In a recent interview, Pixar President Jim Morris stated that Pixar would be focusing less on their existing film storylines and focusing more on developing new stories and characters. This change would not take effect until 2019 because there are still a few sequels that have been in development for a while and are slated for release between now and 2019. These films include “Cars 3”, “Toy Story 4” and “The Incredibles 2.”
This news broke following the overall positive opening weekend of Pixar’s latest film “Finding Dory” and confused many die-hard Pixar fans. The first Pixar sequel was “Toy Story 2” way back in 1999, and it had a very interesting reception. The film had phenomenal box office numbers and, according to some critics, was a sequel that was as good or even better than the original. From this success, Pixar and Disney continued to create new and original films with sequel potential such as “Cars”, “Monster’s Inc.” and most recently “Finding Nemo”.
There are many levels to this decision from the Pixar executives. On one hand, taking a break from reusing the same characters and plots, exploring new ideas, will most likely be extremely invigorating for this massive production company. As many people would agree, even the obscure Pixar films have enjoyable aspects to them, that feel unique and can make anyone feel like a kid again. There is something else that the Pixar fans of the world need to remember; just because there are no plans for sequels to existing films now, does not mean that we have seen the last of our favorite characters. This is even truer now with Pixar and Disney branching out into television, books, and video games.
“Finding Dory” is becoming a perfect example of the magic that Pixar continues to create. It has been 13 long years since we last saw Marlin, Nemo and Dory. These past 13 years have brought the film industry many technological advances in filmmaking and animation. Even with all these advances, this film still kept the same feel, visually and emotionally, that the original captivated audiences with back in 2003. If you have any bad feelings about Pixar’s decision, just think about how over a decade later Pixar was able to create a sequel that felt nostalgic and made audiences excited again.
To the children of the 1990’s and 2000’s, this decision feels like a part of our childhood is coming to an end. We grew up with characters like Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mike and Sully, Nemo, and the Incredibles. In a way, it kind of is the end of an era. But what this really should mean to us is that our future children will have a new cast of characters to follow and wear on their clothes and backpacks. And who knows, maybe we’ll see “A Bug’s Life 2” or “WALL-E 2” sometime down the road?
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