Must Pixar Be So Kid-Friendly?
As Alan notes, the best sequences in Up (and WALL•E) were those that 1) drew heavily from silent film and 2) dealt with adult subject matter: marriage, love, loss, disappointment, the onset of age. What the film really excelled at was tenderness, which contemporary cinema usually confuses with mawkish sentimentality. On the other hand, although I rather enjoyed the talking dogs (particularly Dug, who seemed a nearly perfect synthesis of the personalities of my family hounds), the film was at its weakest when doling out adventure and humor — in other words, when it worked within the boundaries of what is traditionally thought of as a children’s film. The “fun” elements weren’t ever so bad as to take away from the film, but they were the least essential. Increasingly, I think, Pixar’s sly trick has been to make adult movies with children’s film elements grafted on — exactly the inverse of the “family film” formula that’s dominated over the last decade.
And what I wonder — and hope for (I think) — is whether or not Pixar will ever chuck the kiddie elements altogether and make a movie that specifically targets adults. Yes, yes, part of their genius is their cross-generational appeal, which they really do pull off better than any other filmmakers. But these days, I also think the folks at Pixar are making better mainstream entertainment than nearly any other creators in any other medium, and given the paucity of satisfying adult drama in theaters these days, I’d love to see them work on a project that didn’t have to entertain the six year olds in the audience, that didn’t have to merely hint, however compellingly, at the sadness and joys of adult life.
It wouldn’t need to be R-rated or filled with sex and violence (though I don’t think I’d be bothered one way or another if it was), and they could — and should — work off of familiar themes. Ideally, it’d be a project with visual complexities suited to CGI. In fact, what I think I’d really like them to do is remake Fincher’s Benjamin Button, a dull, meandering, overly sentimental film that would’ve benefited immensely from both Pixar’s technical finesse and its deep grasp of the joys and disappointments of age. Obviously, this particular project is a pipe dream, but given the studio’s successes, they ought to be approaching the point where some of the creators — say, Brad Bird — have enough sway to expand into the world of movies made for adults that aren’t covert about their target audience.
“What the film really excelled at was tenderness, which contemporary cinema usually confuses with mawkish sentimentality.”
Don’t get me started.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 04:53 PM · #
i think they’ve already done what you’re asking. have you ever tried to get a toddler to sit through “ratatouille”?
— gabriel Rossman · Jun 8, 05:44 PM · #
I certainly agree that Pixar is “making better mainstream entertainment than nearly any other creators in any other medium,” but as the mother of two young children, and given the paucity of satisfying family movies in theaters these days, I’d love to see Pixar stay right where they are.
— Kate Marie · Jun 8, 06:20 PM · #
Kate — I should probably clarify to say that I’m not suggesting they abandon their kid-friendly productions — Lord knows parents need a movie a year that theyc an take their kid to and also enjoy themselves — I’d just like to see a handful of the Pixar mainstays expand/branch off into doing something else for a while.
— Peter Suderman · Jun 8, 06:41 PM · #
Couldn’t find the quote, but I’m pretty sure John Lasseter has said that Pixar will always make “family films.” I’m sure that some of the Pixar talent might make something more adult-oriented under a different umbrella though.
— Tim · Jun 8, 07:01 PM · #
Every so often I re-read the brilliant Harlan Ellison story “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” and imagine the film version as directed by Brad Bird — and man oh man do I wish I could actually watch it.
— dpoyesac · Jun 8, 07:53 PM · #
Maybe you could describe what you’re asking for a little better. It sounds like you’re asking for a movie like Wall-E, only the version you want is two and a half hours of a sad little robot picking up trash and watching Hello, Dolly! over and over again, and then “Finis” right before the closing credits.
— Chet · Jun 8, 08:14 PM · #
I agree with gabriel above: Ratatouille is a grown-up’s movie without being a kid’s movie. Kids don’t ask to see it.
Maybe Peter would be happy if Brad Bird announces an animated modern comic adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, with Angelina Jolie voicing Jane Galt?
— tom · Jun 8, 08:28 PM · #
Nah, Atlas Shrugged is an interesting and even useful book, but also a preposterous and rather silly one. The only reason I might be interested in seeing it turned into a film are amusement and curiosity.
