Pixar: Are the glory days over?

[D'Snowth]

Characters are essential to a movie, that's for sure, but it also helps to have a good, solid story as well; you can have the greatest characters in the world, but have an absolutely lousy story that even the characters themselves can't save.

Plus, depending on the project itself, there's also the direction: who they bring in to call all the shots, and we all know how much Drtooth despises Tim Hill as a director (and he did MFS).

So there are many different factors that go into play when it comes to a good movie, but each of those factors should at least be good enough to bring together to make a movie, otherwise, one imperfection can blemish the entire production, and make it worse than it was intended to be. I even feel this way about scoring, sometimes the music score can also make or break the movie, and I know I've said it before, but that's one of my beefs with the ICE AGE movies: the original was a quirky movie, and thus, needed a quirky music score, which David Newman delivered to perfection... likewise, the ensuing sequels are also supposed to be quirky movies, but instead of bringing back David Newman for the music score, they brought in John Powell, who gave the sequels a really big, intense, cinematic score, which really did not fit them well at all.

So yeah, there's so many ingredients that go into making a movie, and all of those ingredients really need to be top notch, otherwise, one bad apple can spoil the whole thing.

 

[Scooterforever]

Maybe now that Disney has had some successful CG films of their own (Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled), they'll take some pressure off Pixar and give them a rest so they can get their creative juices flowing again. Probably not, but it'd be nice.

 

[Drtooth]

It seems that way, but the Pixar higher ups are still involved heavily with Disney's theatrical animated productions. On the one hand, I'm glad they got rid of the cheapquels for the most part, but on the other hand, we really need more DTV Mickey and Co projects. If they can make a successful line of Tinkerbell DTV films based off Italian comics, they certainly can have a franchise based on Italian comics of other characters (they tend to get epic).

Of course, Brave being a disappointment due to back stage shenanigans getting all the hate is ridiculous when some studio is going to release a movie about CGI Turkeys that don't want to be eaten. That film sounds like a real winner. Pixar is still the king. If nothing else, their worst movies are still better than the best of some of these terrible pop up companies.

 

[Scooterforever]

It seems that way, but the Pixar higher ups are still involved heavily with Disney's theatrical animated productions. On the one hand, I'm glad they got rid of the cheapquels for the most part, but on the other hand, we really need more DTV Mickey and Co projects. If they can make a successful line of Tinkerbell DTV films based off Italian comics, they certainly can have a franchise based on Italian comics of other characters (they tend to get epic).

Of course, Brave being a disappointment due to back stage shenanigans getting all the hate is ridiculous when some studio is going to release a movie about CGI Turkeys that don't want to be eaten. That film sounds like a real winner. Pixar is still the king. If nothing else, their worst movies are still better than the best of some of these terrible pop up companies.

Have to agree with that last sentiment; I think even Pixar's worst films are better than any one of the Shrek movies (sorry Shrek fans). Anyway, does anyone remember "A Bug's Life?" I thought it was a very creative reinterpretation of the Seven Samurai (and consequently Magnificent Seven) story, but I haven't heard much about it recently. It was one of Pixar's earliest films, but it seems like it's been forgotten. There was a recent Robot Chicken parody of it I thought was pretty funny.

 

[Drtooth]

I like the first, second, and fourth Shrek, but they're so incredibly smug as films go. I actually preferred the Puss in Boots side movie to every other movie in the Shrek franchise. But most of Pixar's stuff is better than the competition. I needn't bad mouth Sony for the thousandth time.... but that thing about the Turkey. That somehow seems like that horrible Dino Time movie that never actually played in American theaters.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Have to agree with that last sentiment; I think even Pixar's worst films are better than any one of the Shrek movies (sorry Shrek fans). Anyway, does anyone remember "A Bug's Life?" I thought it was a very creative reinterpretation of the Seven Samurai (and consequently Magnificent Seven) story, but I haven't heard much about it recently. It was one of Pixar's earliest films, but it seems like it's been forgotten. There was a recent Robot Chicken parody of it I thought was pretty funny.

I remember "A Bug's Life" competing at the box office with DreamWorks "Antz". Both were decent. One hysterical by-product of these two films: a few months later there was a dollar-store knock-off called "An Ant's Life". Never saw it, but I bet the cast of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would've had a field day watching that.

 

[Dominicboo1]

I prefer A Bug's Life as I grew up with it and the characters are better, but I think Antz had more funny moments.

 

[Slackbot]

I loved A Bug's Life when it was in theaters. I got a Hopper cover videotape as soon as they were released, and I still have some ABL toys on my living room shelves. I used to wish that they would do a TV series based on it, as for a while it seemed that most Disney movies spawned TV series. Timon & Pumbaa, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Buzz Lightyear, Hercules... the first 15 minutes could have been a story about the colony, and the second 15 minutes could have starred the circus bugs. Tell me there wasn't potential there, I dare you.

 

[D'Snowth]

Put me in a minority, but I honestly believe A BUG'S LIFE was one of Pixar's weaker films, IMHO.

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

A Bug's Life is a weaker Pixar effort but it's still a fantastic film.

Just in case anybody cares for reference, here's where I rank all of Pixar's films in terms of personal perference from best to worst.

• Up
• Toy Story 3
• Ratatouille
• WALL-E
• The Incredibles
• Finding Nemo
• Monsters, Inc.
• Toy Story
• Toy Story 2
• Cars
• A Bug's Life
• Brave
• Cars 2

(yes, I like Monsters, Inc. better than Toy Story. Scary I know.)