garrison-san
someone in the dark
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2010
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With Monsters University currently in its theatrical release and Finding Dory recently confirmed, now seems like as good a time as any to bring up this issue.
Basically, how do you feel about Pixar's recent shift toward the sequelisation of their older films? With the aforementioned (and long-rumoured) Finding Nemo sequel now official, it seems safe to say that we're entering into a new wave for Pixar, one where the expansion of existing franchises is as much (if not greater) a priority as the creation of entirely original products. Whereas Dreamworks and Blue Sky have never had any qualms about milking their cash cows for all they're worth (who here wasn't totally sick of Shrek and Ice Age when they got round to their respective fourth instalments?), in the past Pixar seemed to indicate that they would only make sequels if they genuinely had a worthy story to tell. Toy Story 2 was originally intended as a direct-to-video B-project while the studio was working on A Bug's Life, but they were so willing to go that extra mile and make it the best film that it could be that it wound up receiving a theatrical release and was very well-received by critics and fans of the original. We shared their horror when Disney set up Circle 7 in the mid-00s, with the intention of making their own sequels to the Pixar films they retained the rights to, back when a split between the two companies seemed very likely (given that Disney was cheapening their own brand at the time with endless and utterly horrible direct-to-video sequels to their classics, there was little reason to believe that any good could come of it - although some people do reckon that their proposed Monsters Inc 2 sounded quite promising on paper).
When Toy Story 3 was released in 2010, it was also very well-received (I do consider it to be the weakest of the TS films, but there's still a lot that I enjoyed about it). Cars 2, however, while it made a handsome sum at the box office, pretty much failed with everyone who wasn't a die-hard fan of the original (which I wasn't, so personally I didn't bother with the sequel). Given how much Cars merchandise the Disney Store continues to shift, it's hard to shake the uneasy notion that Pixar made that particular sequel primarily to sell even more toys (John Lasseter's own comments on the matter don't exactly help). I haven't yet seen Monsters University, but the critical consensus seems to be that, while it's a good enough film in its own right, Pixar's days of being the undisputed boundary-pushers of Hollywood animation are almost certainly drawing to a close. And maybe that's fair enough, in a way- we couldn't reasonably expect Pixar to keep on topping themselves forever.
Now, I wouldn't describe myself as one of those rabid Pixar fans who believes that everything they touched prior to Cars 2 automatically turned to gold. As I mentioned, I wasn't a fan of the original Cars, nor did I care terribly much for A Bug's Life. But their strongest films - which for me would include Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up - truly were exceptional, and I will be sorry if films of their calibre do indeed become much more of a rarity. And I do feel that the majority of Pixar films are, like the majority of classic Disney films, perfectly self-contained and do not merit further instalments. I'm not exactly jumping out of my chair about the prospect of Finding Dory, and I am finding Pixar's sudden sequel-frenzy to be slightly (and worryingly) reminiscent of that aforementioned phase Disney went through for a while.
...speaking of which, later this summer we'll also be getting Planes, a Cars spin-off made not by Pixar, but by DisneyToon Studios, who were responsible for a lot of those DTV Disney sequels (an interesting development, considering all the controversy that had previously surrounded Circle 7). That already has a sequel of its own lined up for 2014.
Basically, how do you feel about Pixar's recent shift toward the sequelisation of their older films? With the aforementioned (and long-rumoured) Finding Nemo sequel now official, it seems safe to say that we're entering into a new wave for Pixar, one where the expansion of existing franchises is as much (if not greater) a priority as the creation of entirely original products. Whereas Dreamworks and Blue Sky have never had any qualms about milking their cash cows for all they're worth (who here wasn't totally sick of Shrek and Ice Age when they got round to their respective fourth instalments?), in the past Pixar seemed to indicate that they would only make sequels if they genuinely had a worthy story to tell. Toy Story 2 was originally intended as a direct-to-video B-project while the studio was working on A Bug's Life, but they were so willing to go that extra mile and make it the best film that it could be that it wound up receiving a theatrical release and was very well-received by critics and fans of the original. We shared their horror when Disney set up Circle 7 in the mid-00s, with the intention of making their own sequels to the Pixar films they retained the rights to, back when a split between the two companies seemed very likely (given that Disney was cheapening their own brand at the time with endless and utterly horrible direct-to-video sequels to their classics, there was little reason to believe that any good could come of it - although some people do reckon that their proposed Monsters Inc 2 sounded quite promising on paper).
When Toy Story 3 was released in 2010, it was also very well-received (I do consider it to be the weakest of the TS films, but there's still a lot that I enjoyed about it). Cars 2, however, while it made a handsome sum at the box office, pretty much failed with everyone who wasn't a die-hard fan of the original (which I wasn't, so personally I didn't bother with the sequel). Given how much Cars merchandise the Disney Store continues to shift, it's hard to shake the uneasy notion that Pixar made that particular sequel primarily to sell even more toys (John Lasseter's own comments on the matter don't exactly help). I haven't yet seen Monsters University, but the critical consensus seems to be that, while it's a good enough film in its own right, Pixar's days of being the undisputed boundary-pushers of Hollywood animation are almost certainly drawing to a close. And maybe that's fair enough, in a way- we couldn't reasonably expect Pixar to keep on topping themselves forever.
Now, I wouldn't describe myself as one of those rabid Pixar fans who believes that everything they touched prior to Cars 2 automatically turned to gold. As I mentioned, I wasn't a fan of the original Cars, nor did I care terribly much for A Bug's Life. But their strongest films - which for me would include Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up - truly were exceptional, and I will be sorry if films of their calibre do indeed become much more of a rarity. And I do feel that the majority of Pixar films are, like the majority of classic Disney films, perfectly self-contained and do not merit further instalments. I'm not exactly jumping out of my chair about the prospect of Finding Dory, and I am finding Pixar's sudden sequel-frenzy to be slightly (and worryingly) reminiscent of that aforementioned phase Disney went through for a while.
...speaking of which, later this summer we'll also be getting Planes, a Cars spin-off made not by Pixar, but by DisneyToon Studios, who were responsible for a lot of those DTV Disney sequels (an interesting development, considering all the controversy that had previously surrounded Circle 7). That already has a sequel of its own lined up for 2014.
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