[HN Gopher] Pixar in a Box: the art of storytelling
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Pixar in a Box: the art of storytelling
Author : aminozuur
Score : 196 points
Date : 2021-02-17 08:21 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.khanacademy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.khanacademy.org)
| andygcook wrote:
| For anyone looking for a deeper dive into how Pixar iterates on
| their movies and how highly-functioning creative teams can work
| in general, Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull is a really
| interesting book.
|
| It goes into the history of Pixar and some of the detail of how
| they work with actual stories from the movies they've made. One
| of my favorite anecdotes from the book is how they nearly almost
| lost all the work they did on Toy Story 2 and almost went under.
|
| One caveat is that the book doesn't cover the news about John
| Lasseter's misconduct, so it's not all roses, of course.
| superbcarrot wrote:
| What people don't realise about Pixar is how much iteration goes
| into their stories - they're very comfortable with taking _some_
| idea and working on it from different angles until it 's good.
| And there's a process there that can be taught. I think that's
| contrary to the way some people imagine storytelling - it's
| almost never the case that some creative person has a brilliant
| story come out perfect in the first draft. Storytelling requires
| creativity but it isn't magic. You can also see the lack of this
| process in so so many films - George Lucas famously drafted out
| the Star Wars prequels under pressure, no one had the nerve to
| challenge him and they just ran with the his early drafts every
| time. Those drafts should have been a starting point, not the end
| product. And you can say this for many films that come out -
| there are good ideas somewhere in them, they just had to work on
| the story a bit more and that's often at odds with studio
| pressures, release date deadlines etc.
|
| This course looks lovely. It's great for KA to have this kind of
| material and not just calculus tutorials (as much as I personally
| appreciated the calculus).
| onion2k wrote:
| Pixar does this iteration using a technique called "plussing".
| When you see someone's work you accept it _regardless of
| whether you think it 's good_. You're encouraged to do what you
| can to make your colleagues look good. Work is always a
| starting point for the next iteration. When you do need to be
| critical of something you should always add something about how
| to make it better.
|
| There's a good video on YT about it -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8
| NortySpock wrote:
| Sounds similar to the improv skit mantra of "Yes, and...",
| where any improvisation ("and then I found the cat on the
| shelf!") must be accepted and built on.
|
| (e.g. "Oh BooBoo, how did you get on the shelf you silly
| cat?")
|
| If an actor instead said "No, the cat wasn't on the shelf,
| the cat wasn't even in the room" the skit ends awkwardly.
| whatshisface wrote:
| "Yes, and next let's change everything."
| lostsoul8282 wrote:
| This single comment sent me on a hour long search of Randy
| Nelson and the interesting world of story telling from
| writters at pixar and disney.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| This skill, or at least the ability to consider pulsing, is
| so valuable. A lot of things in life are not good. Even more
| are just okay. Very few are good and almost none are perfect
| or great.
|
| Having the ability to be in a situation or see something that
| is just okay and go, "Okay well it's not perfect but that is
| okay. Can I make it a little better?" is really helpful. It
| also makes life a lot less frustrating.
| jtr1 wrote:
| Agreed. I'd almost go so far as to say that it's an
| essential tool for aggregating intelligence. Sifting for
| and refining ideas just strikes me as so much more
| efficient than attacking and defending them.
| bennysonething wrote:
| Yep, it's pretty much the key to be able to work with
| people
| kinghtown wrote:
| I feel that Pixar's mastery of storytelling is overrated. Coco
| was lovely but I find their movies to be needlessly sad and
| curiously episodic in form. In "UP", each sequence was very
| well crafted but they fit together randomly as though each
| scene was brainstormed by a group.
|
| They lack a singular vision in their films, there are no
| auteurs at Pixar: just art by committee. This isn't to say that
| their stories are bad, though they are sometimes lukewarm.
| Except for the Pixar level of excellence in the visuals and
| animation, which to be clear are admirable on their own, I feel
| that their movies lack identity. I wouldn't want their model to
| become adopted by everyone.
