For 15 years, the animation studio was the best on the planet. Then Disney bought it.
By Christopher Orr
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/how-pixar-lost-its-way/524484/ . . .Pixar’s signature achievement was to perfect a kind of crossover animated cinema that appealed equally to kids
and adults. The key was managing to tell two stories at once, constructing a straightforward children’s story atop a more
complex moral and narrative architecture. Up, for example, took a relatively conventional boy’s adventure tale and harnessed
it to a moving, thoroughly grown-up story of loss, grief, and renewal.
The theme that the studio mined with greatest success during its first decade and a half was parenthood, whether real (Finding
Nemo, The Incredibles) or implicit (Monsters, Inc., Up). Pixar’s distinctive insight into parent–child relations stood out from the
start, in Toy Story, and lost none of its power in two innovative and unified sequels. “Who would want to see a movie about a
little boy who plays with dolls?,” Michael Eisner, then the CEO of Disney, obtusely asked when told of plans for the Pixar debut.
(Disney was to co-finance it.) But the film’s creative premise is precisely—and crucially—the reverse: Toy Story is a movie about
dolls who want to be played with by a little boy . . .
. . . after Toy Story 3, the Pixar magic began to fade. The last film of the golden era, it was also the first film begun after Disney
acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006, when Lasseter and Catmull were made, respectively, the chief creative officer and the
president of both studios. The sequels that followed—Cars 2 (a spy spoof) in 2011 and Monsters University (a college farce) in
2013—lacked any thematic or emotional connection to the movies that spawned them. Though better than either of those two,
Brave, Pixar’s 2012 foray into princessdom, was a disappointment as well. The studio rallied with Inside Out in 2015. But the
inferior The Good Dinosaur (also in 2015) and last year’s mediocre Finding Dory only confirmed the overall decline, which was
particularly noticeable in comparison with the revival under way over at Disney Animation . . .
. . . The Disney merger seems to have brought with it new imperatives. Pixar has always been very good at making money, but
historically it did so largely on its own terms. The studio, remember, rejected a low-quality direct-to-video Toy Story 2, and instead
worked round the clock to come up with another tour de force. But Lasseter, among his other obligations, now oversees Disneytoon
Studios as well. In that capacity he served as the executive producer of 2013’s Planes and its 2014 sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue.
The two movies are—like virtually all Disneytoon films—shameless, derivative cash grabs. What makes them unique is that they
are also explicit spin-offs of Pixar’s Cars franchise, a development that would have been almost unimaginable before the merger.
As Lasseter himself explained, “By expanding the Cars world, Planes gave us a whole new set of fun-filled situations" . . .
. . . Pixar has promised that after the upcoming glut of sequels, the studio will focus on original features. But we’re grown-ups,
and though the once inimitable studio has taught us to believe in renewal, it has also trained us in grief and loss. I’m not sure I
dare to expect much more of what used to make Pixar Pixar: the idiosyncratic stories, the deep emotional resonance, the subtle
themes that don’t easily translate into amusement-park rides. I’m thinking of the heartbreaking, waltz-set “Married Life” segment
of Up, which packs more emotion into four minutes than most Oscar-nominated dramas manage in their entire running time.
Or the wistful solitude of wall‑e’s robotic protagonist, left behind on Earth to clean up his creators’ mess. Or Anton Ego’s artful
critique of criticism at the end of Ratatouille, arguably the slyest words on the subject since Addison DeWitt’s in All About
Eve.
None of these films is scheduled to have a sequel. And none is particularly suited to becoming a theme-park ride (though Disney
unveiled Ratatouille: The Adventure at, of course, Disneyland Paris). Which can’t help but raise the question: Would Pixar even
bother making those pictures anymore?
For the record:
* I disagree about the original
Cars---I thought it was sharp and romantic in its way, particularly the segment in which
Sally and McQueen gaze over the ghost of Route 66 from the height where what remained of the Wagon Wheel sat. (There's
no more poignant line in any Pixar film than Sally telling McQueen of Route 66, "Cars didn't take it to make good time, they
took it to
have a good time.")
Cars 2 was a preposterous bore, gutting any desire I had to see
Cars 3.
*
Finding Dory wasn't half as good as
Finding Nemo, but I enjoyed it regardless. Even if I thought the truck going
over the high side and into the drink was as over-the-top as it got.
*
Planes was a great idea when I thought about it and when I sketched it on paper. Then I saw it. Crash-and-burn boring.
Other than that, this writer seems to have hit it square on the cranium. And it's sad.
