The Perils of Pixar

Scott Hardie | June 25, 2013
Has Pixar declined in quality in recent years?

The Atlantic just charted a decline in critical consensus toward their films, but I'm more interested in your personal opinion.

I used to think of them as kids' movies with appeal for grown-ups, although that appeal varied quite a bit between their more complicated and thoughtful movies for older kids (Up and The Incredibles) and their simpler, more infantile movies for younger kids (Monsters Inc. and Cars). I didn't like every one of their titles, but I respected them as serious artists who exerted a level of attention to detail that would have made Walt Disney proud.

These days, they seem to have a bad case of sequelitis. Toy Story 3 was unnecessary and overrated (I'm in the minority, I know), Cars 2 looked godawful (like most people, I stayed far away), Monsters University arrives to little demand or fanfare, and their future movies include Finding Dory and the dreadful-looking Planes.

What happened? My guess would be their 2006 acquisition by Disney, the agreement for which mandated the production of Toy Story 3. Disney can be quite a mercenary company, and may have forced Pixar to turn out sequels that simply aren't worthwhile and don't inspire the same passion.

Do you think Pixar has entered a creative slump? Do you think they'll recover?

Samir Mehta | June 25, 2013
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | June 26, 2013
About the graph: That could be true. I took the trendline to indicate the degree of decline in average rating between the early days and today. But the more I look at it, the less sense it makes. Why does the line start above Toy Story (indeed, above 100%) instead of directly ON Toy Story? If you average all of the movies on the chart, it ends up around 89%, which is not where the line ends. If you average just the last three movies on the chart, it ends up around 65%, which is also not where the line ends. So if the end point of the line is supposed to represent just Monsters University, why does it end below Monsters University instead of directly ON it? Am I missing something or is the trendline just made up by the author?

Cultural consensus has probably influenced this. For a while, the line of thinking was that Pixar could do no wrong, and some early titles were overrated just a little. Now, they're perceived to be in a creative slump, and the media narrative in articles like the above contribute to that thinking, so we're more inclined to nitpick imperfections in titles like Brave and Monsters University that might have been hailed ten years ago. (I just rented Brave and look forward to trying it.)

I was amused by how many people mistook Wreck-It Ralph for a Pixar film, partly because of the animation style and partly because it was so good. Pixar might be becoming a little more like Disney, but Disney is becoming a lot more like Pixar if Ralph was any indication, and that's a good thing. I wonder how different the article and chart would be if Ralph (86% on the Tomatometer) really had been a Pixar film.

Scott Hardie | June 28, 2013
Even Pixar seems to think they're making too many sequels, as they just announced plans to tone it down.

I see now that Planes is technically a Disney film, albeit one with significant Pixar involvement. The line between the two brands gets blurrier all the time.

Samir Mehta | June 30, 2013
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | July 12, 2013
In other Pixar news: People are discussing The Pixar Theory, which attempts to unify all Pixar movies into a single timeline. I'm amused at some of its ideas, like how A Bug's Life takes place after the apocalypse in WALL-E when bugs are the only creatures still living on Earth and have evolved an anthropomorphic civilization. But most of the piece is a hell of a stretch, particularly the last piece of the puzzle that links Monsters Inc to Brave. I hope the author is only kidding and intended this as a joke and conversation-starter.