Is Pixar dead at this point?

Is Pixar dead at this point?

I thought they got back on the right path after Inside Out but after Finding Dory and the numerous other sequels lined up, it just feels like they're done and only milking their former franchises to death now.

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>he thought Inside Out was good

Compared to Cars 2, Monsters University and Brave it was a fucking breath of fresh air.

Didn't they have some new policy put in place where they agreed that for every 1 new original film they put out, they had to make X amount of sequels?

I think it was done to compete with Dreamworks' and other studios' franchising strategies. A lot of animated big name CG films now aim to become big franchise hits to maximize earning potential, and that means putting out a new sequel every few years to keep the brand relevant. The movies don't even have to be good after a bit as long as the first one was popular enough.

This is what animation has become.

It took a potentially interesting premise and made a boring run-of-the-mill visually dull movie out of it.
The movie ironically felt like it had no personality.

>Didn't they have some new policy put in place where they agreed that for every 1 new original film they put out, they had to make X amount of sequels?
It was 1 sequel=original film.
The four Pixar films after TS4 will be originals.

Dreamworks made chicken run?

They like to take a lot of credit for their Aardman collaborations.
That's kind of why Aardman didn't like working with them.

All the talented people were moved to WDAS ,heck, Lassetter himself had to save that furry movie.

Lets face it, Pixar is Disney's bitch at this point.

Because Disney bought them. And if you have ever noticed, Disney will just keep putting out shit. They kept the Pixar people, like Lassiter, but they are under the gun. Remember when they said no more toy story movies, and then after they go under dineys wing, bingo!, more toy story movies.

are they still keeping animators separate from Disney's animation studio?

I hope the Pixar animators are taken under Disney's wing when the sequel production runs dry.

I liked it

Honestly, I think it all comes down to the issue of sequels making a ton of money where original ideas fail. It isn't just Pixar who's doing this shit, either.

Disney has one concrete original movie planned for this year, and like three sequels. Their big A-Squad movie, Moana, isn't the financial success Disney likely wanted it to be, and I don't think anyone expected Zootopia to be the billion dollar movie.

Dreamworks is cranking out sequels because their original concepts don't make any money period. Rise of the Guardians nearly bankrupted them.

And Pixar kind of seems like they're running out of ideas. Especially with this Coco thing that's coming out, that's a total "Book of Life" rip-off. So, of course they'll fall back on their previous movies".

Disney's own efforts have been BTFOing Pixar for years now

See

>Rise of the Guardians nearly bankrupted them.

Rise of the Guardians seems like it was an attempt at starting a long series of sequels in the first place. With its loose introductory plot, creative setting ripe for world building and lore, and big cast of likable characters with mysterious backstories, it had "franchise potential" written all over it. It was a newer, less safe property that totally bombed, yeah, but it clearly wasn't meant to be an original standalone film.

>"Book of Life" rip-off
Disney had been wanting to do a Day of the Dead movie since before Book of Life was a thing, BoL just happened to come out earlier.

Most Pixar movies have been heavily inspired by other movies or tv shows.

Toy Story : The Christmas Toy
Toy Story 2 : Follow That Bird
Toy Story 3 : The Brave Little Toaster
Bugs Life : Insektors + Seven Samurai
Ratatouille : Mouse Hunt
Cars : Doc Hollywood
Cars 2 : The Man Who Knew Too Little
Brave : Brother Bear
Monsters Inc. : Little Monsters
Monsters University : Revenge of the Nerds
Up : Above Then Beyond
Wall-E : Idiocracy + Short Circuit
Finding Dory : Toy Story 2
The Good Dinosaur : Lion King

"People remake good movies, but they are already good. They should remake bad movies that are good ideas but poorly executed." - Ed Catmull
youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc ~(25:00)

Inside Out was Herman's Head
Also Finding Dory was literally just Finding Nemo because it rehashed so much stuff from the first movie.

>Ratatouille : Mouse Hunt
Wut. Do you mean that end sequence when they use the mouse as a taster for cheese?
Because the rest of the movie is basically closer to something like Tom and Jerry or Home Alone crossed with Casper, and that's nothing like Ratatouille.

>Wall-E : Idiocracy
Like Idiocracy did anything original.

Actually scratch that, Mouse Hunt is straight up Casper with a mouse.

>Like Idiocracy did anything original.
LOL U STUPID SHEEP IT SHOWED PEOPLE WATCHING AN ASS ON THE CINEMA SCREEN THIS IS SO DEEP SUCH COOL METAPHOR!!!!!!! ALSO RELIGION IS STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM SO SMART FOR SAYING THIS!

