This video is sponsored by squarespace. We finally did it boys. Pixar is a computer animated film company
that make movies for little little babies. Right? Wrong. Pixar is arguably one of the greatest production
companies to ever exist. What they did in the 15 years between 1995
and 2010 is unheard of in cinematic history. For a company to make one iconic film is incredibly
difficult. But to consistently chain produce them almost
sounds like a fucking joke. However, in the last eight years, we’ve
been going to the cinema expecting the creative ambition that we associate with Pixar, only
to be met with diluted sub-par squeals and mediocre original films. These are good kids films and competent enough,
but when framed against the iconic films that made us fall in love with Pixar you can see
that their legacy is slowly fading with each new release. Making us wonder: is Pixar dead? Before I get into my concerns with modern
Pixar, I feel like it’s important to give you some context and back up my opening statement. This man is John Lasseter. He studied animation under some of the most
influential classic Disney animators, he was a star student, winning awards for his short
films. But after finishing the course, what really
interested him was computer generated animation. For the next ten years, Lasseter built up
a company with one key goal: To make the first fully CGI film. Finally, Disney gave him his opportunity when
he pitched Toy Story. However, Disney weren’t confident with Pixar
and sent them copious notes. Pixar were keen to please and Toy Story slowly
changed into something entirely different to what Lasseter originally imagined. After several months, Toy Story’s pre-production
was finalised, the script was done and each shot storyboarded. Pixar showed what they had to Disney – who
hated it and instantly stopped production of the film. Lasseter knew this was his only chance to
achieve his life-long dream, so him and his team completely re-wrote and re-storyboarded
the film from scratch in 2 weeks. Against all odds, Disney green-lit the production. If you’re in your twenties, you probably
grew up with this film and have deep emotional connection to every intricate aspect of it. It’s the first cgi film ever made which
is commendable on its own merit, but it’s also maintained its importance to this day,
being a film that is still discussed and enjoyed. This is because of its powerful use of storytelling
and character writing. Needless to say, Toy Story was a huge hit
being the highest grossing film of that year. After Toy Story, Lasseter went straight into
directing the next film. Can you imagine the pressure of having to
make Pixar’s second feature film, the second feature film of your career? AFTER FUCKING TOY STORY. But Pixar pushed forward and released A Bugs
Life, the 4th highest grossing film of that year, further cementing Pixar as a Box Office
powerhouse. Due to the technology available at the time,
Lasseter was told they could only have a maximum of 50 ants in one shot. Lasseter pushed his team and brought that
number up to 431. If that doesn’t scream ambition for changing
the game, then I don’t know what does. A secondary production team at Pixar had been
working on a low budget straight to video sequel to Toy Story. But after the success of A Bug’s Life, Disney
had dollar signs in their eyes and pushed it for a cinematic release. The only problem – it wasn’t very good. This caused the first schism between Disney
and Pixar. Disney thought it was good enough for a theatrical
release, whereas Pixar had higher artistic standards and didn’t want to release a movie
that was ‘just okay’. Disney also wouldn’t budge on the release
date, refusing to allow them to re-do the film. Lasseter cancelled his holiday and completely
re-made the film in 9 months And boom another classic. The fact that this film was made in 9 months
has me suspicious that Lasseter made some kind of deal with the devil. What a freak. So Lasseter takes a well-deserved break, giving
Pete Docter, a man who wrote on the toy story films and had directed a few short films the
responsibility of writing and directing Pixar’s 4th feature film. He gets complete creative freedom to make
any film he wants. And… he makes… Monsters Inc. A film so tightly written, so original, so
ambitious, so heart-breaking that I think there is a genuine argument for it being as
good as Shawshank Redemption. Monsters Inc, a directorial debut, broke the
box office record for highest grossing animated film ever. If you don’t count Lion King. Which I don’t because it ripped off Shakespeare. Word for word. Next the director’s chair went to Andrew
Stanton, another first-time director who was told he could make anything he wanted. He had the pressure of releasing the 5th Pixar
film, 1 year after Monsters Inc. And… He makes… Finding Nemo. To say that Stanton pushed his animation team
beyond its limits is an understatement. He moved away from the Randy Newman composed
happy go lucky charm of the previous Pixar instalments, to deliver an intimate, ambient
grounded masterpiece. Finding Nemo managed to somehow out-gross
Monsters Inc. Next Lasseter brought in an old school chum
of his, Brad Bird, who had never even touched a Pixar film. I’d explain how much of a risky business
decision this is, but Brad does a great job of explaining that himself. So Brad Bird comes out with Brave and it’s
a huge hit and massively iconic – JK it’s the Incredibles. Could you imagine if it was Brave? Alright so all 6 Pixar films up to this point
have received critical acclaim and killed the box office. Pretty bloody outstanding. If you can name any other production company
