Pixar movies

Riddler

I feel like people love to rag on Pixar nowadays, and it's true that they don't produce as many 10/10 films as they used to, but honestly, what company can hold up such a streak of amazing quality for several decades? The fact that pretty much all of the films they produce are at the very least "pretty good" and that mediocre or truly bad films are a complete rarity is still really impressive.

Even films like Onward or Monster University, who most would rate as weaker entries, I think, are completely decent animated movies.

Captain Krupp

I want to be charitable, kind and understanding to Pixar…but then I remember Toy Story 4 and that goes into the garbage like the love I used to have for them.

Riddler

Huh, I thought Toy Story 4 was surprisingly good? Like, not as good as 1 or 3, but way better than it had any right to be? I haven't watched it myself yet, tho, so maybe I'm mistaken.

Satsuki

Toy Story 4 was fine. Nothing has been as bad for Pixar than Cars 2.

baby-boo

@Riddler:

Huh, I thought Toy Story 4 was surprisingly good? Like, not as good as 1 or 3, but way better than it had any right to be? I haven't watched it myself yet, tho, so maybe I'm mistaken.

Toy Story 4 was very well received. That up there is just one person's opinion :)

Nobodyman

Toy Story 4 is kind of hard for me to pin down, because I thought Woody's story was fantastic, but everything else about the movie felt so phoned in.

puffing.cinema

so I saw Luca last night and…yeah, it's a good, fun little movie that won't make a splash. 7/10, worth it's time.

the ending and the conflict resolution were a bit heavy handed imo. they could have done much better merely by spending some more time flashing it out and gradually preparing the audience for the next beat, but it wasn't anything that jarringly bad either.

Green_vs_Red

@Satsuki:

Toy Story 4 was fine. Nothing has been as bad for Pixar than Cars 2.

The Good Dinosaur?

Ubiq

The Good Dinosaur was a beautiful panning shot of scenery occasionally marred by scenes with dialogue.

I think Coco is a better film the more you watch it while Toy Story 3 was emotionally cheap and manipulative only to have all of that thrown out by Toy Story 4.

Green_vs_Red

@Ubiq:

The Good Dinosaur was a beautiful panning shot of scenery occasionally marred by scenes with dialogue.

Jesus you woke up with savagery on your mind or something?

Ubiq

@Green_vs_Red:

Jesus you woke up with savagery on your mind or something?

Watch the film again and then tell I'm wrong.

Green_vs_Red

@Ubiq:

Watch the film again and then tell I'm wrong.

I don't need to I remember very well not liking the voice of the main character.

Gizmo

So saw Luca. It’s a cute film, though I wish Alberto’s character arcs didn’t pass by so quickly. Felt like given another punch up it could’ve hit pretty strongly in terms of Pixar moments.

Robby

@Captain:

I want to be charitable, kind and understanding to Pixar…but then I remember Toy Story 4 and that goes into the garbage like the love I used to have for them.

Toy Story 4 was fine though? Wasn't needed, but it didn't taint the others or anything. It slightly tarnishes the ending to 3 and Bonney being attached to Woody… but she's a little girl, its super realistic and natural that she'd gravitate more towards Jessie once she had both.

And the ending to 3 cheats the emotions a bit. Which is fine, good stories do, but it doesn't work quite the same on repeats.

@Nobodyman:

Toy Story 4 is kind of hard for me to pin down, because I thought Woody's story was fantastic, but everything else about the movie felt so phoned in.

I cringed a little when they did the save the cat moment at the start. (race car in this case). And saw the whole "he's going to give his badge to Jessie" thing coming way way in advance, and that wasn't quite earned.

Basically the Woody/Bo Peep stuff was a solid hour of film, but the other half hour was them not knowing what to do with the other characters.

I understand being hamstrung by Potato Head being archive clips, and not wanting SLink to talk too much to give away his replacement, but they could have found better stuff for Buzz and Jesse to do at least.

