There's No Such Thing as "Pixar Good" Part 3: Modern Pixar

In part one of this series, we discussed that while, yes, golden age Pixar films enjoyed critical support, no one was actually as excited to call them "masterpieces" as retrospective criticism would have you think. In part two, we examined how the studio's reputation buoyed the critical reception of nearly a decade full of grade-B Pixar sequels which left many questioning the studio's creative integrity. This, our concluding episode, dissects the consequences of both a romanticized history of Pixar's classics and of Pixar exposing its own cash-grab capacity through its string of middling sequels. The question of "but is it Pixar good?" isn't unique to Coco, Onward, or The Good Dinosaur. What is new is the degree of influence this question is holding over new entries into the Pixar library. Critics are much more eager to punish new Pixar films for not being “classic” than they were for actual “classics.”

MODERN PIXAR

As we slowly started pulling ourselves out of the marsh of sequels, many reviews were happy to welcome Pixar’s newest efforts into the fold. They recognized not only the merit in Pixar investing in non-franchise titles, but also the innovation and love that went into the production of the films themselves. Drew Taylor wrote in his Coco review for The Playlist:

“This is Pixar at its most nakedly emotional – not sentimental or saccharine – but heartfelt in a way that feels profoundly personal and also universal. They have dramatized an internal struggle faced by most families, blown it up to insane proportions, and then scaled it back to resonate in the most impactful way possible.”

 

    And yet, the middle ground was shrinking. There wasn’t a lot of room between "another Pixar triumph!" and "what happened to the magic?" Though Peter Debruge (Variety) called Coco “undeniably gorgeous,” he lamented, “By this point, the Pixar machine has gotten so efficient that watching its movies can feel less like hearing a good story than sitting in on a well-polished pitch meeting.”

Sam Adams (Slate) was even more grim in his summation:

“Watching Coco is also like traveling through a graveyard, although the phantoms that haunt it are not people but movies. With Pixar now in its third decade of feature filmmaking, it’s inevitable that patterns would become more established and new tricks turn old. But in Coco the ghosts are so transparent you can see right through them, and when the movie’s over, they evaporate altogether ... 

"When Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, the hope was that Pixar’s John Lasseter would infuse some of Pixar’s creative magic into Disney’s animation. Instead it feels like Pixar has gotten swallowed, locked into making more Toy Storys and more Carses and borrowing from Disney’s toolbox rather than sharing its own."

 

Premiere of The Florida Project (2017)

       I'm always interested when critics decide that Pixar is the best place to have this conversation, especially with a non-franchise entry that is also very well received by the public. It comes with this assumption that studios like Pixar are somehow unique in their aim to make headlines. It's no secret that all filmmakers, even grassroots "raised funds for this movie by selling Grannie's canned peaches on the side of the road" filmmakers, want their movies to be seen--they want them to make money. Movies are parcels in this capitalist minefield that we are all called to walk through. That is not some fringe insight we need critics to discover for us. 

    The role of the critic should be to help us better distinguish which of these ventures are worthy of our time, which pockets of creativity are worth building up. And there are reliable ways to do this when the film in question suffers from legitimate issues, as seen with the majority of the Pixar sequels. And so when a critic defaults to these lines about smelling too much corporation on the movie, and without really getting into why, what that usually reveals to me is that they can't actually discern any defects with the film itself, but they still want to look smart, which is really empty criticism.

    Again, Pixar films have always passed through that phase of being told they're not as gifted as their older siblings before they're inevitably admitted into the family. But the resistance is more aggressive here. Why is this the case?

           I'd place at least some of the blame on the decade long sequel train wearing down critics. But I also noted a similar phenomenon in my Avatar essay where I posit that the real reason so many people think they hate Avatar has less to do with the movie itself and more to do with the expectation for the movie to produce a nostalgic bubble bath right out of the gate. But films don't work that way. Even if it makes a good headline, in real life there are no “instant classics.” Classic only comes with distance and time, and demanding nostalgia from your fresh-out-of-the oven film inevitably leads to disappointment.