Rise of the Guardians wasn't an original concept, its based on a series of books. Though admittedly a series of books that I had never heard of before the movies came out.

I'd also never heard of HTTYD before the film.

movies only earn billions now because more people are going to cinemas now than before. financial success is not everything.

because they're children books favorites of exec's children.

Why do you think we're getting Boss Baby?

I've noticed that people are getting a bit tired with their style

>Sinbad
I really liked that movie

Monsters University was severely underrated, superior to Inside Out, and if you don't appreciate it you're a pleb

oh, you read the article at the cartoonbrew?

> see Pixar’s name and you know it’s all gonna be the same — probably great, but just the same.

formula, formula is wearing off. We need a shake.

Most of these are really surface level, shallow comparisons, the real meat of the movie's very different for most of these.

And not all, like, sure, Bugs Life borrows very heavily from Seven Samurai (though it does still change quite a bit and bring a lot that's very new and good to the table), but some of these, like Ratatouille or Wall-E, are really reaching, and missing a lot of the point of both movies.

Directors are what matter.

If you liked Inside Out it probably means you like the sort of movies that Pete Docter directs, not that Pixar is or isn't getting back some mysterious lost elan.

What's happened with Pixar is that they started out with a strong directing stable and it's just running thin now as they try out new people who aren't as good.

Don't forget Shrek, and The True Meaning of Smekday aka Home.

and the better ones are absorbed by the Borg

Could have to do with the writing rather than the directing.
Besides let's not pretend that all those movies aren't made by committee to some extent.

>Idiocracy
>Shitting on Religion in a any way

Why every movie that does something slightly close to hit something you like is crap now (which i assume it may be wrestling, since is the only thing that they come close of attacking)? Is just a funny movie that tackles commercialism, lake of reading habit, lazy comedy and pretentiously planned parenthood. It never aimed in any culture or demographic to make fun in particular

Forgot pic

Pixar's films are director-driven. All their directors are also storyboard artists which makes them de facto writers.

My post said nothing about religion, don't get your fedora in a twist. I hate wrestling. My post didn't say I think Idiocracy is bad either, but it turns out I do.

The reason I think Idiocracy is crap is because it's about as stupid and lazy as the society it's mocking. It didn't offend me, I just thought it wasn't as clever as it thinks it is.

>lake of reading habit
Is that where you throw unread tales of the Arthurian legend?

Aww fuck, linked the wrong post, this was my post.

You're underselling how much producers have to do with it. A movie needs to be well directed yes, but even good directors can make shit movies, certainly without consistency, if there aren't good producers.

If a studio consistently puts out good movies, that's because of good producers. Good producers will put the right directors with the right writers on the right projects.

It was a pretty popular series in the UK.
Movies helped boost them even further.

Monster's University had a surprising lack of almost anything "University".

The only good part was the last `10-15 minutes.

The entire last third act is brilliant, not just the last 10-15 minutes, one of the best third acts in Pixar's library, and even before that the movie's good. The relationship between Sully and Mike is extremely well developed and natural, all of the secondary characters are well done and often show a surprising amount of depth, the humor is on point, and has some of the best animation of any Pixar movie to date.

Ratatouille also gets by on it's ending, hell, on it's last 10 minutes like you said of Monsters U. I'll concede Ratatouille is a more well shot and edited movie, but the writing on Monsters U is stronger. They actually had pretty similar morals and themes, and honestly, Monsters U did them better. Ratatouille's ending speech was a better single moment capturing the message, but Monsters U looked at it in a more complex and nuanced way.

>This is what animation has become.
You mean animation has finally kept up with the majority of what Hollywood has been doing since the 40's because now Disney isn't the only studio that dominates the industry and actually has to deal with some competition. But even with little competition, they flopped with things like Atlantis and Treasure Planet, so you can only blame the "It's the executives!" mentality so much when you realize execs only follow what the consumer want.

>chooses for no reason to compare one of the worst Pixar movies with one of the best
>picks the wrong one as the good one

Inside Out and MU are great. Brave was incredibly bland and dull. And Cars 2 is shit

But it IS good.


Well, I liked it. Dunno

I was more thinking that the larger portion of animation has become an assembly line of formulated factory produced products which get a shiny new paint job every couple of years so they can be repackaged and resold again. You get yourself one mildly popular IP, market it til it's a household name, and you milk it for all its worth by pumping out as many sequels as possible and you only make new IPs to keep your well from running dry. So, I would say that's pretty in line with current Hollywood trends across the board of shitty remakes and such. I wouldn't say this has been going since the 40s though.