that have made this many consecutive hits without any fuck-ups I’ll give you my car
keys. Did someone say fuck-ups? Did someone say car keys? It’s caaaars. Ahhhhhhhhh! Yeah alright, I’ll admit cars will always
be the black sheep of Pixar. I’ll fully put the blame on John Lasseter
being overly confident and just seeming to generally like cars quite a lot. I can understand why small children are really
into it, but it’s so generic and lazy in places. I’m dying to know how this car managed to
frame and put up this picture without the assistance of thumbs. Just because the bugs are cars, doesn’t
mean your world is thought through, it just means you made everything a car. It was during this time that Pixar and Disney’s
partnership was in major conflict. Disney wanted to push Pixar into making sequels,
however making sequels to Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles was not something
Pixar ever intended or were keen to do. This was something they were fighting tooth
and nail for, even reaching out to alternative distributors in order to protect their IPs. Disney eventually agreed to leave their damn
films alone and outright bought Pixar but allowed them to maintain their independence. Which now in hindsight, seems like they were
playing a very sinister long game. The three directors behind Pixar’s highest
grossing films, each made a second film under Pixar. Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up. Re-establishing Pixar’s momentum for powerful
filmmaking, unique worlds and original storytelling. These films are all iconic in my opinion and
no childhood would be complete without the inclusion of these classics. However, at the time these films weren’t
enough to beat Ice Age, Shrek or Kung-Fu Panda in the box office. So a decision was made and despite Pixar’s
earlier rebuttals, Toy Story 3 was released 15 years after the original. Becoming the highest grossing animated film
ever, finally beating The Lion King. But at what cost? A member movie is a sequel to a culturally
popular film, made over a decade after the original. The primary application of creative resources
is spent on re-capturing the energy and momentum of the original. There isn’t a desire for establishing new
elements or deepening the world. Instead the desire is to get the viewer to
say, ‘ooh I remember that’. Allowing them to relive that same fluffy feeling
they experienced the first time when they were fresh faced and innocent. No one goes to see these films because it
looks like it’s offering a new exciting story, they go solely off the back of their
experience with the previous more effective original. Producers are fully aware of this and shove
in as many call backs and references as possible. Every time a new member movie is announced,
it leaves the question “why are they making this sequel now? Why didn’t they make it immediately after
the original?” The answer is usually because they didn’t
think they needed to make one. This suggests that the member movie is being
made purely for financial gain or to satisfy the egos of the original creators. However, I think it’s important the clarify
the deference between sequels, reboots and member movies, as sometimes these lines are
blurred. A great sequel can be made over a decade after
the original, I’m not saying all sequels with age gaps are automatically classified
as a member movie. Good sequels will use the elements established
from the original but increase its scope or give the film new thematic or genre directions
to explore. It gives you a brand-new experience. A reboot is different from a member movie
because it will have a degree of fan service but won’t be the focus of the piece. Instead the focus will be on modernising or
changing aspects of the world. Providing you with something familiar, but
also different. Member Movies only exist as diluted versions
of the original, regurgitating iconic symbols and moments from their predecessors. The sole intention of selling our own nostalgia
back to us. All this being said, it did make sense for
Toy Story 3 to be made 15 years after the first. The passage of time is used in the narrative
to show a now grown up Andy who no longer plays with toys. The original audience of children who fell
in love with the first two films have grown up with Andy. His nostalgia and love for the toys are mirrored
in the audience. As a result of this, it’s hard to see this
film as forced or artificial. But despite this, Toy Story 3 is still a member
movie. At the end of the first film, Buzz has learnt
the value of being a Toy and Woody has learnt the pettiness of jealousy. The friendship that forms with Woody and Buzz
feels earnt and satisfying. At the end of Toy Story 2, Woody has learnt
about his backstory and has accepted that his relationship with Andy can’t last forever. Buzz has reaffirmed the value of being a toy
back to Woody and has rescued his friend. This builds to an epilogue that is again earnt. With Toy Story 3, the toys dynamic and look
on their world is exactly the same. They’re now in a different room and are
being played with again, but aside from that everything is unchanged. The film re-treads the same themes as the
second one, toys don’t last forever and that children grow up, no longer having a
need for toys, except it doesn’t have character arcs. It introduces some fun and interesting characters,
but when stripping away image of your childhood toys being together again, it’s a weak sequel. But obviously we all went to see toy story
3 and we were all happy to see it because you’d have to be a cold blooded cynical
