First off I am not the sort of person that equates animation with kids movies, I love animation and know that it can be very mature. But at the same time there is clearly some animation aimed at young children, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Pixar is fully capable of making involving all ages enjoyable animation, but they also make some titles that obviously are intended for younger children and don’t appeal to adults. If you go to IMDB the messageboards for these titles are just filled with hate for them, I went looking for info on the Planes sequel release date when I noticed this.
I can fully see why their series of anthropomorphized vehicle movies would not appeal to adults, because they aren’t aimed at the audience! They are a big hit with the kid crowd though.
I guess it just seems weird to me there are a group of adult haters latched on to Pixar for making movies not intended for them. Be a bit like fans of action flicks latching onto hating a production company that makes romance films.
FYI, Pixar didn’t make Planes or its sequel. Disney did. You may think that’s splitting hairs, but that’s part of the reason Pixar gets bagged on of late. Disney bought the company and immediately began to devalue the brand.
It might be that there is a line between bright shiny characters that kids can identify and enough adult humor to keep adults happy.
Of course once this line is identified we will be inundated with a crazy amount of movies that toe that line.
Personally I figure which movies my kids might really like and we go see them and hopefully I won’t want to gouge my eyes out. Of course if I’m bored to look to them ready to ask “WTF?!” and if I see them totally involved…watching their reactions is better than any movie and totally worth the money. Watching their faces of amazement, happines, puzzlement aligning with movie music/lines is awesome.
Of course at home…because scary movies are made for Alaskan winters…if there happens to be a scary movie on and we just happen to accidentally watch it. Well if I happen to startle them at critical points…it’s just an accident.
Of course payback is a medivac. There was that one time we were watching a movie for the first time and I got into it. My Lil Bastiches figured the tempo while I was into it and screamed at the exact right time…my adrenaline pumped…popcorn decorated the floor…the dog went nuts…my kids laughed their asses off…I called them names that their Mom didn’t approve of and then laughed with them.
I’ve never seen Cars. By many accounts it isn’t a very good movie. But the franchise brings in a lot of money which can’t be bad for Pixar/Disney and will be used to fund good projects. So even if I saw Cars and thought it was the worst thing ever I couldn’t stay mad at it. I think the franchise gets a lot of flak because the sequel is perceived to be a cynical money grab rather than an attempt to produce something decent. So far Brave has been the most disappointing Pixar movie I’ve seen but it looks like they had at least made an attempt to produce something great.
I would bet it’s because the parents who watch the movies notice the subtle adult humor aspects, figure that because those are funny the Pixar guys can make a whole movie full of them, and want it.
However I think those people don’t understand the differences in writing a kids movie that has a shot or three of “lol he implied they had sex off screen or whatever” and a whole movie full of them. It’s two completely different writing styles that those who aren’t writing/movie/plotting/pacing nerds don’t get
Because it’s the Internet. You can find all manner of bashing on any subject. In this case, it’s people who enjoyed Artistic Endeavour n and is now pissed that Artistic Endeavour n+1 isn’t hitting the exact same appeal.
“For kids” and “liked by kids” are two different concepts. As to Cars. It is a crappy, crappy movie. Adults generally hate it. Kids are much more easily entertained. They like movies that many times are awful. (Movie reviews are frequently skewed to reflect this. A movie that would be one star if it was for adults might get 3 stars if it’s for kids.)
Many kids are unaware that movies are supposed to have plots, maybe a little bit original, etc. They actually enjoy those mindless Disney songs. Give them a happy ending and whatever happens in between can be just a random assortment of bits.
Cars wasn’t for kids. It was liked by kids. Different statements. It’s perfectly okay to hate a lousy movie, Pixar or otherwise, that’s bad. That kids like it anyway is immaterial.
Cars is a wonderful world, but a mediocre movie. The nostalgia and themes of the narrative aim more at adults than children, it just didn’t work so well.
If you haven’t noticed, kids don’t generally care too much about a movie’s plot. Pixar is adept at using this indifference to craft multiple magical worlds that appeal to children irrespective of plot, then filling said plot with high-quality storytelling that appeals to adults.