Ratatouille

Originally Posted by kat

Personally I just don't believe there's been an excellent Disney movie, story and style, since the Lion King.

I just regard Pixar as the shift in focus for Disney to sort of abandon the dream of Walt Disney in favor of what they're doing now.

If Lion King-caliber movies are all you're interested in, you'll be sorely disappointed quite often. Hercules and Mulan both came out after The Lion King and are both incredibly enjoyable. Tarzan and Lilo and Stitch were also very good.

It really has nothing to do with Pixar. What would you have Disney do? They lost a pot full of money on movies like Atlantis and Brother Bear. Consider that Atlantis cost 20 million more to make than Cars and that it was made 5 years earlier. And Cars already has made nearly 3 times as much. It's not Pixar who ruined Disney, it is sheer incompetence. If Disney wanted to make animated movies, if they made some good ones, people would see them.

You can say that Disney should be making better stuff, but if you remember, pre-Little Mermaid, Disney was dry as shit. They had a run with 4 of the best animated movies ever (Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King), but almost no one could tell you the animated movie they put out before Little Mermaid (Oliver and Company) nor the one that came out before that (The Black Cauldron, way back in 1985).

You're putting a company up on a pedastal who in, what, 30 years, has had 4 excellent movies and 4-5 very good movies.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by kat

Plus Disney pre-Pixar, put out (what I regard) as their best work, Cinderella, Bambi, Dumbo, Fantasia, Snow White, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, I just don't believe Pixar's work comes even close to what these movies were in their time and now.

It is silly to say that is Disney's body of work "pre-Pixar". I mean, they had a good 40-55 years after most of that stuff came out before Pixar came along.

I'm not taking issue with your opinion of Pixar movies, and it's not really much of an issue because a brief look at Rotten Tomatoes puts you squarely in the minority. But to blame Pixar for Disney's lack of 2D animated success is ridiculous. Had there not been 3D animation, Disney's animation studio would still likely be falling apart.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I don't think Ratatouille was Pixar's best movie, but it certainly was better than Cars. It's true: how do you top classics like Toy Story/Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo? It's not just that those are animated classics, they are classic movies over all of Hollywood. I'll never go into a Pixar movie expecting those to be topped, but I enjoyed yet another movie which is all I can really ask.

Ratatouille will still end up as one of the best movies of 2007. In that sense, Pixar returned to their previous status of elite film-making (Cars being the only real sore spot). Brad Bird isn't my favorite, I like the other Pixar movies better than Ratatouille and The Incredibles, but they are still superb. And next year's movie goes back to Toy Story + Bug's Life + Monster's Inc.

Seriously: find even one studio with Pixar's rate of success and rate of quality. There isn't a single company there today.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.