Pixar Playlist #24 - Luca

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We’re almost caught up with Pixar’s films, only 2 remain at time of writing, Turning Red and Lightyear, the latter of which I have yet to watch. But before we get to them, we’ve got an adventure on the Italian riviera, with sea monsters. It’s Luca.

Luca is largely the brainchild of Enrico Casarosa, who loosely based the story on some of his own experiences growing up in Italy. Writing the story is Mike Jones, who was also one of the writers behind Soul and Jesse Andrews. Casarosa would direct, it’s his first directors’ credit in film, but he’d been working as at artist at Pixar since Cars, joining their senior creative team from Coco. He had also directed a short called La Luna back in 2011.

There were some roadblocks when it came to animation as COVID-19 lead to the shut-down of the Pixar Campus, so all the animators were working from home. Though not before some of the artists got some reference photos from the Italian Riviera to use as a guide for the film’s locations.

Luca was released on Disney+ in early 2021, some of the Pixar Animators were annoyed that it was released for free whilst Raya and the Last Dragon, a Disney Animation Studios Film had a premium price for 3 months. It did have a release in a few locations, but made back a mere $49m on it’s… Wikipedia doesn’t state the budget but $200m is the standard for Pixar, whilst having to adapt to working from home may have caused additional expenditure.

Pixar Playlist #23 - Soul

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Pixar Playlist #22 - Onward

It’s been a while since we did a Pixar Playlist, it’s time to Move Onward

This film is something to me because it’s the last film I saw before everything got shut down due to the Covid-19 outbreak. I was originally going to see the Vin Diesel outing Bloodsport when the cinemas shut.

What that means is that the film didn’t do very well at the Box Office, making $114m or thereabouts over its measly 2-week run. The film did better on Video on Demand, and helped boost a recently launched Disney Plus in the US, it took a while longer to come into the UK.

Dan Scallon is the head of this project and based the idea on his own life story and relationship with his brother. Scallon’s last Credited Pixar Film was Monsters University but we won’t hold that against him.

Pixar Playlist #21 - Toy Story 4

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I thought Toy Story 3 had a perfectly fine ending and that extending it further would likely result in an inferior product. I’m glad to have been proven wrong.

Toy Story 4 was not immediately greenlit after the success of Toy Story 3, they let it linger and eventually someone came back with an idea that could work and it was greenlit. Toy Story is still one of their most popular franchises and those keep the lights on.

The film stuck with the budget as the third at $200m, and was positively received, scoring an average 8.3/10 with 97% of critics reviewing it favourably. The film also grossed more than $1bn at the box office making it another success under Disney’s belt for 2019. So where do I rank it, well, let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #20 - Incredibles 2

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Sequels are a tricky business for Pixar, they’ve had some good ones, and some mediocre ones, and a terrible one. But this era of Pixar is continuing to pump them out and why not a sequel to a pretty popular film, the Incredibles.

The popularity of Superheroes in pop culture in the 2010s made a sequel to this feel more and more inevitable. But that is a double-edged sword as it enters into a pretty saturated market. They weren’t even safe in the animated department as Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse was due to come out in the same year, a film that would beat it to an Oscar in an uncommon loss for Disney.

But what they have to their advantage is resources. No-longer do they need to dedicate time and money for developing the physics since the technology already exists within the company, all the have to do is transfer all the models to the new software and update them. And speaking of resources, $200m is also helpful and far more than any other studio gives to their animated projects.

And the film was successful, raking in $1.2bn at the box office, this in spite of Disney swapping the schedule and losing a full year of development time. Let’s see where it fits on my list

Pixar Playlist #19 - Coco

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Well, we’ve finally got to Coco. Cultural awareness is difficult. We are presented with it in our day to day lives but generally only at a surface level. You talk to people with difficult experiences to you all the time, but actually explaining those experiences is another matter. What I’m saying is I understand why this film was difficult to write.

