Selling Out
By Tom Macy
June 18, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
They come from a superior culture, a Utopian world. They traveled across time and space to make first contact and they have done so by bestowing us with a generous gift. A gift that demonstrates their ultimate wisdom in a manner that is easy for our lesser minds to comprehend. They have been living among us clandestinely. But upon revealing their latest masterwork, the truth is now clear and undeniable. The people that work at Pixar are all aliens.
Well, you tell me, then, because I can't find any other way to explain it. Anyone can make one great film. And on very rare occasion they can make a great sequel, too. But every piece of celluloid Pixar touches turns to pure gold. It's just not human. At first I saw them as a great success story. I was a huge fan of Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. But then Pixar took it up a notch with The Incredibles. The chase on the lake blew my face clean off, Raiders style, and I started getting suspicious. Next was Ratatouille, a cooking rat, surely at least small step back. Wrong. When the criminally Oscar-free Peter O'Toole gave his review at the end, again, my face melted at the sheen of its brilliance (also reminiscent of Raiders). The following year with WALL-E, my jaw fell off five minutes in. Like clockwork - Pixar movie, broken face. These movies are too good. Something is not right.
This year, I almost didn't want to see Up. Honestly. I knew their hot streak had to end sometime and I didn't want to experience the disappointment of realizing that Pixar is human. The bar they had set for themselves had grown so high you'd need a house tethered by thousands of balloons to even see it. With my expectation meter, aka the movie destroyer, reading off the charts, it seemed inevitable that Up would miss the mark.
I went on opening day, trying to get in before any positive word-of-mouth could reach me. I did, however, make the mistake of seeing its RottenTomatoes score, a ridiculous 98%. Excluding Cars, the lone Pixar outcast that still came in at 75%, every Pixar movie is rated above 90%. And other than A Bug's Life (91%) all eight remaining Pixar films are rated 95% or higher. Jim Caviezel! About to buckle under the crushing weight of expectancy, I settled into my seat and put my 3-D glasses on over my hockey mask (this time I came prepared). Of course, they couldn't just start the movie and get the disappointment over with. First there has to be a short. A wonderful, hilarious, beautiful, touching short, in Partly Cloudy. Seriously, Pixar?
Finally, things got underway. I'll just cut to the chase. All I have to say is, welcome to Earth, Pixar. Please stay. Walking out of the theater I felt like Pixar had reached inside my chest and touched my soul. (Ouuuuch.) Not just touched, but tickled, strangled and cuddled. I don't keep track of how quickly a film makes me cry, because, you know, that would be weird. But if I did have a habit as bizarre as cataloging the minutes of my emotions, Pixar would have set new record.
In the weeks since then, I have been grappling with the reality of Pixar's extended display of genius. Really, how is one to make sense of it all? The thing that I keep coming back to is that filmmaking, to an extent, is a game of chance. It's not about talent and money. The summer movie season proves that on a weekly basis. What makes a good film is often the result of intangibles. There's no concrete formula. True, Hollywood would probably just ignore it if there was. They'd stick with their formulaic-genre-film-formula - but that's beside the point. To make a great film, there are so many elements that have to blend in just the right way. Sometimes they do and you get The Lord of the Rings and sometimes they don't and you get King Kong. For the most part, it's out of your control - unless you cast Mark Wahlberg, and that's your own darned fault.
So given this, how is it possible that one company gets everything so right, every time? These movies aren't just good, they're grrrrrrreat! Trying to put this run into context and doing my best to come up with an answer that didn't involve extraterrestrials, I thought back through the roughly 125 year history of cinema for other examples of prolonged mastery. But what I found did nothing to refute my suspicions that Pixar is of another world. Quite the opposite.
Let's geek out and go through some of them shall we?
You have Buster Keaton, who made seven undisputedly great, and still hilarious, silent comedies from 1923-1928. If you've been apprehensive of silent films in the past, Keaton is a perfect place to start. Don't let the absence of words scare you. Buster doesn't need them. But the probability of Buster being an alien is strong. What he puts himself through in his movies looks way more than any human could endure. Perhaps he was a scout they sent to get the lay of the land before the rest arrived.
Another example is writer director Preston Sturges, who batted 1.000 from 1941-1944 when he made five classic screwball comedies that, like Keaton, hold up remarkably well. But curiously, the rest of his work doesn't quite meet the same standard. Maybe they did one of those Men in Black switcharoo things where the alien wears the person's skin like a suit. Excuse me, has anyone seen my cat?
You could also include Hitchcock, who rattled off Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds in quick succession between 1958-1963, but his hopes of achieving alien status were dashed when Marnie came out.
Of course, Spielberg changed the course of cinema by introducing the blockbuster with Jaws. But let's face it, with Close Encounters, ET, War of the Worlds and the random-ass ending to AI, who doesn't think he's an alien?
Then finally, there's Tom Hanks. From 1992, beginning with A League of their Own, to 2000 with Cast Away, Hanks went on an unparalleled hot streak that spanned several genres, won two Oscars, had 11 $100 million earners, and, drumroll...Pixar's first feature film, Toy Story. Coincidence? I don't think so.
