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What's the difference between current Pixar and current Disney films?


Back in the day, there was a huge difference between Pixar and everything else out there. Pixar dominated the market, its films were massive and stunning, whereas DreamWorks and everything else mostly had inferior animation, toilet humor, and an overabundance of pop culture jokes. DreamWorks stepped up their game with HTTYD, and Disney also emerged with their own line of new animated films.

But is there really much of a difference between new Pixar and new Disney? Disney seems to have animation that is just as good as Pixar, if not better, and their stories are all heartfelt and original. Pixar has been regressing a bit by churning out sequels.

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There isn't much of difference anymore. Both are run by John Lasseter. Disney Animation has benefited from the acquisition of Pixar's Braintrust. Pixar, on the other hand, seems to have lossed their spark after the buy out.

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The differance is that Disney now is better than Pixar, i hated Cars and Inside Out and The Good Dinisour. i loved Zootropolis, Frozen and Vayana

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'Vayana'?

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The European Title

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I agree. I don't know what happened to Pixar. Just look at Finding Dory and Moana, both of which came out this year. I feel like there is a huge technological advance in Disney movies lately (just look at the character design and details in Zootopia and Moana -- the HAIR!!!, they're way out of every other digital animation maker's league) but somehow Pixar missed it. Aren't they the same company now? Is it a budget issue?

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Well, in fairness, characters in 'Finding Dory' don't have hairs to begin with...

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Disney and Pixar still have their own studios with their own people so there are differences. Pixar has never and probably won't be doing a musical anytime soon. And as much as Disney has been succeeding lately, I've never seen then do anything as emotionally engaging as Up or Inside Out nor anything as bold as The Incredibles. I know a lot of people found Zootopia to be bold and original, but it's really neither of those things and has been rather overhyped. Disney is producing more hits overall, but the successes of Inside Out and Finding Dory prove that Pixar still has it too. Pixar has also already announced that they are getting off the sequel train soon and will be back to only original films for a good while. Regardless though, I don't believe in studio loyalty so I just want both of them and every other animation studio to just put out good films.

"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"

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@Tutu

Pixar will release it's first musical exactly a year from now..Coco.

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Oh, I didn't know Coco was going to be a musical so my mistake there. Well, let's see what Pixar can do with that then, I just hope for good films like I said above.

"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"

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Coco might end up being a musical, but that is highly unlikely at this point. There was a rumor sometime last year that it would be a musical, but that was never confirmed by anyone involved with the project as far as I know. They're currently animating the film and have all the proper people involved but haven't announced a composer or song writers. Composers can come much farther down the line in the production of a film, but if this were to be a musical they'd have a composer and song writers involved and announced already. You can't start animating a musical without the songs written.

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It's not going to be a musical.

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I find that Pixar is primarily focused on concepts and ideas throughout their movies whereas Disney primarily focuses on characters.

Wall-E is a perfect example of Pixar focusing on concepts rather than characters. Wall-E barely speaks and doesn't have the presence that, say, Elsa from Frozen does. Wall-E is such a tough concept to turn into an animated movie that only Pixar could make it work. Not surprisingly, kids find it boring because they don't yet have the maturity to appreciate it. The only way they could appreciate it is if they added a bunch of filler characters and events like they did with the Lorax (neither a Disney nor Pixar movie).

To continue with my point, sometimes protagonists in Pixar movies will take a backseat and defer to secondary characters that take over and drive the movies forward whereas the plots in Disney movies appear to be character-centric.

There are some exceptions, of course, such as Pixar's Brave which feels more like a Disney film if anything since its focus is primarily on Princess Merida. I guess the Incredibles might be a hybrid of a Disney and Pixar movie. Zootopia, as well, felt like a Disney and Pixar hybrid. Maybe even more like a Pixar movie than, say, Finding Dory.

Personally I like Pixar movies better because I like to explore and discuss ideas more than I do characters.

Of course, Pixar has also done some not-so-great movies, lately, like Cars 2 or Monsters U for example. But it shows they're going back to their roots with movies like Inside Out.

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On a tangent, what do you think of the cars three teaser?

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Looks interesting. Can't wait to see where they take that story cause from the looks of it, the emotional stakes are high.

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Pixar is on the decline, that's what's most obvious. I'll concede that INSIDE OUT was an exceptional return to form though.

The villainy you teach me I will execute-and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

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Inside Out was spectacular and really reminded me of why I love them in the first place. Finding Dory was pretty good, although not nearly as good as Finding Nemo. I could point out several flaws in the script for Finding Dory and I don't think I could do the same for Finding Nemo. I'm not a fan of the Cars films, especially Cars 2, but I'll say that the teaser they showed was certainly effective. I'm pretty excited for Coco. It seems like it has the potential to be another great film from them.

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I'll concede that INSIDE OUT was an exceptional return to form though.

It was (Together with Dory sequal) the only Pixar movie to come from one of their regular directors: Stanton/ Docter/ Bird.

I personally don't like Lasseter that much.

Brave, Monster University and The Good Dinosaur all came from directors who haven't previously made a Pixar movie.

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Furthermore, 'Brave' and 'The Good Dinosaur' went through some really bad production troubles.

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