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'Finding Dory'

Why I Am Worried About 'The Incredibles 2'

By The Beanie GuyPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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When it comes to PIXAR, they are the best at animation. That is a fact. Despite having some weak entries in the past years, their other movies are still held as one of the all time best. Now, I could argue that because of Toy Story 3, one shouldn’t be worried for The Incredibles 2 and because Brad Bird is returning to direct and write it, we should all be chill, but, fact is, after Toy Story 3, PIXAR took a gigantic hit. Their movies could not match the genius that Toy Story 3 or the previous films were. Now, InsideOut and Coco were strong and powerful movies. Coco was even, in my opinion, the strongest film PIXAR has done since Toy Story 3, but besides Coco and Inside Out, let’s look at other movies that PIXAR released after TS3.

Cars 2; Monsters University; Finding Dory; Cars 3. I will only focus on Finding Dory, but we all know the the other installments in that short list are either weaker than the original or down right terrible. Now, Finding Dory is the one I would like to look at because not only is it the strongest out of all these, but it also shows PIXAR’s biggest problem today in the best way.

Let's start off by saying that Finding Dory is not a bad movie. It is actually an enjoyable, good, cute movie. Sadly, those are not the words I use to describe its predecessor Finding Nemo. To defend Dory, people would say “You can’t compare it to the original.” Excuse me, Toy Story 2 and 3 are both incredible movies that surpass the first one in many ways. Not only because the first one is a masterpiece, the sequel has to be less, you just need the right path to take it on. Finding Dory was not taken on the right path, yet it was.

The smart move was to take this movie on a plot that would focus on another character and instead of actually losing the character, like in the first one, we are finding her in an emotional and personal way. That was genius and is also a great pitch for a plot for a sequel that we, in all honesty, never needed. Now, Nemo is my favorite animated movie of all time. The film takes into account so many mature themes, puts them into the story, and makes for an incredible ride with emotions and phenomenal animation.

Finding Dory had the formula to be genius. Some of the points are made and they are well put, but the movie has one gigantic problem that has affected PIXAR: storytelling. Let me explain. PIXAR’s strongest suit was the way they would tell their stories. They were not scared of adding depth and mature themes in their movies. They were not scared of having dialogue that would discuss things that kids wouldn’t even understand. I mean, Toy Story 3 is about a kid going to college, not about a kid going to pre school. The Incredibles is about a marriage almost falling apart because of secrets and family issues. The movie even implies cheating, sex, suicide, rape, everything. After 2010, PIXAR aimed to a younger demographic for some odd reason.

Their movies not only stopped going into themes that would actually teach kids some values, but they became more joke driven rather than story and character driven. This is, of course, to get more kids to buy more merchandise, but this affected their movies big time. Which brings me back to Finding Dory. The movie as a whole is okay, but their characters lack the same depth that characters like “Gill” had in Nemo. Finding Dory depends a lot on the jokes of the movie. It tries a lot to impress children with unnecessary scenes like the squid scene or an octopus driving a car. It also tried to make a joke every five minutes—not smart jokes like the ones Dory would do in the first movie, jokes that would help the story go on and plot progress, but simple jokes that will make children laugh.

It was not what it could’ve been. Instead of making a sequel for the audience that originally fell in love with Nemo, they made a movie for a whole new audience group. Having seen the trailer for Incredibles 2, I feel PIXAR is doing it again. Adding characters that have no depth, jokes that do not land, and a bland plot that is everything but interesting, this sequel feels like PIXAR wants to bring in a new audience. This annoys me.

Now, I may be wrong and this sequel does end up being an amazing ride, but we have to remember that Disney keeps growing and growing and every year they have to bring new people into their world. I think, PIXAR has forgotten about the people that were originally touched by The Incredibles. “That movie that your older brother loved as a kid, now, we’ll make one for you.”

If PIXAR disregards Disney’s mission to conquer new audiences every day, they can go back to their old way of doing things, but it looks like it won’t happen any time soon.

Thanks for reading. Until next time,

Pretentious Walt.

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