Pixar review!

[trinityvixen]

edgehopper listed his favorite Pixar movies the other day, and it put me in a mind to do the same. Then I realized I hadn't said a word about Up. So I'll do both.

First, the list. These are my favorites, not some nebulous idea of "best" films:
1. Wall-E
1. Finding Nemo
1. The Incredibles
4. Toy Story
5. Monsters, Inc.
6. Toy Story 2
6. Ratatouille
6. A Bug's Life
6. Up
10. Cars

I apologize for nothing. I could never, never choose between my top three. Not even for money. (Okay, maybe for a lot of money.) My personal love of all things under the water and the fact that Finding Nemo came out right as I was discovering SCUBA diving means I'll never not love that movie. It's easily the most quotable of all the Pixar movies to date, and yet still manages to be a charming story about a parent having to let go of his child and let that child grow up. And, also, there's an epic journey.

The Incredibles continues that theme of maturity, but it shifts it to mid-life crisis territory. It's the classic give-and-take between people who yearn for the freedom to pursue their own glory days but are responsible enough not to throw over their family to do so. Sometimes, you have to knuckle under and do what's hard for those you love. Because they're worth it. And being selfish will end up isolating you. There are also superheroes, which, yeah, hard to argue against that.

And Wall-E. Nothing I can say about Wall-E will be coherent because I always devolve into a squealing mess when talking about that movie. It's a genuinely believable love story, a rare pearl in a bed of oysters. These days, romantic comedies haven't got one quarter of the chemistry between living, breathing humans as Wall-E has between a pair of animated robots. I think the environmental message on top is a fine one and all, but when it comes down to it, it's a love story with robots. (The director even said so.) That kind of earnestness is sadly lacking in the movies these days.

After those three, as I told edgehopper, it's all sort of equal. I have a slight preference for Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. to the rest of the Pixar catalogue, but I like them all about equally except for Cars. Cars is the decided bottom of the barrel because I felt that the main theme was both overdone and unoriginal. Yes, people need to slow down and appreciate life more rather than just being busy. Good sportsmanship is more important than winning, of course. But these are the sorts of mundane morals that you can find in any lesser product. My expectations from Pixar are always higher because they almost always deliver. They managed to sell the sort of hopeless message that love--no matter how fleeting or unfaithful--is worth investing in with your whole being, and no matter how good it is, it will always have to come to an end. And they did it with a bunch of talking toys. There is such a sense of mortality in the Pixar recognition of maturity. It's how they make movies as appealing to children as grown-ups: there is something in it for everyone.

With Cars, it seemed like they skipped over the middle population and went right for the kids or the elderly. I'd say most people 20-60 wouldn't have any sort of nostalgia for "the way things were." We're the internet generation. My Dad (in that age range) couldn't live without his BlackBerry. I get hives when I'm away from the internet too long. We all decompress, but that doesn't mean we have some need to indulge in retro. The message is off in Cars, and as a result, the rather predictable story is less enjoyable. (It really doesn't help to have Owen Wilson as the protagonist either.)

And then there's Up. I should say first that I didn't dislike it. In fact, it follows really nicely in the maturity fable begun with Finding Nemo and continued in The Incredibles. Someone (forgive me, I forget who) pointed out that it's a story about the grieving process--that everything that happens is supposed to work towards the catharsis for the main character. That's an accurate and insightful reading. (Wish I'd thought of it.) Part of growing up is being able to let go--being able to recognize that everything fades and that clinging on all the harder will not change this fact.

So I liked Up. But it was so hard to watch. I don't know if I could sit through it twice without a lot of help. I was moved by it, but it was really damned hard to enjoy it with the same abandon as I did most of the other Pixar movies. I definitely appreciate it and think that Up was brilliant. But it was tough. That's good. We live in the era of the empty-headed franchise film, and here is this little animated movie that dares to force the audience to examine themselves, their priorities, their little hypocrises, their fears, and so much more.

I still don't think I could watch it again without just crying through the whole thing. So it goes in the middling area of my favorites. For all that recognize its profundity, yeah, I think I need to nurse my affection for it slowly.

Comments

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I seriously must have no soul, because I liked Up and only really sniffled at it once or twice. I think maybe it's because I was warned -- every time someone warns me that something is going to be OMG SAD, I imagine worse than actually happens.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You have a soul, dude. You just may not be as weepy as some of us. I was a total bawling mess inside of five minutes. Even at the happy parts. Because, yeah, this is too close to real life than is comfortable a lot of the time.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also don't get quite as emotionally involved in Pixar movies, for whatever reason.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

To each her own. It's no big :)

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Agreed that Up wasn't the most enjoyable of the movies (though I give that credit to Ratatouille, which managed to avoid oversentimentality without much sadness.) But I do think it's the "best", in the sense of the most meaningful and profound of Pixar's movies (with Wall-E being a close 2nd). Wall-E's 2nd act and sloppy science fiction aboard the ship hurts it for me.

