Yesterday, I talked about how Pixar's decision to delay The Good Dinosaur was actually a good move. One that inspired confidence in me rather than fear. Now, I will expand on this...
In addition to the announcement of the delay, Ed Catmull once again spoke...
There you have it. This tells me something... This tells me that the Brain Trust is well aware of the consequences brought on by the Cars 2 and Brave fiascoes. Of course, my theory about those films and what they went through is that the problems were rooted in the release schedule. In April 2008, Pixar confidently felt that Newt would be ready for summer 2011, The Bear and the Bow/Brave would be a fall 2011 release and Cars 2 would be the summer 2012 film. They announced these dates very early on, which may have put tremendous pressure on the filmmakers.
Moving Cars 2 from its original summer 2012 date to summer 2011 most likely put a lot of pressure on original director Brad Lewis, so much so that the film probably was a giant mess by the time John Lasseter took over as director in fall 2010. I think that project was a salvaged one, big time. Not that it says anything negative about Brad Lewis' abilities as a director, I just think that cutting the time given to him took a toll on him and his project. If anything, Cars 2 could have been much, much worse. You heard next to nothing about Newt between summer 2008 and February 2010, when it was reported to be "dead" by a commenter on the TAG blog only for its shelving to be officially confirmed by Pixar in May of that year. I don't think it had anything to do with Rio similarities, that film was in trouble for a while - Rio coming out just didn't help. Brave's director change made more people say that Pixar was on the decline, and Brenda Chapman's comments added to that. But is her dissatisfaction with Pixar's work ethic all just sour grapes? Insinuating that Pixar does the same old story over and over makes me question her, I didn't hear such talk from Jan Pinkava or Brad Lewis. Bob Peterson seems to be taking his ousting from his project pretty well, I'd say. Or were the Brain Trust truly unfair to Chapman? No clear cut answer here, as both sides are contradicted. (I'm not getting into that again.)
Then you got the sequels, but that's a moot point because Toy Story 3, Monsters University and Finding Dory had to be made - no two ways about it. Circle 7, anyone? Plus, Andrew Stanton himself confirmed that Disney did some nudging, but Stanton essentially said, "We tell them that we'll do it when we are ready." This is why you didn't see a Nemo sequel 3 years ago, and why you won't see one for another 3 years. Cars 2? Bob Iger probably coaxed John Lasseter into making another one, but again, that's my own little conspiracy theory. It's a coincidence that these director changes occurred when all these sequels were coming, because three of the four sequels had to be made, the fourth was obviously greenlit for the green paper, and Pixar wanted to take their time on the main three that they had to do. Toy Story 3 is considered a masterpiece, and Monsters University got better reception overall than Cars 2 and Brave... As if sequels/prequels are such a bad thing...
About Monsters University... The only big complaints I see about the film basically say "It was too safe." I heard no criticisms of the story or comic relief or whatever, just "It was safe/dull/bland/lacking/vanilla/etc." The consensus seems to be, "It's Pixar's best since Toy Story 3, but it's not all that great."
That didn't go through a director change either, as the story was pretty consistent and smooth. Cars 2 and Brave's stories aren't bad, they just have some problems, Cars 2 especially. Monsters University was always a summer 2013 release too, it wasn't announced back in 2008 or 2009. By the time it was announced during the spring of 2010, it was probably already in good shape. The November 2012 date was probably just picked by Disney to hype it up, after all it was first announced as "Monsters, Inc. 2" back then. Looks like Dan Scanlon had time to craft a solid story, because he had a lot of time to do it and he had no officially announced release date on his back.
Not to mention, nothing is ever set in stone in the world of animation. A film could be well into production when the people behind it realize that there are problems. Sometimes a last-minute fix or two can work, just look at Toy Story 2! Many Disney films apply as well, and probably countless other animated films from other studios. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois didn't have much time to retool a very problematic How To Train Your Dragon over at DreamWorks, but they gave the project their all and saved it from becoming a possible disaster. Sony Animation's Hotel Transylvania went through six different directors and took six years to finally complete. Heck, the world of live action films is no stranger to this!
