687 My Candy Bar.
I finally saw Toy Story 3 the other day. Obviously its good, but I notice that it has a problem that all Pixar movies are starting to exhibit. It absolutely has to remind you every few minutes that you should be feeling sad. I’m not exactly sure when it started, but I started noticing it with UP. Not that there’s anything wrong with drama. I think part of it comes from an intense desire to be Studio Ghibli. (Whoever okayed letting them use Totoro made a bunch of animation nerd very happy to be sure.) They haven’t quite gotten it yet. Maybe with the next one.
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FUCK Studio Ghibli.
No, wait, let me rephrase that.
FUCK MIYAZAKI. I saw Mononoke, then I saw Spirited Away, then I saw Nausicaa, and then I saw the pattern. Little girl enters MAGICAL FUN LAND, where everything is exciting and an adventure, only some BAD PEOPLE start fucking up the ENVIRONMENT. THE END.
Mononoke and Nausicaa are the sole saving grace of that man’s directing career. Boy can he spin a world for our enjoyment, but I don’t think he would know a plot if it stuffed itself into his ass.
Ummmm……Thanks for sharing?
Your critique is sound in the general case, if massively over the top in execution. Miyazaki does beat the anti-war/eco/both horse to death in a lot of his work. And it gets old. And his work suffers for it.
One question: Why post here?
I mentioned Ghibli, if he wants to share that’s fine. I have enjoyed most Ghibli stuff and most Pixar stuff. I don’t think his comments are completely off base, even if they are cranky.
Not completely off, but not too close either, if you ask me. Not to say that he must not think this way of course. If that’s his impression then I respect that, even though I think different on the matter.
He does simplify the matter way too much and didn’t try to actually look behind the stories in my opinion. And his mentioned pattern does not really match up with any of the three movies. Also, there’s way more ghibli movies than just Nausicaa, Mononoke and Chihiro (chronological order). Whisper of the Heart for example. So, as he stated himself actually, you don’t have to dismiss everything ghibli just because you don’t like Miyazaki’s own work.
So then, I take it you haven’t watched Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro or Porco Rosso. So Miyazaki had a certain style through most of his work. So does Stephen King (just make sure you are using a non-alcoholic beverage when playing the Stephen King drinking game to avoid hospital trips), so do many bands in their songs. Heck, Miyazaki put more plot in his movies than Michael Bay.
My all-time favorite movie is My Neighbour Totoro, a Miyazaki movie. It does not have evil enemies fucking up the environment. And the story pretty well happens in the real world, though the supernatural is involved.
THIS, this page is just too cute. Carol serving her own interests while the men around her act like poor children.
She’s motherly in that respect.
I don’t think Pixar is trying to remind you to be sad they just like to tug at your heart strings. It’s easy for them to be funny but they want to make you cry too.
And the first panel may be the cutest thing I’ve seen all week.
Looks like I win this round, everything else on the net!
McFly…
I laughed for ten minutes just because of that line…probably just me xD
Rest of the comic is great. Man, I missed it.
Something about the scene made me think of Biff, so I just went with it.
I’ve only seen the last half of Toy Story 3 so far. From about where Woody finds out about Sunnyside and heads back. Yeah, it was a decent escape movie of all things (damn, but there were Great Escape references in there!). I have to agree, though, the clown speech is like a giant reminder of “It’s that time in the movie where we reveal the sad thing that makes the villain slightly more human than someone who just goes out and does bad things for no motivation”. Followed by the classic ‘Boy grows up = sadness” scenario (re: Puff the Magic Dragon, That crappy Peter Pan re-make/addendum Hook, about a gazillion other movies where the male pre-adolescent lead has to grow up emotionally). And it’s always sad when the boy grows up (the girl either already is, doesn’t have to, or keeps the ties to childhood. Not because this is the way fiction works, mind, but the way we are socialized to oversimplify things in the vast majority of the world.)
Okay, stopping myself there. This is a short posting, not a set of linked thesis and me rambling does no one any good. And since I’m unlikely to get to see the beginning any time soon: Did they ever say what happened to the Bo Peep lamp between parts one and two, or are we supposed to guess?
They do mention that she was thrown away. Or maybe sold or something. It is mentioned in the first half. I recommend watching the whole thing.
I was pissed that she never showed up again. Just sayin’.
