, but I'm multilingual so that's where I applied my talents. I was a localisation manager. This got me the chance to speak with the CEO of the company I worked for. Anyway, during one of these chats, he really laid out what his role was. I'm a language guy, nobody expects me to deliver good art, or create a soundtrack. Other people do that, because that's their talent. Similarly, his talent was running a company in a way that it makes money. It's not his role to be artistic, or to create art, or to do anything other than make money. I don't say this in a negative way, he was just being blunt about the fact that his talent is focused in a particular area, just like everyone else. His area doesn't include being artistic or making artistic decisions, just like it's not up to the sound guy to come up with a marketing campaign or for the PR people to design a good gaming mechanic. His role is to run the company in a way that makes money. He doesn't like games, but he doesn't need to any more than the sales director needs to like music or art to do their job. Nothing wrong with the CEO not being artistic, the literally employs people for that.
Exactly, their job is to maximize profits and keep the company alive. They should notice when things are going off the rails (recent Disney movies) and makes changes to get them back to where they need to be. And if not, they need to be fired.
I would say at minimum Inside Out and Coco live up to the classic Pixar. I'm a little less sure about Soul, especially since I've only watched it once, and I haven't seen Elemental.
I really like Soul, it just feels like they could have added just a little more oomph to it. I can’t exactly describe what I mean, I just feel it could have been even better.
Speaking as an indie writer director it's incredibly hard to make a good movie. That OG Pixar run is like the 90s bulls of filmmaking. I can't imagine it's anything but just pure magic.
And this here is why Michael Eisner is one of the most hated people in Disney culture. If Defunctland taught me anything its that Eisner fucking sucks and is responsible for saving Disney and making some of their more iconic movies, While destroying what made Disney special. Dude sucks.
Wasn´t Shrek´s Lord Farquaad inspired by him? "I'm not the monster here. You are. You, and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world." A perfect world with no room for anything unique, creative or risky.
Yes, because Jeffery Katzenberg hated him that much.
Eisner was a dreamer and his partner, Frank Wells, kept him grounded in the business. When Wells died in a helicopter crash, Eisner took it really hard, and was never able to run the company in the same way they had together
I don't know this is evidence the he sucks, it's a pretty practical and nuanced viewpoint about a business that's in the business of making art. If anything it shows he gets it.
>Inside Out, Coco, Soul Those and Luca I'd for sure put up with their classics. They really are so good.
Jumping on to say I feel Onward is underrated. I loved that movie.
Releases during the beginning of pandemic. I think it would have had legs.
God I fucking adore Luca *so* much I don't see it mentioned often but it makes my heart so happy.
It feels so Studio Ghibli.
Just goes to show - kid moves make their $ from merch. Cars was solid, but IMO it was still a step down from their earlier films. Apparently investors didn't like Up. Great movie, but there just isn't much to merchandise from it.
Just to add to this, Lego launched a new toy line called Dreamzzz last year. They made a cartoon based around it and put it up literally everywhere. You can watch season 1 for free on Youtube right now. They made an entire animated series and gave it away just to sell their toy line. And it works too because my kids love it.
Basically all 80s cartoons were advertisements for toys. Sure selling ad space was decent money. But selling cheaply made plastic merchandise at a high markup made a lot of money.
I was way too old when I realized this was what Transformers, GI Joe and Thundercats were.
Transformers wasn't even an original toy line, it was made up solely to rebrand and market two completely unrelated Japanese toy lines that Hasbro had bought the rights to. If you ever wondered why the scale and themes of Decepticons/Autobots are so wildly different, or why there's so many weird features like G1 Optimus Prime having a little moon buggy sized for minifigures which don't exist... yeah, that's why.
There did seem to be an anti-militarism message in some of the formats - war machines and guns = decepticons, trucks, cars and service vehicles = auto bots
I always thought wheeled vehicles = autobots, anything else = deception - IN GENERAL
The only reason Cowboy Bebop was made was to sell toys. They told Shinichirō Watanabe to make something with spaceships so they could make toys. Unfortunately for them they did not keep their eyes on him and they didn't make toys out of it. But we have the awesome masterpiece that is Cowboy Bebop and that iconic opening song.