But the two-in-a-row director musical chairs debacles at Pixar inspired a lot of skepticism in fans and many other people, and when it seemed like The Good Dinosaur would restore the studio's "former glory" (in their eyes), Pixar surprised us yet again. This time, it was a veteran who was being removed from his project... Not a relative newcomer or someone who hasn't been there for a long, long while. Even I got very worried, but now there's hope...
I personally believe that John Lasseter and the Brain Trust are more than concerned about what just happened between the fall of 2010 and the summer of 2012...
The Cars universe is very near and dear to John Lasseter, it's such a personal endeavor for him... And he thought he saved the sequel from turning out to be a complete disaster, only to see the finished film get fired at with scorn and absolute disapproval - to the point where people gave up being fans of Pixar. Lasseter defended his film, using "audiences loved it" as an excuse... If anything, that suggests that the criticism really hurt Lasseter's feelings and he wouldn't be willing to address the film's problems. Listen to commentary on the Cars 2 Blu-ray; he clearly loves this universe and is very passionate about it.
He's also been rather quiet about Brave and even Monsters University. You don't sense much enthusiasm from the Brain Trust towards those films, the way they were enthusiastic about films like Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 didn't seem to be there. I think they've realized that removing the directors and not delaying the films in order to salvage them was a series of bad moves. The critical reception of the last three films, the general "Pixar is declining" mood coming from the ever-so-nice press and the overall backlash didn't pass by them. I think they are aware that they inspired so much worry, skepticism and even anger.
This all explains to me why The Good Dinosaur was ultimately delayed by a year and a half... Pixar truly wants a quality production here, and they'll do whatever it takes to ensure that the film is great. Ed Catmull more than sums it up in his statements. The Brain Trust and Lasseter aren't the heartless creativity-killing bastards that everyone is making them out to be, or so it seems for now. Should The Good Dinosaur turn out to be a bad film, then I say we should question what the Brain Trust is doing - not necessarily yell "They were evil!"
Pixar delayed it knowing that they wouldn't have something ready for audiences next summer, they were willing to break the one-film-a-calendar-year tradition to save this film from being below par. Catmull points out that people will remember a "bad" film (although many will say "But Cars 2 was bad! Catmull is just sugarcoating things!")...
If anything, this situation is a combination of the Ratatouille pre-production woes and the release schedule causing problems...
There was a time when you had to wait for Pixar films, you did not have the privilege of getting a new film from the Emeryville studio every year. I became a big fan of Pixar at the age of 10 back in fall 2002, after numerous repeat viewings of my Monsters, Inc. DVD and immersing myself in the set's two discs worth of bonus features. When Finding Nemo came out (I was in fifth grade at the time) and I saw the release date for The Incredibles at the end of the teaser, I was basically thinking, "Wow... That's a long wait. I'll be in seventh grade by then!" When Cars was delayed from November 2005 to June 2006 - a month after the trailer debuted no less! - I was pretty upset about that. I remember thinking, "Awwww, that's way too long!"
Flash-forward to today. Pixar releases one film every summer, and plans on releasing two in a calendar year every once in a while in addition to one every year. That's a big feat. DreamWorks releases 2-3 films every year, but to be honest, I don't think all of their films are of high quality. For every How To Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2 leaving me satisfied, there's a Megamind or Croods that fails to impress me.
Andrew Stanton spoke up about this new scheduling problem a few moths ago...
"We can’t have the amount of labor it takes to do these movies at the same time because it becomes unsustainable economically, but it means if one director has a problem, everybody’s connected to the same bed sheet. You pull one end and it makes wrinkles in the other one. It’s a new problem."
But the two-in-a-row director musical chairs debacles at Pixar inspired a lot of skepticism in fans and many other people, and when it seemed like The Good Dinosaur would restore the studio's "former glory" (in their eyes), Pixar surprised us yet again. This time, it was a veteran who was being removed from his project... Not a relative newcomer or someone who hasn't been there for a long, long while. Even I got very worried, but now there's hope...
I personally believe that John Lasseter and the Brain Trust are more than concerned about what just happened between the fall of 2010 and the summer of 2012...