That is: The core stories of Up and Wall-E are equal in my mind, but IMHO, Wall-E's side story fits in less well than Up's side story.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

One problem I have with enjoying Up's side story is that I felt it got too conventional. It wasn't enough that Russell and Carl lose Kevin to the evil adventurer, but Russell had to leave Carl before Carl would recognize that Kevin was important on her own. It's a scenario right out of a rom-com, boy-loses-girl playbook.

I also really cannot feel good about Ellie missing out on the adventure. Yes, her album tacitly states that her life as it was was her adventure, but it seems so wrong that she should be absent except as a grief-ridden memory for Carl. So sad.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Ellie was probably the best-done "woman in refrigerator" I've ever seen. (And make no mistake, that's what she was: Her entire purpose was to die so that the hero would be motivated to act.) But I don't think that role for her, given what else we saw about her character and her life, was in any way anti-feminist. She was the dominant force in their relationship, obviously driving what they did with their lives, and Carl withered without her. Would she have loved the adventure? Of course. But had she really wanted to do that, they would have filled their house with balloons 40 years earlier.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

But I don't think that role for her, given what else we saw about her character and her life, was in any way anti-feminist.

While some have been picking at this particular bone, you'll note that I have not. I didn't pick on this to be ornery about women being excluded from the story. (Again. Ahem.) What I meant was that, while I understand how Ellie's loss is what motivates Carl, and while I do get that she had lived a life she loved, I still feel a sense of incompleteness that she died without ever realizing her dream. It has nothing to do with her being "fridged," just my sincere regret that a character who was so remarkably personalized in such a short time was deprived of that founding adventure. It's very sad. It's a non-issue about her being a woman; for me, it's just said that that person dreamt her whole life and never got to realize that dream. Really, that's pretty an amazing feat that Pixar accomplished.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I kind of got the sense that it wasn't Ellie's dream anymore. That while it defined her to Carl, it didn't define her to her. It's Carl who decides they need tickets to Venezuela, not Ellie. I don't think Ellie would have considered her life incomplete - Carl does, not her. And that's part of what Carl has to let go of.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

I agree. I hadn't really considered this point before, but now that I am, it seems like to her that was less of a life-long dream, and more of a childhood dream. I think she only kept it around for sentimentality's sake. The fact that she DID fill her dream book with her real life backs this up.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I think part of what I loved about this movie is that very few movies deal with mature relationships and their natural end. Part of that is dealing with the guilt for your partner not having a perfect life. There's that niggling doubt there that if only you'd been a better partner, or if only they'd married a better partner than you, their life might have been better.

In this case, it's misplaced - Ellie had a lovely life. Not a perfect one, since no one's is perfect, but she was content. Carl has to let go of the guilt for not being able to save her from the normal ups and downs of a normal life. He did not fail her by not having children, by not preventing her death, by not saving their house forever. Life is made up of choosing one opportunity over another, which Ellie understood and did not regret. Carl tries to make up for every opportunity Ellie did not have by fixating on a single childhood dream.

I mean, when I was ten, I wanted to be an astronaut. I will never be an astronaut. That doesn't mean, decades from now, that Chuckro will have failed me if I die having never been an astronaut. I still think it would be cool, but at this point, I have different dreams.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was anti-feminist, I just thought it was unfair and entirely too depressing. Not only does she not get to live any of her dreams (and it's clear she doesn't regret anything, but that doesn't change that she didn't get to live them), but Carl gets to live ALL OF THEM. He gets to go on the South American adventure, with their home, to exactly the spot she wanted to go. And more importantly, he gets the child she could never have.

I just didn't like that. At all. It felt cruel. And I think it's unrealistic that Carl wouldn't have felt profoundly guilty over it. I also didn't like that her death lets him do all the things they could never do. Once she's dead, it all becomes possible, including his relationship with the boy. It squicked me out.

[jlc.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to come to the conclusion that the South American adventure was really Ellie's dream and not her childhood obsession once she had grown up.