Someday…. Someday. I plan on watching the whole thing, in fact that was the original plan. however life and fate conspired that I can only show up when other people are already watching the movie, it’s right at the woody talking to the sad clown doll point, no we can’t go back, oh and we’ve loaned the movie to someone else so you can’t watch it tonight. So far half a dozen times each it seems. Ah, well, at least AMC has been putting up Walking Dead episodes within a couple of days of the original air, so I can bide my time with animate corpses…
I think you’re finding a pattern too early there sir. Since Up, there’s only been Toy Story 3 – so a pattern of 2 isn’t really a pattern :) Cars 2 is the next one due out, and I doubt there’ll be an unusual level of sadness there.
Not that I’m a scrpt supervisor for pixar or anything.
And of course, the next two after that could go either way – one set in old scotland and then Monsters Inc 2…
Personally, I don’t mind the sad so long as the story is good and the movies are fun. And I can’t say I’ve seen a PIxar movie yet that didn’t fit those categories.
All Pixar movies do it a little bit. From Toy Story on. Recently they have been really putting the hammer down on it.
Wall-E was the biggest “feel bad you fatass” movie I’ve seen yet. I think it would have made me clinically depressed if he were not so damn adorable. Pixar will never make just a deep depressing movie so long as its tied to Disney; that said, I think they struck an excellent balance of emotion and humor in Toy Story 3. The topic of how hard it is to move on is one that before I’ve never really seen covered well before in a cartoon.
Te thing about Studio Ghibli (more precisely Hayao Miyazaki) is that they (he) makes movies that make you think about… things. Mononoke was obviously a ploy in the direction of environmental safety and certain “other” hazards… but it was also more of a “checkup” on that sort of human behavior in contrast to the environment around them. As the story progresses you see the characters either A, getting the crap kicked out of them due to their misconceptions of the world that they live in, or B. The characters change for the better and realize that their sort of “progress” was just destroying everything else.
Nausicca, while exhibiting these same ideas and plot design, introduced different character in a different and more post apocalyptic setting. What Studio Ghibli and Mr. Miyazaki are trying to do with these films is to convey character portraits in a way that best hooks the viewers o them. The best way to do that is with common dissinence, and lifestyles.
I have not seen a pixar movie in a bit, i have mean to check out Up, just never got a chance with my Niece yet.
Lol a candy bar, would help me feel better also, it amazing it effects, as long as it the correct one that is. I also wonder if Carol hoping the new guy steps up like, ED did.
It’s hard to tell with her. She just seems to push people as far as she can whenever she can.
Why can I picture Reggie and Wesley’s future interactions approaching “Team Butt Monkey” status?
Give it time.
It is not music that soothes the wild breast it is candy.
Besides that I agree with Dasaki in the idea that studio
Studio Ghibli films are about social awareness and it is the way American cartoons should go because more and more kids are getting their education from movies and television so they might as well learn something worth while.
ya I believe thats where part of hin aspirations come from. but honestly, I believe he does it in such a way that it makes it fun to watch, no matter how reused the plot is.
This comic is heavy on Carol adorableness, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around new guy #2.
Keep trying. You can do it!
Chokeslam Candy bar. The Candy for Rage-a-holics who are still kind of a man child.
I think Pixar did do sadder movies but they really needed to. And as Geoff Appleby said, it’s only been two in a row, not quite a pattern. But you can’t deny that the saddness works for the movie. Toy Story 3 was SUPPOSED to be sad. It was the last movie about characters that many people, including myself, grew up watching. Of course it’s sad. It was gonna be sad no matter what, sure they kinda played it up but they did it in a good way. Monsters Inc 2 will probably be kinda touching too, which some will mistake for being sad. But I highly doubt Cars 2 and the new Plane movie will be sad at all. Don’t give up on Pixar just yet.
I’m kinda lovin’ the new guy and Carol together right now. They are hilarious together so far.
He’s getting the worst of the deal to be sure.
Ed had to put up with it for a bit too, though he got off easier way quicker due to the help of Ed’s…. uhm…. “no takie no guff”
plus Thomas helped out a bit too.
This guy is alone in the trenches now that i think about it… hahaha
damnit this was to be in reliance to Crave’s “he’s getting the worst part of the deal to be sure” post. FAIL ALE!