|
| They love and study Miyazaki but don't seem to trust any one
| person to direct a film. Everything must be put through a
| committee.
|
| I would very much prefer a CG animation course by them. Or a
| full overview of their pipeline, asset management, USD
| implementation. Their technical chops are probably best in the
| world.
|
| Maybe they could do something like release a public version of
| Presto. Or help out with animation and rigging code with the
| blender foundation.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Yeah, it's worth pointing out that ditching the auteur for
| storytelling by committee is a choice, and often a commercial
| one.
|
| You can write a lot of good stories that way, but you'll
| never produce, say, _Aguirre_.
|
| A heavily structural approach is also better suited to
| teaching in a video series. Much easier to teach craft than
| vision.
| kinghtown wrote:
| I agree about Aguirre and I'm glad you mention that because
| you very quickly got to the core issue I have with Pixar.
| They have "mastered" crowd pleasers which are marketable to
| any age group. That's fine- but artistic vision is also so
| crucial. It's the reason they look up to Miyazaki in the
| first place.
| mkl wrote:
| I think The Incredibles has singular vision. I get what you
| are talking about though.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Hmm, no I disagree strongly. I quite like Pixar's stories. In
| particular I appreciate how differently they come off to
| adults vs. children in ways that feel meaningful to both. As
| a kid, I completely missed what were obviously concerns of
| Mr. Incredible's infidelity. In the emotions one, kids see
| the obvious narrative that the emotions control the child,
| whereas adults are likely to see the emotions as a metaphor
| for feelings and growth rather than zany cartoon accidents.
|
| Up's primary theme was the importance of letting go of the
| past to focus on the future. Soul was that you don't have a
| divinely foretold purpose in life other than living your best
| life. Inside out was about recognizing the importance of
| negative emotions- and that while joy is good, sadness is not
| bad. A lot of these are heavier and more mature than you'll
| find in a randomly chosen piece of fiction intended for
| adults, but I wouldn't say they're sad so much as thought
| provoking.
|
| Some of it is really bleak. I mean, a fair bit of soul is a
| guy realizing he wasted his life, and then died right before
| doing the thing he thought would give his life meaning. But
| like... Grappling with that feels like a really meaningful
| conversation to have.
|
| edit: although I don't feel as strongly for their sequels. To
| some extent I find they phone some of them in...
| vlunkr wrote:
| This is how I've felt about Disney and Pixar for a long
| time. As a kid, I liked them for action, adventure and
| comedy. But as an adult I like them for the animation,
| storytelling, and good emotional/moral lessons on top of
| everything else. As a parent who sees lots of content for
| kids, it's not easy to find things that legitimately appeal
| to multiple age groups like that.
| kinghtown wrote:
| I like Pixar a lot. But maybe it's just a matter of
| personal taste.
|
| Letting go is a unifying theme in Up but my problem with
| the movie isn't that it's bad but that you had a table of
| all the guys at Pixar spitballing scene ideas and then
| glueing them all together. The result just feels episodic,
| in a bad way, and commercially manufactured. Up is a really
| good movie but I don't want every CG film to have the Pixar
| preproduction process. (And I still think they are a bit
| overrated and that the technical side of their creative
| teams are doing most of the heavy lifting.)
| sdenton4 wrote:
| 'Up' is one of the best films of all time, followed by an
| additional hour and twenty minutes of pretty-decent
| movie.
| kop316 wrote:
| Recently I have been watching a bunch of pixar movies that
| have been blockbusters, but I really haven't seen before. I
| like their themes and story telling, but something that
| bothers me for their major pictures is it feels like they
| all follow a very similar overall narrative:
|
| - some sort of "buddy" movie
|
| - some sort of "we only have x amount of time to solve our
| crisis we got into"
|
| - the two buddies have some sort of big fight
|
| - the two buddies make up
|
| - stronger than ever, they overcome this crisis right just
| before the buzzer.
