Wait… 3D only, or also-available-in-3D like the Harry Potter movie? Does this mean the only way I’d see a new Pixar film in a theater is to pay twice as much and drive two hours?
Because, frankly, that seems like an asinine marketing decision, unless they don’t really care about box office intake and are banking on DVD sales.
Sure, when you’re there watching them. But when you leave at night they start moving around and talking and performing song and dance numbers.
After reading the little bit about “UP” on Ain’t It Cool News, I’m kind of jazzed about this one.
I do think the Tinkerbell movies are direct to DVD.
The other, less optimistic, possibility is that Disney has muscled into control over Pixar and is now calling the shots. Ratatouille, unfortunately, suggests we’re more likely to see Pixar dropping down to Disney standards rather than see Disney rise up to Pixar standards.
I don’t think the Tinkerbells are considered sequels, despire being spun-off of Peter Pan-- origial direct-to-home-video (I so want to just use the anime OVA/OAV acronym there) is still allowed. Lasseter wanted to put a stop to things like Lion King 1/2 or Cinderella IV; I guess seeing canon films turned into something akin to the endlessly-rechurned Bluth series bugged him.
This is what I’ve heard they’ve planned for years as well. If they use it, it would be a perfect ending to the series.
3D only.
That looks like a decent lineup of movies, although I too would love to see a good Incredibles sequel. Since Pixar demigod John Lassiter is now head of Disney Animation, IIRC, I’m confident they’ll have a good story for Toy Story 3. I heard that an early draft of the script had
a defective-product recall for Buzz to go back to a factory in South Korea, so Woody and the other toys have to go to his rescue.
I heard that too. I thought that was stupid, seeing as it’s basically the same plot as Toy Story 2: Toy must save toy from going to foreign place.
And Buzz was made in Taiwan, just like every other non-lead-filled toy.
I know this is a matter of opinion, but I really cannot see where you are coming from when you make the claim that Rataotuille is an example of Pixar dropping to Disney standards. Ratatouille is a film with a quirky unique quirky story and beautiful animation. Sure rats and mice are similar but that is the only Disney similarity I am seeing. Beyond that, calling a film that was universally acclaimed by the nation’s critics as a lowering in standards is quite a stretch. If you take a look at Box Office Mojo you wil see that it has achieved a 95% fresh rating. It was nominated for 5 Oscars, including best screen play and it won for best Animated Feature.
In fact, I would wager that the traditional Disney people were unhappy with the film due to it’s hard to market story and less than lovable creatures. Granted, it did not make as much money as the previous Pixar feature. But, that could be due to a number of things and I do not see that as a reflection on quality, or a switch from Pixar to Disney standards.
pat
Yes, but was it quirky enough, even if you say it twice?
I am not so good so at proorfreading.
I’m just saying that early Pixar movies were masterpieces of story-telling. And consciously so - John Lassiter has repeatedly said that the key to successful movie making is the story.
In Ratatouille, the story wasn’t bad but it was a formula: the outcasts becoming accepted, follow your dream, obvious good guys vs obvious bad guys - nothing that hasn’t been done a hundred times before. Nothing wrong with it, but compare it to Toy Story where the story line was driven by two characters - both of whom were sympathetic protagonists - being placed into conflict by the differences in their characters and having to resolve this conflict while staying true to their characters.
As for Ratatouille being popular, sure it was popular. That’s why formula becomes formula - you’re giving people what they want. But popularity doesn’t equal greatness. Citizen Kane is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. But the year it was released, Sergeant York was the most popular feature film and How Green Was My Valley won the oscar for best picture.
Lasseter is definitely calling the shots and is almost singularly responsible for the reopening of the cel animation division of the company. He’s not going to be muscled around, and if you think Ratatouille was a dramatic drop in Pixar’s standards, then you are clearly in the minority.
The relative merits of Ratatouille aside, the claim that it’s alleged substandard performance was due to the Disney buyout is ridiculous. Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, at which point the majority of the work on Ratatouille (released in 2007) was already completed. Similarly, the upcoming Wall-E was already well into production, although there’s still some time for any Disney-fication effects to be seen there. Likely, we’ll have to wait until Up before we can really tell if the buyout was detrimental to the creative health of Pixar. (FWIW, what I’ve seen of the project is very un-Disney.)
It’s also worth noting that, whatever it’s faults in terms of originality, it’s still leaps and bounds beyond the hackneyed Cars (2006) or the deeply cliched A Bug’s Life (1998). The fact of the matter is, not every thing Pixar has ever done has been solid gold. Like any other studio, they have their ups and downs. You may think Ratatouille was a “down,” but that’s hardly unprecedented in their history.
Ratatouille was great, except for Lou Romano. His Linguini was, essentially, a loser start to finish. He had no business in the movie and essentially did nothing and displayed no worthwhile attributes anywhere at any time. His actions were totally driven by others, and never changes. His others roles have been better, so maybe it was the script, but at no point did I even slightly care about Linguini.
Ah, I see the confusion. I didn’t mean to imply that Ratatouille was popular and that meant it was good. I had intended to say I was linking to Rotten Tomatoes (Which is what the link is actually to, not Box Office Mojo.) And that critics universally gave it praise. It’s popularity was slightly lower than recent Pixar releases, so I couldn’t have made that argument if I wanted to.
But, yeah, what Miller said about the timeline is more on point.
pat
I’m not saying that Disney took over Pixar by planting pods. I’m just suggesting that as Pixar has grown into a larger studio and has associated with Disney over the years there has been an exchange of ideas. And on the issue of the importance of story-telling, it looks like the exchange of ideas flowed the wrong way.
On the issue of judging movies, I’ve always felt that it’s almost impossible to judge a movie when it’s released. You’re being at least as much exposed to the publicity of the movie’s release as to the movie itself. Probably more so - it’s very easy to hear about a movie that you haven’t seen but how often do you see a movie that you haven’t heard about beforehand?
I say you need to wait at least five years to really judge a movie. Usually from that perspective, the hype around the movie will have faded away and only the movie itself will remain. The popular fad hits will have been replaced by new fads and the sleepers will have been discovered.
It’s been ten years since A Bug’s Life. I think that’s long enough to say that Pixar’s second-ever movie was one of their worst. And that, in turn, is enough to say that even if Ratatouille was worse, that’s not evidence of a general trend in the studio’s direction. Pixar makes a lot of great movies, but it also makes some mediocre ones, as well. It always has, and it always will.
FWIW, I far preferred A Bug’s Life to Ratatouille. Looked just as good up on the screen, but with a better script and more interesting characters, IMHO. In any event, Pixar has an excellent batting average, better than most studios. I find myself interested in seeing every movie they release, even if I don’t love all equally, and there is no other studio about which I can say that.
Help yourself.