Take a film like The Incredibles. You love The Incredibles. You saw The Incredibles a million times on DVD way back before the age of break-ups and student loans. Maybe you've even seen the bonus features once or twice. You've met Mr. Incredible or Elastigirl at Disney California Adventure. Maybe you've even written your own super-hero fanfics inspired by your love for the film. You've probably read a few articles about how the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was foreshadowed by The Incredibles. You 'like' memes featuring the movie without giving it a second thought. And after years of wondering why they never made a sequel, you were shooting through the ceiling when Pixar finally announced that, yes, we were in fact getting The Incredibles 2, which only made you want to watch the first one again. You love The Incredibles. Lots of people do. 

But The Incredibles did not come with all this emotional leverage—the movie put in its dues and earned it. Some of it shortly after its initial release, some of it years after the fact. Romanticized reminiscences of Pixar's critical history distort how we view this process. This is certainly true of the six-year-olds who saw Monsters Inc. back in 2001, but Pixar films are nostalgic not just in function but in aesthetic, such that even adults who wrote about the film way back when are subject to this memory trap. Indeed, critics may be more susceptible than any of us.

Let’s do a comparison—Here are some random excerpts from reviews for Finding Nemo as read on the film’s Rotten Tomatoes Page:

“Finding Nemo will engross kids with its absorbing story, brightly drawn characters and lively action, and grown-ups will be equally entertained by the film's subtle humor and the sophistication of its visuals.” Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

 

“Visual imagination and sophisticated wit raise Finding Nemo to a level just below the peaks of Pixar's Toy Story movies and Monsters, Inc.” Stephen Holden, New York Times

 

“Lives up to Pixar's high standards for wildly creative visuals, clever comedy, solid characters and an involving story.” Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

 

Only one out of these three reviews makes any reference to Pixar's elder films in its thesis, a ratio I'd wager is actually much thinner than what you'd actually find scanning the blurbs on the film's RT page. Most of them at least wait until you actually read the review before they start talking about how much better the good Pixar films were. This is one reason why it's so shocking to learn that many "fresh" reviews called out Finding Nemo for being cloying, trite, and preachy. People only remember Finding Nemo’s 99 on RT and all the pleasant one-liners from the tv ads. Based on those, even actual film critics might reasonably assume that the reception for the film was nothing but peaches and roses.

Unfortunately for Onward, Pixar’s most recent film, no one will get to make that mistake.

 

To be clear, the reception for Pixar's most recent movie wasn't atrocious. Reviewers didn't go to town with this movie as with something like Cats. But unlike Finding Nemo, these reviews couldn't even wait until the second paragraph to cut the film down to size. Here are some blurbs from Onward’s page on RT.

“It's fine. A perfectly watchable film that could have been great if it, like its protagonist, remembered that the secret to magic is really believing in the wild thing you're about to do.” Joshua Rivera, The Verge

 

But honestly, what is Pixar supposed to do with these?

 “You won't feel cheated by it, but you won't feel elated, either. Yet Pixar, in its very bravura, has more than earned the right to put out a movie like this one - an unabashed piece of product, a kind of Pixar place-holder made with a tiny dash of soul.” Owen Gleiberman, Variety

 

“Onward doesn't quite pack the emotional gut-punch of recent Pixar efforts like Inside Out and Coco. It's a fun and mostly lighthearted romp, with a great sense of humor, just don't expect it to rank among the studio's upper echelon.” Brent Hankins, Lamplight Review

    These are all “fresh” reviews, yet they all sound like letters of recommendation written by Onward’s least favorite high school teacher. Where Finding Nemo’s relationship to the brand was clipped on like a retail tag, Onward’s ascribed inadequacy is baked into the meat and bread of the dialogue.

    Even if we decided for a moment to assume that, sure, Rotten Tomatoes is right about this "Pixar Placeholder," I feel like we need to highlight a contrast in how critics chose to address the supposed deficiencies of Onward versus something like "Finding (a reason for) Dory (to have her own movie)." Again, some felt free to air their grievances with the movie upfront, but 94 percent of critics did not. And even when they chose to give space to the movie's shortcomings (of which there were many), they were content to couch them in pleasantries like "Finding Dory isn't a vital addition to the Pixar canon... But it's nice to see Stanton back in his element, especially when he's here to deliver such a helpful, important message in the process" (Tasha Robinson, The Verge). We can maybe guess why the sequels stirred the sympathy of critics, but it is curious to me that so many voices would feel like it's harmless to give a mercy pass to Pixar's sequels but not the films that are at least aspiring to push boundaries. 

