Discuss: Is The Golden Age Of Pixar Over?

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by Drew Taylor
July 17, 2012 4:09 PM
23 Comments

Hope isn't lost, though, and once we get through next summer's surefire "Monsters University," about as creatively bankrupt a concept as we can think of (it's the characters from "Monsters Inc."… in college, with a teaser trailer that suggests "Animal House" with tentacles), it looks like the "Second Renaissance" of Pixar Animation could be upon us. (This would mirror Disney Animation's Second Renaissance, which started at the end of the eighties and included "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty & the Beast" and "The Lion King.") There are three really intriguing projects already announced by Pixar – 2014's "The Good Dinosaur," directed by "Up" co-director Bob Peterson and Peter Sohn (who did that amazing "Partly Cloudy" short a couple years back); 2015's untitled movie that takes you inside a little girl's mind (directed by "Up" helmer Pete Docter and written by Arndt) has been described to us as "wildly ambitious"; and "Toy Story 3" director Lee Unkrich's movie that takes place in the world of the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos (which could be out as early as 2015, when Pixar plans on ramping up to two movies a year, utilizing some of the talent at their Vancouver satellite studio).

What would be really sad is if there would be little fits of Pixar genius here and there, little bursts that remind us of the old quality that we had come to expect, instead of a sustained performance. Maybe this is the nature of the beast, and for Pixar to be able to set movies in Mexican holidays or young girl's minds, they will have to do another "Monsters Inc." or two (or three or four). We've heard that the Disney corporate energy is seeping into the culture, with more and more demands being made from the higher-ups, which wasn't the case as much when Pixar was an autonomous entity that simply worked with the studio.

Earlier this year we wondered if Pixar was in trouble, now we fear that it truly is time to worry. Unnecessary sequels are a part of loving movies, but we can't help but feel like it's a huge step back for Pixar to waste its considerable time and resources chasing the easy money when they've proven themselves to be willing to go out on a limb, creatively. At one point Pixar seemed unstoppable – a studio whose winning streak could not be broken. Now that it has been broken, by a series of high-profile mediocrities (and, as today's announcement showed, more on the way), we are left wondering if they can get back on track.

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More: Pixar, Walt Disney Pictures

23 Comments

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F.P. | July 19, 2012 12:06 PMReply

I was prepared to pooh-pooh that sky-is-falling headline, but you make some solid points. I agree that no track record can ever be perfect, but yeah, since the excellent, best-of-the-decade brilliance of WALL-E, I haven't liked a Pixar film. UP and TS3 were very mean-spirited films, CARS 2 was a wreck, and yeah, the excesses of JOHN CARTER seem to indicate that absolute power corrupts absolutely (and by the way, Hollywood, you really need to stop doubling down on this Kitsch guy - he's never acted in a role worthy of his rising star status, and seems to be the equivalent of success kryptonite). Didn't know that Disney's involvement had stepped up as much as it had, so yeah, with Pixar experiencing sequelitis, maybe that moment from the 00's has really signaled the end of the greatness we once knew...?
Carbine125 | July 18, 2012 8:48 PMReply

"movie that takes place in the world of the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos" So basically Grim Fandango. *foaming at the mouth*
Karen Young | July 18, 2012 11:15 AMReply

You need a proofreader, desperately. When you are talking about key people at a company, the word is PRINCIPALS. Not "principles," which are the things which might prevent a company like Pixar from releasing a sequel to Finding Nemo.
anon | July 18, 2012 1:17 AMReply

egos run wild over there with lasseter and crew
Mike | July 17, 2012 11:40 PMReply

Brave was not a weak film at all, it was a nice twist on Disney's formula & gorgeous to boot. Of course it'd be hard for anyone to top the run they had from 2007-2010, but with their top tier directors working on really promising projects like The Good Dinosaur, the inside the mind project and the day of the dead film, I'm quite excited for Pixar's future. Though we likely have to wait until 2014 to start to see that future.
Troy | July 17, 2012 10:55 PMReply

Yeah, I don't get the doom and gloom some people are projecting about Pixar. Nobody has a perfect record. The great Studio Ghibli botches it from time to time. My favorite filmmaker Billy Wilder made his share of stinkers.

I'll take the good-but-not-great Brave any day over straight up babysitting garbage like Madagascar or Ice Age sequels.
Brian | July 17, 2012 6:35 PMReply

Smart and wonderful piece. Thanks.
Rebecca | July 17, 2012 6:16 PMReply

Pixar is making a sequal to Finding Nemo- completely unnecessary- I'm done with them. Hollywood needs a makeover, it's getting ridiculous.
Ferry13 | July 17, 2012 5:30 PMReply

It's not Disney. Disney was always there, from the first Toy Story. We now simply discover Lasseter probably wasn't key to the success. I start to think Steve Jobs was. He didn't draw, sketch or write anything, but from all the biographies that have appeared lately we know he used to spend one day a week at Pixar, and was doing one thing over and over: keep telling people everything Pixar had to be great. Insanely great. I'm pretty sure he had to green lit every new project. And I guess he wasn't that much into sequels. Because Pixar made only one during his time. Now they're doing more sequels than original stories. Could be Disney is demanding cheap sequels. We know they're like that. But Pixar used to have someone who was strong enough to say no. That was Jobs, not Lasseter or Catmull. People have been worrying about the consequences of Jobs' death for Apple... but Pixar is missing out on him as well.
rubi-kun | July 18, 2012 10:05 PM