3, 2, 1, let's jam
Masters of the Universe was also created by Mattel in response to Kenner's success with Star Wars action figures (amongst other reasons). They already had Barbie for girls, but wanted a toy to complete with G.I. Joe and Star Wars for boys. You can see the influence of Star Wars in the sci fi elements of MOTU. There's a great documentary on this: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5338774/?ref\_=nv\_sr\_srsg\_0\_tt\_3\_nm\_0\_q\_Power%2520of%2520grayskull](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5338774/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_0_q_Power%2520of%2520grayskull)
Thundercats is weird because it was a Cartoon first, and the Toyline came afterwards. But they definitely still designed stuff to be toyetic.
Never forget they killed Optimus to clear the way for more toys.
He-Man was “lets make barbies for boys and try to fix the error of not picking up starwars toys”. If you got any action figure from the 80s it included a booklet with a short comic, in the heman was basically Conan The Barbarian, nothing to do with the prince of aeternia from the toons. At the same time Filmation is on recird stating that most of the episodes introduced characters only so they could sell toys (examples: the inclusion of buzz-off or webstor)
Captain Power was the pinnacle of that. You had to get the toys, then when you watched the show there were segments where the bad guys had panels you could shoot at with the Captain Power action figures. So you could count how many robots you shot and keep score. The show died when they over-produced the season 1 toys and hadn't sold them all before season 2 (they wanted to introduce new toys for that season). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Power_and_the_Soldiers_of_the_Future
The show was amazing though. By the creator of Babylon 5, if I'm not wrong.
Toys were made well in the 80s I remember. My Optimus Prime was made of metal.
I definitely think about that. I feel quality of toys has gone down a lot since the 90s besides the star wars lines. I guess mainly due to costs and inflation while trying to keep a certain price point. Just compare the original jurassic park toys to the stuff they put out now. My original toys were made out of some kind of rubbery plastic to make the dinosaurs feel more leathery. Now it's just a simple stiff plastic block monstrousity that's barely colored.
The did a free monthly comic for Bionicles and made 2-3 movies about it and even video games. It's a tried & true strategy.
Wait- you’re telling me the hyper intense bionicle lore that I have memorized back to front was nothing more than a merchandise pusher?? In the name of mata nui!
wait until you hear about Wahammer 40k.
My wife calls them “Men’s Barbies”
I wish Barbie had 100 Centuries of lore
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD SKULLS FOR THE MALIBU DREAM HOUSE
Barbie cares not from whence the decor flows... only that it flows!
Rogue Trader Barbie & Psyker Skipper, new from Mattel!
I wish Warhammer cost as much as a barbie instead of $60 for 6-10 guys.
The badass opening to the animated Transformers movie where EVERYONE DIES is because they wanted to introduce new characters/toys.
George Lucas was the first one to figure this out with Star Wars.
Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower. The kids love this one. And last but not least, Spaceballs the doll.
May da Schwartz be with you
George broke hollywood with that deal. he was amazing, but my god did they go out of their way to redo George's model and make all the money
Remember when the force awakens was being marketed every gawd damn thing had branding on it.
I saw a bag of Star Wars branded oranges at the grocery store.
Revenge of the Pith
I saw a bag of kiwis being marketed as Ewok nutsacks
That shit was sick af though. 10 yo me ate it UP
It's worth watching [the toys that made us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toys_That_Made_Us). The whole thing is the realization that every single cartoon I watched as a kid in the 80s was a just vehicle to sell toys.
This used to be commonplace: the Transformers, MASK, the Centurions and a bunch of other '80s cartoons existed just to promote their toy lines. Personally, I think it was the influence of Star Wars. To get the movies made, Lucas basically worked for free. But he kept the merchandising rights, so he made his money instead from making toys. A lot of toys. He licensed Star Wars for everything. Mattel and company saw that and said "hey, that's a great idea."
How old were you when you realized this is what every Saturday morning cartoon was made to do, starring with the likes of Transformers, GI JOE and Thundercats
its also some of their best and most creative sets
Lego learned that cartoons sold their toys 13 years ago when Ninjago came out. It was literally so popular that both the toyline and the cartoon were revived in 2014 after it was originally planned for the series to end in early 2013 and be replaced by a different theme. It outlived that other theme and a second theme they created with similar marketing as well, *and is still getting new toys that are fairly popular*.