            The Critics Consensus for Onward even codifies its ranking by stipulating that “It may suffer in comparison to Pixar's classics ...” Onward shares this warning label with only one other Pixar film: The Good Dinosaur, which according to Rotten Tomatoes “... doesn't quite live up to the lofty standards set by Pixar ...” That Onward should be on the same level as a movie like The Good Dinosaur represents a flaw in the system of both RT and film discourse at large. Let's look closer at the dialogue around The Good Dinosaur, a movie which--unlike Onward--actually represented a creative block within Pixar. 

Take a look at Jen Yamato's review for The Daily Beast for a start:

“The patchwork script reveals its joints as it shifts gears into a homeward bound odyssey across the great North American plains. Tally the film’s themes to reveal a confused, if well-meaning kids movie: Self-realization. Family. Alternative families. Death, death, death. More death . . .

“Alas, even the look of The Good Dinosaur’s main character seems outdated, blocky, and out of place in his own world—not exactly the kind of design that stands the test of time alongside the most iconic of figures in the Pixar/Disney vaults. The darkness is not what bogs The Good Dinosaur down; the gloomiest of plot turns also make for some of the film’s most emotionally wrenching pivots. It’s the confused and contrived paths the disjointed script sends its hero scampering along that never let him really earn his way home.”

 

Most other reviews for the film will echo Yamato’s sentiments. A.A. Dowd (Film A.V. Club) groans how “Pixar, usually unrivaled in its ability to invest family fare with profundity, has settled on a pretty rote life lesson this time.” Mark Feeney (Boston Globe) calls out the “surprisingly crude Dino the Dinosaur look of the apatosauruses.” Matt Pais (Chicago Tribune) writes “The characters are types, and the relationships are basic.”

The Good Dinosaur flopped creatively and financially not simply because it wasn’t Pixar Good—it wasn’t Pixar Good because it had uninspired themes, clunky character designs, and a barebone plot. The film wasn’t missing some divine touch: its flaws were easily detectable and articulated, and the critics all agreed on what specifically those flaws were.

  The disaffected reviews for Onward, by comparison, have neither unity nor specificity. There’s a general agreeance that Pixar’s newest film is not up to standard, but there’s no consensus on why.

Alonso Duralde (The Wrap) bemoans an absent phylogenetic chart linking magical unicorns and trash unicorns. Eric Eisenburg (Cinema Blend) spends a whole paragraph describing how settling on elf protagonists was "uninspired" on part of the filmmakers who didn't want to try anything risky. Meanwhile Oliver Jones (The Observer) offers perhaps the hollowest critique in the history of film discourse when he chides Onward for its “odd message” that “Apparently, it is more appropriate for young men to set about slaying a dragon than it is to spend a few sessions sorting out their feelings of loss with a trained professional.” (I can only imagine what this guy thinks of The Dark Knight.) When you try to make your nostalgic frustrations or egotistical ramblings sound more academic than they are, you inevitably start reaching.

The closest we get to a consensus is that Onward just wasn’t daring or bold enough compared to some of the wilder Pixar films. Kristy Puchko of IGN writes,

“There's nothing here that challenges audiences like the cantankerous protagonist of Up or the complicated journey of friendship in Toy Story or slightly squicky premise of Ratatouille. Without such a risk, this Pixar offering falls a bit short of the very high standards the highly acclaimed studio has set. It's a good movie, but missing that dash of daring it's not a great one.”

    Whenever I hit this particular criticism, I can't help but remember the internet’s startled reaction to the film’s first proper trailer, which revealed that the film was about two teenagers baby-sitting half of their dad. Many thought it was just the kind of bizarre Pixar was best suited for. Adam Epstein’s piece for Quartz, for example, celebrated the film’s premise as “pretty weird, even by the standards of the studio that brought us rats cooking in a fine French restaurant and monsters working in a factory that harvests children’s screams.” 

