Re: Say what you will of Cars 2, it's not this...

[Doctor Who?]

Hey is it my computer or is the yourtube video I tried to link to just not showing up?

[Pak-Man]

It really wasn't that bad. It didn't boast the heartwarming Pixar magic we've come to expect, but they took the great characters from the original and told a pretty nifty cloak-and-dagger spy story. It won't change how you look at the world, but It was fun, and a little bit more high-pace than the first Cars movie. It never dragged. It's better than anything I've seen come out of Dreamworks in the last few years.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

better than kung fu panda?

[ScottotD]

Wasn't How to Train your Dragon Dreamworks?

[Relaxing Dragon]

Yeah, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon are both Dreamworks, and the only things they've really done that can be put on par with Pixar's stuff (despite my love of Over the Hedge).

I'll be seeing Cars this weekend. This being a series I've always been fairly neutral on, I should at least enjoy it for having a Michael Caine-voiced spy car.

[Pak-Man]

To be honest, I haven't checked out Kung-Fu Panda or How to Train your Dragon yet. I've heard they're pretty decent,

[mrbasehart]

To be honest, I haven't checked out Kung-Fu Panda or How to Train your Dragon yet. I've heard they're pretty decent,

They're really good.  Dreamworks has definitely lifted its game in the past few years.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

Kung fu panda was pretty good.  It still had a distinct dreamworks flavor, but i entirely enjoyed it. 

[daltysmilth]

Wasn't Megamind Dreamworks?  I thought that was pretty decent.

[Kete]

I really didn't like it.  I don't like Larry The Cable Guy at all, and this was all about him.  Unlike every other Pixar movie, I didn't laugh once.  The bungling secret agent movie has been done, and done much better many times before.  I couldn't wait for the movie to end.  Oh...and they actually had Larry the Cable Guy sing the State Farm jingle.

I don't blame Pixar though.  I blame Disney for forcing Pixar to do it.

I'm looking forward to Brave.

[daltysmilth]

I really didn't like it.  I don't like Larry The Cable Guy at all, and this was all about him.  Unlike every other Pixar movie, I didn't laugh once.  The bungling secret agent movie has been done, and done much better many times before.  I couldn't wait for the movie to end.  Oh...and they actually had Larry the Cable Guy sing the State Farm jingle.

I don't blame Pixar though.  I blame Disney for forcing Pixar to do it.

I'm looking forward to Brave.

Perhaps you haven't been reading this thread closely, but Disney didn't force Pixar to do anything.  This was a pet project for John Lassetter.  He wasn't trying to tug people's heartstrings with this one.  He just wanted to make a fun movie about talking cars and spies that the kids would like.  Pixar's biggest problem, as I see it, is that the better their movies are, the higher people's expectations get.  So if one of their movies isn't of the same caliber as Finding Nemo, people start saying they've lost their touch.  Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every time he came up to bat.  Michael Jordan didn't score every time he had the ball.  And every movie Pixar makes isn't going to be Up.

I don't know how many of you own or have seen the DVD of Pixar's short films, but I can't help but think of the last two shorts they produced prior to the first Toy Story.  The penultimate short is one called Tin Toy, which could be viewed as the prototype for Toy Story.  It's about the title character, a tin toy soldier who is given to a baby as a present.  The toy is afraid of the baby and tries to hide from it when he notices a bunch of other toys also hiding from the baby.  The baby starts crying, and the toy soldier goes out to play with it and give it comfort.  It's fairly simple, but it looks better than any of the shorts that preceded it, and it definitely has pathos.  The ultimate (as in last) short film before Toy Story, Knick Knack, in many ways seems to be a bit of a step backward for Pixar.  The models look more primitive, the "set", as it were, is much simpler, and the story has much less pathos than the previous one, unless you find slapstick particularly emotional.  However, the animation is as slick, if not slicker, than previous entries, and the gags are all pretty funny.  Still, you'd have a harder time believing that Knick Knack was produced by the same people that would go on to do Toy Story than you would with Tin Toy.
On the other hand, if you listen to John Lassetter's commentary for it, he gives a pretty good reason for wanting to do a cartoon like Knick Knack in between Tin Toy and Toy Story.  They wanted to do something fun, something that was easy to do and would hopefully be entertaining. 

Why do I bring this up?  Perhaps their reasoning was similar for doing Cars 2.  Maybe they wanted to do something that would be more fun and easier to work on than the projects it ended up being produced between. 

[Doctor Who?]

So in other words you are saying it should be a crime to not like a Pixar movie because every Pixar movie is perfect.  Sorry don't buy,they made a bad movie,live with it.

[doggans]

So in other words you are saying it should be a crime to not like a Pixar movie because every Pixar movie is perfect.

The exact opposite, actually. He specifically said that NOT every Pixar movie HAS to be perfect, sometimes they just make them for fun.

[Doctor Who?]

Just because a movie was fun for someone to make does not make it a good movie.  I gather people had fun making Beast of Yaca flats.  he is saying that since it was fun to make then that means we should not be saying it is a bad movie.  A bad movie is a bad movie.  If he has the right to say it is a good movie the rest of us have the right to say it was a bad movie.

[doggans]

Show me the place in his post where he says it's a good movie.