Simon Cress
Pixar is a unique representative of animated movie production studios. Despite its involvement with global multimedia corporations, the studio has an extremely positive attitude from the audience. The studio earned this respect thanks to the exceptional quality of its original projects over many years. If we imagine the company that writes papers for students like researchpaperwriter.net, it would be an example of exceptional quality and guaranteed success.
At the same time, Pixar has not been experiencing the rosiest of times lately. It is trying to balance sequels that are guaranteed to collect box office at the expense of loyal fans and the studio’s original idea of taking risks and creating unique and original projects. Next, we’ll talk about why Pixar is considered great and whether it can break out of the cycle of making sequels to its original works.
Early Successes and the Animation Revolution
Pixar is a pioneer in what is now the norm, namely computer-animated cartoons. The original 1999 Toy Story was the world’s first fully computer-animated feature-length cartoon with a reported budget of $30 million to collect 373 million, which began a new era in movie cartoon production. Many studios began to switch completely to CGI, but only a few were able to achieve Pixar’s success. The company stood out for risky and highly unusual projects with non-obvious characters and plots. Studio was not afraid to take risks and create unusual images. As recalled by Pixar employees themselves, when creating a concept for cartoons, they have no such thing as a bad idea; it all depends on the realization. After all, if you think soberly, the story of a rat that controls the cook or an older man who flies to a fantastic world on balloons initially sounds not like a 100% hit, but it is thanks to such ideas Pixar won a place in the hearts of hundreds of millions of fans.
“The Adventures of Flick,” “Monster Corporation,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Cars,” “WALL-E,” and “Up” are all original projects of the same studio. Each of these cartoons is included in various tops of the best-animated cartoons of all time. Pixar managed to do this not only due to talented designers, concept artists, and animators. In the center of the narrative of each Pixar cartoon is a touching and lively story, which often raises topics that other studios try to avoid in their works.
Boldness in Theme Choice
In principle, the classic scheme of a successful cartoon has long been known. At the center of the story should be an ordinary hero who either discovers new powers in himself, passes the path of becoming, or rethinks his life. On this path, both real and symbolic, he is accompanied by his friends. He necessarily faces betrayal or finds himself in difficult moral choices, but in the end, everything always ends well. It should be said that this backbone is not a guarantee of success; it needs to be filled with ideas, dialog, situations, and much more to make it work. Pixar, on the other hand, often just strayed from standard schemes. They didn’t shy away from laying down deep philosophical themes in their works. The cartoon “WALL-E,” which very frankly talks about love and loss, makes a lasting impression, and the movie “Up,” which openly discusses death, makes you cry and think not once per viewing.
At the same time, all this is achieved through good narration and understandable images of complex topics. As shown in “Toy Story 3,” the theme of growing up probably can not be repeated by any author. The movie was the perfect ending to the original story, and it seemed that there could not be a better finale, but as it turned out, everything was not so. Having earned a reputation for its original stories, and after Disney bought Pixar, the studio entered the so-called era of sequels and prequels.
The Period of Self-Repetition
Mickey Mouse and its owners have long been known for their fondness for releasing reboots, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. It’s not necessarily that the works themselves are bad; it’s just that they aren’t unique, and they repeat the pattern of success of the original picture and often capitalize on old fans. Pixar themselves were not against continuing many of their stories because animation is the same business, and sequels are the least risky way to profit. Initially, the studio planned to release two original movies for one sequel, but in 2010, the situation changed significantly.
From 2010 to 2019, Pixar released 11 cartoons, of which only four were original projects, while the rest were sequels and prequels. Many journalists accused Disney of forcing the studio to work on sequels during those years. And if you look at Pixar’s box office record, it’s hard to imagine Disney being really against or discouraging the creation of prequels and sequels. Each of the continuations except for “Cars 2″collected about a billion dollars. The studio itself has denied any influence from Disney.
Back to the Original Stories
Starting in 2020, the studio began to release one after another original project as in the good old days. One of the most notable works was “Soul.” It is a deep reflection on the meaning of life and self-realization. Also among the remarkable projects of the studio during these years are “Onward,” “Luca,” “Elemental,” and “Turning Red.” At the same time, the studio still does not entirely abandon sequels. In the summer of 2024, a sequel, “Inside Out 2,” and 2026 is planned for the 5th part of Toy Story.
Conclusion
Pixar Studios is a unique company with an outstanding corporate culture of taking risks and encouraging out-of-the-box ideas. It has been stuck in a loop of its own self-repetition for decades. Yes, self-repetition is successful and profitable, but for a company that has always tried to be a cut above the rest, it was too easy, and now we see the studio once again striving to create bold and unique projects.
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