This past weekend I went with some friends from work to see Ratatouille, the new Pixar animated film. I really liked it! It was really cute, quite humorous, and generally well-put together. I think what makes Pixar films so successful (Toy Story, Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, etc.) is their phenomenal grasp of the story and the element of surprise, not necessarily the animation.
The relationship between Pixar and The Walt Disney Company is especially interesting - the creative synergies supposedly come from Pixar's computer animation and WDC's long tradition of showmanship, but I disagree. Recent Disney films have utterly failed in showmanship, some even lack reasonable semblences of story-telling.
For example, who actually went to see Home on the Range (2004)? Brother Bear (2003)? What about Treasure Planet (2002)? Even Lilo & Stitch was basically a failure in comparison to more recent blockbusters like The Lion King, Aladin, or The Little Mermaid and I haven't even touched on the original masterpieces like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, or Lady & the Tramp. Those are movies that US children experience as timeless classics.
The Walt Disney Company has not brought story-telling to Pixar; Pixar has reinvented story-telling, brought to you by The Walt Disney Company. But good story-telling is not an asset - you can't buy it, you can't trade it, and you can't force it. WDC acquired Pixar for its people and now must decide how best to integrate their own traditional animators (with a whole host of politics, grandfathering, and routine) with Pixar's celebrated experimental approach.
And there's the question - how do you integrate people? Cultures? Ideas? What does purchased innovation add to the creative process for an existing machine? Can you use an acquisition to get people excited without feeling threatened? I can make the balance sheet work, I can negotiate synergized shipping terms with global distributors, but how can I integrate the people making a fundamentally artistic product on which the entire business depends?
1 comment:
I liked Lilo & Stitch, but I didn't see it in theaters. It looked like it was going to be terrible. Maybe if I bothered to see Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, or Chicken Little, I would like those too, but the previews looked just awful. Maybe Disney needs better PR.
Pixar's real success is its storytelling, but you can't deny that its animation is simply better than any of the competitors'. I really liked Hoodwinked, but its characters lacked facial expressions.
Post a Comment