Lee Unkrich had been working at Pixar since the beginning as an editor on Toy Story. He’s had a role in pretty much every Pixar film up to 2020’s Onward. He made a debut not as a director but as a writer with Toy Story 3, which is a firm ground. He’s been in the senior creative team for every film since (and with WALL-E and Up also) but he was the main writer of Coco, an idea he’d been developing since 2010.

But importantly, he’s not from Mexico, in fact at the time none of the creative team were. Still, this is Pixar so exhaustive research is a given. The team made trips to Mexico to absorb its art and culture. And of course, the big draw. Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead is commonly used in film as set-dressing. There is an appeal of big crowds and costumes and parades and the like. It’s a bit cliché and oftentimes annoying, but Coco wants to draw to a deeper meaning behind it all.

But cultural appropriation is a tricky subject and Disney decided to make this a public debate by attempting to trademark "Día de los Muertos" (Day of the Dead in Spanish) for merchandise. How come no-one in their marketing department could tell that’s a bad idea? I can tell that’s a bad idea. Naturally they backtracked pretty quickly and changed the title to Coco, so let's hope the rest of the film is good.

Pixar Playlist #18 - Cars 3

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And we’re back for one, probably final lap with the Cars series. It’s said that major franchise sequels are needed to pay for their more original projects but with Cars it’s always been less about the films and more about the sweet, sweet merchandise.

The end result is that Cars 3 was in production since Cars 2 came out, but evidently the feedback from the last film shaped their decision to do a story more akin to the original Cars. The team did their research on professional athletes and their stories.

In the animation end, the team was helped by some new rendering technology that allowed them to preview their animation. The film underperformed, earning $385m on a $175m budget, at best it broke even and managed a mere 69% with audiences and critics on Rotten Tomatoes. But Cars films have never been Box Office darling, their money is in the merch Where do I stand here? Well, let’s take a look

Pixar Playlist #17 - Finding Dory

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When it comes to sequels, Pixar have a mixed history, it tends to be that longer the wait for a sequel, the better it ends up being. The Toy Story Sequels came out better than the Cars sequel and it’s quite impressive that of Pixar’s 16 movie line-up so far, only 3 of them have been sequels. For #17, we’ll add a 4^th to that family, a sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory.

It’ll be no surprise to you that a sequel to the highly successful finding Nemo had been in the works for some time, originally a project given to Circle 7, but shelved after Disney bought Pixar outright. It seems in their creative culture, they wanted a timetable for sequels so they could have time to come up with creative ideas, which is something I appreciate but then we still ended up with Cars 2 and the short gap between the Toy Story sequels didn’t exactly diminish their quality so…

None-the-less, the announcement of this movie in 2012, a full 9 years after the original came out. Obviously, some recasting was required for Nemo, if he was to play a role. But that’s small fish (get it?) compared to the most interesting feature, this one was going to put more of a spotlight on Dory.

Now, Pixar putting a spotlight on their comic relief has had bad results in the past but I think Dory is a better choice than Mater was as her comic relief had a more tragic undercurrent (ha) that is easy enough to mine to tell a story. So, without further ado, let’s take a look

Pixar Playlist #16 - The Good Dinosaur

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We find ourselves in a special situation with our next film, it’s the first Pixar film to make a loss at the Box Office, the Good Dinosaur

The film was Pixar’s second release of 2015, but was originally scheduled for November 2013. This film was in the works since 2009 under Bob Peterson and Peter Sohn, John Walker was also apparently involved. This film was delayed twice after they found themselves in a creative block, ultimately resulting in Peterson and Walker being removed from the film, with John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Mark Andrews all brought in to help Peter Sohn with the film. The script underwent major revisions during this time.

