As I mentioned in my last blog of 2020, I have been an avid fan of the works of Pixar Animation Studios for as long as I can remember. From the heavily-beloved Toy Story films to some of the more recent one-offs like Onward, I tend to think (most of) Pixar’s movies are anywhere from good to fantastic. Today, I want to share my love for some of my favorite Pixar entries. To be clear, the films I am writing about today are not my top five Pixar movies. Some of them are the “classics” that many people my age reminisce about fondly, while others are some of the (in my opinion) lesser known or lesser appreciated entries in the Pixar catalog. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Image by Chris Flynn from Pixabay Toy Story 2 (1999) Within a month of Pixar forever changing the world of animated cinema with the release of their inaugural feature Toy Story in 1995, John Lasseter (the then-executive producer at the studio who directed Toy Story) and many of the creative and production team at Disney were itching for a sequel. According to Lasseter, he was inspired to re-create the world of Woody and Buzz and friends when he saw a young boy at the airport lovingly clutching a Woody doll and realized that the characters that he helped create were no longer his own but that of millions of children around the world. Despite some initial uncertainty over the prospect of a sequel, it was officially announced to be in pre-production in 1997. Two years later, Toy Story 2 premiered on November 24 to universal praise and ended up raking in just under 500 million dollars on a 90-million-dollar budget. So, why do I love Toy Story 2? A better question to ask is why highlight Toy Story 2 in this blog today? The simple answer: why not?!? Now, I LOVE all of the Toy Story films (yes, even the fourth one). For full transparency, they make up four of my top five Pixar films released thus far. I grew up with the first two, saw the third one with my mom and what I will always remember as a very emotional theater experience, and revisited my childhood over a year ago to see the most recent entry into this animated franchise that defies all expectations by giving us great movies every now and again. To simplify the reputations of these four films: Toy Story is looked back fondly as the groundbreaking piece of animated storytelling that it is, Toy Story 3 is defended by many as the greatest end to a trilogy ever made, and Toy Story 4 is the new one that will (with time and distance) earn its place as one of the best entries in Pixar’s filmography. And Toy Story 2 is the second one. Obviously, pretty much any fan of Pixar will praise all of the Toy Story movies. But I want to briefly expound on why Toy Story 2 is not only a great Pixar movie but the second-best film in this beloved animated franchise. In my humble opinion, a great sequel should add nuance and texture to the world of its story and the characters that live within it while also embracing and honoring the “magic” that made its predecessor so well-renowned. Simply put, Toy Story 2 does all that and more. Not only did the creative team at Pixar effortlessly remind us why we love the original cast of toys (particularly the relationship between Woody and Buzz) and persuade us to love (or love to hate) some new additions (Jessie and Stinky Pete are the clear standouts to me). But they gave us the first taste of what I think was, is, and always will be the secret ingredient of the “best of the best” Pixar films: they offer up a narrative that entertains children, but engages adults on a deeply emotional and intellectual level. With many of my favorite Pixar movies, including the notoriously heartbreaking third entry in the Toy Story franchise, the signature “gut-punch” is what keeps me coming back and never losing interest in both the characters of Andy’s room and the journeys they go on confronting the nature of their existence, their relationship with each other, and what their lives are all about. Long before I hit the ripe age of fourteen and saw Toy Story 3 in theaters, I vividly recall watching Toy Story 2 over and over again on my twelve-inch TV with a VHS player and being reeled by Jessie’s backstory scene. Needless to say, Toy Story 2 is not the most underrated Pixar film. But I do think it has been “shelved” in people’s minds for too long. If I were you, I’d take it off the shelf, fix that squeaker (get it? 