Pixar Merger with Disney Has Hurt Quality

[VulcanJedi]

Sitting here, finally watching Brave. Would have seen it sooner, but poor reviews turned me away.

Right away the problem is clear; overuse of expository in place of showing. This is writing 101; show us don't tell us.
Cars 2: we take a film that actually had a anti-establishment message and turn it into happy feet 3 or back to the barnyard. Pixar films were on a streak of being profound..now, just blah. What happened? Disney?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Maybe no one can simply satisfy everyone forever.... I know its a hard concept to grasp. Try though.

 

[Harvey]

Well, the fact that Pixar has had to produce films at a faster rate after the merger has certainly affected production. Before the merger, apparently, everyone in the company worked (in some capacity) on every film. Now, due to the accelerated release schedule demanded by Disney, that's not possible.

The merger era has also seen far more sequels than were developed in the pre-merger era.

I haven't seen any of their films since Up, so I can't really comment on their recent output's quality, but reviewers have certainly noticed a decline.

 

[VulcanJedi]

That explains it. This is terrible. I heard that they used to work slowly, revising and adding until things were perfect. It's sad to imagine Disney could ruin things like this. The word was the merger would put Pixar in charge, but apparently it was the opposite. Yes, I guess after Up, it's all down hill from there.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I get your point but I think this started before the merger. I think the quality was starting to go down before Disney. I don't think UP or even the first CARS was of the same quality as their early work.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

As long as the movies keep making a crapload of money, expect this status quo to continue.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I haven't seen any of their films since Up, so I can't really comment on their recent output's quality, but reviewers have certainly noticed a decline.

Toy Story 3 got as much praise as any Pixar movie ever has. Cars 2 got scathing reviews, absolutely, but that's John Lasseter's pet enthusiasm, not something Disney forced on them. Brave got better reviews than Cars 2 (it's not their best work by any means, but it's not bad either).

I don't see any real basis for the idea that Disney's acquisition has hurt Pixar. John Lasseter is in charge of running both now.

 

[VulcanJedi]

Thoroughly enjoyed Toy Story 3, so I guess all is not lost. Just finished Brave. To me the big difference is pacing. Allow the story toFlow natural, and from this organic process comes humor and depth. When scenes are rushed there's no chance for emotional connection. Aside from this I'm not sure what the message of Brave was. Almost every Pixar to this point has been nominated, critically acclaimed or awarded. Pixar has been able to find commonality and universal beliefs in an increasingly splintered society. Perhaps Brave delved too far off the grid of anything recognizable? Even so, Girl Power might have hit the bulls eye if it only slowed down a bit.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

What was Bug's Life's message?

 

[Christopher]

What was Bug's Life's message?

That... you can never have too many The Seven Samurai pastiches?

 

[Trekker4747]

I actually enjoyed "Brave" though, yeah, there was nothing particularly "special" or powerful about it.

 

[Christopher]

Brave was a very good movie. No, it's not as good as Pixar's finest, but compared to non-Pixar movies in general, it's still a high-quality work.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, I don't think the merger has hurt them yet. The way I see it, it was bound to happen that they'd get a dud out sooner or later, because nobody's perfect. They've been held to such a high standard that we simply expect more out of them, and when more of them fall below that, then that will be a cause for concern, but I just don't see it yet. Give them 3 duds, and I'd maybe start to worry.

 

[Sci]

All artists eventually produce works that aren't up to par with their best. It's just the inevitable nature of artistic production. No one can produce works of genius forever.

 

[Thestral]

This has reminded me that I still need to see Brave at some point...

 

[Mr Light]

Cars 2, like Cars 1, was completely uninvolving, but I like Toy Story 3 (and I didn't care much for 1 or 2). Brave was disappointing to me, though. I wanted more plot/story/action/villain.

 

[Christopher]

Let's be fair -- I don't remember A Bug's Life usually getting mentioned among Pixar's greats, and that was only their second feature. Checking IMDb's rankings for Pixar feature films, ABL, at 7.2 stars, is the lowest-ranked one other than Cars 2 (6.4), scoring a little below the original Cars (7.3) and Brave (7.4), with every other Pixar feature ranking between 8.0 and 8.5. So it's not really accurate to say that Pixar has always been uniformly strong until recently. They've had fluctuations before. Okay, the last two films have gotten their lowest and fourth-lowest rankings, respectively, but the difference between those two is nearly 50% of the total spread, so it hardly proves there's a trend, especially not when the immediately previous film, Toy Story 3, was tied with WALL-E for first place.

 

[Gaith]

Cars 2: we take a film that actually had a anti-establishment message and turn it into happy feet 3 or back to the barnyard.

Lol, wut? The message of Cars is that the ways and values of old white rural men in positions of authority are the best, and that NASCAR is totally awesome, so the surest way to find happiness is to embrace both in equal parts. If that's an "anti-establishment message", then Up must be a NAMBLA commericial.

What was Bug's Life's message?

Are you kidding? A large, peaceful community is being preyed upon by a few violent oligarchs, until the proletarians learn to rise up and expel the 1%. It's the clearest message movie Pixar's made yet.

 

[Relayer1]

I haven't seen Brave - itself unusual as I've seen all the others, so I can't comment on it. Maybe that does say something about Pixars no longer being 'must see' ?

The two I've liked least were Monsters Inc. , which has since grown on me and the rotten Ratatouille, which hasn't.

My personal favorite is Cars, but I like the rest.

And A Bugs Life is great !

 

[VulcanJedi]

Cars an ode to old white men and NASCAR?: au contraire; do you think Randy Neumann and James Taylor would sing a song about the glory of white power? No, the message of Cars was that Eisenhower's highway system destroyed the American community....which is why it was nervously followed up by a film glorifying technology, progress and the CIA. Cars is subversive!