— Peter Suderman · Jun 8, 10:03 PM · #
“the film was at its weakest when doling out adventure and humor”
Well, tell that to the kids! What Pixar does is gives us all something to latch onto. If you were writing this as a seven year old you might have a few harsh words for the “tender” moments…
— E.D. Kain · Jun 8, 11:02 PM · #
I agree on Atlas Shrugged—that’s why I’m thinking comedy, and with a lady hero. And no Jack Black.
— tom · Jun 9, 12:23 AM · #
Given that the Fountainhead is one of the 10 funniest movies ever made, the idea of a filmed version of Atlas Shrugged still fills me with glee.
You’d have to play it completely straight though. Camping it up, or “trying” to make it funny, would kill the comedy value of the source material.
— Erik Siegrist · Jun 9, 01:26 AM · #
Peter, I submit that the Pixar group aren’t real real clear on what a kids’ movie, versus an adult movie, is. Because I had a friend involved with Pixar my wife took our then three-year-old daughter to the studios for a visit a few months before Ratatouille came out. Suits and coders there were delighted to see a a child. While she posed with a Monsters Inc. statue and other things she liked the ran over to show her things.
Code things. Nerd things. They asked her questions about, well how would you try to get a “chiaroscuro effect,” and “do you see how that’s recursive?” Again: this is a child who was still wearing Pull-Ups. I would have been unstunned to discover that the same was true of the coders.
These people just possibly “get it,” because they don’t even slightly “get it.”
— Sanjay · Jun 9, 02:01 AM · #
I think anybody that doesn’t talk down to a child “gets it” quite well, Sanjay…
— Erik Siegrist · Jun 9, 02:43 AM · #
I don’t think Iron Giant is that far off. And as other readers have commented, many Pixar movies are pretty close too.
If my daughter is any guide then I think it’d be a shame for kids to be cut out of the picture – sure she likes Kung Fu Panda (<- which has an excellent message, IMO) and Nemo, but her favorites (to my surprise) are Ratatouille, Wall E, and Iron Giant. She liked Up. I like to think it’s strong characters and stories that matter, maybe similar to how literature draws you in. But who knows.
I’m just happy to be in the Pixar golden era, where people like Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton are the big names. Every once in a while we watch the Little Mermaid…80’s and 90’s Disney was awful…
— Steve C · Jun 9, 03:07 AM · #
I think Steven C.‘s right that children respond to strong characters and stories. That’s why the strategy that other filmmakers use for “children’s” movies — grafting snide pop cultural allusions and irony onto stories involving talking animals — just baffles me. They end up with movies that, to my mind, are for neither children nor adults, but for the perpetual adolescents they wish we all were.
— Kate Marie · Jun 9, 04:26 AM · #
I’m dork enough to have watched the director commentary on The Incredibles, and in it, Bird says a few times that animation is not a “genre” – it’s a medium, and you can do any genre you want through the medium. I think he’d love to get the chance to do an adult (not “adult”) animated film. (I agree with those above who wrote that Ratatouille is not a kids movie, and I think that was Bird testing the waters with a movie that, though kid-friendly, had a story that written for adults.
That said, since the same parents who Family Guy because it’s a “cartoon” will drag their kids to see whatever Pixar puts out, I’m OK with them sticking to kid-friendly material for now.
— Chris · Jun 9, 04:42 AM · #
Erik, that’s stuff people without kids say. I don’t want anybody “talking down” to my child. But pulling her, at three, away from big statues of cartoon characters to look at C++ code and to rhapsodize about the efficiency of that code as opposed to other algorithms is just plain clueless.
— Sanjay · Jun 9, 01:30 PM · #
“These people just possibly “get it,” because they don’t even slightly “get it.””
My own experience as a creative person who’s now and then been accused of “getting it” is that you have to both really get it and simultaneously not get it at all.
I know that has a very Zen and the Art of Archery sort of ring to it, and I HATED that sort of shit when I was a student/new professional. But as time wears on, it seems the only way to explain.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 01:58 PM · #
“I’m dork enough to have watched the director commentary on The Incredibles, and in it, Bird says a few times that animation is not a “genre” – it’s a medium, and you can do any genre you want through the medium. I think he’d love to get the chance to do an adult (not “adult”) animated film.”
We have this disc, but i haven’t watch the extras. I’ll make a point of it now.
I’ve been saying for years now that “adult” isn’t a genre, it’s a business model, and finally someone’s willing to listen! Just yesterday I got invited by the NYU Film School to give my lecture “The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image.” September 23rd. Mark your calenders!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 02:05 PM · #