Second Disney Renaissance/Pixar New Age theory

[Steel Sponge]

This has been clouding up my mind at the time: Are we entering a second Disney Renaissance? Followed by that, does the current quality of Pixar mean it's entering a new kind of age?

 

First off, I'm going to talk about Disney today. Going a little back, I would consider Princess and the Frog the start of the "second renaissance/revival era" or as I'd like to call it "the Second Coming of the Disney Renaissance Era." Over the course from 2009 to now, here's how successful the Disney films have been lately:

 

Princess and the Frog (2009) / Gross: $267,045,765 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 83%

Tangled (2010) / Gross: $591,794,936 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 89%

Winnie the Pooh (2011) / Gross: $33,152,846 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 90%

Wreck-it Ralph (2012) / Gross: $471,222,889 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 86%

Frozen (2013) / Gross (as of current): at least over $340,000,000 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 89%

 

While I've taken the facts and pointed out the obvious, this is a huge success for Disney. To compare the Winnie the Pooh film reincarnation and The Rescuers Down Under, it could be safe to say they're equal in what roles they play in their respective ages of Disney. While Bolt was also successful before the release of PatF, I feel as if the 10 year gap after the post-renaissance age would be a fit. You decide how the revival era has started. I'm making my theory here.

 

As for Pixar, while Cars 2 was successful, it wasn't met well with the reviews....especially when you realize this exact website isn't as pleased with the Cars franchise and that's not saying PIxar is becoming unsuccessful themselves. Unlike the release of the first canon Disney film without much involvement from Walt Disney (The Aristocats), PIxar isn't going into a similar direction, but rather still going into a different direction upon the "good film broken streak" from Cars 2. The new age based on PIxar's current status is what I'd like to consider as the Dark Age...or the Pixar CARN-age. Anyways, the fact that Pixar is taking a gap year and pushing their next two films to 2015 can add up to how Pixar has been doing. Now for the films, through the course of 2011 to now...

 

Cars 2 (2011) / Gross: $559,852,396 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 39%

Brave (2012) / Gross: $538,983,207 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 78%

Monsters University (2013) / Gross: $743,559,607 / Rotten Tomatoes rating: 78%

 

Being box office successes, nothing has really changed for Pixar. But for the critical response, Pixar's film quality is becoming questionable, so calling it the "Dark Age" isn't as clever, but the point is, it has come to my belief that they are lingering towards a different direction.

 

 

Such a long explanation, but discuss your thoughts on this.

[terminoob]

I think it's gonna start with Frozen, honestly, even though there's some iffy things going on there. It's trying a lot of new stuff that the films before it weren't, but it's still going back to Disney roots with these big ensemble numbers and mesmerizing animation and goofy side characters (kind of like The Little Mermaid!). Princess and the Frog met with a lot of backlash because it's not a good movie by any means (I honestly love it and it got me into animation but it's not that great). Tangled I think would be a better "starting point" for a new age, but even that's shaky because no one even knew about Winnie the Pooh, so you can't really start a new age with one film and then have the one immediately after be not on anyone's radar (I also think if a movie has to kick off a new Disney era it can't be one that's full of pop songs, but that's just my personal bias). Wreck-It Ralph is like this generation's The Great Mouse Detective, I think, because it's a really solid movie and it's right at the tail end of some weird stuff happening at Disney, but I don't think it's good enough to be like "okay, this movie is kicking off a whole new era". Which would make Frozen like The Little Mermaid!

All that being said, we can't call it a "renaissance" until it ends. Big Hero 6 could be garbage and Moana could be fantastic and everything in between could be just okay and that wouldn't really make anything.

[Clappy]

Not sure if I buy into this whole new Disney/Pixar Renaissance mumbo jumbo, but I do respect the theory though. The reviews have switched the past few years with Disney getting more critical acclaim than Pixar with animation. However, I honestly believe that this has to do with John Lasseteer being more involved with Disney animation than he once was. Either way, I enjoy good movies and Disney has really been stepping it up lately and it warms my heart because I love Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph and I have a good feeling I'm going to love Frozen when I see it tomorrow.