Pixar clichés
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:25 am
Not actually a complaint, just a little critic of Pixar to get it out of the system as it has been bugging me for a while. If you are a big fan of Pixar, just ignore the post.
Clichés. Or at least ideas used more than once. Because most of them can probably be traced back to Lasseter, who has been involved in both studios' animation for some time now, Disney movies are also included. There could be more examples out there, as I have skipped most of the Pixar movies since Toy Story 3:
Children as monsters: Tin Toy, Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3.
Pack of animals shouting the same: Seagulls in Finding Nemo, dogs in Up, and dogs in Bolt
A character looking at a beautiful landscape, and having a "wow" moment: Bolt, Cars and The Good Dinosaur
Voice acting. Not a cliché, but just something I wanted to mention. When Walt Disney was trying to find a voice for Snow White, he was hiding behind a wall to make sure his decision was based on the voice instead of the look. And Dopey was mute because it turned out impossible to find a fitting voice.
In Pixar's movies, the voices just seems miscast. More effort should be made to add something extra to a voice, like Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh, and old timers like Goofy, Donald and Mickey. Close your eyes when listening to these voices, and you know they are species characters. Close your eyes and listen to the voices in The Good Dinosaur, and it sounds like a conversation between random humans and a boy pretending to be a dog.
Conversations where they tell you it is OK to be scared, be nice and eat your vegetables. Cars, The Good Dinosaur and so on. Cars 2 when Lightning McQueen is asked why he want his best friend Mater to change. The part in Wreck-it Ralph where all the villains are holding hands at the end of the meeting, and then when Ralph repeat the phrase near the end, has Lasseter's fingerprints all over it. His motto is that for every laugh, there should be a tear.
Mistaking acting and playing for reality: Buzz Lightyear and Bolt.
"Fake opening": Toy Story 3 (the massive opening was just a boy playing), Zootopia (the hunter and prey was just a play), Bolt (it was all just a movie production) and to some degree Big Hero 6 (turns out it was just toys). Moana too I think, I don't remember the opening properly.
More adult content. The ending of Toy Story 3 when they are about to die. And how many children can tell what Zootopia was all about?
In science fiction were very rarely read stories about the "Adam and Eve concept"; the story ends with a man and woman actually being the biblical or sci-fi versions of Adam and Eve. Not because so few people come up with the idea, but because so many does it, and the editors always rejects them. The concept is to fuse old things with logic . Like; "what could be the reason why monsters are hiding under children's beds, and where do the monster live when not hiding in the closet?". The answer was to come up with portals to another dimension and that screams from children was their source of power. You can make an entertaining movie out of it, but if I was an editor, I would probably have rejected a story like that. (But that's a personal decision, and the book could have ended up as a bestseller.)
The posing intro. In Finding Nemo; instead of just saying "this is Gill, he is the boss in this tank", we get a dramatic entrance that leads nowhere other than making it clear he is the boss. In Up, the leader dog with the weird voice is introduced while he sits still, turned away from the other dogs. In Toy Story 3, Chuckles the Clown is introduced in a similar way. It just feels like it isn't the best way to introduce a character.
And is Pixar's Braintrust really something positive in every possible way? There is no doubt that it helps solve a lot of potential problems with a movie, but it can also make it feel a little too polished. I just have the impression that trust is presented with a movie idea and an outline, and then try to turn it into something that last for 90 minutes or so. For instance; "Okay, this movie is supposed to be about a boy that shrinks and ends up inside the leaf of a tree. Any idea how we can make that into a 90 minutes feature? So far we have suggestions that he regrets being so harsh against his parents, and meet a hobo-bacterium that becomes his father figure who makes him realize he has actually had a very good childhood. Anything else that could be added that helps move the story forward?" In theory, all concepts can be turned into a movie. But a proper story is more than just an accumulation of problem solving about how to travel from start to finish.
