The biggest news out of Hollywood yesterday was surely the announcement by Pixar that Toy Story 4 is going to be premiering in 2017. The studio tried to dress up the news a bit, saying that it will be directed by John Lasseter, telling us that it has a hip and interesting script from Rashida Jones, and that they are aware that fans are nervous about this sequel, but that they shouldn't be because there's still more story to tell, but I'm not buying. This seems to be a final gasp of air from a studio that has started to show severe signs of weakness in its brand.
Pixar was once the gold standard not just in animation, but in cinema in general. Movies like Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles-these were outstanding works of art, beautiful in concept and utterly interesting. This was the equivalent of Disney's Golden Age. It was a run like the studio had in the late 1930's/early 1940's when films like Snow White, Fantasia, Bambi, and Dumbo all came out in rapid succession. Every film you wanted to rush to see, and even when Cars put a solid sully on that lineup, it was quickly followed with Ratatouille, and then arguably the high-point of the run WALL-E (the Fantasia of the bunch), and finally Up and Toy Story 3. This last film seemed like a solid time to form a new chapter in the brand, admittedly. They were bringing to a close the first film they started everything with, and the final moments of Toy Story 3 were some of the most gut-wrenchingly beautiful moments I've ever seen onscreen. An absolutely astounding movie, and worthy of the Best Picture nomination it ended up grabbing.
After that, though, we saw a sharp decline in the output in the studio. Cars 2 was their first universally-panned film, and while Brave was quite good, it lost a bit of the spark that had made some of the earlier films so special (let's be honest-it isn't as good as WALL-E or The Incredibles). And after that-the sequels, oh the sequels. Monsters University was, let's face it, terrible-a backstory with characters that weren't remotely believable as being younger (it didn't help that the actors voicing them are in their sixties) and it drags amidst occasionally arresting imagery. We now have sequels to The Incredibles, Cars, Finding Nemo, and the just announced Toy Story, and I think it's safe to say that Pixar has gone into the darkest timeline.
The problem with Toy Story 4 is that no one wanted it. It's the equivalent of Pirates of the Caribbean 4-it's a film series that people loved, but had moved on from. This isn't a Star Wars or Hobbit situation where there are long chapters in-between the films for the characters to change and the stories to grow (and to be real, neither of those series enjoyed particularly robust success in reviving the franchises). The last Toy Story film ended perfectly-with us realizing that growing old is inevitable, and that we pass the baton of childhood and all the wonder that comes with discovering the world as we enter later and scarier chapters in our lives. A fourth film means, at best, that we start over in that journey, and we don't need that. What are we going to show in the next film? Woody and Buzz being separated for all time? That's really the only way this can go and be meaningful, and even that seems horribly depressing-this is not a necessary add-on to the film series.
Quite frankly, I think Toy Story 3 should give back its Oscar, and part of me wants to go hand How to Train Your Dragon its OVP (though that franchise is also collapsing in on itself like a fallen star, and should be a lesson in how later sequels don't help the earlier films if they aren't any good). Part of the reason that Toy Story 3 works is because there's finality to it. You get the bittersweet ending, knowing this is not only Andy's last hurrah with the toys, but ours as well. I was at the age where I was starting to put down toys when the first film came out, and though they stretched the series by a long way in-between the first and third movies, I wasn't that far off from giving away my childhood when the third film came out. Even if your chronology doesn't match up quite right, you remember these moments, and that's what made Toy Story 3 so hard-picturing yourself or your children as they grew older, giving up moments of life you can always recall but can't take back. It's a beautiful film, and the last fifteen minutes ring totally hollow if they aren't the last.
Which is why this isn't just disappointing, but makes me very angry. Pixar has tarnished its brand enough in recent years. Cars 2? Monsters University? That completely unnecessary sequel to Finding Nemo, which surely works best as a stand-alone movie? The brand has already gone from being Google to Bing-does it really need to continue the slide to become Ask Jeeves? The reassurances from the studio executives do nothing for me-they lost credibility a few years back, and I don't think realize that Pixar fans are waiting for them to prove they're still worth our time, not waiting for a brand new and exciting product. The trust is gone there. Studios like Laika now are far more consistently wonderful and excellent, inventive and visually bold-Pixar is turning into a relic of itself, tarnishing away until a Little Mermaid manages to pop up and save it from itself. In the meantime, apparently, it just wants to create as many Return of Jafars as it possibly can, blemishing its legacy until we can no longer tell the gold from the crap.
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