Dan Scanlon
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Although it does not join the likes of “The Incredibles” and “WALL-E” in the pantheon of company masterworks, “Onward” is a touching, lovingly crafted oddity — a movie that acknowledges its borrowed elements at the outset and then proceeds to reinvigorate them with tried-and-true Pixar virtues: sly wit, dazzling invention and a delicacy of feeling that approaches the sublime.
Speaking of Pixar hallmarks, the world-building in Onward is absolutely spectacular and unquestionably rivals the lavish underwater world of Finding Nemo and the innovative styling of The Incredibles.
Cars (2006)
Directed by John Lasseter
influenced Monsters University (2013), Onward (2020)
Plot Themes
This certainly wouldn’t be the first time Pixar has borrowed a well-worn template from an earlier movie: The wondrous A Bug’s Life is The Seven Samurai with insects, and Cars is Doc Hollywood with cars.
If the competition plot threatens to evoke the specter of Pixar’s one mediocre film, Cars 2 , Monsters University goes down easily, where Cars 2 stuck in the throat.
And this written was before the studio had reached true greatness with WALL-E (2008) and Up (2009), and also before they made their first stinker, Cars 2 (2011).
Nor is it a Cars 2 fiasco that makes you question if Pixar has lost its magic touch that made a classic out of everything boasting its name.
More offensive was 2011's appalling " Cars 2 ," a hatefully desperate money-grab that turned its back on every last message 2006's lovely " Cars " stood for.
“MU’’ is yet another play-it-safe cash grab that doesn’t aspire to come within light years of even the second tier of Pixar titles — including the three “Toy Story’’ films and the original “Cars’’ — all of which had genuine multigenerational appeal, if not quite the level of sophistication of the studio’s classics.
Inside Out (2015)
Directed by Pete Docter
influenced by Monsters University (2013), Onward (2020)
Themes
Cars 2 was light, not matching its predecessor (which was itself one of the studio’s lesser pictures), Brave was sweet but ultimately unmemorable, and Monsters University, while very good, wasn’t up to the level of the original.
Y las dudas continuaron después del fracaso crítico que representó Monsters University (y de que todos repitieran como mantra que Pixar se estaba agotando y que no hacía una película original, fuera de sus probadas franquicias, desde la increíble Up de Pete Docter).
Saying "Inside Out" is the best Disney-Pixar picture since "Up" in 2009 says less than it should, considering the distressing if profitable recent mediocrities "Cars 2" and "Monsters University."
Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen are attached to prior films such as “Toy Story” and “Monsters University,” so it’s no wonder that the direction and writing of “Inside Out” is so deft.
After a quartet of uninspired cash grabs (“Toy Story 3,” “Cars 2,” “Brave” and “Monsters University”) designed primarily to sell toys, Disney’s quasi-independent computer-animation arm returns to the glory days of “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “Wall-E” and “Up,” with an envelope-pushing instant classic from “Up” director Pete Docter.
A distinction that doesn’t apply with either “Coco” or “Inside Out” which ventured into risky territories yet to be explored in most other kid’s films made today.
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Directed by Lee Unkrich
influenced Monsters University (2013), Onward (2020)
Themes
Like Toy Story 3 , which used the depressing theme of growing out of your toys (depressing, at least, for the toys) to illustrate a greater theme of mortality, Monsters University has grown up with the original film’s audience.
Monsters University is not going to have you silently blubbering away/wiping away manly tears like the brilliant Toy Story 3 , the Pixar Animation/Walt Disney Pictures film you’d have to be comatose not to love.
In the case of Monsters University that younger sibling is Dan Scanlon, a storyboard artist on Pixar films Cars and Toy Story 3 who stepped up to the plate to direct this prequel.
Remember how you felt watching “The Incredibles” or “Ratatouille” or, most recently in the Pixar canon, “Toy Story 3”?
If you were worried that animation giant Pixar was dipping into the same old wells too often (" Toy Story 3 ," " Cars 2 ," et al), the announcement of a prequel to their 2001 hit " Monsters, Inc. " might have given you pause.
It's unfortunate because Onward is quite a lovely film, even if it doesn't quite measure up to the studio's greatest triumphs like WALL-E, Finding Nemo, Up, Toy Story 3, Inside Out, and Coco.