@Ubiq:

while Toy Story 3 was emotionally cheap and manipulative only to have all of that thrown out by Toy Story 4.

TS3 is really, REALLY good the first time you see it. But after that, stuff like the incinerator scene rings a lot more hollow, and the give away ending as well.

Satsuki

@Ubiq:

I think Coco is a better film the more you watch it while Toy Story 3 was emotionally cheap and manipulative only to have all of that thrown out by Toy Story 4.

@Robby:

TS3 is really, REALLY good the first time you see it. But after that, stuff like the incinerator scene rings a lot more hollow, and the give away ending as well.

Anything and everything Ken makes TS3 worth it. Michael Keaton sounds like he's having so much fun.

Green_vs_Red

@Robby:

Woofy…

Who ?

Nobodyman

@Ubiq:

The Good Dinosaur was a beautiful panning shot of scenery occasionally marred by scenes with dialogue.

Funny how this sentence applies to Disney's Dinosaur as well. Honestly, why can't Disney get dinosaur movies right?

Robby

@Green_vs_Red:

Who ?

The character who is off by one typoed letter one spot to the right on the keyboard, probably.

In this case, Woodu.

@Nobodyman:

Funny how this sentence applies to Disney's Dinosaur as well. Honestly, why can't Disney get dinosaur movies right?

Because Don Bluth already did it pretty darn well, and they're terrified to do an all-silent movie?

The first five minutes of Dinosaur or incredible. Theere's a reason that footage was promoted in full on tapes earlier that year. (I want to say… in front of Tarzan?)

Then they start talking and its all clliche and downhill from there.

Same happened to Spirit stallion of the Cimarron where the horses were originally silent then narration was added later. Or Racing Stripes which was abotu a zebra running in a horse race that later got Steve Harvey and David Spade voicing CGI flies or something.

Heck, even Walking with Dinosaurs insisted on adding bad dub jokes to their film, even though the show used a narrated documentary style.

Also Milo and Otis but if that didn't have a charming narrator adlibbing you might have noticed all the obvious animal abuse.

Even Fantasia doesn't really do all silence, not really.

I think The Bear from 1988 is the only film I can think of that did it right... and I only remember because I saw that in theaters as a kid and it left an impression.

Green_vs_Red

@Robby:

The character who is off by one typoed letter one spot to the right on the keyboard, probably.

In this case, Woodu.

Can Samuel Jackson play him?

@Nobodyman:

Funny how this sentence applies to Disney's Dinosaur as well. Honestly, why can't Disney get dinosaur movies right?

Would you want them to so they can whore it out like The Land Before Time?

Nobodyman

@Green_vs_Red:

Would you want them to so they can whore it out like The Land Before Time?

I mean…they've already whored out all their other movies anyway.

Green_vs_Red

@Nobodyman:

I mean…they've already whored out all their other movies anyway.

I wanted to mention that but I didn't want to boomerang myself.

Robby

@Green_vs_Red:

Would you want them to so they can whore it out like The Land Before Time?

They've already made inferior sequels to most of them, and are about to do another Toy Story related thing, (But this time with the "real" Buzz!) so does it even matter?

Green_vs_Red

@Robby:

They've already made inferior sequels to most of them, and are about to do another Toy Story related thing, (But this time with the "real" Buzz!) so does it even matter?

Well we need them to do another stupid, fucked up, unnecessary thing to take the piss out them don't we?

Robby

Out of their first 15 years, they only had one sequel, and that was basically mandated by Disney mucking with their contract, and was originally going to be direct to video..

In the last 10 years, they've had seven sequels. With a spinoff coming.

I guess 9 out of 26 isn't terrible but considering none of the sequels have been great except the Toy Stories…

Sequels are their only films that have crossed the billion dollar threshold so I guess I can't blame them, but... you can definitely tell when the Disney merger in 2006 started to affect them. (It took a few years because stuff was already in production at the time.) Partly because some of the talent was funnelled to Disney, partly because more sequels were mandated, and partly just... something in their process was lost.

