I thought it was pretty good and comparable in quality to the first one. I would rate both of them as a solid B+.
No, but maybe we were alive during a period when the market was just right for animated blockbusters, and we’re now in a low tide. In part we hear these days about production companies or directors or series “failing” when they do not keep delivering massive numbers. And that puts the studios in a spot, because of course new-original-different = risk, and investors will be looking for something they think will be a sure thing.
The problem is our culture has lost the skill to form reasonable expectations. About everything. I don’t know if it’s because advertising hype is ubiquitous, or if it’s because we’re too quick to be critical.
Pixar is, for the most part, too original. They make movies that deviate from the standard, but then get punished for it. Anyone remember The Good Dinosaur (2015)? It’s a classic Western where the people are dinosaurs and the protagonist interacts with a wolf portrayed by a human. It’s unique, yet bombed in the theaters because Westerns aren’t popular these days and those who like Westerns don’t like nonstandard choices.
Most people don’t want truly original stories. And they don’t want stale stories either. The middle is vague and hard to satisfy.
I thought The Good Dinosaur was the worst Pixar I’ve ever seen - if it failed I’m not surprised!
I have liked about half of their output of the last 15 years. I may be the only person in the world who doesn’t like Inside Out.
You’re not.
However, I do agree with AFAICT the rest of the world, except maybe the OP, that Coco was an excellent and captivating movie. And I liked Elemental considerably more than most people seem to.
I just watched this yesterday with my five year old son (second time for me seeing it.) It was fantastic. My son watched with nary an interruption (unusual for him) and afterward got upset he couldn’t actually meet his ancestors like that. I guess he really wanted to pierce the veil between the living and the dead. But I told him necromancy is for older kids.
It’s great. A- from me. It takes the original premise in new directions, and it tells a moving story of adolescence that avoids all the obvious clichés. I cried. The Inside Out movies seem to hit me particularly hard now that I’m a parent. The instinct to protect my son from painful experiences is so strong, even if that pain is necessary and inevitable.
I don’t know that box office performance is the best measure of whether a movie is good or not. Are we talking about Pixar’s performance at the box office, or whether it’s actually making good movies still?
My favorite ever Pixar movie was made in 2021: Encanto, which I spent all of yesterday singing and periodically I just watch songs from it on YouTube (including my favorite) because it’s that good. It’s Lin Manuel Miranda good (I’m not really a Hamilton fan, but the music in Encanto exudes talent.)
Coco is kind of a forbear (heh) of that movie. You can see elements of Coco in Encanto but Coco doesn’t have the slammin’ soundtrack. Still makes me cry though.
I will concede that Pixar is no longer delivering continuous hits with no clunkers, but obviously they are still making great movies.
I am…not a fan of that one.
Nitpick: Encanto is not a Pixar movie. It’s Disney Animation Studio.
Important point, actually. WDAS has also put out Frozen, Moana, Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, and Zootopia (in addition to the aforementioned Encanto) in the last 15 years. All are at least decent, I would say, and some were massive hits.
During that same time period (2010+) I would really only put Coco and Inside Out at the same level as the Disney releases. Perhaps Brave? I enjoyed Onward and Elemental as well, but I don’t think they were considered successes.
I think it’s actually more of a surprise the sustained run of very good (and hit) films Pixar had from 1995-2010. That’s 11 films over 15 years without a bad one (nor a flop) amongst them. Disney had a similar run in the early 1990s, but even their run didn’t last nearly as long as Pixar’s did
Elio hasnt done badly, the issue is that it came out at the same time as 28 Years Later, and How to Train Your Dragon.
I was going through my collection and noticed that I bought TS4 and have never watched it. Now you got me worried.
I own, but have not seen, Incredibles 2, likewise.
Incredibles 2 wasn’t as good as the first one, but still pretty good.
But if you have a hankering for more Toy Story, just watch the shorts.
ISWYDT
You do? Ah, good, yes, that’s obviously exactly what I meant… whatever it was.
The implications that you are hankering for Hanks (instead of a hunk of cheese).
“This time, someone new gloats at James Bond!”
I don’t know, I think the idea of Forky was brilliant. What happens when a child decides that a plain household object is a toy? Does it suddenly gain a soul?
Forky didn’t originate in Toy Story 4, though. He was in the shorts before that. And in fact, that’s why I say that the ending of 4 defied canon: The shorts show Forky at home interacting with Buzz and Woody. At first, while watching the movie, I thought “Hm, I guess this must take place before the shorts, then”, but then they ended the movie with Woody leaving the rest, before they got back home
Yes, I also enjoyed Toy Story 4 and am willing to give 5 a chance on the strength of it.
Besides the Forky character, I thought the movie had some good points, empathetically expressed, about the perils of perceiving the task of loving and supporting a child to be literally your only mission in life and your only source of true happiness.
Sure, the basic Toy Story premise is that that’s what toyhood is fundamentally about. You may think you want to destroy Emperor Zurg, or to live a pampered existence as literally a museum piece representing an idolized TV star, but in reality You. Are. A. TOY. The essential purpose of your existence is to nurture and be loved by a child.
From the get-go, Toy Story has been kind of pushing back on that premise, in more or less subtle ways. What about when a child’s delight in toys is abusive and destructive? How do toys cope with the inevitable tragedy of their beloved child outgrowing them and no longer caring about them, or not in the same way? Do toys just embark on a form of “serial monogamy” in devotion to successive children, which never quite replaces the “one true love” image of the first child whose favorite they were? Can a toy have a meaningful existence outside of that “favorite toy” bond, that isn’t just making the best of a new attachment or whiling away the years in an owner’s attic?
I admit I’d kind of like to see Woody restored to favorite-toy status with one of Andy’s own kids someday. Actually, that’s probably the toy version of the idealized social norm of traditional family life: you are little Betty’s favorite doll, and by the time she’s really outgrown you she’s probably about old enough to be married herself, so in a few years Betty will be passing you along to her own daughter, and mother and daughter will bond over sewing little doll clothes for you, and so on down the generations.
But this ain’t Little House on the Prairie. What’s the real-life arc of a toy’s existence as a “person” in the Toy Story world? I personally don’t feel I needed to consider that question completely answered once college-age Andy handed Woody and the gang on to little Bonnie.