|
| Maybe its because they don't do it in their shorts (or its
| because they can explore ideas more), but I think their
| shorts they have are really some of their best story
| telling.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Tropey story beats do get a bit tiresome, but they're
| there because they work. Fiction that flaunts defying
| these tropes tends to be pretty great, but its still
| rare, and probably doesn't feel very good unless the
| viewer is already tired of the original.
|
| Buddies fight and, having acknowledged their primary
| character fault, reconcile, is one that is everywhere in
| children's fiction. I also find it boring.
| pitt1980 wrote:
| fwiw, 'Storytelling' is just one node of the larger 'Pixar in
| a Box' offering from Khan Academy.
|
| Most of the other nodes are more technical in nature. Might
| be closer to what you were hoping to find.
|
| https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/pixar
| kinghtown wrote:
| Thank you for that. I wasn't aware they went into their
| production pipeline on this course. I will definitely be
| checking it out!
| clairity wrote:
| > "I feel that Pixar's mastery of storytelling is overrated."
|
| me too. _the incredibles_ was pixar 's high point of
| storytelling imho. of the first six films, i liked the toy
| stories the least. _a bug 's life_, _monsters, inc._ ,
| _finding nemo_ to _the incredibles_ was like a crescendo of
| animation, reaching a satisfying zenith of art. _cars_ ,
| which came next, was ok (but unoriginal for storytelling, the
| characters were mostly great!), but then _ratatouille_
| through _inside out_ were all groping for relevance while
| nakedly harvesting their reputation. of the last 8 movies,
| only _coco_ has been worth watching so far (i haven 't seen
| _the good dinosaur_ or _soul_ yet). so perhaps a quarter of
| their 23 films have been good enough to watch again for me;
| contrast that with the studio ghibli collection, nearly all
| of which are imminently re-watchable ( _spirited away_ is an
| absolute masterpiece).
| Fricken wrote:
| Storytelling is frequently done as a collaborative process.
| Spielberg famously likes to take his screenplays through 14
| drafts and meticulously drafted storyboards put together by a
| creative team. Large television shows are written by rooms
| full of writers, and on reality television shows a big chunk
| of the writing happens in the editing room, often with a
| committee in the editing room picking at and debating every
| little detail before a final cut is produced.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Interesting; I feel it depends on the movie - they have a
| large portfolio now so some sort of averaging is inevitable.
|
| I feel e.g. Cars franchise has limited vision. They're
| "allright", but not spectacular. I'm OK never seeing any of
| them again, even the first one.
|
| On the other hand, I find Monsters Inc. a unique movie with a
| unique premise, and I can rewatch it regularly - with or
| without the kids 0:-). I also don't find it particularly sad.
| Inside out does indeed have a large dose of melancholy, but
| again I feel is a unique idea taken quite far without
| dilution.
|
| (there are absolutely movies that are way more avant garde or
| quirky or surreal or even "creative" inasmuch as that can be
| objectively compared - but Pixar has two distinct audiences
| to cater to and they HAVE to be entertaining and attention-
| occupying to children; while inserting content that also
| keeps adults interested and even thoughtful - that's a
| specific set of constraints that e.g. "Love Death + Robots"
| does not have)
|
| And if we look at their entire portfolio, the Pixar Shorts
| again have some absolutely brilliant, touching, "single idea
| executed to perfection" entries.
| kinghtown wrote:
| Around the time of Wall-E and The Incredibles, I was very
| much a fan of their work and felt like they could do no
| wrong. Now I'm not so sure- I did love Coco but they have
| been absorbed by Disney at this point and are satisfying
| investors. Also, I find the low key arrogance about having
| mastered storytelling more than a little obnoxious. You can
| see a bit of this in Andrew Stanton's Ted talk.
|
| Before they sold to Disney, they were going to start making
| more mature films alongside their children's entertainment.