Also Good Dinosaur was their lowest grossing film ever, not counting the Covid films.

Noqanky

Just finished watching Luca, and I had a pretty good time. It definitely has flaws (the family conflict was… ugh), but once it got going and turned into more of a slice of life flick about kids hanging out and having goals it hit its stride.

It's a perfectly solid movie that I would watch any time over 90% of what's out there. I feel like it's unreasonable that so many people online seem to think that a pixar movie that doesn't make you cry or be emotionally devastated is instantly low-quality, and it's honestly a bummer for this to be thought of as a bad movie because it's no wall-e/up/toy story 3.

MetaMario

@Robby:

are about to do another Toy Story related thing, (But this time with the "real" Buzz!) so does it even matter?

Oh for crying out loud.

Satsuki

@Noqanky:

it's honestly a bummer for this to be thought of as a bad movie because it's no wall-e/up/toy story 3.

That's what happens when you have such a high bar set as Pixar does.

Mr. Hide

One great description I heard about Luca, I think from Double Toasted

If you're a depressed adult who wants another Inside Out, this isn't what your looking for.
If you're a happy kid or a happy kid-at-heart looking for the next Good Dinosaur, you found a goldmine.

Robby

@Mr.:

If you're a happy kid or a happy kid-at-heart looking for the next Good Dinosaur, you found a goldmine.

Wow, that's about the most damning insult you could throw at it.

Did… did they intend that to be a positive?

Nobodyman

Yeah, Luca is definitely a lot better than Good Dinosaur. Good Dinosaur was a boring directionless mess. Luca is fun and competently made, there's just…not a whole lot to it.

Ubiq

@Robby:

They've already made inferior sequels to most of them, and are about to do another Toy Story related thing, (But this time with the "real" Buzz!) so does it even matter?

The sad thing is that there's almost zero chance that it'll be remotely as good as Buzz Lightyear of Star Command but the latter will never get the respect it deserves.

Captain Krupp

Its really really REALLY sad that Pixar films are as mediocre as they are now. I dont even like them even a little. I hated Inside Out, I will never watch TS4 and Onward…yeah. The worst part is that other studios movies, while certainly no masterpieces on par with the Pixar epics of old, are simply way more charming and fun. Even Storks! STORKS! To be fair that one was co directed by a Pixar Alumni but still-

EDIT:I FORGOT COCO! AWESOME MOVIE.

zeltrax225

Watched Soul, it was okay.
You know I still don't get the answer to whether to chase your dreams foolhardily or to slow down and enjoy the little things in life.
Like, I understand the best way to live life is to have both in equilibrium but you'll never really make it if you don't grind the hell out towards your dreams either.
I mean, I guess it's fine if you're contented with not having to make it but is that really a message to send? I didn't like how Joe was just okay with performing the show of his dreams, or at least a significant milestone, and just went oh I thought that would impact me more.
Yeah, it actually is supposed to be pretty damn impactful if you've actually poured your life into something and see it come to physical manifestation and fruition.
Falling maple tree leaves are beautiful but that and this are different things in life, each with their own reason why they have fulfillment.

I felt like they shafted the whole live for your dreams and achieve them aspect into a more enjoy the slower things in life and be content with what you have and my propaganda imaginative mind just fired on all cylinders like yeah that's exactly what big corpos would want the average people to do.

Yeah, felt like I'm seriously overthinking it but then that's probably why I didn't enjoyed it.

