You’ve (NOT) Got a Friend in Me.
Words by Liam Horgan.
I’m going to start this article off by being very clear. The Pixar of your childhood is dead.
This bears repeating. The Pixar you grew up with is gone.
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Now that I’ve let that sink in, let me explain what has brought on this statement. Roughly a month ago, Pixar released the trailer for Turning Red, the debut feature from Oscar winner Domee Shi. Shi’s short film Bao won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 2018. The charming film looked at empty-nest syndrome often experienced by parents when their children leave the house. Naturally, due to the success of her short, Domee Shi was selected by Pixar to create her own feature film. This comes in the form of Turning Red. As the trailer shows, the film is set in the early 2000s and follows protagonist Mei Lee, a 13-year-old schoolgirl. Hounded by her overbearing mother and struggling with the chaos of adolescence, Mei turns into a giant red panda whenever she gets stressed or excited. Like Soul and Luca before it, the film looks to showcase a slightly different Pixar style coupled with a fun story and a healthy dash of noughties nostalgia to keep the adults in the audience happy. You’d think with all these factors the trailer was warmly received amongst Pixar fans; however, you’d be mistaken. While for the most part the trailer was warmly received by many (myself included), there were some vocal voices online which were already criticising the as of yet, unreleased film.
These comments are still widely available to see. Go to Pixar’s twitter account when they tweeted the trailer and check the replies. Hell,l check any other twitter account that tweeted the trailer and you’ll see the same thing. Comments range from ‘this doesn’t look like Pixar’ to the questionable ‘I don’t think this will make me cry’. There’s a lot to unpack with these comments but the general gist seems to be an unhappiness from ‘long-term’ fans of the studio with the direction of the film, the story, and the art style.
The trailer for Turning Red.
Now before I get into some fan comments, I want to make it clear that Pixar is not above criticism, in fact, as the leading animation house in the world they should always be subjected to it. Pixar is still a member of the House of Mouse and with that brings its own complications and criticism. One of the main points of critiique levelled at Pixar is the continued trend of turning POC characters into animals. For those who are first hearing of this criticism, it essentially boils down to an issue within animation where characters of colour are turned into animals or creatures for the majority of a film's runtime, thereby decreasing the amount of screentime the character appears as an actual person of colour. The issue is one of representation and is worth a whole article on it’s own. Thankfully Brian Anthony Hernandez has done a wonderful article on the subject which you can read here.
Justified critique aside however, the issue I have with some of the other remarks about Turning Red is that it seems a lot of the criticism is (wrongfully) fuelled by blind nostalgia. Nostalgia is a feeling we all experience, it brings fond memories back to us. However, it can also bring a surge of mixed emotions with it. In cinematic terms, nostalgia is a touch more complicated. Often nostalgia is used to enhance audience spectatorship, especially in sequels. Best when used sparingly, a recent successful example is 2015’s Brooklyn. The Saoirse Ronan Irish immigrant drama attempts to recreate the setting, not with meticulous set decoration but by attempting to recreate the feeling of the time. Let me assure you that 1950s Ireland did not look like a vintage postcard. However, this subtle use of nostalgia was a huge hit. My grandparents loved it when they watched the film, partly for the way in which it recreated the time of their youth. But as with most things, there comes a boiling point.
Films can over rely on nostalgia as a means to distract viewers, essentially using it as a way to avoid plot points and logic. One of the most egregious examples of this being the Disney Star Wars trilogy. The first film of this trilogy, The Force Awakens, is oversaturated with nostalgic moments. It’s essentially a soft remake of A New Hope with enough throwbacks and references to make people feel that it’s a continuation. An antithesis to this is it’s sequel The Last Jedi, which attempted to tell a bold new story built on the legacy of Star Wars by laying new foundations as opposed to building on old ones. While I don’t necessarily feel that Rian Johnson’s film managed to do this successfully, it does show that as a whole, nostalgia should not be used as a foundation for telling new stories. Which brings me back to Pixar.
The animation company dominated the cinematic landscape in the first decade of the millennium, releasing hit after hit. Many of Pixar’s finest storytelling moments are expertly crafted. Whether it’s the opening moments of Up or the closing moments of Toy Story 3, the stories bring emotional depth and weight. Somewhat inevitably, Pixar eventually hit a wall with their films. After the high of Toy Story 3, the studio struggled to find that particular je ne sais quoi, that intangible feeling that inhabited their earlier works. Films like the Cars sequels and Monsters University struggled to live up to their previous entries. It seems the nostalgic boiling point had been reached and worryingly this looked like it was affecting their standalone films also, with outings like The Good Dinosaur falling short of the Studio's legacy.