As you may recall, Pixar has dabbled in mythical fantasy before in their highly underrated 2012 film, "Brave."
Scanlon, who began at Pixar as a storyboard artist on 2006's Cars and has been part of their "senior creative team" since 2012's Brave, takes to heart the importance the studio has long placed on story and characters.
Note: for the morbidly curious, here's my ranking of the fourteen Pixar features to date: 1) Up, 2) Toy Story 2, 3) WALL-E, 4) Toy Story 3, 5) Toy Story, 6) The Incredibles, 7) Brave, 8) Finding Nemo, 9) Ratatouille, 10) Monsters University, 11) Monsters, Inc., 12) A Bug's Life, 13) Cars, 14) Cars 2. Help keep Combustible Celluloid going!
“Monsters University” is better than “Cars 2” but not by enough, and along with last year’s inspired but cluttered “Brave,” it offers unsettling evidence that Pixar’s Golden Age may be in the past.
Of course, enjoyable though it may be, there is something slightly disheartening about Monsters University, as it is the third sequel or prequel of the past four years to come from Pixar, which, since Toy Story (1995), has been one of the most reliable generators of entertaining and meaningful original storytelling (the only original story since 2009’s sublime Up was last year’s Brave).
The crass commercialization and relentless standardization of modern life has been a choice satirical target for Pixar movies as different as “Ratatouille” and “Toy Story.”
Even as a child, I could tell there was something about movies like Toy Story and A Bug’s Life that was different than other Disney properties.
Word of mouth should help this film stick around amidst modest competition, but I can only hope that the studio is rewarded for such great original storytelling instead of having no choice but to sheepishly pencil in a Toy Story 5.
Onward reminded me more of '80s pleasures like The Goonies and Adventures in Babysitting.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
influenced Monsters University (2013), Onward (2020)
Visuals
So high the bar was raised by the likes of John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird (responsible for Toy Story , Finding Nemo and The Incredibles , respectively) that any movie released after that golden of golden periods will have a lot to live up to, like a younger sibling following the path of an older, trailblazing brother (such is the sausage factory that is Pixar).
Or as artful as its 2003 Oscar-winning " Finding Nemo ."
With even more sequels in Disney and Pixar's immediate future (including the upcoming spin-off "Planes" and " Finding Nemo " follow-up "Finding Dory"), we now arrive at "Monsters University," the prequel (how's that for sounding new and exciting?) to 2001's charming " Monsters, Inc. " The best way to approach any movie is with few expectations or pre-conceived notions, and that's because, as is the case with "Monsters University," sometimes said film can genuinely surprise.
Among that first generation of Pixar masterpieces, Monsters Inc. may not occupy as sacred a spot as the heartbreaking Toy Story films or the epic Finding Nemo.
And while it may not be as a standard-setting classic like Toy Story 2, WALL•E, or Finding Nemo , it’s satisfying, hilarious, unpredictable, and willing to take big storytelling risks.
Sure, there might have been the occasional hiccup (that being 2006's "Cars") after a stellar run that included the likes of the first two "Toy Story" films, "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles."
It's unfortunate because Onward is quite a lovely film, even if it doesn't quite measure up to the studio's greatest triumphs like WALL-E, Finding Nemo, Up, Toy Story 3, Inside Out, and Coco.
Where Up looked up, Onward merely looks onward.
In other words, it’s not the most completely original work Pixar has created by a mile, especially in comparison to “Up” and the other films I’ve listed off earlier.
What is missing are the unexpected flights of fancy on which Pixar forged its reputation — breathtaking, tempo-altering sequences like the fire-extinguisher ballet of “WALL-E,” or the refreshingly adult perspective of “Up.”
No matter how Onward performs, Pixar has another new original movie opening up just a few months later in June's Soul from Pete Docter (Up, Inside Out, Monsters, Inc.).
Onward reminded me more of '80s pleasures like The Goonies and Adventures in Babysitting.
The boys, intermittently disguising the body with “Weekend at Bernie’s”-style puppetry and clothes that might have suited the original invisible man, embark on a mission to conjure the rest of him.
The floppy, “Weekend at Bernie’s”-style physical comedy is good for a laugh or two but grows old quickly and eventually feels like easy, go-to shtick.