Nah. Jobs was there when Cars 2 was being made. I'm thinking it's more Joe Ranft who was the genius behind the early Pixar films (plus Toy Story 3, which had story ideas thrown around for years before the Disney deal was ironed out to allow it to enter production at Pixar) and the run of Ratatouille through Up were the result of Pixar taking more risks during the short period they weren't certain if the Disney deal would go through. In all honesty, Brave doesn't really deserve the level of dismissal it's gotten; it's a better film than A Bugs' Life and about on par with Finding Nemo in my mind. If Cars 2 hadn't come out inbetween it and TS3, we'd be talking about it as another Pixar winner (though I do want to know what Chapman's version was like). And I wonder if John Carter's press and box office would have been better had they more strongly associated it with the Pixar brand (Stanton was the main reason I was interested in it, but none of the advertising highlighted that, and I'm sad its failure has basically forced him into doing Nemo 2). From now on I'm basically still expecting good things from original Pixar movies, but these sequels (unless it's Brad Bird doing another Incredibles) I'm just going to ignore. If Pixar's serious about ramping up productions, it's clear there's now "A-projects" and "B-projects", whereas before everything was treated as an A-project.
Ferry13 | July 17, 2012 5:46 PM

@Marko: He probably has too much on his plate... but would he forget about staying true to everything he said in many interviews about sequels? I think he simply isn't strong enough to safeguard Pixar. He's an animator - a good one. He is a visionary filmmaker. Someone who was at the dawn of computer animation. That's all great. But it doesn't make him a strong leader. That's a different talent. Unfortunately, we see Pixar suffer from this now.
Marko | July 17, 2012 5:32 PM

Or the problem could be that Lasseter has too much on his plate now.
starway2001 | July 17, 2012 5:10 PMReply

I love how the goalposts of success are convenient moved around at whim to suit the theme of this article.
Dryer | July 17, 2012 4:48 PMReply

There's any easy way to assess this situation, look when bathroom humor and pop music entered the fray. Pixar used to be the gold standard because they didn't swing to the cheap seats. Brave is the perfect example of old vs new Pixar. The opening sequence, the fight between mother and daughter, and the discovery of Muldoon bear was perfect old style Pixar. Everything else was Disney marketing fluenced. You either got the subtle message or you enjoyed the basic plot and it's brilliant animation. It's was'nt like Dreamworks which took Katzenburgs Touchstone formula and applied it to computer animation though reversed with broad comedy purposefully created for children but a few induendos for adults. But Lasseter sold the company out with Cars, purposefully aiming low and now there is no difference between the two studios. This same combination brought down Disney animation in the late 90s when they began favoring dollars over product, stories played second fiddle to merchandise machine.
bob | July 17, 2012 8:18 PM

Agree. Well said
cory everett | July 17, 2012 5:08 PM

Excellent comment. On the nose.
Leonardo | July 17, 2012 4:42 PMReply

I still have faith in pixar, it just Disney is trying really hard to absorbe it and becoming another money making machine.
Tom | July 17, 2012 4:33 PMReply

Back in 2006 when I read that Disney had bought Pixar, I actually cried. The effects of the parent company are becoming more apparent all the time.
Mike | July 17, 2012 11:47 PM

I don't know, Disney had the guts to let them release films aimed at adults with Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up (sure they could market them to families with the talking animals and comedy aspects of them, but the impact of the stories are over kids' heads) and release a finale to their most lucrative series that was more for the adults who were kids when the original came out than the low-hanging fruit of the toy buying children with Toy Story 3 (which also features an utterly harrowing climactic scene). The only real 'Disney ruining things' effects we've seen is the commissioning of Cars 2, but Cars was created and loved by Lasseter who is Pixar's head and the head of all Disney animation, so that and the fact that despite being basically their lowest grossing film it's made them the most money on merchandise got it a sequel. That's a mutual black eye. Brave is Pixar taking on Disney's turf and taking the story & characters in directions Disney never would, and the post-2013 projects all sound like highly viable creative premises & are being made by Pixar's best directors. Disney hasn't run them into the ground, the 2007-2010 Pixar run was stunning.
Aiden Rush | July 17, 2012 4:24 PMReply

In short, yes.
Huffy | July 18, 2012 1:21 AM

Most of those projects were probably already in production at various stages when Disney bought them out. The point that the article is making, a point which is valid I believe, is that Pixar has started to become mediocre right around the time that they've started to become more and more integrated into Disney. They weren't nearly as integrated into the Mouse House in 2008 as they are today and the on-screen results are hard to ignore. Combined with the exodus of talent and I think that it's going to be a while before they can match their past glories, at least on a consistent basis.
Anhedonia | July 17, 2012 4:21 PMReply

We already did: http://mubi.com/topics/is-pixar-going-downhill?page=1
steven | March 29, 2013 12:45 AM

sorry but this fucking article is poorly made crap and god why do we let people like this reproduce