The Cars universe is very near and dear to John Lasseter, it's such a personal endeavor for him... And he thought he saved the sequel from turning out to be a complete disaster, only to see the finished film get fired at with scorn and absolute disapproval - to the point where people gave up being fans of Pixar. Lasseter defended his film, using "audiences loved it" as an excuse... If anything, that suggests that the criticism really hurt Lasseter's feelings and he wouldn't be willing to address the film's problems. Listen to commentary on the Cars 2 Blu-ray; he clearly loves this universe and is very passionate about it.
He's also been rather quiet about Brave and even Monsters University. You don't sense much enthusiasm from the Brain Trust towards those films, the way they were enthusiastic about films like Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 didn't seem to be there. I think they've realized that removing the directors and not delaying the films in order to salvage them was a series of bad moves. The critical reception of the last three films, the general "Pixar is declining" mood coming from the ever-so-nice press and the overall backlash didn't pass by them. I think they are aware that they inspired so much worry, skepticism and even anger.
This all explains to me why The Good Dinosaur was ultimately delayed by a year and a half... Pixar truly wants a quality production here, and they'll do whatever it takes to ensure that the film is great. Ed Catmull more than sums it up in his statements. The Brain Trust and Lasseter aren't the heartless creativity-killing bastards that everyone is making them out to be, or so it seems for now. Should The Good Dinosaur turn out to be a bad film, then I say we should question what the Brain Trust is doing - not necessarily yell "They were evil!"
Pixar delayed it knowing that they wouldn't have something ready for audiences next summer, they were willing to break the one-film-a-calendar-year tradition to save this film from being below par. Catmull points out that people will remember a "bad" film (although many will say "But Cars 2 was bad! Catmull is just sugarcoating things!")...
If anything, this situation is a combination of the Ratatouille pre-production woes and the release schedule causing problems...
There was a time when you had to wait for Pixar films, you did not have the privilege of getting a new film from the Emeryville studio every year. I became a big fan of Pixar at the age of 10 back in fall 2002, after numerous repeat viewings of my Monsters, Inc. DVD and immersing myself in the set's two discs worth of bonus features. When Finding Nemo came out (I was in fifth grade at the time) and I saw the release date for The Incredibles at the end of the teaser, I was basically thinking, "Wow... That's a long wait. I'll be in seventh grade by then!" When Cars was delayed from November 2005 to June 2006 - a month after the trailer debuted no less! - I was pretty upset about that. I remember thinking, "Awwww, that's way too long!"
Flash-forward to today. Pixar releases one film every summer, and plans on releasing two in a calendar year every once in a while in addition to one every year. That's a big feat. DreamWorks releases 2-3 films every year, but to be honest, I don't think all of their films are of high quality. For every How To Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2 leaving me satisfied, there's a Megamind or Croods that fails to impress me.
Andrew Stanton spoke up about this new scheduling problem a few moths ago...
"We can’t have the amount of labor it takes to do these movies at the same time because it becomes unsustainable economically, but it means if one director has a problem, everybody’s connected to the same bed sheet. You pull one end and it makes wrinkles in the other one. It’s a new problem."
He hit the nail on the head. A Brain Trust member no less! In addition to that, he mentioned that hefty $200 million budgets and the ramping up of the schedule puts "strains" on the studio's resources.
I mentioned this earlier in the month, the whole "one-a-year" thing can create problems and Stanton more than sums up what I thought: It was the problematic schedule all along, not the Hawaiian Shirt Man being some egotistical devil or the Brain Trust being control freaks. Again, look at Walt Disney Animation Studios' last five films...
Cars 2 and Brave could've been beyond messy due to the release dates approaching so soon, and the director changes were a result of the Brain Trust acting fast. Consider it like panic mode for them: "The film is in trouble and the release date is almost here! It's got to be fixed!" Again, Cars 2 had the unfortunate date switch happen when the film was still in development. Brave had to be finished in less than two years. The new director of The Good Dinosaur has more than two years to fix the film, and with no film coming out next year, there will be more concentration from everyone else involved. I'm more than glad that Pixar delayed this film.
Now you may ask, "Now that they have time, why is Peterson not back on board?"
