Pixar: Are the glory days over?

[Drtooth]

I could go on a big thing about Captain Planet, but the real problem was Ted Turner got behind it after the first DIC produced season, and that's where things got really forceful and melodramatic in its message. Somehow, Pocahontas does the same thing. No, the original version of the story was probably insanely historically inaccurate, but at least it would have been fun...

From TV Trope's What could have been page:

Originally, the animals in Pocahontas were going to talk, with John Candy slated to voice a turkey named Redfeather. The character was scrapped after Candy's death and it was later decided that the animals shouldn't talk in order to make the film more "serious" — it was originally a light adventure fantasy with a preteen heroine and teen John Smith, but execs wanted more serious Oscar Bait after Beauty and the Beast was nominated for best picture — a first for an animated feature. Also, the character of Wiggins was originally conceived to be much more snobby, but then he ended up looking perky in a piece of concept art and the rest is history.

As seen in the behind-the-scenes section of the July 1995 issue of Disney Adventures magazine promoting this movie, there's a title card from pre-production featuring the eponymous heroine who has a different design and looks much like the Tiger Lily from this Peter Pan. In fact, it could very well be her but going by a different name to take on the Pocahontas role. Her eyes are closed, head tilted back, arms crossed and she's surrounded by a few forest animals. This gives the impression that using an established, past Disney character for the lead in this may have been considered early on at one point had the results turned out differently.

 

[CensoredAlso]

From TV Trope's What could have been page:

Sounds like they had no clue why Beauty & the Beast was nominated in the first place, lol.

 

[Drtooth]

That's what Oscar Bait is. You basically have to have the most depressing, preachy thing to win. Comedy is virtually worthless to them. I'm shocked Melissa McCarthy was nominated for a comedic role in a comedy.

 

[AquaGGR]

The only Pixar I didn't really enjoy was Cars 2 (I haven't seen Brave). Cars didn't really need a sequel. The Incredibles is what needs a sequel.

 

[Drtooth]

Oh, there's no question they want to make an Incredibles sequel. Problem is, Brad Bird will only do it if he can get a great script, and he has been busy with the last Mission: Impossible film and Tomorrowland.

Cars pretty much only got a sequel because the toys sell really well. In fact, all the sequels Pixar did recently were ones Disney threatened to make under Circle 7 when Pixar was going to split up with Disney. This is before Bob Iger bought them out and gave them control over the studio's animation output.

 

[AquaGGR]

Brad Bird's Pixar films seem to have more depth than others. Ratatouille was one of my favorites, it wasn't really a "kiddy" film, but more like a "kids can watch it" type film.

 

[Drtooth]

There's no doubt that brad Bird actually thinks of the adults first. Ratatouille is one of my favorites, it's brilliantly written... but the gourmet food talk and satire surrounding it that's so integral to the film just goes over kids' heads. Meanwhile Cars resonates with them because little boys like playing with Hot Wheels. Rat's merchandise was cleared out long before it even hit DVD, and the other one Disney's milking to this day and giving spinoffs of to milk even further.

Incredibles was a mix of both. It had a strong kid friendly Super Hero concept and some nice Super Hero toys, but at the same time the film was clearly written for adult animation fans. The DVD set has a reference to Clutch Cargo. That's the level of sophistication and adult animation pleasing the Incredibles has.

 

[antsamthompson9]

I don't know if JD Hansel is a member but, I wanna know what you guys think about how he feels about Pixar cause, he never liked them in the first place. He even wrote a harsh article about how to write a Pixar movie on his website. Listen to 19:42 to 27:52 of this episode of the MuppetCast: http://muppetcast.com/show-255/

 

[Drtooth]

There's always one of them that just hates on the popular kid for the sake of being an "individual." They act like geniuses because they delight in tearing something others enjoy for the sake of being right about something, and just wait around for someone to screw up to rationalize it.

Seriously. There are worse kid's films than Pixar. Nut Job, Alpha Omega, Gnomeo and Juliet (which Pixar tried to prevent, so who says they aren't good guys), BOTH Rios... the list goes on. And that doesn't take into account the awful line of live action kid's movies which seem to have thankfully dried up for the most part. And I love the excuse about "Nyeeehhh...they all follow a formula." DUDE! EVERYONE follows a formula. And then when they don't follow a formula they get crap for doing something different. I just get sour grapes from these kinds of people.

Bet he was one of those film students that was head over heals for Hugo. And, yeah, it's partially hypocritical to get on Scorsese's case for doing something different, but I never said any of his original movies were formulaic or even not amazing as they truly are.

Seriously. Screw Hugo.

 

[mr3urious]

Seriously. There are worse kid's films than Pixar. Nut Job, Alpha Omega, Gnomeo and Juliet (which Pixar tried to prevent, so who says they aren't good guys), BOTH Rios... the list goes on. And that doesn't take into account the awful line of live action kid's movies which seem to have thankfully dried up for the most part. And I love the excuse about "Nyeeehhh...they all follow a formula." DUDE! EVERYONE follows a formula. And then when they don't follow a formula they get crap for doing something different. I just get sour grapes from these kinds of people.

Pixar does actually try its best to not fall into formula. For example, after Monsters Inc., they stopped doing those hilarious blooper reels at the end credits because they were afraid of that sort of thing.

Bet he was one of those film students that was head over heals for Hugo. And, yeah, it's partially hypocritical to get on Scorsese's case for doing something different, but I never said any of his original movies were formulaic or even not amazing as they truly are.

Seriously. Screw Hugo.

It's as if Scorsese was trying to make a kids' movie, but utilizing the stuff he would have liked as a kid -- in this case, the early era of cinema. Something that few of Hugo's intended audience would appreciate as much as him, but adults who would be would probably find it too whimsical. This Cracked Photoplasty says it all.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_hugo_8866.jpg