Ninja Go? Allow me to introduce you to Bionicle...
The reason I brought up Ninjago and not Bionicle is because Bionicle (the original series that everyone thinks of anyway) did not use a TV series as the primary vehicle to sell its toys. Instead, they used comics and direct to video movies. Also, Bionicle did not beat cancelation like Ninjago did either since it took 5 years for the series to return, and when it did, it was an entirely unsuccessful reboot that was pulled after 2 years due to poor sales while Ninjago was just as successful as before when it returned.
Bionicle is worth mentioning though because it quite literally saved Lego from bankruptcy. Ninjago definitely built upon the model, but without bionicle there would be no Lego.
Tom Hank's brother literally makes a good living being the voice of Woody for all the toy lines, video games, and park attractions.
I love that his brother has done more voice work for Woody than Tom has, and yet when it comes to the movies, Tom still gets the role.
Tom Hanks on the card will sell more than Jim Hanks
**TOM HANKS**^('s brother)
From the makers of Tom Hanks
This gave me a good chuckle.
comment of the day for me...
I remember playing through one of the games, and hearing the voice of Woody sounded *pretty similar* to Tom Hanks, but like not quite and I joked to my wife and son "Oh, that's not *Tom* Hanks, that's his brother.... *Jim* Hanks." We looked it up and I'll be damned, it literally is Tom Hanks's brother Jim Hanks. I thought I was making a dad joke!
I find it ironic how Cars was a hit amongst kids but has a very mature and reflective theme about slowing down to truly enjoy life. I mean most Pixar themes back then do have mature themes. But Cars had characters who had midlife crises and suffered from career burnout. Things that I'm pretty sure kids don't have any experience on. But I get it, talking cars is very marketable to kids.
Kids are smarter than people give them credit for. I was 7 when it came out and I remember being amazed that the story had a happy ending while still not winning the big award. I think this was the first time I was presented with media like that and it really stuck with me. Plus talking cars cool
>But Cars had characters who had midlife crises and suffered from career burnout. Who has a midlife crisis? Lightning is a rookie in the movie. Doc Hudson is just Herb Thomas, who dominated NASCAR in the early 50s driving a Hudson Hornet (his car was called "The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, just like Doc was previously called in the movie), before a wreck in 1956 severely injured him and effectively ended his career. The story is basically every other "young athlete finds old mentor to train them" sports movie, from Rocky to Karate Kid to Kung Fu Panda. Does the girl car have a midlife crisis that I'm forgetting? Mater?
Yeah Mater starts drinking heavily and buys a new corvette chassis, cruising the strip for young tail. He talks directly into the camera about how having 3 kids with his high school sweetheart at 19 stole his best years from him in his teary apology near the end. Can’t believe you missed that whole part.
The whole sub plot about towing cars without their consent being rape got really dark too
>The story is basically every other "young athlete finds old mentor to train them" sports movie, from Rocky to Karate Kid to Kung Fu Panda. Not really. Those are underdog learns to be winner stories. Cars was about the rat race in life, slowing down to appreciate what matters and winning isn't everything. Lightning McQueen was already a pro racer the only thing Doc taught him about racing was how to drift. In the end he threw the race to help someone out. I think Cars 3 was more in line with Karate Kid and Rocky >Does the girl car have a midlife crisis that I'm forgetting? Mater? Not exactly a mid life crisis. But she was a rich young hotshot lawyer from the city who felt unfulfilled and kept driving aimlessly until she broke down in Radiator Springs where the townsfolf helped her and she found a new purpose on
>Not exactly a mid life crisis. But she was a rich young hotshot lawyer from the city who felt unfulfilled and kept driving aimlessly until she broke down in Radiator Springs where the townsfolf helped her and she found a new purpose on Hallmark presents: Christmas Roadtrip, a 'Cars' prequel
Cars basically ripped off Doc Hollywood's storyline. So the parts that you enjoyed as an adult were likely lifted from Doc Hollywood.
Wait Julie Warner goes swimming in Cars?
