Has Pixar lost its touch?

[Kekkonen1]

No they haven't. But this comes from someone that never really liked Pixar in the first place thus thinks that they never had the touch to begin with. I just never understood the near universal infatuation with animated movies with boring character design, obvious slap stick-comedy and on-the-nose writing with obnoxious moral lessons.

Just feel I need to add, I dont have a problem with the theme of Brave per se, I know almost nothing of the movie since I haven't enjoyed any other pixar-movie and thus don't plan on seeing it just as I dont plan on seeing any future pixar-movies. They are just not for me.

 

[mrdude2010]

I heard Brave was good, just not epic level like Toy Story. They took a step back with Cars 2 and a step forward again with Brave. I'm not worried at all.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

i'm going to see brave soon, I hope it good.

p.s We don't talk about cars 2, there was only one cars movie in book. That never happen.

 

[Signa]

I think part of the problem is how good their competitors have been in comparison. Pixar has always been the top of computer animated movies, but I can name 5 movies off the top of my head that are computer animated and I found to be just as enjoyable as any other Pixar movie.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

No they haven't. But this comes from someone that never really liked Pixar in the first place thus thinks that they never had the touch to begin with. I just never understood the near universal infatuation with animated movies with boring character design, obvious slap stick-comedy and on-the-nose writing with obnoxious moral lessons.

Just feel I need to add, I dont have a problem with the theme of Brave per se, I know almost nothing of the movie since I haven't enjoyed any other pixar-movie and thus don't plan on seeing it just as I dont plan on seeing any future pixar-movies. They are just not for me.

what happen to your childhood. what do you love

 

[lordmardok]

I dunno, I liked it. I thought the second half felt kind of rushed, like it should have been about a half an hour longer than it was. Other than the semi-rushed feeling it was still a good movie though. It had a clever sense of humour that kept it from feeling like a waste and the animation style and music particularly amazing. The characters were easily some of the best I've seen in awhile and I actually hope they make a Brave 2 just so I can see more of Merida's adventures which I can't remember feeling for many other characters in movie's lately.

 

[Launcelot111]

It was adequate. The characters were good and the humor was solid, but the conflict was rushed and undeveloped.

Spoiler: plot gripes to follow

The whole demon bear angle was super weak. If they were trying to make a parallel between the old kingdom and the new, then throwing in the demon bear to be like "ooh magic has been used before and the consequences were dire" isn't very effective because the guy who turned into a demon bear was already trying to destroy the kingdom in the first place. The magic just diluted an already tenuous metaphor. Past that, just to nitpick, why is marrying Merida to one of the three first born sons a peace offering? Two families will go home without a princess, and I doubt they'll be too happy about that.

Not Pixar's finest hour, but miles from me losing faith from them. It's Monsters Inc Level, not Wall-E level, definitely not Cars 2 level.

 

[Dryk]

I haven't seen it yet, but I say if they want to spread out an experiment with conventional stories and try something different for a while let them.

Also look at their upcoming films after Monsters University:

The Good Dinosaur: A film about a world where dinosaurs never went extinct
"The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind"
"The Untitled Pixar Movie About Día de los Muertos"

Not to mention that considering how long it takes to make these movies we're probably just now seeing to effects of something that happened a few years ago. Executive meddling? Lack of ideas? I have no idea!

 

[Bomberman4000]

Based on attendance numbers and revenue, I wouldn't say Pixar has lost their touch at all. I work at a movie theater and close to 2/3 of our total attendance this weekend has been for Brave. I think I read that it did $66 million this weekend (it may have been one of my coworkers that told me that so I won't hold it up as concrete fact) so that tells me at least the general public is enjoying it. We've had several families that I've talked to say they've already seen it twice.

It's on my "to see" list, but for now I've got Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Prometheus, and possibly Avengers again on that list as well.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

well I didn't hate cars 1/2 but I would call them dreamworks quality (if that makes sense) I have heard that the first half of brave is great and the second half just turns into a "dreamworks" quality film.

 

[pilouuuu]

I haven't seen it yet, but I say if they want to spread out an experiment with conventional stories and try something different for a while let them.

Also look at their upcoming films after Monsters University:

The Good Dinosaur: A film about a world where dinosaurs never went extinct
"The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind"
"The Untitled Pixar Movie About Día de los Muertos"

Not to mention that considering how long it takes to make these movies we're probably just now seeing to effects of something that happened a few years ago. Executive meddling? Lack of ideas? I have no idea!

Those ideas seem brilliant indeed! But have you seen Monster's University trailer?


It's very meh for me... Maybe they didn't lose its touch. They just showed that they're not perfect and that it won't always be an amazingly epic movie.