😊) and check out Toy Story 2 again. I promise you won’t regret it. Finding Nemo (2003) With four films under their belt, Pixar Animation Studios turned to Andrew Stanton (Pixar’s second animator and its ninth employee hired overall) was given the reins on the next feature film from the studio. Stanton has recalled that the story for his directorial debut has multiple sources of inspiration: childhood fascination with the fish tank at the dentist office, a trip with his newborn son to Marine World (now Six Flags Discovery Kingdom) in Vallejo, California, and a walk with his son five years later in which he regretted not seizing the opportunity for a genuine father-son experience. The personal transformed into the professional as Stanton’s film was in production for five years before being released as Finding Nemo in May of 2003. It grossed over 900 million dollars (multiplying its budget ten times over) and ended up winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It also became the highest-grossing G-rated film of all time until 2010 when Pixar’s Toy Story 3 beat it. When I watched all of the Pixar movies over a year ago, I was more than curious if Finding Nemo would satisfy my nostalgia and how I would take to it all these years later. I am happy to say that it remains my favorite Pixar movie that lacks Toy Story in the title. Why? There are almost too many reasons to elaborate about. Right off the bat, Finding Nemo takes the emotionally-charged scene with Jessie from Toy Story 2 and one-ups it by giving the most tragic, heartbreaking opening to any Pixar film to this day. (Yes, I include Up in that competition). Stanton accomplishes so much in a five-minute opening without showing too much. He establishes the overprotective nature of Marlin (Albert Brooks), the lovable clownfish who suffers the tremendous loss of his wife Coral and all but one of their eggs. A damn-near perfect example of visual storytelling that sets up the emotional stakes of the film so well. Of course, all of the visuals of the movie are so great. From the establishment of environments like the fish tank where Marlin’s son Nemo (Alexander Gould) ends up to the diverse variety of creatures that inhabit the ocean (I particularly enjoy the jellyfish and sea turtle scenes), Finding Nemo offers up one of the richest settings for any Pixar film to date. Stanton was right to be inspired at the aquarium. Without question, Finding Nemo does not work without its characters. The audience, first and foremost, identifies with the complex father-son relationship between Marlin and Nemo despite the fact that they share relatively little screen time together. But the film also packs a heavy dose of likeable and sympathetic secondary and tertiary characters: Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), Marlin’s forgetful travel companion, Gill (Willem Dafoe), the self-serious leader of the tank fish who motivates and inspires Nemo to help them escape, and the stupendous father-and-son pair of sea turtles Crush (voice by director Andrew Stanton) and Squirt (Nicholas Bird, son of Pixar director Brad Bird) who guide Marlin and Dory through the East Australian Current. And so many more that I could spend another few hundred words talking about. But what makes Finding Nemo stand out amongst most other Pixar entries for me is how, after so many years removed from my childhood, it made me cry. It impacted my soul on a deeply emotional level that it did not when I was young. Perhaps because at my age (and even without children) I can relate just as much to Marlin’s longing to make things right with his son as I can to Nemo’s desire for respect from his father. I could say more about Finding Nemo, but I will refrain and simply say go watch it if you haven’t. Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay The Incredibles (2004) During what seemed like the beginning of the end of his filmmaking career, Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), was inspired to create an animated film that pays homage to comic books and spy movies that he grew up with back in the 1960s. He approached John Lasseter in the year 2000, who gave him the green light on what would become his Pixar directorial debut: The Incredibles. The film was released in November of 2004, making over 600 million dollars and winning two Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Sound Editing. Upon re-watching the Pixar catalog, I was perhaps most apprehensive about how I would feel about The Incredibles. I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was despite my having seen it countless times as a kid. The voice cast is fantastic, specifically Holly Hunter and Craig T. Nelson as Helen and Bob Parr, respectively. I also thoroughly enjoy Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) and his love-hate relationship with Mr. Incredible. Furthermore, this is in my opinion the closest that Pixar has come to an action movie and it is a damn good one. The highlight scenes for me are Dash and Violet evading Syndrome’s thugs and Elastigirl infiltrating the secret base to find Mr. Incredible. Also, Frozone as a character lends himself to some really fun action during the film’s climax. Closely tied to the action is the nature of the film as a superhero movie. Not only is it unique compared to many modern films in the genre because it is not based on pre-existing source material, but the world-building from Bird about a world that ostracizes superheroes (while by no means original) plays very well into the story being told in the film. But what might be the best part about The Incredibles is the thematic heart at its core. As Bird has stated before, some of his own life experiences buried in his subconscious may have “filtered” into the film. Regardless, the movie addresses the importance of work-life balance and the strenuous dynamics of family members being pulled in different directions while surrounding it with a quite fun superhero action flick. If you haven’t checked it out, I cannot recommend The Incredibles enough. Image by Petya Stoycheva from Pixabay Ratatouille (2007) Easily the most underrated film being discussed here today, Ratatouille tells the story of an anthropomorphic rat named Remy (Patton Oswalt) who wants nothing more out of life than to become a world-class chef. In order to accomplish this, he teams up with Alfredo (Lou Romano), the newly hired garbage boy for the Parisian five-star restaurant Gusteau’s. To the uninitiated of Ratatouille, I am confident that the premise I just gave you sounds too far-fetched to be real let alone solid entertainment. I assure you that it is both: Ratatouille serves up a steaming-hot dish of family-friendly storytelling. On its surface, the film tells the tale of a French rat teaching an orphan how to cook by pulling on his hair and hiding under a chef’s hat. But, underneath that seemingly ridiculous story concept, it offers up a beautiful approach to a character whose journey is all about the balance between pursuing one’s passion without ostracizing their loved ones. But that is just one of the things that makes Ratatouille highly underrated. I love Remy’s story and the journey he goes on with Alfredo, but the supporting cast are fantastic as well. Ian Holm as the shady Chef Skinner who plots to undermine Alfredo’s rise to chef stardom, Janeane Garofalo as the hard-shelled but soft-boiled Colette, and Peter O’Toole as the subdued but impassioned restaurant critic Anton Ego are all standouts. There is a brilliant irony underpinning the thematic core of the film and serves as its central conflict: the rats, led by Remy’s father (Brian Dennehy), are deathly afraid of kitchens because of humans, yet all Remy lives for is the day when he can work in one as a chef and thus leave his mark on the cooking world. The emotional foundation of Remy’s struggle to both follow his dream and ensure the safety and happiness of his own kind. All in all, Ratatouille makes for a solid entry in the Pixar catalog and is another great animated entry from Brad Bird. Unquestionably, it is worth the watch. Image by Gino Crescoli from Pixabay Inside Out (2015) As early as 2009, animator and current-CCO of Pixar Animation Studios, Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up), was inspired by his pre-teen daughter’s shift in personality which reminded him of his own struggles during early adolescence. The idea about using animation to talk about how emotions shape our lives was very appealing to him. He consulted Drs. Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner, professors of psychology at the University of California, who offered their insights into human emotions (notably helping Docter hone in on the core emotions of the human experience). With the success of Docter’s 2009 feature Up, Pixar was empowered to let him tell a more sophisticated story. With no input from Pixar co-founder Steve Jobs (who passed away in 2011) and atypically less oversight from then-CCO John Lasseter, Docter went to work on his next major feature film for the studio. After over two years of storyboarding and another couple years of production, Inside Out was released in June of 2015 and was resoundingly successful both critically and financially. Not only did it make over 850 million dollars at a time in the 2010s when computer-animated films (both Pixar and not) were struggling at the box office, but it was also seen by critics as a return-to-form for Pixar in light of its overreliance on sequels and prequels in recent years. I was in college when Inside Out was released to theaters. In many ways, I had grown out of watching Pixar films on a regular basis. So, when I went through the entire Pixar catalog well over a year ago, I was fortunate enough to watch many of Pixar’s entries from the last decade (Brave, The Good Dinosaur and Coco, just to name a few). And no doubt the one I had never seen that impressed me the most was Inside Out. This movie has all of what the best Pixar films do. A stellar voice cast, notably Riley’s emotions: Amy Poehler as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Lewis Black as Anger, Bill Hader as Fear, and Mindy Kaling as Disgust. Their embracing of the caricature wrapped into their character sells the premise of the film so well. Easily the standout supporting character is Richard King as Bing Bong, the forgotten imaginary friend of the human protagonist Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) who helps Joy and Sadness on their journey back to Riley’s mind. Similar to other notably Pixar films, from Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. to Coco, the world that is built is not only visually stunning but emotionally and thematically engrossing. Docter and his team of animators construct a brilliantly conceived and diverse world within