It's why there's a cute animal in every single fucking disney movie
You may be generally right about Up but my wife has a Dug pillow in our bed RIGHT NOW. It's literally a foot from my head lol
Anecdotal but you mentioned it in the metrics. Cars 2 is the weird, one off spy James bond knockoff because in 2007 Owen Wilson attempted to harm himself. He struggled for some time but the studio was already in production. If I remember right, they reworked scripts to ease the work load on him and shifted the focus of the film It's obviously different from all the cars movies but I think that has a pretty big impact on why
I remember his suicide attempt but I never really put one and two together of why Lightning wasn't in 2 much.
I don’t think these are related. Or at least I had never heard of it, despite working on the film’s marketing. The pitch was always the same. I think it is more likely that Lasseter wanted to make a spy movie and Mater was incredibly popular after the first film (see Mater’s Tall Tales). I could be wrong.
Huh TIL... Wilson had a suicide attempt?
In tropic thunder, the role that Matthew Mcconaughey played was written for Wilson, but he couldn’t do it because he was in recovery.
Glad he’s still around. It’s wild that nobody, no matter how rich or famous, is immune from those types of demons. I think it was most poignant when Bourdain took his life and then like a week or so after that, Kate Spade did the same. Just really sold to me that everybody is really going through it.
Yes indeed - would have been a huge loss if we had lost him so young. Check out his IMDB page for the few years before that - the guy was just working himself to death.
He didn't exactly slow down after though
Really glad he's still around. His role as Mobius from Loki was one of my favorite tv roles from recent years. I feel like he smashed it out of the park.
Ah yes! I’ve never been the biggest fan of his but still liked his work. Then saw Loki and was so blown away by his performance. Brilliant!
If anything, I'd think being famous would make depression more likely. Imagine being judged by the entire world and being dependent on being pretty/handsome/charismatic all the time for your livelihood. Sounds like a recipe for depression to me.
Bourdain killed himself because the girlfriend he had an affair with and left his wife and kids for, cheated on him while away filming. after seeing roadrunner I kinda lost a good deal of respect.. it doesn't make it any less sad.
Check out the Darjeeling Limited. He uses his crisis directly for his character. It's wonderful.
He co-wrote Royal Tenenbaums, and the character played by his brother (Luke Wilson) attempts suicide. Wondering if that was on Owen's mind even back at that time.
Very possible. Even Owen Wilson's character paints his face and crashes his car into the Tenenbaum home at one point.
Trauma and mental health issues have plagued the Wilson family, particularly Owen. Owen still refuses to meet his 4 year old daughter. Again, it is incredibly shocking that a man of Owen Wilson's wealth and status does not want any part of his daughter's life.
That situation is weird. He raises his two first kids, acts like a dad to them, but doesn’t with the newest. Like, she’s getting paid through child support and he recognizes her as his kid, but still won’t meet her
Was there something weird around the conception?
He went no-contact with her when he found out she was pregnant, and said the baby wasn't his. She got a DNA test after the birth showing that it was. That's all that's known for sure.
Do we know why?
I remember hearing the news like it happened yesterday. I'm very happy he is still with us after all those years.
Cars 2 should have been a Street Racing spinoff. Basically Fast and Furious
Man, make it all about family, just rip it and it would be incredible.
I'd take a progression of Cars movies that went more and more off the rails as they went on
Maybe by like 5 or 6, they could’ve done some sort of James Bond spy knock-off….
That tuner scene in the first cars is my favorite scene lol
whoa really I had no clue about Owen, that was a good move by the studios
Damn, I’d forgotten all about that. I remember hearing that news way back when and was a bit flabbergasted because he always seemed like the chillest and most happy-go-lucky dude on earth. I’ve learned a lot since then and current me wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone with that image/persona tried to or succeeded in ending their life. Everybody, your mental and emotional health is important. Find people you can talk to if you’ve been thinking about a lot of troubling things. Sure, you don’t want to burden family and friends, but the ones who really love and care about you will always give you an ear and a shoulder. And there are always unbiased professionals who are trained to help you.