Around this time there were some behind the scenes issues at the studio. In a nutshell, in 2017 Pixar’s chief John Lasseter left the studio after claims of misconduct and sexual harassment. Lasseter was a founding member of Pixar and a big reason why the studio had early commercial success. When he left the studio, Pixar was in a delicate position, one which his successor Pete Docter was all too aware of. Under Docter’s leadership, the studio seems to be finally heading in a new direction making new and bold narrative choices with each release. For example, with Soul, Docter introduced Pixar’s first black protagonist. Equally the change is present behind the scenes, with Soul co-director Kemp Powers being the first black director at Pixar and Domee Shi being the first Asian director and second woman to direct a film for the studio. Diversity is a good thing and the changes Pixar have made will benefit the company in the long run. Alongside the studio however, the fans also need to change.
It’s important to make a few things clear. Firstly, Pixar is a studio, it may be a creative one with a unique voice in animation but it’s a studio nonetheless. Treating Pixar like it is an individual filmmaker is wrong and thoroughly misunderstands how a studio works. Treating Pixar as one singular creative voice, as opposed to a collection of many, is like saying that The Blind Side and Joker are from the same creator as they are both Warner Brothers properties. Pixar is a corporate studio of individual creators and artists and should be treated as such. This brings me to the criticism of the new ‘look’ of Pixar films. As each film is directed by a different person with a different team of animators, it’s a positive creative choice that each film is visually distinct. The style change between Luca and Turning Red for example means that both films will be distinct from one another, which from an artistic standpoint is what an animated film should strive for. If you dislike these style changes then perhaps you should examine why you dislike them. Is it because you genuinely don’t like the style? Because that would be a valid point. Or is it that you dislike it because it doesn’t suit your idea of a Pixar film? If this is the case, then your criticism is blinded by what you think a Pixar film should look like, not what it actually is.
The entrance to Pixar’s studio.
Another issue with the criticism of Domee Shi’s film is those who feel that the story isn’t a “Pixar story”. I’m not really sure what defines a Pixar film other than being an animated story that has the potential for some emotional depth. As far as I can see, Turning Red is animated and, judging by the subject matter, is dealing with an emotional story. Will it succeed? Maybe, but we’ll have to wait until it’s released to make any kind of assessment. Any other premature critique would be illogical. Right now, nostalgia stands as one of the primary issues facing Pixar fans. It’s causing judgement of the Studio’s recent outings to be clouded. Nostalgia is not a critical tool with which to judge cinema and shouldn’t be used as such. Any critic that rates Soul or Luca on the basis of it not being as good as Wall-E is fundamentally wrong in their approach to judging the film. Unless it’s a sequel or spin-off, a film should be judged solely on its own merits. Referring to where a film stands with regard to a filmmaker’s collective body of work is fine when dealing with an individual but as we’ve covered, Pixar is not an individual.
As previously mentioned, nostalgia brings forth a wave of emotion, and Pixar may well be nostalgic for many. I love rewatching films from my youth, revisiting them is like a warm inviting hug. However, it’s not right to judge a film based on how nostalgic it makes you feel. It’s dangerous for fans to only want to watch a new film based on the condition that it feels like a previous unrelated outing. It’s worth noting here that Pixar is and always will be a studio that tells stories for children. Sure, Pixar make sequels to their films and have nods to their previous work in others but it’s wrong to think that their primary audience is anything but children, and I mean those who are currently children not adult ones. I don’t say this as a reductive claim but as a gentle reminder that if you’re old enough to have a Twitter account, you’re not the target audience for the studio. For Pixar, whose primary medium is something which is constantly changing, updating and even dependent on innovative artists bringing forth their own creative styles and voices, orders to stay stagnant would be disastrous. If Pixar is to succeed it needs to cater towards new audiences not older ones. If the changes at Pixar make you uncomfortable then perhaps you need a rather cynical reminder that you are not a child anymore and have to accept that, like you, Pixar will age with time. Don’t let your nostalgia for something long gone make you turn away from new unique stories and perspectives. You may have grown up with Woody and Buzz, or Mike and Sully, but some children will grow up with Luca and Alberto, with 22 and Joe and eventually Turning Red’s Mei Lee.
In the west, Pixar redefined what it meant to tell a story with animation. They continued a tradition that was started by Walt Disney himself. It’s not an understatement to say that the impact they have had as a studio on animation is monumental. The success of Pixar is defined by the filmmakers and artists who continuously redefine 3D animation and what it can achieve. It would be wrong to confine these artists to strict boundaries set by those who are uncomfortable with change. Judging things through a nostalgic lens will only serve one person and that is the muzzling of creativity. For a studio who’s known for the phrase ‘to infinity and beyond’, this would be a disastrous thing. To that end, when a new trailer eventually releases for Turning Red, I urge you to take a moment to reserve judgement, to give the film a chance, and most importantly leave the nostalgia behind and embrace change.
