February 07, 2006
Toy Story 3 Still On
I think the new happy family over at Disney/Pixar land need to have a family meeting and get their stories straight. Just a short time ago new Disney animation department head John Lasseter announced that he was putting the breaks on Toy Story 3. Now Iger, the big boss as Disney has announced that Toy Story 3 will indeed be moving ahead, only now under the direction of the Pixar people. So what gives?
The good folks over at ComingSoon give us the following:
Iger said Disney would release about two Pixar films each year, an increase over Pixar's earlier goal of about one per year. Pixar will take over production of "Toy Story 3," a sequel that Disney's in-house animators had been working on, Iger said.Hmm... this rubs me the wrong way. I was all excited when I heard Lasseter say that only the right story will prompt a Toy Story 3 into production. Yeah... that sounded good. So all of a sudden they came up with a whole new movie idea in 2 weeks that changed his mind???
To me this stinks of Disney interference. Either that or Lasseter has already been seduced by the dark side of the Mouse force. We'll wait and see what transpires over the next little bit. But I've already got a feeling things aren't going so well for the new family in the Mouse House.
Posted by John Campea at February 7, 2006 10:00 AM
Comments
Posted by: Jack at February 7, 2006 10:42 AM
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Damn it.
Posted by: Arethusa at February 7, 2006 12:59 PM
Great news!
Posted by: jerry at February 7, 2006 01:24 PM
"Disney CEO Robert Iger reportedly stated that Pixar will now begin producing about two films a year..."
This makes me pretty sick to my stomach and people need to realize what looks to be going on here. Pixar was only able to get one movie a year out under the Pixar name before. They merge with Disney and now its two "PIXAR" films (note, i didn't say "Disney" films). That can only mean that they're increasing the workload in several possible ways.
1) Merging their CGI staff with Pixar. This increases production but also combines the #1 company in the world with the #5 guys. These guys couldn't even get an interview with Pixar and now they'll be directly involved in future films?
2) Pushing deadlines on a studio where deadlines were more flexible and realistic. Quality over quantity is out the window because 2 films a year is a lot no matter how talented you are.
3) Disney will be releasing their own brand of CGI under the Pixar name. Pixar was the only studio on the planet to be perfect in releasing only quality movies. Now with Disney diluting the name with their mediocre stuff then it will eventually make people question the Pixar name.
So this looks pretty bad at this point. It makes sense of course because there's alot of money to make back there. But you're trading quality with cashcow. Didn't we just see them destroy the animated-film industry with this crud a decade ago?
Posted by: Cole at February 8, 2006 10:28 AM
Cole, there's a lot of misinformation out there. I'll try to correct it...
Disney and Pixar will not merge their staffs. They will remain completely separate. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull (from Pixar) will be in charge of both Disney Animation and Pixar.
Deadlines are not being pushed on Pixar. Pixar didn't have the personnel to get their movies done faster because they didn't have the money to hire more workers. Now they have the cash flow to do that if they choose.
True, Disney and Pixar movies will now be released as Disney-Pixar. But lets be honest here: you're a Pixar worshipper. Pixar had a great run of movies but eventually they were going to release a bad one. This was just the law of averages. Disney had a great run of movies in the early 90s-- Little Mermaid, Lion King, etc-- and then got corrupted by putting financial exectutives in charge.
The key here is that the animators are in now charge of both Disney and Pixar.
Posted by: Jack at February 8, 2006 10:51 AM
Well put Jack,
I happen to believe that Disney's recent string of lackluster films were the fault of it's leadership at the time, not the talent that actually put the films together.
Posted by: diskjokk at February 8, 2006 01:34 PM
Good points jack. But I'm still going to stay on the skeptical side because anyone who can go from fantastic movies like mermaid, beauty and the beast, aladdin, lion king to some real turds like hercules, hunchback, pocahantas really can't be trusted. This Disney-Pixar thing can work if they let Pixar control their work output. And even IF (and thats a big "if") Disney-Pixar can squeeze out 2 quality CGI films a year then does the public really have the stomach for it? The market is being flooded with crap disguised in pretty computer colors. Someone needs to excercise some discipline in order to keep it from being played out.
There's something very classy about taking your time and creating art. Madagascar, Shrek, Ice Age etc may be decent children fodder. But Pixar films reach beyond that because they are so well crafted that literally within the first few seconds you instantly forget youre watching a "cartoon" and you appreciate it as a "film". You won't get that same result if you start sticking Raven Simone into lead roles or you have the guys from Chicken Little working under the "Pixar" name.
My suggestion is to keep the entity seperate. Release all the disney crap you want, but maintain the Pixar name to be something special.
Posted by: Cole at February 8, 2006 01:55 PM
Look forward to it. Still watch 1 and 2 with the kids now - they'd love a third.
Posted by: Pachinkos at February 16, 2006 12:59 PM
John--
Disney held the sequel rights to Toy Story 3, as well as Monsters Inc 2 and Nemo 2. If the merger didn't go through, Disney was going to make the sequels without Lasseter. This really bothered him. When the merger went through, the press incorrectly reported that Toy Story 3 was canceled. What Lasseter said in a meeting was that Toy Story 3 wouldn't be made at Disney but would return to Pixar for the original animation team to make. He's had a different story idea in his head the whole time.
This is a good thing...