| I was very curious about Ray Gunn. I think if Disney wanted
| it then Pixar could definitely make an incredibly
| compelling animated movie with mature themes. I mostly find
| myself disappointed with them these days.
|
| (I find whenever I bring this up online quite a few people
| come at me with this idea that they are making mature
| films, and that the line between children's entertainment
| and adult is imaginary, as though most kids could sit
| through something like The Rules of the Game or Tokyo
| Story.)
|
| But to be clear, I'm still mostly a fan of their work but
| mostly for their technical mastery.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| You have to remember that as pixar got bigger, more people
| had a say in the story.
|
| The original pitch might have been absolutely groundbreaking,
| but for what ever reason one of the producers didn't like a
| character, and pushed for it to change.
|
| All movies are a collaboration. there is no such thing a
| single "author" on a movie, its always team work. Sometimes
| that team is aligned to the same vision, other times not, and
| a compromise has to be hashed out.
|
| > Their technical chops are probably best in the world.
|
| They were ground breaking, but up until recently they
| insisted on making their own version of everything. This was
| fine in the early 90s when there was no other option. But now
| there are better tools out there. Thats not to say that all
| their tools suck, far from it.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > they're very comfortable with taking some idea and working on
| it from different angles until it's good.
|
| Except when their stories end up not being very good at all.
| There's a lot of variability in what they produce, to be
| honest, so I am not sure if their "process" is a robust as they
| would like us to believe.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| I can't think of any original Pixar stories that were "not
| good at all". Brave is probably the only one I might put
| close to that category. Which ones would you include?
|
| Edit: Added "original"; some of the sequels are not great
| ekianjo wrote:
| Toy Story has been on a very slid downhill after the second
| episode. 3 and 4 were both unnecessary and not very good.
| The same can be said for the Cars sequels, and the more
| recent Pixar productions in general - they had much better
| ideas in the very first years.
| EricE wrote:
| Look at Pixar before and after John Lasseter.
| samzer wrote:
| I guess it's subjective. I found brave quite decent and
| there were some moving moments.
|
| Worst for me would be Cars 2 and in the context of general
| films, it's still okay.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > Worst for me would be Cars 2
|
| TBH I keep forgetting that movie exists. It was such a
| weird moment for them.
| kop316 wrote:
| I may have to rewatch it, but I recall that movie being
| fairly entertaining, even as an adult.
|
| I also will say I went to watch it without having seen
| the original Cars, so perhaps I really had no
| expectations for the film (other than it was a Pixar
| film)?
| jedimastert wrote:
| I've not had any interest in it, so I haven't really say
| through it.
|
| The weird thing is that Cars has this emotional center
| around facades and regret and abandonment and the
| differences between the journey and the destination and
| it's this beautiful look into a town that got bypassed.
| And more to the point it has this emotional weight that
| was still really accessible to a young me that a lot of
| other kids studios didn't really trust kids with (except
| for like Miyazaki films and stuff).
|
| And then Cars 2 was a mistaken-identity spy movie a la
| Johnny English or Get Smart. I don't doubt it was an
| entertaining movie or something, but it felt so outside
| the Pixar brand, like something Disney or Dreamworks or
| any other studio would make.
|
| It was also the first sequel outside of the Toy Story
| series, from a studio that somewhat famously refused to
| do sequels if the world didn't have more story to tell.
|
| Like I said, it was just such a weird departure to do
| seemingly do a sequel just because the world was popular
| enough.
| kop316 wrote:
| > but it felt so outside the Pixar brand, like something
| Disney or Dreamworks or any other studio would make.
|
| Maybe that's why they wanted to do it, to try something
| different?
|
| I have always found the Pixar Shorts to be some of their
| best story telling. They don't have a lot of time, and
| don't seem to be afraid of trying new ways to tell a
| story, or a different type of story.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| This is exactly why I edited my comment and added
| "original" - the Cars sequels are definitely below par.