asshole not to. Disney’s constant push for sequels had been
affirmed by the huge amount of ticket sales. The member movie became the foundation of
Pixar’s business model. The change in philosophy at Pixar can easily
be observed when looking at the 20 films in their filmography. With the first ten films, there’s one sequel
made out of necessity, with the last ten, six of them are sequels. It’s worth noting that ironically even though
they’re trash, the cars movies aren’t member movies. Each new instalment is different, with a new
direction for the genre and characters. They’re not marketing the film solely on
images and characters from the original since no one ever cared about cars anyway. Sadly, the same can’t be said for Monster’s
University! Straight off the bat, Pete Docter the man
responsible for writing and directing Monsters Inc. has absolutely nothing do with Monsters
University. You’d think he’d want to ensure that his
characters and world would be handled with care. It is a major red flag that he didn’t even
want to work on the script. Monsters University uses imagery from Monsters
inc, but immediately you get a sense of how diluted and lazy it is. With the original, there’s a real sense
of diversity in the monsters designs in terms of size, texture and abilities. We see how the world adapts and exists to
accommodate this huge variety. With different size doors for Mike and Sully,
small houses for small monsters. There’s also a lot of thought put into the
design of all the small elements that make up the world. Look at the weird fruits there, ooo. The phone isn’t a human phone, everything
has a slight monstrous quality to it, with spikes and evil eyes galore. In pale contrast when we look at the design
that went into monsters university you can see that there is no thought put into how
the space exists for the monsters. The bus is just a normal grey metal bus with
normal average seats made to accommodate equally normal average looking monsters, the university
looks like a beautiful place of inspiration and learning, with no monstrous qualities
at all. When you’re making an animated film, this
is the first thing to get right but every visual aspect feels like it was created with
the same amount of enthusiasm as cars (HOW DID THEY HANG UP THE PICTURES?!) I could have easily overlooked this aspect
if Monsters university offered us a story that actually gave us something interesting. But this narrative is what feels like the
least inspired or interesting story that could be told in a university or educational setting. How many times have we seen that movie where
a group of students need to work through a series of high stakes challenges for some
derivative reason and through doing so learn valuable lessons like self-worth, teamwork,
and you can do more than what is expected of you. But hey at least you get to see how mike wazowzki
developed his workout regimen for sully… member… when he did that… in the first one. Also member the fruits I mentioned and the
quirky restaurant setting, that was fun wasn’t it? Well in Monsters University they just eat
TRASH. Which is what this film is. Except it probably doesn’t taste as nice. Speaking of living in the shadow of great
films here’s Finding Dory. If there was ever a perfect example of a film
that didn’t need to exist, it would be finding dory. Finding Dory is directed by Andrew Stanton,
who directed Finding Nemo. It’s set one year after the original but
is made 13 years after. Can you imagine Andrew Stanton applying the
finishing touches to Wall-E and thinking “yeah this is fine but I’m really excited to do,
is just, really jump into Finding Dory.” In Finding Nemo, we are shown the importance
of Nemo to Marlin in the opening sequence. When he gets taken, we are emotionally invested,
and lengths Marlin goes on to save him is completely justified. With Finding Dory, the inciting incident is
a flashback that Dory gets out of nowhere. The flashbacks communicate that Dory’s parents
are really nice… and that she loves them. That’s it. Why is it important for her to find them? What’s at stake if she doesn’t? Dory’s quite happy and comfortable without
them, as it is clearly shown. Dory is nice, and her parents are nice, aside
from that, why do we care if she finds them? The film’s foundations are solely built
on this and it feels inherently weak. But what solidifies this film as a member
movie is that they just entirely re-tread the same character arc of the first one. Marlin once again doesn’t trust dory and
once again criticises Dory on her judgement. A large amount of time is spent in establishing
the idea that Marlin needs to trust dory (What would dory do clip). In the end Marlin does learn to trust her
but maybe he’s the fish that has memory problems because this is exactly the same
as what happens in Finding Nemo. In the original we see Marlin being unable
to trust Nemo at the start, not willing to allow him to make decisions for himself. After he gets taken, he meets Dory and treats
her in the exact same way. This leads to him not trusting her when she
tells him to swim through the trench rather than other it. Marlin sees the consequences of his actions
and feels remorse and guilt for not trusting her. After this, he sees his attitude towards Dory
as a reflection of how he speaks to Nemo. He takes a leap of fate and trusts Dory and
it pays off. This leads to an emotionally satisfying ending,
where we see how Marlin’s relationship with Dory has had a direct effect on the relationship
with his son. In Finding Dory we see a ham-fisted version
of the same lesson. However, trusting Dory seems like a bad idea