    It would seem "lack of daring" is too subjective a qualifier. But then, I'm not even sure what criteria we're using to begin with if all a movie needs to be daring is a "complicated journey of friendship." Again, quality will always be a subjective beast, but let's refer back to the Pixarian strengths that Christopher Orr listed in his lament of Pixar sequels: "the idiosyncratic stories, the deep emotional resonance, the subtle themes that don’t easily translate into amusement-park rides." Which one of these criteria are we going to say that Coco or Onward are failing to meet? (Again, subjective, but I would actually kill for Disneyland to make a ride for either of those movies.)

    What exactly was wrong with Onward? Nobody seems to know. But man, they just don't make 'em like they used to . . .

    If we want to talk about challenging storytelling, I pointed out in (shameless self-promotion incoming) my own review of Onward that the film shows tremendous tenacity in promising closure for a real experience that has no easy cure. I remember my anticipation for the movie was mixed with some unease. After all, many kids will identify with missing a dead parent, as Ian does, and I worried that Ian and Barley bringing back their dad--for any amount of time--would instill a false hope in those kids who themselves don’t have easy access to a Phoenix gem. I could only wonder what medicine this film could possibly offer kids that wouldn’t only give them cavities?

 By the film's end, it becomes clear that only one of them will get to see their dad, and Ian gives up his chance to Barley because Ian recognizes his brother needs this reunion more than he ever did. Moreover, Ian realizes that everything he thought he wanted from his dad he can share with his brother Barley--and has. The film was wise, merciful even, to not tell kids to search for closure at the end of the rainbow, but it's a hopeful ending nonetheless. And when Ian finally understands that he has all he needs in the embrace of his brother, there’s the buddings of Pixar magic at work.

I know what you're thinking ... "Did you really just put me through all that just to try to defend Pixar of all studios? Does the most successful animation studio really need our help that badly?" Well, even though the studio's premiere films are pretty much set, there is the lingering question of whether the studio's future efforts will be awarded the due process of fair appraisal. And in a landscape where films are quickly branded and then shuffled along in favor of next week's product, we should question how the appeal process works.

            Who knows? By the time Soul debuts in—fingers-crossed—two months, we may be discussing how the movie is fine for what it is, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to Onward. (Though one thing Soul has in its favor is a richly psychological premise, not too far off from the highly lauded Inside Out.) 

    At the same time, the cardboard standard of “Pixar Good” is gaining more authority. There are more online film critics today than there were twenty years ago, more voices reciting that today's Pixar movies are "mid-level." Onward's 88 on RT is uncommonly low for a Pixar film. Perusing the user reviews on the site confirms that the masses are adopting the critical narrative of "good, but not Pixar good." 

        Consider also that the Pixar standard is only ever a drain for Pixar's non-franchise titles. Remember when Pixar sequels stand trial, and when they are inevitably found "not Pixar good," critics are still eager to throw them a lifebelt, to insist that it's no cardinal sin to be merely "okay." When lamenting Pixar's loss of ingenuity, critics are more likely to point to films like Onward or Coco than Toy Story 27. Who knows what effect these attitudes will have on Pixar's creative output? 

   In a lot of ways, this issue runs much larger than Pixar specifically. Film history is full of examples of artists or films that could have shaped film history, but never took off during their time and only found acclaim years after. After the masterpiece of The Night of the Hunter flopped commercially and critically, Charles Laughton never directed another film. If we could just cut out the middleman and call a classic a classic, who knows how much art we will save?

At the end of the day it’s not just that the Pixar ideal is hard to attain—it’s mythology. It's imagined history. It’s criticism that doesn’t know what it wants but insists it's not getting it. This isn’t to say that Pixar can do no wrong, but criticism needs to be based on substance. When critics feel an incentive to dismiss a thing but lack sufficient grounds on which to base their criticism, they fall back on lofty decrees that sound intelligent (the film just has no heart, lacks vision, doesn’t believe in itself enough, etc.) but ultimately mean nothing. And when critics invoke Pixar "classics" in their dismissal of the studio's new additions, they reveal their ignorance of how these films ascended to classichood to begin with. 

If there’s only one film critic who’s been able to situate the studio in proper perspective, it’s probably Chicago Tribune’s Mark Caro. He opened his review for Finding Nemo by reflecting how, “Classic film eras tend to get recognized in retrospect while we take for granted timeless works passing before our eyes. So let's pause to appreciate what's been going on at Pixar Animation Studios.”

               --The Professor