| mkl wrote:
| I also think most of their originals are good. I thought
| The Good Dinosaur was awful though, and can't understand
| how it could have come out of this kind of long process of
| iterative refinement.
| rocmcd wrote:
| I don't think The Good Dinosaur was a very good
| "children's movie" in the typical sense, but I'd
| recommend taking a second look at it if you haven't
| recently. I watched it again after seeing it when it
| first came out, and I found it to be a pretty good movie
| - even if it doesn't fit the typical kids movie mold.
|
| It's ironic because The Good Dinosaur would be a good
| example of them taking a bet on a somewhat unique vision
| (a dinosaur spaghetti western?) with a more mature
| outlook, and then getting shit on by reviewers because it
| wasn't as funny or charming as Inside Out.
| RobertKerans wrote:
| Maybe studio just got caught up in it, lost objectivity?
| Or they just hit a point of no return and hey, it's a
| Pixar film, it's not going to lose money even if it's
| _very_ average, is just a possible hit to reputation. It
| 's just not a great subject or story, but I bet the
| initial tests they did for it looked _fantastic_.
| Everyone loves dinosaurs, right? And story is dead simple
| to understand (too simple? There 's nothing there imo),
| so probably an easy sell at first. Once committed, past a
| certain point just need to finish it because sunk cost,
| can iterate and refine a turd forever and it'll still be
| a turd.
| wrongdonf wrote:
| I have watched every single video in this series. To be honest,
| it was a disappointment. There are a few cool videos, but most of
| it is very surface level. You won't get any deep or thorough
| insights into what makes good characters, stories etc. I would
| suggest you pick up some books on story telling and the rest will
| do itself, if you are a programmer.
| philips wrote:
| any book recommendations?
| fbcx wrote:
| Story by Robert McKee seems to be the classic. The Story Grid
| by Shawn Coyne looks promising as well, though I haven't
| finished it yet.
| [deleted]
| jerome-jh wrote:
| I suppose "art" is meant as "technique" here. Modern large
| productions are so standardized today it is not an uncommon
| feeling one is watching the same movie ever end ever. I think the
| last Pixar movie that was worth is "Up" (OK I have not seen them
| all).
|
| My main grief is that surprise is only obtained with a
| combination of visual effects, fast rhythm and loud sounds, and
| no more with the story. Relationships between characters is deja-
| vu, so many times a conflicting parent/children relationship,
| where the parent is reflective but wrong and the child impulsive
| but right and they end up reconciling and admitting they were
| both partly right in the end. In "Soul" they play a bit with this
| pattern although I would hardly call this creativity.
|
| And finally many animation movies are also shameless green
| washing (here thinking of Wolfwalkers). Remember the critical
| tone of Wall-E?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > My main grief is that surprise is only obtained with a
| combination of visual effects, fast rhythm and loud sounds
|
| It would be interesting to see a Pixar take on Stalker, a
| famously slow film, discussed just recently [0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26126004
| jerome-jh wrote:
| > Stalker
|
| Sounds like I'll have to watch it ... someday. With young
| kids you are pretty much limited in terms of what can be
| watched. Maybe one of the reason I am so angry about american
| animation I find so shallow ;)
| inanutshellus wrote:
| So wait, what're these non-US-made, deep, family-friendly
| films of which you speak?
| jerome-jh wrote:
| One I saw recently with kids is japanese anime "Okko's
| Inn" (see above).
| philmcc wrote:
| I would be curious to see your list of movies, primarily aimed
| at children, where there are two protagonists who disagree in
| the beginning and don't end up reconciling in the end.
|
| ("Up", which you cited as the last Pixar movie that was 'worth
| it', is in fact largely a conflicted parent/child relationship)
|
| It reads as if what causes you 'grief' is actually the intended
| format of the content you are consuming. Yes, it's nice that
| Wall-E had a layer of critique of rampant consumerism (among
| other things), but it also had a joke about an unkillable roach
| too.