I think that the movie might have been fun had it been both of them adventuring together, but it never would've had the thematic weight if one of them hadn't died. It's interesting to think about how the film would've worked if Ellie had lived instead of Carl (which is, after all, the much more likely scenario), but to remove death and let them both go would be like writing a version of L’Étranger where Meursault gives the Arab a flower.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Russell had to leave Carl before Carl would recognize that Kevin was important on her own

I don't think that's entirely true. Once he realized that the explorer wanted to capture Kevin, he tried to get away and presumably protect her. I didn't think it was solely about saving himself, because all he had to say was, "Oh, you want that bird? We caught it for you. Here." I think in the heat of the moment, he didn't act as well as he normally would have, because he was more concerned with fulfilling his promise to Ellie.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I might have been a little harsh on Carl, but there's still the matter of the literal break-up in the team. Like I said, it's very boy-loses-girl.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I prefer to think of it as Carl needing something to kick him into action. As a boy, he always followed Ellie's lead; it's her death and her dream that gets him out of his house (figuratively) and on an adventure of his own. But at the end, he still isn't as fearless as she and Russell are, even when he has less to lose. At least, until he has the chance to save Carl--and ultimately do for the little boy what Ellie did for him when he was Russell's age. There are a lot of ways to look at it, but I think the film is open to much deeper interpretations than a simple "boy-loses-girl".

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I'd probably put The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up as my top three, probably in that order, those it says more about my biases than about the strength of any of the movies. "Family of superheroes" hits a soft spot for me, and I love to cook. And Up wins on opening montage.

Wall-E probably gets number four for piquing my imagination. Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and Cars were all fun movies, but in the end, they were just fun movies to me.

(I never saw Toy Story 2 or A Bug's Life.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My Finding Nemo love is then analogous to your love of The Incredibles and Ratatouille: good, bad, or otherwise, we can't help but love the movie that loves things we love. :)

Otherwise, I think you're about right with all the other movies being "fun" more than profound. Except? As I go back over them, all the best movies in the Pixar catalog have overriding themes, even the fun ones. Toy Story is a deceptive "concept" movie. It looks like it's just about the lives of toys when we're not looking. But there's so much more there in the story of Woody's jealousy of Buzz, the idea that Woody loves Andy even though he recognizes he won't be loved by Andy the same way forever. I think that's true for most Pixar movies--you can enjoy the adventure or the concept, but the really great ones have more going on underneath.

I think I really need to watch Ratatouille again. I've only seen it once, and I confess that I wrote it off as another fun Pixar (versus a profound one). As for Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life, I'd say they're both worth a viewing. Toy Story 2 is more fun in the same sort of universe, and an even more heart-breaking look at what happens when your love is thrown over. It's also just not as good about dealing with that subtlety as the first, so I count it as more of a fun movie than anything else. I am just about the only one who doesn't actively loathe A Bug's Life as far as I know. It's not profound, but I don't think it's actively terrible. I think it's just a last gasp of this idea that Pixar was making movies for kids. (It's very kid-friendly and, consequently, a little less engaging for adults.) I think they stopped doing those "outtakes" with A Bug's Life, which was good because it was way past time.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I like Toy Story 2 more than the first one, possibly because it got more science-fictiony. Also, I believe there were outtakes in Cars, at least on DVD.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Were there outtakes? I thought they were just post-credit stuff with cars in place of famous Pixar movies. ("You! Are! A! Toy! Car!")

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's right. According to this, they had outtakes in Monsters, Inc.: http://www.pixar.com/theater/outtakes/index.html

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I knew I was forgetting one of them. I knew as soon as I said it was A Bug's Life I'd be wrong!

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on everything you said about Cars, and yet despite it being the weakest Pixar film, I still think it's better than certain Dreamworks CGI efforts.

Up has actually vaulted to the top of my list, which is surprising considering that I didn't think I was going to care for it much. And then it just blew me away. I never thought that those things could fit together like that to be so meaningful and touching and just all around fantastic. And yeah, I was crying during the whole thing as well. Fuck, I was crying during the fucking SHORT. I'm a sap.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The short before Up didn't help me keep dry eyes, I'll say that much. I should not cry over a stupid cloud and his stork!

[fairest.livejournal.com]

My current order is:

Up
Wall-E
The Incredibles / Finding Nemo
All the other stuff

Up won me over because it showed so simply and profoundly the beauty of loving someone and living your lives together, whatever comes.

I'd agree the film is not as entertaining in the lighthearted, let's-have-fun sense as others have been. I find the whole adventure aspect, outside of Carl's personal journey, sort of incidental (cooing over Dug aside). But the emotional situation resonated with me more than the other films have. It's difficult to watch, but very profound.

I was also disappointed that Ellie didn't get experience the things they'd dreamed about together as kids, but I agree with Jeth's comment above re: Ellie's dream and how she and Carl each viewed her life (nicely put!).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's funny that the driving force of the movie isn't the action, isn't it? It's a very well made film, more genuinely moving than anything I've seen recently. But even thinking about it makes me tear up, so I think I won't be seeing it again any time soon.