 

[Hoplon]

Eh, they have a lot of lee way from me, since at the moment it's like 2:1 in favour of great to merely average.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Last time I've check it was mostly good and while Moviebob had some complain about it in his Intermission article he still say it's a good film.
I mean Car 2 was bad as it was more as a money pull franchise instead of being unquie setting/ theme with a lesson/ moral to it while still being funny and fun for both kid and adult to watch.

I haven't seen it yet, but I say if they want to spread out an experiment with conventional stories and try something different for a while let them.

Also look at their upcoming films after Monsters University:

The Good Dinosaur: A film about a world where dinosaurs never went extinct
"The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind"
"The Untitled Pixar Movie About Día de los Muertos"

Not to mention that considering how long it takes to make these movies we're probably just now seeing to effects of something that happened a few years ago. Executive meddling? Lack of ideas? I have no idea!

Interesting last time I read about these future films, one of them was about a rare Newt who meet another female newt in order to mate to save their species (I think it was something to do with geniue loved or just to force to be in loved to save their species). Maybe the had scrap it since it sound abit similar to that film Rio.
Yeah I'm not too keen with Monster University as I feel it could had the same effect as Car 2. (Did they really intend to make it in the first place or give into fan demand for more Monster Inc?)

 

[IndomitableSam]

If they had developed the "Legend" part of the story and the surrounding aspects, it would have been incredible. More backstory on that whole part - the movie was short as it was, if they delved further into the history I would give it a 10.

Otherwise, agreed, I was underwhelmed. Very happy to see it break the norm of princess movies, though.

On a funny note, my twin sister and I were sitting at the theatre waiting for the doors to open so we could get in... and we were sitting under a poster of the triplets. Kept getting funny looks. Was hilarious.

 

[robot slipper]

The only Pixar movie that I've seen so far that I didn't like was Cars. I tried watching it with my son, but just couldn't get into it. We barely even laughed. Maybe it's just too specifc to Nascar-type racing, which I find mind-numbingly boring. Whereas, no matter how many times my son watches Finding Nemo, he still laughs his head off at the Dorie-speaking-whale thing!

 

[omicron1]

Haven't seen it, so maybe it's just not that good - wouldn't know, but I do wonder: how many of those bad reviews come from, ummm... sources of a conservative inclination?

Please tell me you're not serious. Implied accusations of widespread misogyny? In this day and age? Nobody of import thinks that way any more, laddie.

On topic: Yes, they have. Sure, you can say they are still above average, but for a company known for only masterpieces for almost a decade, even above average is still a stumble from previous soaring heights.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I saw Brave over the weekend, and thought it was wonderful. Outside of one side plot, it was the first movie I've seen in a long while without any antagonist. That was a nice change of pace.

 

[Lilani]

While I still haven't seen Brave, I was disappointed by its bad reviews. Wow, two movies below the quality we expect from Pixar in a row. While the average ratio of quality productions is still amazing I'm starting to get afraid that they may be catering to much to the lowest denominator and in a few years we may only get run of the mill commercial movies from them and not the pieces of art we were used since Toy Story.

What's your opinion? Did you like Brave? Have they lost their touch? Will the next movie be better?

I think Moviebob said it well: Pixar's problem is that they're Pixar. People are expecting to get blown out of the water every time. And when that doesn't happen, it's seen as a failure. It can still be a wonderful movie by all accounts, but if it doesn't blow people's minds it's a step back. And while that isn't an excuse for any legitimate mistakes they make, it does lead the public to blow those mistakes out of proportion in ways they never would have if it had been made by any other studio. And it doesn't help that their last film was Cars 2, which most consider a resounding failure (though I feel it still did what it set out to do, it just didn't set out to pull at your heartstrings and the hardcore fans didn't know what to do with that), and that means since Brave wasn't perfect everybody's getting all hysterical and apocalyptic, "OH NO, PIXAR IS DYING! THEY'RE SELLING OUT! WHAAAA!" Lordy. Again, all this drama wouldn't be happening if it were any other studio.

I haven't seen Brave yet, probably will this weekend when the crowds have died a bit, but from what I understand this was a particularly difficult film for them because it is a different style from their typical movies, thematically and especially character-wise with the female lead. They had many re-writes and new scripts to get it just right. So I can't say much more than that at this point, but I will say even if I am "underwhelmed" as others were, I do feel like this is Pixar in a state of transition, trying new and risky things. And while we should never give them a free pass for legitimate mistakes, we shouldn't encourage them to JUST stick with what they know works. They need to keep trying new things, lest they stagnate and become like Disney in the late 90s and early 2000s.