I might go so far as to call it Pixar's most aggressively mediocre feature - the aggression in this case being that all the other contenders for that title (2013's Monsters University , 2016's Finding Dory , 2017's Cars 3 ) were sequels or prequels, while Onward is an original story.
Whatever the origins of this thread, it seems to be of a piece with the anxieties of Cars 3 and Monsters University, in which Lightning McQueen worried about being a has-been, or worse, a sellout, and Mike Wazowski came to terms with leaving greatness to others and being okay just being okay.
Pixar used this tendency to let its stories swerve all over the place to great effect in 2012’s Brave and 2013’s Monsters University, but Cars 3 has maybe a few too many head fakes.
That’s a low bar, certainly — but, like the underachieving Monsters University , Cars 3 is more than willing to lower the bar.
In comparison to other Pixar sequels, “Cars 3” lacks the narrative ambitions and genuine heart of the “Toy Story” follow-ups and, to a slightly lesser extent, “Finding Dory” but it is still an improvement on such sorry sights as “Cars 2” and “Monsters University.”
The two also composed the music for The Good Dinosaur for Pixar back in 2015.
The musical score by Jeff & Mychael Danna draws from stereotypical epic adventure motifs and mixes them in with warmer, more sweetly emotional cues, and while it doesn't redeem Onward quite as much as their wonderful score for The Good Dinosaur managed to salvage entire scenes of that particular example of mediocre Pixar, it's at least enough to provide something of the right mood during the most unengaging chunks of exposition in the early going.
As for Pixar, “Onward” is their first wholly original piece since “Coco” from 2017 in a time when sequels like “Toy Story 4” and “Incredibles 2” are all we can expect.
The Pixar film focuses on timorous Luca (Jacob Tremblay), whose relationship with brash, older Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) is a bit reminiscent of Onward’s meek Tom Holland and overbearing Chris Pratt as elven brothers — though the addition of a strong-willed human girl, Giulia (Emma Berman), mixes up things considerably.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Directed by Mike Newell
influenced Monsters University (2013)
Plot
Meanwhile, the central Scare Games, which run the gamut from races in the dark as the contestants dodge poisonous, glowing urchins, to a "Don't Scare the Teenager" maze, are entertaining and varied, like a goofier TriWizard Tournament from 2005's " Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ."As the Oozma Kappas begin to succeed, rising ever higher on the leaderboard, it may seem exceedingly predictable where things are headed.
Finding Dory (2016)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
influenced by Monsters University (2013), Onward (2020)
Themes
(At least the forthcoming Finding Dory will be directed by Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E.)
That leads us to Finding Dory, which operates in a similar qualitative stratosphere to Monsters University.
There are terrific Pixar sequels (“Toy Story 2” and “3”) and OK Pixar sequels (“Cars 2,” “Monsters University”).
Included in that list are five sequels of their previous hits, including the other two Toy Story films (widely held as some of the studio's best work), Cars 2, Monsters University and now, Finding Dory, the sequel to one of the studio's least surprising entries, Finding Nemo.
I might go so far as to call it Pixar's most aggressively mediocre feature - the aggression in this case being that all the other contenders for that title (2013's Monsters University , 2016's Finding Dory , 2017's Cars 3 ) were sequels or prequels, while Onward is an original story.
Like Monsters University (also directed by Dan Scanlon), Finding Dory and A Bug’s Life before it, Onward touches on themes of social acceptance, self-worth, and explores the idea of the lovable oaf who will not only self-actualize by movie’s end, but whose worth is made clear to those who admonish them.
Like Monsters University (also directed by Dan Scanlon), Finding Dory and A Bug’s Life before it, Onward touches on themes of social acceptance, self-worth, and explores the idea of the lovable oaf who will not only self-actualize by movie’s end, but whose worth is made clear to those who admonish them.
There's not a single interesting vocal performance, though Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, as Ian and Barley's mom, comes closest (she's the only Pixar veteran with a large role, returning to the fold 22 years after A Bug's Life ), and not a single narrative surprise worthy of the name.
No matter how Onward performs, Pixar has another new original movie opening up just a few months later in June's Soul from Pete Docter (Up, Inside Out, Monsters, Inc.).
Speaking of which, you’ll be forgiven for briefly wondering if you’ve stumbled into a “How to Train Your Dragon” sequel by mistake.