Most of the cast was recast, likely at considerable expense. And it’s hard not to think that this film’s delays may have indirectly resulted in some of the layoffs that were happening at Pixar at the time

None-the-less, the movie was released to critical praise, a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but with a lower-than-average 6.6/10 average score. The film made $332m on it’s $175m budget. That may sound ok, but with marketing costs and theatre cuts taken from it, it spells around an $85m loss for the studio. So, why did this film fail to connect with audiences? Let’s take a look

Pixar Playlist #15 - Inside Out

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Monsters University came out in June 2013, Pixar’s next film didn’t come out for another 2 years. If Monsters University proved anything, it was that Pixar needed a break to come up with new original ideas.

That said, this film has been in pre-production since Disney execs gave Pete Doctor the go-ahead to make another film after the success of Up. This went through a long process of drafts and rewrites and, much to my elation, they consulted actual psychologists for this one. This film is about emotional wellbeing, which is tied to mental health, and we all know what happens when we try and write a story about mental health without consulting mental health professionals…

Let’s say no more about that one.

Despite initial concern about it being difficult to market, children responded well to the test screening and it went on to earn $850m at the box office. It’s a critically lauded film, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Just for some context, this was the first Pixar film I saw in cinemas as an adult, so I might be a little biased.

Pixar Playlist #14 - Monsters University

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OK, so I liked Monsters Inc, it was a perfectly fine movie with some creative ideas and a lot of charm to it. Can they recapture that charm with this prequel, Monsters University? Spoiler alert: no, no they cannot…

But that’s not to say there wasn’t effort put in, the production crew visited various colleges and some spent time in a Fraternity house to research college life. This film also was the first to use Global Illumination, a new lighting system they’d developed to essentially automate the process, so they didn’t have to insert shadows frame by frame.

Once again, the film had a $200m budget and made a decent profit, with a $743m box office haul and it came out favourably with critics too, with an 80% Rotten Tomatoes score. So why am I down on it? Let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #13 - Brave

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It’s unlucky for some, it’s number 13 and we look at Brave

Brave was Pixar’s first attempt at a fairy tale, and the brainchild of Brenda Chapman. Chapman had been working creative roles at Pixar since Cars, and had worked at Dreamworks prior to that. She had been directing the film but after creative disagreements with John Lasseter, she was replaced mid-production by Mark Andrews. Mark Andrews had directed 2 short films and was a second-unit director on John Carter, making him an odd choice for a replacement but then John Lasseter had some serious issues with women.

Usually I’d talk about some pioneering animation that really helped Pixar stand out, but I have nothing. This film had a $185m budget and made $540m at the box office. The film stands as reasonably popular with a 78% Rotten Tomatoes rating but where do I rank it, let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #12 - Cars 2

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And oh boy, we're at Cars 2

Pixar have had a long of run of financial and critically successful movies, their critical success would come to an end with this film, and it wouldn’t nearly strike the level of financial success of the last 2 films, despite the $200m budget. Let’s not be coy about it though, it probably still made a killing in merchandise sales, hence the existence of another sequel and various shorts and spin-offs.

So, why is this one so despised? Let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #11 - Toy Story 3

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Well, we had to get back to Toy Story at some point and honestly, it’s further down the line than you might’ve thought, whilst Toy Storys 1 and 2 were released in 1995 and 1999 respectively, we’d have to wait another 11 years for another follow up. That’s not to say ideas weren’t being chucked around. Disney had their animation group Circle 7 come up with some ideas for a sequel before Pixar was bought out, these ideas were entirely scrapped after the buyout and a new proposal worked from scratch.

But we have old pros in the writing department, John Lasseter has been involved with dozens of animated projects, including both previous Toy Story Movies and Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, now also the director, had both been involved in Toy Story 2. From what I can tell, the biggest behind the scenes headache was the climax, which required almost a year’s worth of research from the crew, I’ll get more into that in the review.

They also needed to create entirely new models for all the characters as the old ones weren’t compatible with the new editing software. The film had a $200m, the largest budget so far, but went onto making over $1bn at the Box Office, getting near universal critical acclaim and getting 5 academy award nominations, including being the last animated film to get a nomination for Best Picture, and 2 wins.