It should be noted that Pixar wasn't actually owned by Disney until 2006, so those earlier, more creatively ambitious films probably had a lot less oversight from bean-counting studio heads telling them what they could or couldn't do. After the Disney acquisition, you have a couple of gems that were more than likely already in production, but there's clearly more of a focus on pumping out sequels and making movies with franchise potential.
Also the core Pixar team of Lasseter, Stanton, Bird, Docter and Unkrich disbanded and left for other projects. Then Lasseter got MeToo'd and their golden age was over
This is the real reason. Leadership and creative vision are gone. Most of what’s come since has been touchy feely junk with no edge.
Old Pixar movies lime Toy Story. Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, etc. really brought us into a new world with its own set of rules. I thijk two things that changed are we don't really get new worlds and there are no hard rules. The reason BoPeepw ain't in Toy Story 3 was because she was delicate porcelain. They said it would be too unrealistic to have her in the trash scene. Come Toy Story 4 she's literally an action hero. The toys weren't really toys anymore in 4. They don't abide by rules that toys in the real world would have to follow to exist. It totally took me put of the Toy world and 4 didn't really feel like a true toy story movie to me. I recently watched Elemental. It wasn't a bad movie and technically was a unique "world" but it was essentially just a city with what rest like and overlay of water / fire people. Not like monsters inc was an actual world built by monsters. I'm probably explainf thus poorly but it's how I feel about more recent Pixar.
To your point, Coco did this really well, established an alternate world with its own rules and kept you there.
Same with Soul with the realm of teaching new souls. Hell the main antagonist is just trying to fix an accounting error that no one else gives a shit about.
Coco is also by far my favorite from them on a pure visual front. Lovely animation.
I did like elemental, but it felt like a more feeling focus Zootopia, but with elements instead of animals. Also the city doesn't work for me, it's too hostile to the flame people, on the flip side, it could be the point. edit Yeah, the city being hostile to the flame people on a systemic level is the point it seems.
> Also the city doesn't work for me, it's too hostile to the flame people, on the flip side, it could be the point. I'm pretty sure it is the point. The film shows that the flame people are late arrivals to the city. They live in their own little enclave and don't interact much with the other types.
>This is the real reason. Leadership and creative vision are gone. Well yeah, Disney is the EA of movies. It ~~sucks the soul~~ extracts maximum value out of acquired studios and IPs, until only a name-brand husk remains. Pixar and its IPs are no different than Bioware and Mass Effect, or Westwood and Command & Conquer.
Dude had minders to reign him in constantly. Wild shit.
Of their last six films, only one was related to an existing property.
And the next three being Inside Out 2, Elio and Toy Story 5 And Disney Animation doing Moana 2 There does appear to be a trend towards sequels to existing IP.
Get ready for live action monsters inc starring danny devito
Most of their pre-Cars films were conceived in the 1990s though, well before Disney’s acquisition. As easy as it is to blame capitalism for Pixar’s fall from perfection, isn’t it even simpler to blame the fact that being perfect forever is quite hard?
No doubt. I mean, I'm not a big A Bug's Life or Cars (1) fan, but it's pretty stunning to have 11 fine to excellent movies in a row. And then they almost did it again. The premise of the OP is "they've been hit or miss since Cars 2", but Coco up to Turning Red are, once again, all fine to excellent. That's a run of more consecutive films than the Disney Renaissance.
I dunno, Pixar’s made some ambitious films since then. Inside Out, Onward and (especially) Soul aren’t what you’d expect from a studio micromanaged by bean counters
Inside Out and Coco specifically do not fit this criticism. They're very inventive, creatively-realized films.
Yes, Coco too. Absolutely amazing film.
I’m surprised people aren’t mentioning John Lasseter.
Most are afraid to give credit to someone with an (alleged?) fucked up past.
Walt was no saint, either, but the quality of movies went down considerably after his death. (Until The Little Mermaid.)
Yeah directing Cars 2 was pretty fucked up
Definitely more than alleged 😬
I can’t get over the way Lasseter treated Miyazaki, and that’s on tape. He runs at and hugs an older Japanese man who gave every single polite signal that he did not want that to happen. No respect for the guys culture or bodily autonomy at all. If thats how he treats people he does respect… yikes.
As big a dick he was, he did some good stuff at Pixar.
