It may seem hard to believe, but it's been three decades since Andy first wrote his name on the sole of Woody's shoe in the movie. Toy Story. And this anniversary is not something to laugh at; the Pixar animation powerhouse behind it, celebrates his birthday in style – with brand collaborations, live concerts, new product and even unearthed an interview with Steve Jobs that said people would still be enjoying this movie 60 years from now.
But this comes in the shadow of a rather large elephant in the room. Despite the high performanceDespite several successful sequels, much of the magic that once reigned over Pixar seems to have dissipated. And although his original films are from Elemental To Eliostruggle at the box office, films from less wealthy countries and studios in the world of animation somewhat usurped his throne.
“All these studios – especially the American ones – have been chasing for so long what Pixar can do,” said entertainment reporter Petrana Radulovic. “And now we’ve decided that maybe it’s not necessary.”
According to Daniel Gies, co-founder of Montreal animation studio ED Films, the areas where Pixar is currently struggling are especially challenging given how it all started. Originally the computer division of Lucasfilm, Pixar burst onto the scene in 1995 with Toy Storya story about lost toys returning to their beloved owner.
And although the story itself touched the most sincere chords, the achievements were much deeper. Before its release, computer animation was considered a novelty: 3D rendering was so complex and cumbersome that it could only be used to create images, not videos.
Following the release of a number of short films, such as the Oscar-winning Tin toy – Showcasing cutting-edge technology, Pixar stunned the animation world Toy Storythe first full-length computer animated film in 3D format.
This is more than just a mild milestone in animation development. Time magazine notedit was “perhaps the most significant since the advent of color.”
“At the time, these stories were really powerful and interesting, but they also performed a magic trick that no one had ever seen before,” Gies added.
This turned what was essentially a software company into an animation giant overnight. And it led to a string of hits that were based in equal parts on the supposed timeless quality of storytelling and an insistent commitment to innovation in the world of animation.
Innovation in Animation
According to Alla Gadassik, assistant professor of media history and theory at Emily Carr University, each new film was inextricably and excitingly linked to a new technique that other animators could follow.
“Brave This is a beautiful film about a young woman in her relationship with her mother. But for the animation industry, when they watch this film, they see incredible 3D renderings of hair and textiles,” she said.Finding Dory it's actually a movie about, “How do you bring water to life?” AND Monsters Inc. It was a movie about, “How do you animate hair, fur, and different textures?”
“It really was a gift—not necessarily a gift because they make money from the software, but it’s something that Pixar gave to all the other animation studios.”
But after an almost endless series of successes came the inevitable first failure. Right on the heels one of Pixar's biggest successes, Inside outreleased in 2015 Good Dinosaur.
A visually stunning but narratively boring film. According to Gies, it shows what happens when an animation studio becomes so big that it can't risk being as creative or innovative as before.
“When you can't take risks and you can't tell a truly personal story, you dilute the content,” he said, noting that the film has a more risk-averse and less creative storytelling style. “And the audience is already so saturated that they simply won’t respond to any more visual tricks.”
That's when the studio really started to abandon its early projects. hatred of sequels and dive into franchises. Four of the next five films were sequels, and even now three of the five films in development are sequels.
And just as Pixar began to stumbletwo hoursInternally, the film business was collapsing. Changing viewing habits and shrinking movie theater windows before movies began streaming, as well as the pandemic, have all had a negative impact on the film industry.
Even though Pixar Inside Out 2 was one of the top box office boosters last year, its initial performance continues to struggle; his big original release this year, Eliowitnessed the worst weekend in the studio's history.
Back to the top
As for getting Pixar back to where it once was, it's not so much a mountain to climb as it is a cliff.
When it comes to 3D animation produced exclusively by giant studios, the genie is out of the bottle; the success of films such as Flow — created in the open-source software Blender by a relatively small team — demonstrate the diversification of the animation field.
Hundreds of millions are no longer neededdollars per yearHundreds of people will be making 3D animated films, which means more competition, Gadassic said.
This is one of the reasons why international productions such as Ne Zha II And Demon Slayer were able to break into the mainstream. And like movies like K-Pop Demon Hunters Increasingly shifting to streaming is less of a gamble than theatrically released films – the studios that make these films are in a better position to take big risks.
And it only underscored Pixar's relative stagnation.
“Because they were the standard for what American animation looked like, and what many studios aspired to, they didn’t have to innovate in that regard,” Radulovic said of Pixar. “And now they're faced with a dilemma where every other studio is trying something new.”
And that's not Pixar's strategy. While the studio continues to work on artist-created stories, there is a tendency for the studio to recycle them out of concern that they will upset general audiences, Gadassic said.
“Pixar is kind of a team-based production model… They pioneered management, creative management theory, with their brain trust,” she said – a situation that reportedly eliminated the original weird storyline Elio.
“There's a limit to what their production model can do with a truly personal film made by an artist.” – said Gadassik.
This difficult path forward is even depicted in the sort of fragmented brand identity in the newest Pixar films. The studio initially positioned itself as an innovator in 3D animation, specializing in non-human characters, but that has now largely changed.
Since 2020s Soul until 2021 Luke2022s Blushes this year too ElioPixar has, in many ways, entered its human era. While animation style used to be considered a sign of quality, human-centered design something pointed to the “bare mouth” style – the round, bean-shaped mouths and bodies associated with Pixar and supposedly widespread in modern animation – as the reason for the failure of his films.
And instead of relying on the technology that first made Pixar famous, its next film Gatto, billed as a return to 2D hand-drawn animation styles. Given that it's a style that Pixar itself has never created, Gadassic said it could indicate an attempt to rebrand itself as a craft studio like Laika, separating and differentiating itself from larger studios.
However, he says he is unsure of the benefits of explaining the difficulties of hand-drawn animation to a generation of children who may now believe that creating it is as easy as pressing a button.
And with that door closed, Pixar's return to the supremacy it once enjoyed seems highly unlikely.
“I don’t think you can get Pixar back to the way it was,” he said. “I don't think it's possible.”