in Finding Dory as she’s often fucking up and putting other characters in dangerous
situations. She finds her parents due to blind luck rather
than using any kind of skills. The conclusion of the narrative doesn’t
feel earnt and is unsatisfying. But hey… member the turtles? Ultimately, I’m not saying that these films
are terrible, they aren’t objectively bad. Nevertheless, Pixar have proven to us so many
times that it has limitless creativity in what it can achieve. The moment you hold these member movies against
that standard you see that so little ambition has been put into these films. They hardly achieve their goal in even recreating
what the originals offer let alone establish something new. Although they have done well at the box office,
I find it difficult to believe that they are going to be remembered with fondness or warmth. Don’t believe me? Name any of these character’s names. This is the exact sort of short term sequel
shilling that pixar fought against all those years ago. It makes me sick to my stomach to imagine
Finding Marlin, Monsters Holiday or… Rata2ie. But at least they still make original films…
and they’re good right? So out the last 10 Pixar films, 4 of them
have been original. But we all know nobody counts Brave and The
Good Dinosaur. Brave was seen as a disappointment. Despite looking pretty and having a nice sounding
soundtrack, its commitment to a conventional narrative and the focus on a mother/daughter
relationship without nuance or believability makes it purely mediocre. It’s a good film to stick on to distract
your 6-year-old kid who won’t shut the fuck up, but they’d still probably rather watch
Toy Story. With The Good Dinosaur- did you actually see
it? I swear nobody actually saw this film and
for good reason it’s exactly what you think it is. It started off as an interesting concept,
but its release kept getting pushed back due to the higher up executives not being happy
with the story. It got to a point where the original mind
behind the project was either fired or left in exasperation. Leaving a confused mess of a film that nobody
wanted to see, Pixar’s first flop ever in history. So now we just have Inside Out and Coco. Out of all of the second half of Pixar’s
filmography, this is all we have left. Inside out, directed by Pete Docter, who isn’t
a doctor but does have a great track record for making whimsical charming Pixar films,
felt like it could have been a really fun idea that could have taken advantage of all
the creative possibilities of having a film predominantly set in someone’s head. It’s disappointing when everything in this
film is painfully practical and literal. The only aspects to Riley’s brain that is
present in the film is simply there out of story necessity leaving a thinly constructed
world that is entirely surface level. When you imagine Inside Out, what comes to
mind is the image of unending corridors filled with stored memories or the equally plain
headquarters space. Think of all the different characters and
props that are used in the world building of other Pixar films. Then you got the headquarters space, oh look
they grab a lightbulb if they have an idea, um colourful bright balls represent memories,
umm… books… they go up to bed at one point. Would have been interesting to see what the
different bedrooms look like. The waiting room at my dentist is a more interesting
location than the inside of a Riley’s mind. Most general audience films will follow a
structure where one or more characters go on a journey in order to achieve a goal, travelling
a great distance and going through hardship to achieve that goal. It might be being separated from where you
started and fighting obstacles to get back. An essential part to this journey is understanding
where each area is located in relation to the others, so we can understand how challenging
and strenuous it is on our protagonist. With Inside Out, the world design is so poorly
put together that it’s near impossible to map out the various locations. It feels like a dome shaped children’s play
area, they always seem to end up in this bit right here. There is an urgency for Joy and Sad to get
back to headquarters but it’s hard to feel tension as their journey towards headquarters
isn’t linear and is mostly just Joy fucking around with different ideas. Pete Docter is a skilled director with a knack
for visual storytelling. He received a lot of acclaim and praise for
the opening sequence in his film Up. But lets compare this opening sequence with
the one from Inside Out, which is a basic voice-over that tells the audience everything
they need to know. I mean it’s easy and it explains everything
nicely to the kids, but this tell rather than show mentality there throughout the whole
film. Every time we enter a new part of the brain,
someone announces exactly what it is, rather than showing it functioning, visually us a
sense of how it works. It’s clear to me that Docter’s flare for
visual storytelling has been snubbed out either by a lack of vigour or Disney or both. This very practical and minimal approach also
regrettably carries over into the characters and not just the ones that are solely communicating
one basic emotion, all of them. Ultimately inside out does manage to bring
it all together with a strong final act which finally establishes the elements of nuance
that are absent from the rest of the film, but that doesn’t overlook the fact that
it comes at the end of two thirds of a basic, stripped back, and uninspired story. Alright next let’s kill Coco. Look I understand why you like Coco, I understand