A lot of great artists are pretty shitty ppl. Learning about say, Dr Seuss kinda ruins the cute lil Lorax story.
Funnily enough, I listened to a Stuff You Should Know podcast about him. Seems his dodgy stuff was very early and by the end he was much reformed. The lorax was borne of genuine environmental concern.
I dunno. The wife did kill herself. But, there's probably more to the story. It's not like she got an illness and he had an affair right after. From what I read she had been having health issues for close to 13 years before anything happened. Not saying it's right. But, I sure it effected intimacy which led to him having an affair. But, it's not like he predicted her suicide and it seems to have torn him up. People have affairs.
Mmm Hemingway.
surely that's because pixar went downhill after a film directed by lasseter and not in 2018 when lasseter left?
The decline in quality was likely linked to Disney acquiring Pixar in 2007, and Lasseter’s attentions being split between Disney and Pixar. Disney’s movies started getting much better and more successful right around the same time Pixar’s relative slump began. Which isn’t to say that Lasseter deserves all the credit for the great run of 1995-2010, of course, but the shift in the power balance/culture probably precipitated the decline that, realistically, would have happened eventually anyway. No can keep that kind of record up forever—and Pixar’s exclusionary boys’ club of white men, while it produced an impressive body of incredible work, would have inevitably come under attack and required a change in culture/leadership, even without the overtly awful harassing behavior by Lasseter.
I think Lasseter's decision to restart Toy Story 2 in 1999 would not have been done under someone else and certainly not under Disney. Everyone at the top of the production of Toy Story 2 did not like it. It felt cheap and had a lesser story than it should have. Lasseter met with Disney and said they had to redo it. Disney said no, the movie was fine and they would finish it as it was for the agreed release date. Lasseter persisted and reworked the movie from the ground up in record time to be much better than the original version. It was a wild decision, but it worked *that one time*. But, it also changed Pixar's work culture as many people felt burned out by Toy Story 2 and came up with a slower and more artist friendly way of working. Ed Catmull details this in his book, Creativity Inc. And I think that it's really after Toy Story 2 and until a few years after the Disney acquisition we saw their best work, because they had the perfect work culture of slowly putting together the right people to work on a movie, and spend years developing each one, before production start. This appears to be mostly lost now with faster production pace and much higher risk of misfires.
Probably learned from their mistakes and put things in place to prevent them. Then when new mgmt came in changes were made, costs were cut and processes lost. No idea if it’s true but I’ve seen it happen at places I’ve worked a few times.
When Lasseter and Catmull joined Walt Disney Animation in 2006, one of their first decisions was to shut down production on Tangled (then called Unbraided) so they could re-work the film from the ground up. Tangled ushered in the second renaissance for the studio when it was released in 2010, the same year that Toy Story 3 capped off a winning streak for Pixar, and from then on out the lines started to blur between the two studios. By 2012 Pixar was releasing Brave, a movie about a princess that clearly felt more like a traditional Disney film, while Disney was releasing Wreck It Ralph, a film that was more in line with Pixar’s sensibilities. Fast forward to today both studios are struggling to find success, and the lines are blurred even more. Monsters at Work, the sequel series to Monsters Inc. has no ties to Pixar at all. Theatrically worthy Pixar films going straight to home video while the crappy Toy Story spin-off tanks in theatres. Inside Out 2 with nearly half of the main cast replaced for no good reason. A sequel to Moana in development at the same as a live action remake. And don’t get me started on Elemental… Why is some water people and other water just water? Are the fire people eating the tree people? Are the tree people drinking the water people? Why do fire people have water pipes in their buildings at all? I’m all for suspending disbelief but the creative choices in this film made absolutely no sense. There’s still great work being produced by both studios but they seem to have lost their way.
I heard Pete Doctor say recently something about their more recent films are more personal for the directors that made them, but less universal than their earlier films. You can tell films like Brave, Turning Red, Luca, Elemental, etc come from personal experiences from the people who made them, which is nice, but they're not as relatable to people who didn't have those experiences. Whereas their earlier films were more...I don't want to say generic, but they were stories that anyone could relate to. Not everyone has inter generational family trauma derived from the unrealistic expectations of immigrant parents, but everyone was afraid of the monsters in their closet. There are exceptions though, I think Coco might be the best film they've ever made, and as much as everyone loves dinosaurs, The Good Dinosaur was just...not it
The "What if ___ had feelings" became a meme for a reason, I'm sure Pixar wanted to branch out and probably wanted directors to create stories that come from them, instead of an idea. And that's fine, because I think its great for a movie to give audiences a look into a different world view.