Not all is bad of course. But once most new movies from a studio becomes recognizable because of certain elements they obviously feel obligated to include, then maybe its time to try to make a movie without these elements.
Clichés. Or at least ideas used more than once. Because most of them can probably be traced back to Lasseter, who has been involved in both studios' animation for some time now, Disney movies are also included. There could be more examples out there, as I have skipped most of the Pixar movies since Toy Story 3:
Children as monsters: Tin Toy, Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3.
Pack of animals shouting the same: Seagulls in Finding Nemo, dogs in Up, and dogs in Bolt
A character looking at a beautiful landscape, and having a "wow" moment: Bolt, Cars and The Good Dinosaur
Voice acting. Not a cliché, but just something I wanted to mention. When Walt Disney was trying to find a voice for Snow White, he was hiding behind a wall to make sure his decision was based on the voice instead of the look. And Dopey was mute because it turned out impossible to find a fitting voice.
In Pixar's movies, the voices just seems miscast. More effort should be made to add something extra to a voice, like Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh, and old timers like Goofy, Donald and Mickey. Close your eyes when listening to these voices, and you know they are species characters. Close your eyes and listen to the voices in The Good Dinosaur, and it sounds like a conversation between random humans and a boy pretending to be a dog.
Conversations where they tell you it is OK to be scared, be nice and eat your vegetables. Cars, The Good Dinosaur and so on. Cars 2 when Lightning McQueen is asked why he want his best friend Mater to change. The part in Wreck-it Ralph where all the villains are holding hands at the end of the meeting, and then when Ralph repeat the phrase near the end, has Lasseter's fingerprints all over it. His motto is that for every laugh, there should be a tear.
Mistaking acting and playing for reality: Buzz Lightyear and Bolt.
"Fake opening": Toy Story 3 (the massive opening was just a boy playing), Zootopia (the hunter and prey was just a play), Bolt (it was all just a movie production) and to some degree Big Hero 6 (turns out it was just toys). Moana too I think, I don't remember the opening properly.
More adult content. The ending of Toy Story 3 when they are about to die. And how many children can tell what Zootopia was all about?
In science fiction were very rarely read stories about the "Adam and Eve concept"; the story ends with a man and woman actually being the biblical or sci-fi versions of Adam and Eve. Not because so few people come up with the idea, but because so many does it, and the editors always rejects them. The concept is to fuse old things with logic . Like; "what could be the reason why monsters are hiding under children's beds, and where do the monster live when not hiding in the closet?". The answer was to come up with portals to another dimension and that screams from children was their source of power. You can make an entertaining movie out of it, but if I was an editor, I would probably have rejected a story like that. (But that's a personal decision, and the book could have ended up as a bestseller.)
The posing intro. In Finding Nemo; instead of just saying "this is Gill, he is the boss in this tank", we get a dramatic entrance that leads nowhere other than making it clear he is the boss. In Up, the leader dog with the weird voice is introduced while he sits still, turned away from the other dogs. In Toy Story 3, Chuckles the Clown is introduced in a similar way. It just feels like it isn't the best way to introduce a character.
And is Pixar's Braintrust really something positive in every possible way? There is no doubt that it helps solve a lot of potential problems with a movie, but it can also make it feel a little too polished. I just have the impression that trust is presented with a movie idea and an outline, and then try to turn it into something that last for 90 minutes or so. For instance; "Okay, this movie is supposed to be about a boy that shrinks and ends up inside the leaf of a tree. Any idea how we can make that into a 90 minutes feature? So far we have suggestions that he regrets being so harsh against his parents, and meet a hobo-bacterium that becomes his father figure who makes him realize he has actually had a very good childhood. Anything else that could be added that helps move the story forward?" In theory, all concepts can be turned into a movie. But a proper story is more than just an accumulation of problem solving about how to travel from start to finish.
Not all is bad of course. But once most new movies from a studio becomes recognizable because of certain elements they obviously feel obligated to include, then maybe its time to try to make a movie without these elements.