|
| My hunch is that the -primary- intended audience for these
| films spends a lot of time dealing with "conflicted
| parent/child relationships", and that you are simply not the
| intended audience.
|
| I don't mean to be overly critical of you here, I think if you
| take two steps back what you're saying is "the majority of
| these kids movies don't speak to me."
|
| A movie being "worth it" is pretty different from a movie
| "speaking to me", which is so subjective that it is hard
| extract actionable insights from. It's a hop, skip, and a jump
| from saying "I don't know why you like this flavor of ice
| cream, because I don't like it."
| jerome-jh wrote:
| The best kid movies speak both to adults and kids, because
| they have several layers of understanding. That's what makes
| them great. I have not found those layers in recent Pixar
| movies, although I admit I skipped a number of them. The
| cause may be that they have to be so polished in order not to
| offend anyone. Maybe also their technical superiority in
| visual effects is somehow exempting them from telling great
| or controversial stories.
| philmcc wrote:
| I agree with you, as far as the dual layers of
| communication. The general feeling I get is that that's
| precisely why Pixar is a preferred studio over some of
| their competitors in the animation space.
|
| I didn't see Onward, but between that, Coco, Soul, and
| Inside Out, those are four moves that grapple pretty
| heavily with mortality, death, the afterlife, depression,
| which I'm assuming sails over the head of most kids.
|
| And even their earlier ones like Finding Nemo, Ratatouille,
| and Up have pretty serious things to say about childhood
| illness/"deformity", the role of the critic, and tragedy
| that similarly seem to be aimed -just- over the heads of
| kids.
|
| I think I'd need a definition of what a "great" childhood
| story is, but I'm pretty sure that neither Disney nor Pixar
| has "controversial" as part of their DNA. Much to the
| relief of parents everywhere, that's simply not what
| they're trying to do, so to judge them for not doing that
| is confusing.
|
| Perhaps you're looking for something more along the lines
| of A24 (Moonlight, The Florida Project, The Witch) from...
| Disney?
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Limiting my complain to recent Pixar movies: I think
| Coco, Soul and Inside Out are fairly obvious and not
| multi-layer. Definitely they talk of "difficult" subjects
| to kids: death, depression, regrets about ones life. They
| are not much fun either and the story is rather weak:
| often predictable, deja-vu moments (Soul and Inside Out
| are strangely very similarly built with a meta-world in
| both), repetitive loop of slow and fast action scenes.
|
| Japanese anime also talks about difficult subjects and
| IMO does it much better. Thinking of "Okko's Inn": much
| less predictable, some funny and tense scenes, and yet
| not shocking for children and quite emotional for parents
| (OK maybe our smallest daughter woke up and came in her
| parents bed the following night but she has not been
| traumatized for life :)
|
| Since I am engaged in a reckless defense of Frozen in
| other posts: I think this movie is multi-layered. It
| talks of women and power, femicide, love vs friendship,
| sisterhood, although it is packaged in a story suitable
| for the smallest children as its success showed. The
| story is definitely not predictable from the start and
| has the power of myths. Of course Disney is well known
| for its ability to adapt old myths and tales.
|
| As for older Pixar: The Incredibles was fun and multi-
| layered, Ratatouille was fun, Wall-E was great ...
| willismichael wrote:
| Frozen? Elsa makes absolutely no proactive decisions for
| the entire movie. She is completely reactive.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Well that's a valid analysis: she's afraid of her power,
| both real and magical.
|
| A quite strange Japanese anime I recently watched with my
| kids was "Ginga-tetsudo no yoru"
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089206/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1).
| I warn you: it is really slow and dreamlike, and is about
| death. One daughter slept during the movie while the
| younger one watched till the end. The morning after we
| were discussing about the movie during breakfast. I love
| that! Never happened with a Pixar movie: they are just
| too obvious. The analysis is made for you. And for the
| more recent ones they are not even fun. Of course they
| are beautiful and polished but too slick for me.