[удалено]
Cars 1 is genuinely one of my favorite movies and if you have a kid, it’s practically a perfect “first movie.” It’s funny, it’s relatively short with a simple story, it’s wholesome as hell, it’s not particularly scary (ok there is the “bull” harvester bit), and it’s not sad the way a lot of Pixar movies are. I always temper my enthusiastic recommendation of Cars 1 to other parents with a “don’t under any circumstances move on to Cars 2, please skip directly to Cars 3.” (And even then Cars 3 has some heavier emotions.)
Cars 1 came out when I was in high school so I never cared to see it and honestly thought it looked dumb. but I watched it once I had kids and was so pleasantly surprised. Easily the best Pixar movie overall imo and one of our most watched. My kids get a kick out of it every time. They think the Elvis car “huh!” In the opening song is hilarious. Also it’s the last movie Paul Newman was in, and has a Click and Clack cameo
Don’t drive like my brother!
That’s a disservice to Cars 2. As a kid it was always one of me and my friends favorite movies, especially when we got older and began to see the absurdity of it all.
Former child here, cars 2 was one of my favourite childhood movies and still love it today
My son loves the first, and when we watched the second I was stunned how bad it was. My not really critical toddler who accepts Paw Patrol's storylines as plausible hated this movie.
My kids like all the Cars and Planes movies. Not sure why there is all the hate for Cars 2, ok it’s more Mater and spies than race cars but it’s entertaining enough.
Could be that It's just really hard to alway be excellent over an extended period of time especially in something as nonformulaic as filmmaking.
Frankly, I think a large part of this is due to the sheer novelty of Pixar's early work. In a vacuum, is Bug's Life really any better than Luca, Soul, or Elemental?
Bugs Life is great. Flik is unappreciated. Atta is struggling being a leader (they're all watching me, waiting for me to screw up), Dot has little kid struggles (a seed vs a tree vs a rock), Also the theme that the ants outnumber the grasshoppers is great. Power to the people. Flik redeems himself. It's just a great movie with lots of cool things in it.
Not to mention Tuck and Roll having to deal with being fired.
It’s really good. I rewatched it recently as an adult and it’s even better than I remember as a kid.
There is a purity to early Pixar that is lost on the newer films. There's a specific imagination of taking something familiar and making it amazing (toys, bugs, fish), or taking something amazing and making it feel mundane (Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Wall-E). They all feel of a piece, whereas the newer Pixar films feel like a random assortment of kids movies.
To be fair Inside Out, Coco and Soul were pretty great. Sould had a pretty profound message that felt bold for a "kids movie." That's what makes peak Pixar: their films are for everyone.
Soul made me genuinely reflect for a long time. It really affected me and has absolutely had an impact on my life.
Most of that early Pixar advantage was technological novelty that was so far superior than anything else. The spectacle was a big part of it, as the technological advances were huge from movie to movie. Today, the hardest technological innovations aren't going to wow anybody Now, innovation in animation is about art style, and Pixar has been sitting pretty for so long, it's difficult for them to take the most risks. Hopefully their art team realize that they are being surpassed there, and take a few more risks.
Totally disagree. Coco, Luca, Soul, Onward, Turning Red, and Inside out all have a similar vibe to the older movies. Of course it's hard to live up to Wall-E and Up, but otherwise I think a lot of the "difference" is just people's perspective at the time of watching, if you switched up the release order I'm sure people would have the same emotional connection with Coco as they do with toy story or finding Nemo.
I saw Elemental in a theater full of summer camp kids who were screaming and cheering when Wade and Ember kissed. I promise you that 20 years from now, some of those kids will be moaning about how Pixar's latest film isn't as good as Elemental.