Again, Jan Pinkava... Pinkava just wasn't fit for directing his personal project, Ratatouille. It was chock full of issues and it just wasn't working. Brad Bird had to save it, but in the process, he made a modern masterpiece and one that's called the pinnacle of Pixar's storytelling prowess. Perhaps Bob Peterson just couldn't make this film work, much like how Pinkava couldn't make Ratatouille work. Brad Lewis and Brenda Chapman, from the way I see it now, couldn't work wonders within such a tight schedule. If Cars 2's release date was undetermined for a long while, it probably would've been a pretty strong film, ditto Brave. Pixar can't assign dates to films anymore, but rather let them and their creators breathe... And when one is truly ready, then ink a release date for it.
I understand that competition is wild, and first pick is a big deal, but... Disney and Pixar proved earlier this year that you can pick a bunch of release dates for films, but not tell anyone what exact films are hitting theaters on those dates. If I didn't read up on Blue Sky Disney prior to this year's D23 Expo, I'd have no idea that Zootopia was going to be the March 2016 release. I'd have no idea that the November 2016 and March 2018 films would be Giants and Moana. If I knew about the latter two films, I wouldn't know exactly when they'd be coming out. Remember, Bleeding Cool's Brendon Connelly implied in an article that Giants could very well arrive at movie theaters long after 2016... But we all know it's definitely the fall 2016 release for now thanks to Blue Sky Disney and the information that Honor Hunter gets.
So in the future, Pixar should just pick dates and not say what's coming out on those dates. Teddy Newton's film for example - don't say it's slated for fall 2017 two or more years before it's expected to hit theaters! Same goes for Mark Andrews' untitled project and Dia De Los Muertos! Disney Animation isn't outright saying that Giants is coming in November 2016, heck they're not even saying that Zootopia is the March 2016 release! By not setting the dates in stone, you're not pressuring your creative teams with ticking clocks. It all brings me to a specific line from Toy Story 2... I bet you can guess what it is...
That's right... "You can't rush art!"
In the end, I think Pixar just learned a lesson. It's life, people make mistakes and learn from them - Pixar is no different. The people there are not gods of perfection or anything of the sort, and they know that. Let what happened from the fall of 2010 to the summer of 2012 be the mistakes, and these few weeks being the "learning" phase. The resulting films released from 2011 to 2013 forms the sort of punishment (okay, that may sound harsh - but you get the idea, Pixar doesn't need to be "punished") for what they did, and now they're attempting to do better next time around. And if you ask me, that's welcome.
At the same time, I can accept the fact that not every Pixar film is going to be perfect. I'm totally fine with a string of greats and a string of not-so-great films. I'm no longer in shock, because we got two films that had problems and a film that was not spectacular plus... They're only human and they can't make every film great or perfect. It's reality, Walt Disney's animation unit went through the same kind of phases where the films weren't up to snuff and no one seems to bat an eye.
Just think about it too... Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur are both coming out in the same calendar year... What if both are bonafide critical hits? What if both are considered excellent by critics and audiences? I can just hear it now... "Pixar, what a comeback!" "They picked themselves up out of that slump!" "Looks like John Lasseter isn't so bad after all!" The tides will turn fast, really fast. People will be praising them out the wazoo and covering up their snide comments they made during the last few years. I bet it'll happen, and I'd gladly eat crow if it doesn't.
Almost as if Pixar is well aware of the backlash and the reaction to their last three films, and they're up to something... They're making sure that they make a big splash in 2015...
At the same time, I can accept the fact that not every Pixar film is going to be perfect. I'm totally fine with a string of greats and a string of not-so-great films. I'm no longer in shock, because we got two films that had problems and a film that was not spectacular plus... They're only human and they can't make every film great or perfect. It's reality, Walt Disney's animation unit went through the same kind of phases where the films weren't up to snuff and no one seems to bat an eye.
Just think about it too... Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur are both coming out in the same calendar year... What if both are bonafide critical hits? What if both are considered excellent by critics and audiences? I can just hear it now... "Pixar, what a comeback!" "They picked themselves up out of that slump!" "Looks like John Lasseter isn't so bad after all!" The tides will turn fast, really fast. People will be praising them out the wazoo and covering up their snide comments they made during the last few years. I bet it'll happen, and I'd gladly eat crow if it doesn't.
Almost as if Pixar is well aware of the backlash and the reaction to their last three films, and they're up to something... They're making sure that they make a big splash in 2015...
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