I get that competition lights a fire under a company's ass to up their quality, but I think commercialism and the need to play things safe and stick as close as possible to what the next guy is doing, rather than instead trying new things and taking risks to stick out from the other guys is causing the film industry to stagnate.

Ratatouille is better than Monsters U, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that Monsters U handled the message and theme that they shared better.

There's also a comparison to be made in that Ratatouille is remembered more favorably than it otherwise would be because the ending is so incredibly strong compared to the rest of the movie, which, while very well shot, edited, and animated, isn't really as good as a lot of people remember it being. It's no where near as good as say, The Incredibles or Toy Story, not even in the same league.

The script got cut down A LOT for time and it really shows, large plot threads and characters were removed from the story, leaving certain elements much more awkward and out of place. Linguini is ultimately, thematically, just sort of a prop. He's definitely a character, and has good chemistry with Remy, but his character arc, thematically speaking, doesn't really go anywhere or gel with the core story particularly interestingly. In an early draft the movie was more of an ensemble piece, but throughout development it became more and more Remy's story, extraneous characters and plot threads were cut, and Linguini suffered hard because of it.

Certain plot threads start to feel vestigial, their meaning no longer really explored, but used as a plot device, either to just advance the story or create conflict when there isn't any better reason for one. Like the plot with Remy letting his family sneak in to steal food. In the final draft, this doesn't really go anywhere emotionally. Remy never has a moment where he realizes that this is wrong, or reconciles the moral dilemma of it, there's no emotional pay off. It's just there so that Remy and Linguini can fight and then make up. You can see the remnants of where this once tied into something, with Remy's restaurant for the rat clan at the end, but these ideas aren't really explored in the final draft.

All in all it's still a brilliant film, Brad Bird is one of the greatest living directors and it shows, but it's far from say, The Incredibles, in terms of quality, and is a very flawed movie. Monsters U isn't as a whole a better film, but it is tighter, and does explore it's themes better.

The two movies are uniquely similar in having similar themes, and finishing strong. Monsters U's entire third act is good, and by far the strongest part of the movie, while Ratatouille's last 10 minutes is one of the best sequences in any Pixar film, and owe the movie it's reputation.

>implying it wasn't
You must be one of those retards who liked Up.

I feel like when Disney fully merged with Pixar that was the beginning off the end before they where separate from each other and where free to created what they wanted now that they are fully merged, Disney has given it the Marvel and Star Wars treatment with endless sequels that can't even stand on their own.
This it's not just Disney either, it's Illumination with its endless Minion sequels and now the same corporation that owns them bought Dreamworks, so you can expect more Ogre sequels. I feel like soon enough people are going to get tired of this and it might lead to crash in the animation industry similar to the one that might occur in the Superhero film industry, in fact Dreamworks has already been heavily affected bu this. I remember seeing this on Inside Out's wiki page:
>Likewise, DreamWorks Animation was beginning to flounder in the early 2010s as several films performed below expectations at the box office, leading to speculation that the "genre" of computer animation was "in a funk."
Who knows maybe this is for the best. The less shitty CGI films the better, maybe we will return to 2D or stop motion or maybe Pixar will get into the Netflix biz like Dreamworks

I hate those DVD covers with a burning passion and I don't know why

Nope.

Here, have some good poster art to cheer you up.

>Likewise, DreamWorks Animation was beginning to flounder in the early 2010s as several films performed below expectations at the box office, leading to speculation that the "genre" of computer animation was "in a funk."
>calling a form of animation a genre
for once this mislabeling a medium as a genre might work out if this leads to more experimentation in form and hopefully some return to 2D as well as neutering the shit that passes for movies

Inside Out and Up are both directed by Pete Doctor.
if you liked one, you'll more then likely enjoy the other.

dont worry 2d is coming back into mainstream.

No, I loathed Up and thought Inside Out was good, average compared to other Pixar films.

>Only 4 of these are hand drawn and not cgi crap

Because they're mostly all the same unnatural literal-Dreamworks-face showing off the MC without a hint of characterization or theme?

>cgi crap
>ignoring the 3 stop motion

It's not much but they should at least be recognized rather than lumped in with the CG. Heck, the 2D movies even all used CG effects themselves.

>3 stop motion
Chicken Run and Were-rabbit were stop-motion, but Flushed Away wasn't. It was made in CGI because it featured lots of water, and that would've been difficult to do with stop-motion.

I like most of Dreamworks' movies to be quite honest

I hope Captain Underpants is good

youtube.com/watch?v=D_aQupiaCSA

Y'know, When Lasseter and Jobs bought out and gutted Disney Animation, they made a point of bitching out corporate for doing the exact same "sequel" bullshit they're pulling out of their story barren-asses.