The official 83rd Academy Awards Nomination and Predictions Thread (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Malcolm R




It's odd that you are able to see the deeper themes in How to Train Your Dragon, but don't see them in Toy Story 3.

Agreed. To dismiss the themes of "TS3" as "toys freaking out" misses the point. There's nothing in "Dragon" remotely as moving as the scene in which the toys face their ultimate fate.


Those "deep themes" in "Dragon" look like the same old same old to me - or is the misfit who makes good somehow new?

 

[Adam_S]

Originally Posted by Russell G
Cars 2 looks like a giant mistake to me. The first one was terrible and a huge miss step by Pixar.

Cars is the film that really gave Pixar Carte Blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted with Ratatouille, Up, Wall E etc.

And that's because Cars is the biggest merchandising behemoth since Star Wars, Bringing in hundreds of millions a year.


A sequel is absolutely necessary to keep that merchandising cash cow chug chugging away.


Cars Land at California Adventure is going to be spectacular, and supercharge the popularity of the Disneyland/CA Adv complex.


I would not be surprised at a Shrek 2 level opening for Cars 2.

 

[mattCR]

I actually enjoy Cars. It is far from their best film, but as a kid who grew up near Route 66 in Rural Kansas, wow did it seem familiar. And as I was somewhat "meh" my youngest son devoured the toys and the items - race cars are always popular, and so a movie about them hit that group hard, and yes, the toys for Cars were a lot more popular then anything else. Kids weren't rushing out to get toys of Wall-E for example. I can live with a Cars2.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I agree with Adam. Cars 2 is going to be huge. Cars might not be their best film, but it is a hell of a lot better than most movies, animated or otherwise.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Chuck Mayer

Cars 2 is going to be huge.

Definitely. It's going to be a hit no matter what but kids are going to go absolutely crazy for the sequel if it is more exciting and action oriented.

 

[Tino]

Although I love Toy Story 3, I give the slight edge to How To Train Your Dragon.


I just plain enjoyed it more.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Judging from the back page of the new issue of Lego Club magazine, there's going to be a regular Lego (as opposed to Duplo) product line for Cars 2. That could be awesome. (Mega Bloks used to have the license, but Lego started putting out Duplo Cars sets last year.)


Adam_S, good point about the financial freedom that Cars gave Pixar. Of course, IMO it's an incredibly underrated movie (especially by Russell!).

 

[Hanson]

Cars was the last Pixar film I really enjoyed. Cars is sort of like the Annie Hall of Pixar -- the films that followed aspired to be more highbrow and less comedic, but I prefer my Woody Allen funny (note that this analogy isn't perfect, as I do love Manhattan and Stardust Memories).

Overall, I didn't enjoy any of the animated films from last year. Despicable Me and Rapunzel both left me cold as well.

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman


Adam_S, good point about the financial freedom that Cars gave Pixar. Of course, IMO it's an incredibly underrated movie (especially by Russell!).

You mean my referring elsewhere to "Cars" as "Maximum Overdrive Part Two, as written by idiots" wasn't suitable praise?


Sorry, but I don't care how much of a merchandising cash cow a film is, rubbish is rubbish, and Cars was lacking in everything that Pixar does well (genuine story telling). I mean, a one legged homeless prostitute can get rich if she spreads her stump open enough times, it doesn't mean the experience is any good. And that's what "Cars" is to me, a whore-ish, unimaginative property. It's the only Pixar film I don't own.

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo Cars is sort of like the Annie Hall of Pixar

Sorry too, I'm not here to bash Cars, honestly I'm not, but this really confuses me. Isn't "Annie Hall" considered the first step to "Sophisticated Woody" in comparison to the broader comedy of "Sleeper" and Bananas"? I can understand people being entertained by "Cars" (there is stranger things in the world... ) but it's hardly a sophisticated step up in Pixar story telling. It plays more like an idiotic cash in to the NASCAR craze that Lassater was so vocally hard for at the time. The story doesn't make sense, which is not a typical Pixar trait, and the world the story takes place in makes even less sense then the ridiculous nonsense story (the cars can't possibly take care of themselves!) I have NEVER had a problem suspending disbelief with a Pixar film, except for "Cars" where the entire premise is so stupid that from the opening frames I'm out of the film, never to get wrestled back in.


So I guess having said all that, how do you get the "Annie Hall" comparison when that film is one where Woody Allen went for a more natural dramatic comedy as opposed to the broader (but still smart) ones he was more known for previously?