Riley’s mind that provides a fun place for Joy’s journey with Sadness while also excellently condensing the more complex ideas being explored into easily-digestible settings and environments. Which gets to what is undoubtedly the biggest strength (and my favorite element) of Inside Out. When I initially heard the premise, I thought to myself “How to Earth can Pixar explore human emotions in a movie and make it both fun and powerful?” Of course, my skepticism was ill-placed. Because Pixar’s answer was the simplest, and the best, solution: Pixar embraced the complexity and made it the core of the film. The lesson that Joy and Riley (and therefore the children in the audience) learn is that you can feel happy and sad…AT THE SAME TIME. Sounds obvious, right? But to me, it was not. I could not believe that this movie could offer up a fun story while also teaching an incredibly important part of the human experience. Not since re-watching Toy Story 3 did I tear up as much as I did when Joy sees the birth of Riley’s first dual “core memory” that balances her depression about leaving her home with the knowledge that her parents will always be there for her no matter her struggles. Of all the non-sequel/prequel Pixar entries from the last decade, I recommend Inside Out the most. Please go watch it because it deserves all the praise it gets and more. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Soul (2020)
But what would this blog be without sharing my thoughts on the most recent film from Pixar? Due to the pressures on the theater business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walt Disney decided to release its newest flick Soul on their relatively new streaming service Disney+ on Christmas Day. Fresh off of his highly-successful film Inside Out, Pete Docter struggled with what his next film would be. While he was inspired to set it in a place beyond space and time while also addressing the philosophy of determinism, Docter admits that part of what one may call a “midlife crisis” factored into his development of Soul. As the newest Pixar entry, Soul lacks the nostalgia that many of the other movies I’ve written about today have (this inevitably reflects where I placed it in my list at the end of this blog). That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it for a number of reasons. It certainly plays on Docter’s strength that Inside Out had in terms of taking incredibly complex ideas (then about emotions, now about existentialism) and condensing them in a way that young people can grasp. (Although I do not think it succeeds as well as Inside Out does). In many respects, Soul felt like a Pixar movie very different from most others. Its visual style was stunning and unique (specifically how they represent The Great Before), and its approach to highlighting the relationship between jazz and African-American culture was heartwarming and (in my humble opinion) in service of the story. Without delving too much into the dialogue around spotlighting traditionally underrepresented social groups in film, I greatly appreciated becoming familiar with the character of Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) and the people in his community since it is something that Pixar has only recently been willing to do in a meaningful way (lookin’ at you, Coco!). One of my other favorite things about Soul is the seamless integration of jazz music into the story. The more action-oriented scenes involve some fast-paced rhythms from drums and bass, while the quieter moments are enhanced with beautiful piano and saxophone melodies that I most associate with the low-lit stages of inner-city jazz clubs. I firmly add Soul to the other movies (notably Whiplash and Birdman) that expertly utilize improvisational jazz to tell the story just as much as the dialogue and cinematography. All this being said, I am (somewhat) in agreement with many critics regarding the third act. While I thoroughly enjoyed the twist at the end of the first act, I was not as emotionally affected by the final, climactic fifteen minutes that others may have been. Yet I am struggling to figure out why. Perhaps because the message kind of falls flat, but then again I found Joe’s journey pretty meaningful. A human being whose charm and drive do not fully make up for his self-centered view of life and lack of appreciation for the little things in life is highly relatable to me. Maybe Soul is just too new for me to “feel the feels” in the way that I do while watching Toy Story 3 or Finding Nemo. And for that, it is not my favorite Pixar film. Nevertheless, it ranks currently in my top-ten from this world-class animation studio and it very much deserves that spot. With all that being said, I have ranked these six Pixar films from least-best to most-best (undoubtedly, I love all of these movies so the lowest on the list is by no means a bad movie in my mind):
What is your favorite Pixar film? Which of Pixar’s entries do you think are underrated? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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