| mkl wrote:
| La-haut = Up
| jerome-jh wrote:
| OK edited :) To summarize my mind, I think the only american
| animated movie that's worth saving in the last 10 years is
| Disney's Frozen. It has some harshness, complex character
| relationships and appeals both to adults and children.
| wegs wrote:
| Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your
| responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on yourself.
|
| "Let it Go" is like an ode to everything I dislike about
| American culture. It's so very American.
|
| Best animated movie I've seen in the past decade was
| probably Moana, but I can't say I've seen many.
| Closi wrote:
| Well, actually the moral of Frozen is the absolute
| opposite - by shirking her responsibilities the community
| suffered, and she had to go back and face reality to
| restore the kingdom. The moral of the story was 'running
| away is not the answer'.
|
| "Let it go" as a song needs to be considered along with
| it's reprise:
|
| Elsa: "I'm such a fool, I can't be free. I can't escape
| from the storm inside of me... I can't control the curse!
| Oh I'm afraid I'll only make it worse. There's so much
| fear - you're not safe here, i.... i.... can't...."
|
| It's the same underlying moral story as the Lion King -
| Simba runs away and starts living the easy life, only for
| the community he left behind to suffer, and he has to
| become brave and face his responsibilities. The song "Let
| it go" is basically just "Hakuna Matata" from a story
| perspective. Is Hakuna Matata an ode to everything you
| dislike about American culture too? (Also the underlying
| story of Frozen is actually Danish)
| jerome-jh wrote:
| "Let it go" is pretty early in the movie, that's not the
| conclusion. To the contrary at the end Kristoff turns its
| steps to help stop a feminicide.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Frozen teaches kids all the wrong lessons. Shirk your
| responsibilities. Ignore your community. Focus on
| yourself.
|
| Reading _Frozen_ as teaching that is like reading
| Veerhoeven's _Starship Troopers_ (which, sure, is abysmal
| on all sorts of other grounds) as an endorsement of
| Fascism.
|
| Yea, those things _occur_ in the movie, but the movie is
| quite specifically about it producing bad outcomes that
| must be dealt with by people doing exactly the opposite.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I'm fairly sure they created "Let it go" before they
| really knew what the story would be about.
|
| They knew it was a snowy movie, knew they wanted
| something to rhyme with the traditional "Let it snow",
| and vaguely had the idea that an angsty girl would be
| singing the song. As a result, the lyrics are incredibly
| generic and hardly seem to fit her _specific_ situation.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Frozen is as cliched and as boring as possible.
|
| Compare it to, say, Coco. Or Zootopia. Or Klaus. Or, if
| we're talking about relationship with parents, Inside Out.
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not predictable
| from the start. Certainly it appeals more to girls. Pixar
| movies tend to be rather didactic: "OK we are going to
| talk about [death|depression|aging|following your
| passion]" whereas the best kid movies just tell a great
| myth.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Truly it has quite a bit of depth and is not
| predictable from the start.
|
| It... really isn't. There's not much depth or
| unpredictability. It's the regular Disney hero journey:
| oh, I'm a misunderstood loner, oh, I've found my own
| path, oh, I've prevailed. Oh, and comic reliefs.
|
| There are "unexpected" twists as in "wow, these sisters
| don't need a strong man to save them", and that's as much
| depth as it gets.
|
| Unlike, say, Coco. Which actually:
|
| - "has harshness". There's an actual murder involved.
| There's the uncomfortable truth of people losing their
| memory. People facing death etc. What harshness is there
| in Frozen that we haven't seen 15000 times before? Most
| Disney musicals from before 2000 have significantly more
| harshness than anything Frozen has.
|
| - "complex character relationships". The relationship
| between Miguel and his relatives, especially grandmother.
| The ever evolving relationship between Miguel and Hector.
| In Frozen there's next to zero character development
| except "suddenly we don't talk, suddenly I'm strong,
| suddenly we're good, suddenly sister powah".