But let's hold off on that for a second. These examples are all individuals. Pixar is an entire company, right? I thought that myself and decided to do some digging. What's another revolutionary company that has demonstrated overall excellence in recent decades? One whose products are consistently superior to its competitors? Look around - the answer is right in front you. That's right, Apple Computer. (I realize that many of you are using a computer other than Apple. My question to you is, why?) Think about it, Apple has singlehandedly changed the way we communicate. They're always two steps ahead of every other electronic developer on the planet. It's almost as if their technology were...alien. So, who's the founder of Apple Computer? Steve Jobs. Who's one of the CEOs of Pixar? Steve. Freaking. Jobs.
That's right. Steve Jobs is an alien who has come to earth with the purpose of enriching our culture with products unparalleled in quality and aesthetics.
But that's not the whole story. This tale doesn't wrap up in a nice little bow. It has a dark side. Disney.
The most obvious comparison to Pixar's current display is Disney's Golden Age of cinema. From 1937-1942, Disney released Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. Their feature length cell animated films were equally as revolutionary as Pixar's digitally animated films and, like Pixar, were like nothing audiences had ever seen. Given these facts, it's clear that Walt Disney is an alien and the Disney Corporation in indeed of another world. Conveniently, this puts Disney at the right time and place to wear Preston Sturges skin, obviously an abandoned experiment.
But what happened after 1942? Why did Disney not continue to bestow our civilization with their excellence and go on make Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time instead? Answer? They had a corrupt leader. Walt Disney went rogue. Here's how it all went down. Pearl Harbor occurred a month and a half after Dumbo was released. At this point, Disney was working on Bambi, the last film in of the Golden Age and Walt was still upstanding. But once the US entered World War II, Walt saw how recklessly self-destructive Earth creatures are. He realized that with his higher intellect, he could outsmart us and gain control of our planet. From this point on Walt Disney was hell bent on world domination. Incidentally, this change in attitude is probably is the reason for Bambi's mother's fate.
Now using his alien powers for evil, Disney slowly began to tighten his grip on our planet over the ensuing decades as he implemented his master plan. Smartly, Disney's strategy was to take aim at the youth, knowing one day they would run things. To accomplish this, he constructed the ultimate battle station - a mighty fortress that sent out a massive tractor beam whose signal stretched over the entire world, drawing people through its doors where they were brainwashed and converted into Disney loyalists. Perhaps you've heard of this dark place. Maybe you've even been there. Yes, Disneyland is Walt Disney's Death Star. When all the groundwork was in place, Disney was "cryogenically frozen" so he could preserve his strength. He left control of the company to his Brother to carry out all the conversions. When the planet was ripe for conquering, Walt Disney would be awakened and assume his position as Dictator of...Disney World (very original).
All went according to plan as Disney took root by land - the stronghold in Orlando, sea - Disney cruise lines, and air - the male-entrancing brainwaves emitted by ESPN. But what Disney did not foresee was the arrival of Jobs, the Keanu Reeves of this story. Jobs came to Earth and immediately purchased Pixar in 1986 when it was is in its infancy as a small branch of Lucasfilm. Most likely they intended to use the company's unique powers for evil (one day I'll explain to you why George Lucas is Darth Vader). Utilizing Pixar's budding technology combined with his advanced alien knowledge of character development and narrative structure, Jobs showed Pixar how to maximize their efforts to develop films that would thwart Disney's plan for a world takeover that was going to begin with another wave of "golden age films," starting with The Little Mermaid. Jobs enlisted Tom Hanks, a relatively unknown actor. In exchange for being the voice of the lead character in their first film, Hanks was anointed with the ability to be endlessly appealing to audiences despite being not particularly attractive. Parenthetically, Jobs also doled Hanks out to his alien buddy Spielberg here and there. By the time Pixar was ready to launch their first offensive with Toy Story over ten years later, Pixar had a well known, unthreatening movie star introduce them to the world. Naturally this was the most gentle approach.
Fast forward to today. Thus far, the plan has worked. Pixar has successfully infiltrated the Disney Corporation and is a growing presence as well as a powerful influence. Since they now account for a significant portion of Disney's revenue, Pixar cannot be ignored. Some major battles have been won, the most substantial being the death of straight-to-DVD-sequels. And a major turning point could be on the horizon. On December 11th of this year, Disney will release The Princess and the Frog, the first 2-D cell animation film since Disney purchased Pixar. The deal was a Pixar tactic to get deeper inside Disney's infrastructure. The film will evoke Disney's hallowed golden age, now over 70 years ago, when Walt Disney first gave the world the gift of feature length animated film. If Frog is successful, it could mean Pixar has finally turned the tide and reinstated Disney as a force for good in the cinematic Universe. But until that day comes, they will remain at war. Pixar and Disney. The Autobots and the Decepticons. Robert De Niro's dignity and Robert De Niro.
Sooooo, that's my theory of why Up was so good and I defy you to come up with a better one.
On a side note, this whole thing might not make a bad movie in its own right. This summer things are going to get a little...animated. Get me Brett Ratner!