Movies What is Pixar's Future? (Elio)

[Rachel]

wow! My parents took my kids to see this movie so I did not see it. But it's really getting panned. The problems seem to be:

• Doesn't use the rule of thirds, the composition is usually in the center. Not sure if the world of Tiktok and phone sharing and clips has something to do with this
• The alien designs are uninteresting, they don't make sense from a functional point of view and the silhouettes are bad...maybe they were too focused on toy design?
• Bean design, bean mouths which are easier to rig I guess and perhaps lazy
• Exposition dumps
• Nothing unique about the kid Elio as in a year from now you'll remember who he is or what makes him unique
• Yet another movie about a kid who feels like he doesn't fit in, a "kids" movie versus an "all ages" movie
• Theater experience is expensive and parents want to just catch it on Disney plus
• Possible re-works and inexperienced people at the helm
• If you showed this to someone seven years ago they would likely not guess this is Pixar

What sucks is that they need to try new things so we can avoid Toy Story 14.

So yeah, the question from the title. Can Pixar turn this around? Do they have too many considerations and voices in the room?

 

[shortkut]

Theater experience is expensive and parents want to just catch it on Disney plus

This is a large part of the issue

We almost took my daughter to see it in theaters for her birthday but she wanted the live action lilo and stitch instead

 

[dimmerwit]

It's not even solely the price. I think Disney devalued their products with too many day 1 Disney+ releases, and that coupled with the fact that the big screen is perhaps less necessary for these movies and a general decline in theatre etiquette has damaged some of their releases, particularly original films without the name recognition of a sequel.

But in this case the movie just doesn't look interesting. By all accounts it's pretty good, and I'll watch it at home someday, but even as a fan of Pixar's films nothing in the trailer hooked me.

 

[Rachel]

Just read this...

Inside ‘Elio’s’ “Catastrophic” Path: America Ferrera’s Exit, Director Change and Erasure of Queer Themes

Creatives at Pixar who saw the original director's previous cut of 'Elio' tell THR about the movie's challenging production process: "'Elio' just [became] about totally nothing."

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Inability to let directors direct

And there were some queer undertones for Elio in the original that ultimately got grinded out

To the surprise of no one

But they left some things in that probably now don't make sense

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

Without getting into the deeper issues, I feel like they're just not as special visually anymore.

From the ones I've seen recently, I feel like some of the spectacle is lost that the older movies had because they were such drastic technological jumps that made Pixar stand out from everything else. I'm sure their artists are still just as talented but everyone else has caught up so the general public (me) doesn't see them as appointment viewing.

I'm also not the demographic anymore so what do I know. I just remembered being wow'd by Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Up.

I enjoy the new ones I've seen with the kids enough, but they just feel too Disney-animation-like now.

 

[Crazy Jamie]

My kids really want to see this, partly because they did like the trailer that we saw before Karate Kid Legends, and partly because they have a cousin called Elio. But we may not get to it before it leaves the cinema.

I can see that it's getting panned though and looks well on its way to being a commercial disaster by Pixar standards. I'm not entirely convinced that there's a wider problem. I'm seeing less of these films now, but we're not far from removed from Inside Out 2, which was a commercial and critical success. I realised the other night that I hadn't seen Elemental either, which is supposed to be very good and I know by kids enjoyed. I thought Turning Red was very good before that too.

Repeatedly innovating is always a problem, particularly when a market becomes saturated as this one is. I'm not necessarily sure that Elio is starting a downward trend though. The problem is likely to be more to do with cinema generally anything.

 

[A Vaguely Ambiguous Username]

I hadn't even heard of this until it showed up on my crossword this morning. I just looked at the movie poster for it and it just seems...not interesting.



vs. one of my more recent favorites



Even though Coco isn't very recent anymore. But it does come from the era where other companies could keep up with the technology. Looking at Coco, I can kind of figure out some things about it just by looking at it. Guitar front and center: it's got a big musician element. What appears to be living people on the left and dead people on the right in traditional Day of the Dead style skulls? Likely has to do with family happenings on that specific holiday. What appears to be the kid with the dog next to him on the guitar while walking over a stylized bridge going from the side with the living to the side with the dead? Kid is likely traveling to the land of the dead for something related to music. This is very well done and shows the thought that went into it.


Elio: Kid with an eyepatch running. Various aliens looking down at him. I suppose the one in the middle up top is looking like a bad guy of sorts. Other than that I can't tell what it could be trying to say.

 

[Rachel]

yep. Encanto (not Pixar) is one of my favorite examples because I really like the house and especially the flowers...



Also, notice both this one and the Coco one, the family is involved (I know the story of Elio is that he feels like he doesn't have a family)

And again your eye is drawn around...



Characters are in the lower third with eyes up to drawn your eye above







Just...not as interesting, character is mostly in the center with not-interesting things in the background (not saying the movie is 100% like this but you get what I mean)



These character designs remind me of that failed game Concord @VashTheStampede

 

[Mark]

This is a large part of the issue

We almost took my daughter to see it in theaters for her birthday but she wanted the live action lilo and stitch instead

As someone who spent the first half of my working life doing work for AMC theaters, a lot of that stems from years of neglecting their operations, running at a loss without making changes, outsourcing, and ultimately trying to reinvent the industry to fill seats.

First, it was party rentals, then it was alcohol and dine-in experiences. Now that they finally learned that they can't fill the seats... They're removing them and installing fewer by replacing them with recliners, couches, tables, etc.

On-topic... Pixar seems like they've become bigger than they needed to be. Quality tanks when you're focusing on quantity, and they're not happy with just Toy Story money anymore. They caught lightning in a bottle with their style and quite a few of their films, and they're on their second and third generation of viewers in some cases. At this point, they're probably just throwing spaghetti at the wall.