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I loved Tangled, HTTYD, and Toy Story 3 in three very distinct ways. Which is how movies should be. Having them compete against one another because they are "animated" in a bit absurd. Tangled was incredible in a visual sense, and I can look at Glen Keane animation forever. Toy Story 3 built upon a very impressive foundation, while bringing consistent laughs (Pixar seems to be the only studio capable finding the value in Michael Keaton - who was great in Cars and TS3) and genuine emotional depth. How to Train Your Dragon was easily Dreamworks best effort to date. Kung Fu Panda showed they could compete with Pixar, both in animation and story, and HTTYD was their first film that was actually better in some ways than many Pixar films. It had an incredible score by Powell, and it combined the old "boy and his pet" and misunderstood cultures genres very effectively.


I viscerally enjoyed HTTYD more than the other two, but I thought TS3 was a better movie. It wasn't as crowd-pleasing as HTTYD, though.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Maybe Cars is Pixar's Manhattan -- their most stunning visual achievement.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Originally Posted by Russell G

The story doesn't make sense, which is not a typical Pixar trait, and the world the story takes place in makes even less sense then the ridiculous nonsense story (the cars can't possibly take care of themselves!) I have NEVER had a problem suspending disbelief with a Pixar film, except for "Cars" where the entire premise is so stupid that from the opening frames I'm out of the film, never to get wrestled back in.

But you were OK with a reality-based world where a rat was an intelligent gourmand and could control a human by pulling his hair, or where a house could fly to Brazil using children's balloons (not to mention dogs flying fighter planes)?

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman


But you were OK with a reality-based world where an intelligent rat could control a human by pulling his hair, or where a house could fly to Brazil using children's balloons (not to mention dogs flying fighter planes)?

Yes, because in those fantasy based worlds, Ratatouille it was established that the mouse had human characteristics, and yeah, the hair pulling bit was a bit much (I did shake my head at it), but not so far out of the world already established in the opening to blow the movie. Same with Up, with steam punk zepplins and talking dogs, a floating house isn't that far out again, in the world established within the film. The worlds are close to our own so we recognize them, but with a fantasy twist. Most movies (fantasy or not) pull some crap that make you go "what the hell?" so you can forgive a few and still enjoy them.


Cars though, the world is run by these cars, there are no humans in sight, and none of it would work since the "world" of cars is still significantly like our own! They have no hands, they can literally not look after themselves. so you give them the caveat that they have psychic powers that allows them to change their tires with the power of thought, and refine oil, build stadiums (it's already a bit much to forgive at this point...). Fine, but then then opening shot of the stadium shows an impossible situation. It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for any of those cars in the spectator seats to get where they are. It's a logistical, parking impossibility since while we are to pretend theyhave psychic powers allowing them to rebuild them selves, the cars in "Cars" CAN NOT FLY. But fine you let that go... and that's the problem with "Cars". Story wise, it's so piss poorly thought out that you're constantly having to brush aside things that could be chalked up to "lazy bullshit writing to serve a story that makes so little sense this film shouldn't have been made at this stage".


And that's my problem with Cars, everything about it betrays the film. I'm fine with fantasy, love fantasy, but the film has to make sense within the world it was created. A clever "Cars" film would of created a world where these characters could actually interact in. As it stands, it's simply lazy story telling. I mean, the main criticism of "Avatar" is how lazy and common the story is, but at least Cameron created a proper world to tell that story on, and it made sense within the film despite being overly familiar. "Cars", not by a long shot.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Um, they didn't bother trying to come up with explanations for how the cars in Cars refine oil or build stadiums because NONE OF THAT WOULD BE RELEVANT TO THE STORY! (The hair-pulling, on the other hand, was integral to its story, and the single worst idea in the history of Pixar. How is that "not so far out" of the established world? The established world is a real city with normal human characters!)


I would argue that the absurdities in Ratatouille and Up are *harder* to swallow because they're inserted into worlds that are otherwise "close to our own." They create inconsistencies. Cars is simply a world where the people are vehicles. You don't have to reconcile it with anything in the real world.

 

[mattCR]

We're drifting way off the Oscars. I don't recall walking out of Avatar and saying "Floating mountains, how stupid, even if magnetically suspended they'd be unstable and just flip around... and water would never make a waterfall from them, because where would it originate?"

And I don't recall saying "how the heck can Mary Poppins dance with Penguins? Penguins aren't anywhere near England, and they certainly couldn't build a Merry-Go-Round", and I really didn't put that much effort into "spells are ridiculous" which would trumpcard most myths.



As to the Oscars, I stand by my thought: Backup the money truck to Billy Crystal or pay off Neil Patrick Harris. Just don't make us suffer through this again