Retro

I see Luca as just basic, but an enjoyable basic. Like the studio just wanted to do something simple for a bit and have fun with the characters without too much of an overall message (the takeaway I got from this is don't be afraid to explore, don't judge others simply by appearance and let your kids be kids while making sure they stay out of danger). And I ain't complaining, it's still very charming and I adore the setting and all the characters. I guess when you're spoiled by so many movies with twists and turns for so long, it's jarring to go back to a scaled down setup. But I honestly feel this is something we needed now, things have just gotten so political that it's kinda annoying me when some of these films keep hitting me with their themes with the subtly of a brick. And I agree this is definitely not The Little Dinosaur, I wasn't bored and kept my attention from beginning to end. It does move pretty fast I'll admit, was shocked how quickly we jumped into the main story and likely could've did a bit more (but then again we likely would've gotten another Wolfwalkers-style story, I like that movie but don't need another performance plus this one went in another direction). But in the end I still dug it, it's just a nice little story about fish monsters and hanging out with your friend in summertime. Nothing wrong with that.

Satsuki

@Captain:

I hated Inside Out

How can you hate Inside Out?!

Kaido King of the Beasts

I was really charmed by Luca overall. Sure, its plot scale is not nearly as audacious as many of Pixar's other movies. But still, most everything just…works. The characters are likeable, the humor is almost all natural and good natured, the story flows. It hits a lot of spots that some other less ambitious Pixar movies didn't.

! One reservation I had about the movie initially was that it was difficult to see any redeeming qualities in Luca's mother. But by the end, it was more understandable that it was a natural sense of prejudice mixed with real fear, which made for an interestingly subtle look at how tensions can form between different people. What might have made it work better is if we saw more of the sea monster town beyond just the opening scenes, the movie otherwise felt like Luca's family vs. the whole city of Portorosso.

Robby

@Satsuki:

How can you hate Inside Out?!

-The Riley plot which is 1/3 of the movie is non-existant
-The main character Joy is obnoxious and mean and enraging in her…. Joy.
-All the travelling sequences are visually interesting but completely random nonsense and don't really build on themselves.

The final throughline "you need joy AND sadness" is a good moment, and basically everything with Anger and Disgust is solid, there's some good jokes in there. The gum thing comes to mind.

Soul (from the same director) is similar in the opposite direction Basically all the stuff in the real world is great, especially the barber shop and pursuing his dreams, but basically everything in the spirit zone is just... whatever.

For a different example, i liked the first Cars movie. But I also hate it because its a stupid dumb movie, but there's just enough STUFF and character and heart and individual moments that it works.

Inside Out is similar. The individual pieces are fine but the whole thing isn't quite there. It's an easy movie to like and if you get caught up in it, it works fine. But its an easy movie to dislike too if its not checking your boxes or if one of the two plots is doing nothing for you..

One of these days I'm going to have to rewatch Coco without the Olaf short in front of it and see if I like that any better a second time around.

Daz

In addition to what Robby said, as someone who also just thought inside out was "merely" fine, I found it a bit hard to relate to Riley due to the conceit of the movie; like I can emphatize with her situation, but by constantly showing her actions to be decided by small cartoon characters in her mind it made her seem a bit…like a robot. I get that its all a metaphor, but when you have stuff like Riley being about to excitedly slide down a rail, then cut to Fear objecting and taking over the controls, then cut back to Riley deciding not to slide down the rails it made the link a bit too direct for me.

And yeah, a lot of the structure of the movie seems dictated by "what fun abstract psychological concept can we make into a setpiece" - as fun as the "abstract thought" section looked, it really threw me off that during the entire scene Sadness entire pitch and characterization seemed different, for the sake of explaining what abastract thought is. And the flow from the dream film set to rescuing Bing Bong in the subconcious is real weird.

I never really got hit by te Bing Bong moment either; part of that is on me never having had an imaginary friend, but also because they had Bing Bong murder a cloud person earlier in the movie for the sake of a chinatown reference. I figure that if I'm not supposed to care about that since the cloud person was imaginary, well, why should I care about Bing Bong.

Still, only ever watched it once. Might play different post fatherhood.

Satsuki

Bing Bong didn't hit me quite as hard as other Pixar moments either, I think the climax with Sadness hit me a little harder. Joy managed to not be obnoxious or annoying to me by the grace of being played by Amy Poehler, who is like impossible to hate and a perfect cast for Joy. All the emotions had perfect casts, really.

