Review of Cars 3 (2017) by Ty T — 13 Jun 2017

Once upon a time, any new Pixar movie was an automatic trip to the theater for our whole family, and we were never disappointed. It didn't matter what the theme or setting was going to be; we already knew it would be great. Every film created a unique new world of its own, with fresh characters and, above all, masterful storytelling guaranteed.

Now that they've sold out to become just another robotic retread factory inside the vast Disney machine, it's hard to care what they're working on. Toy Story 3 had none of the charm of its predecessors, Cars 2 was a flaming pileup and Finding Dory was basically the exact same movie as Finding Nemo. Monsters University and The Good Dinosaur were okay but unmemorable, and both deservedly met with lukewarm response from critics and audiences. The only bright spots since 2010 were Inside Out and the somewhat underappreciated Brave.

Now Cars 3, The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 are coming down the pipeline. By the summer of 2019, seven of Pixar's last eleven films will have been sequels, as compared to just one of their first ten (by which time the last of the pre-Disney backlog of projects was finally released). Before they sold out to Disney, who would have thought that could happen? It's as bad as if the National Parks got taken over by Six Flags.

I wish the remnants of Pixar toiling away in the dungeons of the magic castle could buy out their shares and go back to being an independent studio, but Disney would never allow it. The reason they were so determined to take over Pixar in the first place was to stop it from making movies that showed audiences how weak, trite and commercialized Disney animations had been for decades. Instead of rising to Pixar's standard, Disney whittled Pixar down to theirs. So it goes when corporate branding, merchandising tie-ins and economies of scale overwhelm artistry and the creative imagination.

The next phase will no doubt be to re-issue Pixar's films as CG extravaganzas with live actors, as Disney is presently doing with their own animated oeuvre. When that happens, we'll know that Pixar has been thoroughly assimilated into the Borg-like collective that is Disney.