why you’d like any of these movies, like I said they’re competent films and great
for little little babies. But at its core Coco is a film about someone
who has a deep passion for an art form but isn’t allowed to pursue it due to his family
wanting him to be like them. Leading to conflict which triggers the second
act and a resolution that leads to the family accepting that. Ratatouille has an incredibly similar narrative
structure, Remy wants to cook but his family disapprove and what him to stay in the um
rat herd. But there are so many layers on top of that,
you’ve got the relationship between Remy and Linguini, the antagonistic head chef and
food critic and the romance between Colette and Linguini. It has that character arc of Remy being allowed
to pursue his passion but also has these stubborn larger than life characters also change and
learn in that same space. The issue with Coco, is it follows a weaker
blander version of this. Every character has one single motivation
that they are constantly repeating over and over again. Miguel wants to play music, his sidekick skeleton
wants to be remembered and his ancestors want Miguel to be home. These motivations never change, there isn’t
any explorations of greys and this topped with an overly melodramatic villain who’s
willing to murder children to achieve his goals makes the film lack in any believability
or realism. It’s outstanding to me that a film with
talking fish or anthropomorphic toys is able to relay genuine character changes better
than Coco. Miguel’s family are aggressively against
Miguel being a musician despite that being the only thing that makes him a character. They’re against music because his great
great grandfather was a musician and he walked out on his great great grandmother and never
came back. This is a really dumb reason to hate music
and it might be easier to understand their outlook if this information wasn’t delivered
as voice over with simplistic imagery. Maybe if we visually saw the hatred for music
being passed down through the generations, it would make it easier to just blindly accept
that the sight of a family member holding a guitar would trigger a shit fit. It’s further confusing that Coco, Miguel’s
great grandmother clearly is still affectionate towards her father and seems to enjoy music. I get that’s she’s senile and her brains
detierated at this point, but why the fuck would she keep a photo of her father if everyone’s
supposed to hate him? What about the people who are married into
the family, one of Miguel’s parents presumably wasn’t raised under this intense music hating
fascist regime. Maybe they’re like cousins. Oh yeah I also forgot to mention the day of
the dead location, which mostly acts as a pretty place for Miguel to… run in? it doesn’t really tie very strongly into
the themes nor does the world seem to function in a way that is very different from the human
one, it’s just like a bunch of skeleton people chilling. Miguel never feels like he’s in any actual
danger as he has all his ancestors following him who keep bailing him out of any majorly
threatening situations, and other than that it didn’t seem like there was any real explorations
of ideas of dealing with loss or regret or isolation or leaving an impact on the world,
it doesn’t even really explore miguels relationship with his ancestors, so the whole place just
feels like an overly colourful backdrop to a story which could have just as easily be
set in the real world. You might say that fine combing through a
film which is made for the entertainment of little little babies with this level of scrutiny
is unfair. But that fact of the matter is that if you
apply that same level of scrutiny to monsters inc, finding nemo or incredibles it all holds
up. Characters choices and motivations all make
sense. Every specific element which is important
to these films narratives is given the time they need in order for you to become invested,
and you definitely can’t do the same with something as meek as coco. If you’re watching this, you’re probably
not a little little baby, you are someone with a brain that’s interested in picking
apart and analysing films. If you truly believe that Pixar only make
film for children, then you wouldn’t be watching this video. Pixar has earnt a huge base with high expectations,
founded on the fact that their films can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It’s up to them to maintain that legacy
that they themselves built. The through-line with everything that pixar
has been doing in it’s recent films is that none of them are taking risks, before toy
story three every film which they made was taking some sort of risk, With Bugs Life;
animating 431 ants at once wasn’t easy, with Toy Story 2 they could have easily said
fuck it and released something sub-par but they refused and pushed themselves by making
it in 9 months, with WALL-E, having a protagonist that can only say a handful of words was immensely
difficult and challenging for them, having a strong environmental message was a risk
what are the risks that finding dory takes? What about coco? And now The Incredibles 2 is out in the UK,
I haven’t seen it yet but I already know that it is going to be a passive uninteresting
experience which achieves nothing new. So is Pixar dead? No, not yet. But it is dying, with every uninspired release
orchestrated specifically to drain our pockets and sell merchandise, the spark which was
so strong eight years ago is slowly dying out. Pixar no longer ignites that same level of
sincere and delicate storytelling and instead skirts by on just ‘good enough’, and I
know for a fact that pixar is better than that.
