A Bug's Life their kiddiest film? If you consider it's the only one that kind of derived from the Disney formula of turning fairytales and the like into blockbuster animated movies, given that it's a take on the old fable of The Ant and The Grasshopper.
I really like Bug's Life. I really do. I just feel bad that the feud between Dreamworks and Pixar at the time also gave us Antz, which was a bolder film overall. That aside, it is unfair to judge their second film outing since they didn't really start making their films deeper until at
least Toy Story 2, and they didn't cement real feels until maybe Monsters Inc. When they were making Bug's Life, they certainly weren't thinking Incredibles or Up. Bug's Life plays to kids because
Personally, I've got nothing against the Cars franchise, I enjoy aspects of both films. It's when Disney Toon Studios then took over the franchise to spin it off into three Planes movies that would be followed by three Boats movies and three Trains movies that we all collectively groaned at the obvious money grab.
Planes would have been better and more successful as one of their preschool shows. Especially with the concept of Fire and Rescue. That is, if only there wasn't already a younger audience series about
sentient robotic vehicles that formed a Rescue Team. Planes felt like it was a weak imitation of the first Cars movie, only exploiting the racing angle without getting to that far superior side story that Cars also had. While I feel that Fire and Rescue is a more competent idea, it really showed there was less to the franchise than Disney thought. While the first Planes film was a Sleeper Hit somehow, the second one barely made a dent at the box office. And while a year or so passed with Planes merchandise piling up (that I again have to state,
no one wanted), Disney quietly took the hint and just continued to push Cars and slowly fold Planes into the background.
That said, had they done Trains first, I have every bit of confidence they would have had 4 movies by now. Kids just don't like airplanes as much. That's why the Decepticons were mostly planes and the Autobots were mostly cars. Cars are far more familiar to kids. Plus, I doubt that Planes had a lot of inside aviation fanatic jokes in their films. I know two guys from Top Gun had a cameo in Planes 1. Cars 2 pretty much had its conspiracy theory plotline revolve around inside car humor. And I'm totally convinced they only had part of the movie take place in Italy so they can make a very circular reference. Which is...
A certain model of Fiat is called a Topolino. Topolino being the Italian name for Disney mascot Mickey Mouse, and also the name of Italy's Disney comics magazine. So of
course they would find a way to get a hidden Mickey of that level of esotericness.