Since Pixar and Disney brought Inside Out to Cannes, they also hosted a special presentation to feature several other films coming up in months ahead from the two studios. Their offerings are distinctly different in many respects; Pixar is always going to be Pixar and Disney is always going to be Disney, but both houses have benefited from recent technological advances that will truly change the way we all regard animation. In short, it is starting to look more like real life, or live action.
The most disappointing part of the event was to see that with all of their movies coming up they had not a single female director to announce. All of them were male with female producers, even for two films that have female protagonists. It is clear that they don’t trust women yet to helm these kinds of films or else it’s the kind of thing where you can only get the job if you have a previous credit.
After Jennifer Lee co-directed Frozen last year, Disney’s biggest hit of all time, you’d think they’d at least go with a co-director but nope. It’s 100% men. That bummer aside, the movies look pretty great.
Pixar reps talked about The Good Dinosaur, opening November 25, the story of a young male dino getting lost and finding a pal in a young boy human. The animation on this is going to blow the lid off the joint, as they say. Absolutely incredible atmosphere. We saw a bit of it and indeed, it’s jaw-dropping. It looks to be a very traditional Pixar story in that it is a little boy lost finding his way and saving the day. It’s sure to be a hit and will give Inside Out a run for its money for the animated feature Oscar, though I suspect The Good Dinosaur could win out because of its groundbreaking animation.
Pixar also announced two upcoming sequels, Toy Story 4 which will start a new chapter in the life of toys and won’t involve Woody and Buzz. No plot details were given on that. Finding Dory picks up where Finding Nemo left off. That looks like a great follow-up to one of their all-time best.
Disney has Zootopia coming out in 2016 and I wanted to see the whole film after watching today’s clips. It looks funny and interesting with what they’re trying to do. It gets the closer than any of these films in dealing with any sort of issue short of raising a child’s self-esteem. Next up, Moana, directed by John Musker and Ron Clements (Aladdin, The Little Mermaid) will feature lots of music, songs and pretty pretty animation, and will also introduce a new raven-haired Disney princess for your purchasing pleasure.
It’s exciting to watch the animation genre explode. I think women directors will eventually break in but it won’t be without a fight. Maybe they have to start their own animation studio. My daughter is about to graduate high school and has a mind to major in animation at college. I hope that by the time she does, the landscape will have changed and more women will be allowed into the club.
The animation on The Good Dinosaur indeed looks stunning. It’ll be interesting to see how the Oscar Animated Feature race unfolds this year with two Pixar films in the running. Whether or not The Good Dinosaur is a better film than Inside Out, I hope Inside Out prevails. Great to see more female-centric films win awards.
hey “Roberta Blake”, “Carla Redmond”, “Louis”, “Jorge”, etc, etc,
Congratulations. You and your hatefulness finally got my attention.
You bitch about nobody engaging with you but you show up dropping turds of meaningless comments packed with line after line of unprovoked insults and childish name-calling. You swap back and forth in the guise of “girl reader” drag whenever you stop by to lash out, but then whenever it comes time to enter a contest and get something for free you turn into a well-behaved inconspicuous “boy reader.”
Is that how you wear your feminist cred? With a strap-on penis you carry around when you think you might win a prize?
the jig is up, Louis/Roberta. Try submitting a comment that’s not a lot of vicious hate and maybe somebody will give you a thoughtful reply. In fact, try submitting another comment at all from that same IP address and see what happens.
Yeah Steven, both studios work very similarly, having brain/story trust that brings every filmmaker to help make the best film they can possibly create.
Daniel, that appears correct. The directors of the Pixar movies at least had a hand in the script so I can see whoever develops the idea ends up directing.
Well of course Disney Animation didn’t announce any Female Directors to Zootopia and Moana, They’ve projects that the Directors have been working on for years now. John Musker and Ron Clements have always Disney Animation’s Dynamic pair since The little Mermaid, and Zootopia’s idea came from Byron Howard who asked Rich Moore to come in and help. Disney doesn’t create an idea and then give it to a Director, its always the director’s idea.