A rather interesting commentary on the marriage between Pixar and Disney, and the tug-of-war on the movies being produced by Pixar.
This isn't the first time such an issue has been brought up. Plenty of things were said when Disney bought Pixar a while back. Still, we know for a fact that the purchase did not dull the creativity out of Pixar. Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3 were some of the best films the studio ever made, all ofter being purchased by Disney.
However, this new commentary was written in the aftermath of "Cars 2" critical disappointment. The consideration here is towards the obvious reference to merchandising of the movie, and how the "Cars 2" feels like a " ... a movie created solely to drive merchandise ... "
I'm guessing that Pixar and John Lasseter has no to little control over how the movie is marketed, the amount of merchandising being done, and what commercial the characters from the movie are being used in. Seeing all of these, one certainly can't be blamed for thinking that this movie was being created to sell stuff, especially when the storyline isn't one of the strongest that has come out of Pixar.
Will and should there be a "Cars 3"? I dunno. I hope they stop the "franchise" here because I don't see how I would have any kind of emotional connection to the characters in this movie. However, if I have to pick a guess, the lure of merchandising from the movie is too strong to simply kill the goose that's laying the golden egg.
Zz.
1 comment:
Me personally, I like the idea of using the existing character in more shorts, a-la Hawaiian Vacation, Mike's New Car, and Mater and the Ghostlight (and Mater's Tall Tales, but less formulaic), rather than making more and more new features out of them. It would keep them fresh, keep the attention to them in the merch department, but not force the writing team to have to squeeze so much emotion out of them to hold a full feature.
It is always easier to develop a new character through "the journey" than it is to take a character who's already been through it and take them through it again. There's only so many times we can see Ham telling the gang that Woody's totally wrong about everything (as we did in all 3 Toy Story films).
They're established characters that we grew with and now we want to just play with. Let Pixar *play* with them while working on more serious works with new characters we can grow with again.
Post a Comment