Part of what I also really like about Inside Out is that it was so Pixar in that it was really pushing for something different. And for the most part, it succeeded.

Robby

Saw Luca. And. Huh. How do I explain this. I guess I should start with…

I really liked it!

It wasn't "Pixar deep" but that's fine. They haven't been THAT studio since Toy Story 3 and its really time we stop comparing everything to their golden era five best films

It was fun and had energy and wonderful visuals and any comparisons to Good Dinosaur are completely out of line. This was simple. Good Dinosaur was a mess. This was simple because it wanted to be, Good Dinosaur was simple because it had no idea what it was doing.

It's not Wall-E or Ratatouille, no. Nor is it any of my other favorites, films that I absolutely knew I loved from the first watch.

But all the same its the one I enjoyed the most in a long time. Where I wanted to just take in the visuals and liked the characters being charming and was caught up and going along with the flow.

It felt more like a ghibli film but with some western charm and energy.

Yeah the story beats were incredibly obvious and it was simple and nothing actually surprised me, but that's fine. It worked for what they were doing. And like I said, it was intentional simple, intentionally straightforward. It arrived at that point through excellent crafting, not because they didn't know better.

It's almost certainly my favorite Pixar film in the last decade. Not the best or the most artistic or the most emotional or the most unique concept... but its the first one I feel like, right after seeing it, I actually want to watch again and spend more time with these characters and want to buy the dvd and listen to any commentary they make for it and look at special features and hunt down an artbook....

Its not going to the top of any of my all time favorite lists, it's missing that IT factor, but I liked it.

Also nice to see the Dad from Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs get more work.

Though at the end when they started showing those lineart drawings... man... how I wish this had been in 2D.

(Favorite Pixar films are Ratatouille and Incredibles. Favorite Disney animated film of the last decade is Zootopia, and the decade before is Lilo and Stitch. Other all time faves include castle of Calgiostro, How to Train Your Dragon, and Princess Mononoke.)

Nobodyman

Yeah. The more I think back on Luca the more I think, "yeah, that really was a darn good movie that I wouldn't mind seeing again." It really does feel like a simpler slice-of-life Ghibli movie that they would make between their bigger fantasy adventures. And that's perfectly fine.

Satsuki

The director of Luca is the guy who directed that charming Pixar short "La Luna" way back. So of course it's simple and charming.

Nobodyman

Gizmo

I hate to judge a movie early base on a teaser trailer, but no…

Thinking Sony is becoming the studio whose company I’m looking forward to the most along with other smaller studio projects when they’re not making the next Hotel Transylvania (though whatever it takes to make the the budget).

Again, few months late but would recommend Wish Dragon on Netflix. Yes, the trailer makes it very Aladdin but the second half veers in a different direction and subverts tropes to distinguish itself from Aladdin and despite the hinting towards romance, it’s sweeter to interpret the whole think as truly just childhood friendship (that said I am a sucker for the childhood romance trope and that beginning scene was adorable. Like Up mini story adorable cute just B+ instead of the A+ that is Up.

!

Satsuki

Not the most impressive Pixar trailer, but it got a chuckle from me. And they get super-duper-extra points for using Backstreet Boys.

KageKageKing

Why do I have the feeling the whole movie is another metaphor for growing up?

Satsuki

Because aren't they always?

maxterdexter

Pixar only does coming of age stories. childhood to adulthood, meh parent to proper parent, cranky old man to nice old man, toddler dreck of humanity to earth re-terraformer, imposter cheff to restaurant owner.

Daz

Pixar trailers are notoriously meh, or at least thats a common view on this forum, but even with those standards…woof, this did nothing for me. I wasn't as keen on Wish Dragon as Gizmo, but otherwise yeah, I'm more curious what Sony has cooking (and Cartoon Saloon and Laika, of course) - if nothing else, the style and movement of the animation will be refreshingly poppin'.

Satsuki

If Pixar's animation was anything less than gorgeous you would know something had gone seriously wrong at the studio.