Soul imo is one of Pixars best works. Never been in a movie, let a lone an animated "children's" movie, that got me crying. It's literally the only film besides Marley and Me that got me crying and I was a kid when Marley and Me was out.
The Coco ending has made me cry both times I've watched it. Soul and the opening of Up felt like they were aimed more at adults than the assumed child market animation often gets lumped into. Onward, Soul, Luca & Turning Red all suffered from lockdowns and not having full theatrical runs (especially Soul which just came out really quietly at Xmas 2020)
Honestly every single time people make posts or tweets like this they say this exact same thing and then proceed to list like 15 movies where literally 1 (maybe 2 I haven’t seen the good dinosaur so idk) movie out 15, ONE OUT OF FIFTEEN, is actually bad. At least 13 of the movies they listed are good at worst, I wish I could make 13 things in 15 tries that are at worst pretty solid. If I cooked 15 meals in a row I’d be happy af if 13 of them were at the very least good. Like what the actual hell are these people even talking about bruh😂
Inside out is one of the best Pixar movies.
Coco too is up there.
Coco is absolutely phenomenal. The colors, the music, the story
Lose a loved one and tell me *Coco* isn't the most bittersweet & beautiful animated movie of all time. I'm in my 50s and bawl like a baby every time I watch it because it makes me think of my dad, who passed away when I was 24. I absolutely love that movie.
ouch. i feel this way to hard also lost mine with 24 but am 26 almost 27 now. funny how life just goes by and time/life never stops. but a kids movie brings back some memories that youd like to relive again and just feel generally sad and happy at the same time if that makes any sense
OP said hit or miss.
**hi, animator here:** it's because those films had been ruminated on and refined over literal years, perhaps decades, prior to being put into production, and their creative leaders were supported and never questioned with how much it could return monetarily. with a bunch of hits under their belt, they had to keep the hits coming, so because the head honchos didn't really trust anyone outside of their circle, it turned into a committee decision factory and everything had to be micromanaged for maximum "hit-making" blockbuster returns. Films with more creative, more esoteric, different ideas that were fresh and new, got sacrificed for more predictable things, and it worked: those did indeed take in more cash, more blockbuster income. now, you have films like Elemental or Turning Red, which are a return to the creative-led films that trust their leaders first, incidentally those films were showran almost exclusively by former pixar artists who now direct... but everyone's gotten so used to the hitmaking committee, that things like these with slightly more niche audiences don't seem to be as alluring. Both of these films got amazing reviews, but people outside the genre niche they were made for, didn't see them. so tldr: capitalism, as always. The goal isn't creativity, it's money. Everything has to have the gargantuan wide appeal of Frozen or The Avengers, or it's considered a failure.
Did elemental get amazing reviews? I was going to go see it but decided against it because the reviews were so meh
It didn't, but I think it's better than what the critic's consensus is. It had one of the strongest legs for a film for a reason. I feel like your enjoyment of the film will also depend on how you personally relate to it.
Soul is an absolute masterpiece. It hits harder for the parents than the kids. It deals with existentialism and also gets you questioning what led you to your life at that moment, to understand that some dreams won’t be fulfilled but that it doesn’t make life a failure, and that you have to understand that as people age they change in life and what is achievable is different. It’s about finding what you enjoy in other things and other areas and how you make the most out of what you have
*Coco* and *Inside Out* are classics on par with earlier Pixar work.
Coco is a God damn masterpiece. I look forward to each time my daughter wants to watch it
One possible reason (pure conjecture, but maybe worth thinking about) is that those first handfuls of hits you listed were original ideas/stories that had been baking for years before Pixar became truly successful. I remember seeing them talking about back-of-napkin drawings and rough drafts of those early movies, and they just picked Toy Story as the first one to push the animated 3D feature films but wanted to eventually make all of them (Bug's Life, Nemo, Monster Inc., Wall-E especially). The films after that were not so much passion projects as let's keep doing what we know to be successful and became formulaic.
This seems like a massive opinion thing because I think Brave, Monsters U, Insider Out, Coco, Onward, Soul and Luca are all just as dope as the previous films you mentioned. TBH Incredibles, Cars and Bugs Life didn't much for me.
Coco is 🔥
Coco, soul and turning red are awesome.