|
| - "appeals both to adults and children". Coco definitely
| caters to a more grown up children who understand the
| concept of getting old, and death. Frozen is for the
| kindergarteners who will hug an Olaf plushie and sing
| Letitgo on repeat. The scene where Miguel sings to Mama
| Coco is such a gut punch to anyone who has relatives with
| memory loss, Frozen couldn't even approach the depth of
| it in the wildest dreams.
|
| The same goes for all other movies in my list. Frozen is
| a flashy loud entertainment for kindergarteners. It's
| definitely not "the only American animated movie that's
| worth saving in the last 10 years".
|
| > whereas the best kid movies just tell a great myth.
|
| And Frozen fails to tell that myth. It's flashy, loud,
| with memorable songs. And the first quality animated
| musical in a long while. That's why it is memorable. But
| "the only animated movie in the past 10 years that
| deserves to be preserved"? Hahaha, no.
| pdpi wrote:
| 10 years is a lot of time, and "worth saving" is a very low
| barrier.
|
| I'd classify Kubo And The Two Strings, and Inside Out as
| must-watch films. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse set new
| boundaries for what's possible with animation.
|
| Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, The
| Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory are all pretty good films,
| and definitely tick all the boxes you listed.
|
| I'm not even looking at Anomalisa, Isle of Dogs, and other
| such more adult-oriented animated films.
| Closi wrote:
| > I suppose "art" is meant as "technique" here. Modern large
| productions are so standardized today it is not an uncommon
| feeling one is watching the same movie ever end ever.
|
| Art and technique aren't mutually exclusive - and the process
| of storytelling is both an art and requires you to fit the
| bounds of storytelling, just as a painting class might teach
| you line drawing techniques but still counts as art.
|
| The other thing to note is that you _are_ listening to the same
| story over and over. This is the concept of the Joseph Campbell
| monomyth. All modern screenwriting is mostly based on the
| Campbell Hero 's Journey, which argues that all great stories
| and myths are, at their core, the same. You generally follow a
| protagonist who moves from a place of comfort and is thrust
| into a new situation, where they need to overcome some sort of
| challenge which involves the protagonist needing to change as a
| person to overcome (i.e. metamorphosis). There are exceptions
| to this structure, like sometimes there isn't even a
| protagonist, but this is the general structure across the ages.
|
| Storytelling is usually seen as playing within the structure,
| rather than inventing a new structure. Usually writers who
| don't embrace structure end up naturally writing in the same
| structure inadvertently anyway, because the theory is that this
| reaches _the core of what a story is_.
| tomthe wrote:
| If you don't have time for the full course, here is a hn-comment
| [0] that I really, really appreciated and helped me when telling
| stories to my kids:
|
| >Yes. Pixar has a template:
|
| >Once upon a time there was ___.
|
| >Every day, ___.
|
| >One day ___.
|
| >Because of that, ___.
|
| >Because of that, ___.
|
| >Until finally ___.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20408283 edit: it may
| have been another comment from here:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| w-m wrote:
| It's not unique to Pixar. Many stories and so many films follow
| the Hero's journey: a common template of stories that involve a
| hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive
| crisis, and comes home changed or transformed
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey).
|
| The character needn't be a hero either, if you consider Dan
| Harmons story circle technique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D
| an_Harmon#"Story_Circle"_tech...):
|
| 1. A character is in a zone of comfort or familiarity.
|
| 2. They desire something.
|
| 3. They enter an unfamiliar situation.
|
| 4. They adapt to that situation.
|
| 5. They get that which they wanted.
|
| 6. They pay a heavy price for it.
|
| 7. They return to their familiar situation.
|
| 8. They have changed as a result of the journey.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I watch Always Sunny in Philadelphia and they follow all the
| steps except step 8.
|
| They always return back to their original situation
| unchanged... many times having caused a lot of problems in
| the world along the way.
|
| Which adds to the humor and myth of the charachters being
| jerks.
| baxtr wrote:
| Ah nice. Have been looking for something like for that
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