The Quickening: When the big ones fall · 3:58pm Nov 8th, 2017
Let me explain this better: Did you have that feeling when one of your favorite companies is not what it used to be or what you used to love? When was the point where everything went down? I'm going to list 4 cases when this happened to me and some of them may surprise you.
This may contain spoilers for Coco. Reader discretion is advised.
Coco, the latest film Pixar has ever produced, made me realize something that I was unaware my entire life: the company is like one of those kids that blatantly copy in exams. Now that the company is not having A's like before, my mind is starting to open. It's obvious that Pixar doesn't even question that it's accused of being "unoriginal", taking into account that the same argument within the same context within the same Mexican festivity was reported only 3 years ago with The Book of Life, a film that despite of its good intentions and excellent aesthetic value, it ended up being quite medium. Of course, here's where the opportunists enter, taking advantage of the mediocrity of that and realize a movie that is great, I admit I liked it, but it's a rip-off nevertheless (the first third is a copy not only from The Book of Life, but also an exact copy from the first third of Brave: same situation, same character dilemmas, same dialogues). This makes me wonder why they cancelled Newt for Rio, when they could practically do the same (since Rio is very mediocre and forgettable). Sadly, this also made me check their previous works and the truth is that the majority of their previous films have elements copied from other lesser known movies: Toy Story has a similar argument to The Brave Little Toaster, Monsters Inc. has elements from Beetlejuice and AAAHHH! Real Monsters, The Incredibles is the best cinematographic version of Fantastic 4 we have, WALL-E and his resembling R.O.B. design, Inside Out is a non-official remake of both Osmosis Jones and the short Brain Divided. I'm not necessarily saying I don't like this films anymore, I still love these films, I'm still finding something new in them. However, now Pixar has lost many of its credibility thanks to its latest decisions. If you asked me 7 years ago about a sequel to the Incredibles, I'd say "I'm excited to watch it." Now, considering its mediocre and forgettable sequels, I'm not sure about it.
This post was originally going to be a comparison between Aang and Korra. However, when I went deeper into my investigation, I realized that Avatar: The Last Airbender was the last great show Nickelodeon has ever produced. The rest of the shows that came after hover between horrible and mediocre. This was because the company forced themselves to desperately search for the next Spongebob. That's why we had a lot of cartoons in which the primary focus was an archetype I like to call "Annoying Asshole". Don't believe me? Fanboy and Chum Chum, Back at the Barnyard, Planet Sheen, TUFF Puppy, Bunsen is a Beast, Mighty B, Sanjay & Craig, Breadwinners, the list goes on! And even the decent-to-good shows we had during this period (Penguins of Madagascar, Ninja Turtles, The Loud House and, to be fair, Korra) didn't have much of an impact like the older shows. The live-actions didn't fall behind. ICarly was the breaking point and it deteriorated quickly after Season 2 and the rest of the shows followed it like a domino effect. Even Dan Schneider feels tired after recycling the same stories over and over again. Nickelodeon can come back thanks to The Loud House and the Spongebob Renaissance, but the company has forgotten that it can't depend on them forever (the same happened when Rugrats was on air), it needs a more abrupt change if it wants to save itself.
Thor: Ragnarok is probably the most controversial movie we've ever had, probably since Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The cinematic universe formula is starting to get tired, the "wow factor" is gone and they don't excite anymore. I was one of those who went to the cinema to watch every single movie, now I'm just waiting for Infinity War because they've become too repetitive. The trailers delight more than the movie itself. If you don't remember, 2012 was the peak of superhero movies: we had the ending to the Dark Knight trilogy and the chance of watching the Avengers in a film. The saturation moment came afterwards. Simply, superhero movies don't excite me anymore, not like before. There have been exceptions, like Guardians fo the Galaxy and Logan, but they don't interest anymore. How bad are these that they made me like something like Amazing Spiderman 2.
I already talked about this case, and the short version is: You can't force your team to work 18 consecutive hours without rest, even if you work with them and you can do your workday in said time period. And just because you had two consecutive hits and revolutionize gaming industry doesn't mean you had to paste everything from said hits to the rest of your games. Long version: Here.
But what do you think? Do you know any other case? Let me know in the comments.
I haven't seen the Book of Life so I cant judge the both of them. But I do agree that Pixar last few film ever since Cars has been leaving me with a meh impression. (Noticeable exceptions). Rare and Nickelodeion. It was FF7 that made me get a playstation and since then I haven't looked back. So I cant comment on Rare. As for NickelodeonI do agree it feels like something has been lost. Although with them bringing back Invader Zim I do have hope.
Actually coco was signed off and proposed in 2011, three-four yeas before book of life (2014), In fact when they realized Book of life was coming in 2014, Pixar pushed the release date of coco till this year...
So COCO did technically come first.
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It doesn't matter who had the idea first, what ultimately matters is who takes out its movie first. This is why we still compare Antz-A Bug's Life and Madagascar-The Wild. Sure, all have different ideas and themes, but they're the same at its core.
And like I said before, why did they cancelled Newt if they could practically do the same (and even better?)
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Yeah but Hollywood and film in general are usually based on similar material...
Lion king---Kimba the white lion + Hamlet, for example...
Or if you want i could explain how Pacific Rim is basically Independence day plot for plot
Avatar and dances with wolves etc.
it goes on and on.
As for Newt i think it's pretty simple myself...
For one Newt was going to be worked on but production was side-lined to make way for cars 2 which was John Lasseter's personal pet project...and Lasseter is one of pixar's primary gods, so whatever he wanted to work on and do was going to take precedence over everything else and it would remove the potential issue they had had with antz and a bugs life repeating itself.
The difference here is that the book of life was made in 2014, while COCO came out out now in 2017... three years later and by a far more prestigious and acclaimed production studio just for a pro and one i prefer. Whereas back then Newt and Rio would have both come out in 2011...directly competing with one another...