Up and Away: Where Disney (and Pixar) Go Next

Well, they’ve finally done it. Fifteen years since the studio’s first feature, and on movie number ten, Pixar has gone and made a picture about ordinary people. Not toys, not bugs, not monsters, not fish, not superheroes, not rats, not robots… Just people.

And what do you know, the results are every bit as funny, wise, charming and poignant as before.

Up is the story of a grumpy old man deeply attached to his home of many decades. When the developers won’t take no for an answer, he ups and leaves, but he takes the house with him, courtesy of several hundred helium balloons. His destination is Paradise Falls, a kind of South American Shangri-la, the dream location he’d always planned to visit with his beloved wife but somehow never found the opportunity. As John Lennon put it, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. What Carl hasn’t reckoned with is an inadvertent stowaway, a plucky cub scout by the name of Russell.

No less than the previous nine Pixar movies, it’s impossible to imagine this as a live action film. It may begin grounded in reality, but it soon takes off into the fantastic. There are fabulous goofy creatures, talking dogs, and spectacular action scenes.

The trick of the film, I think, and of Pixar generally, is that the moviemakers respect both sides: the mature aspect that Carl represents, and the youthful innocence of Russell. Which is not to say that they don’t come down on the side of youthful curiosity and the spirit of adventure over cynicism and disenchantment, but still, the adrenaline-charged egoism of Lightning McQueen (to take the example of Cars) must be tempered with the experience and sagacity of Doc

This, surely, is the reason that Pixar films appeal equally to children and adults. They address both audiences at the same time, and don’t talk down to either. This was also true of the classic Disney cartoons of the 1940s and 50s – Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio and Dumbo. But with Walt Disney’s passing (and in truth, when his attention moved on to Disneyland, TV and other outlets) the studio lost that level of engagement and application. For too long, they churned out movies that were evidently only for the kids. Translation: not good enough for grown ups.

When studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg came along in the 1990s he began to reverse that trend (and not least by welcoming Pixar to Disney to make their first feature, Toy Story). He saw that it was parents buying the tickets, after all, and realised that if he could make animation hip and pop-savvy he might keep hold on to the teen audience too.

The trouble is, when he took over the animation department at Dreamworks Katzenberg went too far the other way. Films like the

Shrek franchise, Madagascar and Monster vs Aliens can be sharp and funny, but there’s precious little heart and soul there, let alone the innocence and wonder that always seems integral to the most memorable family films. There is always a whiff of calculation coming off a Katzenberg movie.

The question on everybody’s lips is whether John Lasseter, who now heads up both Pixar and Disney’s animated features, can restore the studio once synonymous with animation to its former glories. His first order of business was changing the division’s name back to the classic “Walt Disney Animation Studios”. His second, apparently, was to let it be known that this would be a filmmakers’ studio, a place where story would trump marketing concepts in the grand scheme of things.

Bolt was a project he inherited from the previous regime, but still it showed a more Pixar-ish engagement with character and story – a promising start. The Princess And The Frog (from the directors of The Little Mermaid and Treasure Planet) will be a more interesting test. It has a much more traditional feel than Pixar are known for; it’s hand-drawn, 2-D, and a musical… all elements that Pixar made deeply unfashionable over the last decade. That’s slated for a February 2010 UK release.

Rapunzel – with Mandy Moore voicing the long-haired Grimm heroine – will also be a musical, but this one will be CG and 3D, and we’re promised a feistier, more enterprising damsel than of yore.

Next year will also bring us Pixar’s Toy Story 3 (in 3D), with Cars 2 and Disney’s Winnie The Pooh coming up in 2011.

Two sequels and a remake? Could the well be drying up? It’s possible, but don’t jump to conclusions. Sequels aren’t always inferior –Toy Story 2 shows no decline – and there’s also an adaptation of Philip K Dick’s short story The King of the Elves to look forward to.

What may be more challenging for Lasseter and his team is retaining that precious empathy with children as they themselves get older and their own kids grow up and move on. (Lasseter is 52, and the father of five sons.) Both Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and Brad Bird (Ratatouille) have plans to make live action dramas next, a sign, presumably, that they want to put childish things behind them.

Of course, there is also the possibility that Pixar will embrace this challenge from a different perspective, and try to pull off an animated feature primarily for an adult audience…

Granted it sounds far-fetched, this is territory Disney always shied away from. But don’t forget Pixar is a company that thrives on challenging itself, teenagers and tweeners evidently don’t see animation as juvenile the same way their parents did, and the recent deal between Marvel and Disney should open up all sorts of possibilities for new animated comic book movies. The potential is limitless. Or as Buzz Lightyear would say: To Infinity – and beyond!

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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