Howdy! This is PhantomStrider.
Let's talk Pixar.
Let's face it: Pixar are the masters of CG animated movies.
Barely anyone can hold a torch to them except Disney themselves.
And it's no wonder. They've given us heartfelt and timeless stories
for over 20 years now.
Pretend that that's a seed.
It's a rock.
However, there have been some times over these years
where they've made some really stupid decisions.
Like, pinheaded decisions worthy of Sony animation.
Making several decisions that were so out of character,
that you'd suspect they were sabotaged by Sony.
And to balance out all the negativity, let's add in three movies
I consider that are close to perfect from Pixar.
So this is what I think are the top three worst and perfect Pixar movies.
Anyway, on to the countdown!
By Pixar movie standards, this is a snore of a movie.
A simple road trip, growing-up story about a little dinosaur named Arlo
going home with a cave boy sidekick.
Hip-hip-hooray.
While there's nothing wrong with keeping it simple, there's just no character to carry
this overly-simple child story.
The Good Dinosaur feels muddled and weird,
and I just can't understand half the decisions they made.
Make no mistake, this movie's backgrounds look gorgeous!
I mean, these backgrounds make the most beautiful bouquet of roses
look like a steaming, fiery trash can in a hobo alley.
We're never getting home.
This is one of the few times I can barely tell if I'm looking at CG or reality.
Unfortunately, the tooney dinosaurs clash horribly with this scenery.
It feels like such a waste to have some of the most beautifully stunning, perfect background CG
combined with these toiled-swirl green dinosaurs.
I mean, that is not a dinosaur.
That's what my cactus look like after it'd been dead for three weeks.
While many Pixar movies very naturally weave in the emotion of a scene,
all the emotional scenes in this movie just feel forced.
You can feel Good Dinosaur desperately trying to convey emotion
with swirling music and beautifully panning cameras.
But I just can't feel anything for Arlo. They're so boring.
And if I was bored, imagine how bored the kids were in the front row.
In the cinema I went to, these kids were loud
and very unsettled by the halfway mark.
Clearly the Good Dinosaur was aimed at them, but it wasn't entertaining them.
To be fair, this film was continually revised as creators and actors
were pushed in and out for years on end.
So it's not a surprise that the movie ended up feeling like a lackluster, muddled mess.
The Good Dinosaur had creative intents, but to me
it just ended up a drab failure of mediocrity.
Certainly by Pixar standards.
Not bad for a dead guy!
Not so bad yourself, gordito!
The first thing that comes to mind when I remember Coco was just how colorful and vibrant it was!
All of the visuals just ooze warmth and color!
Our hero Miguel wants to play music.
But like a string of Disney heroes before,
his oppressive authority figure wants to stifle his talent.
As you probably know, even though this sounds cliche,
this cliche is beautifully broken halfway through the movie.
I mean, look at this for yourself.
Only Pixar could make the land of the dead this welcoming.
Everyone out here our Miguel meets is a walking skeleton.
Yet each character is so expressive and beautiful.
In reality, the story is about a child trying to escape the afterlife
where the dead are slowly forgotten in time,
and to get a blessing from his dead great-great grandfather.
Yet the fact that it's a family-friendly, thoroughly welcoming bright and vibrant movie suitable for all ages
is a testament to the sophistication of Pixar.
♪ Well everyone knows...
Interestingly, Coco's world does still acknowledge permanent death at the same time
as it shown when someone's forgotten, they permanently disappear into the unknown.
And to that, Hector says the only thing a person can say to that.
Hey, it happens to everyone eventually.
Come on, de la Cruzcito. We've got a contest to win.
And I like that the movie still acknowledges permanent loss.
While it didn't hit me quite as deeply as Inside Out,
Coco was still very close to a perfect Pixar movie.
♪ You are just un poco loco ♪
The critics generally agreed on this one.
It was perfectly serviceable. The jokes were kind of funny,
but overall, it was a thoroughly unsatisfying Pixar movie.
I'm Terry with a 'y'. - And I'm Terri with an 'i.'
I'm a dance major! - And I'm not.
5, 6, 7, 8, dododo
It'll entertain most kids and adults, but you'll have forgotten its story and message within a week.
Everything is set on their boring Princeton campus.
We're not carried away by the story or characters.
So it's easy to feel the Disney boxes being ticked in all their micromanagement
that happens in everything the movie does.
At least Brave was memorable. At least it had a beautiful, unique animation style
with lush green forests and beautiful landscapes.
Brave took a risk and failed, but at least we can tell with it, it was trying to break new ground.
The world of Brave Scotland is actually a place I want to visit.
But Monsters University? I couldn't give two hoots about their boring campus.
I have no problem with John Goodman or Billy Crystal as voice actors.
They do a fine job.
Excuse me. Would you just--! - I just wanna get my stuff.
Let me get my stuff!
But Mike and James are just written as fundamentally uninteresting, lackluster characters.
They feel like every other buddy duo on the market with nothing particularly distinguishable about them.
University is meant to be an exciting time.
How did they make the Princeton campus this bland?
Monsters University is a kind of funny distraction,
but we are just worlds away from the quality of Toy Story.
Ah, who doesn't like this one?
Even though I don't personally enjoy the traditional family setting or narrative,
what we get with Incredibles is so packed with wit, character, smart writing, and spellbinding animation,
that I barely noticed.
There's a distinctive comic book style to the pacing, characters, and animation
that has left this movie sitting in my memories for years.
It's got plenty of riveting action, a beautiful traditional supervillain lair island setting,
all combined together with this underlying bittersweet layer
of parental compromise and glorydays nostalgia.
It's technically one of Pixar's most adult movies,
because for once, the focus isn't on the child's growth to independence.
The focus is on Mr. Incredible's midlife crisis.
Have a great day, honey. - Thanks.
Help customers, climb ladders... - Bring bacon?
All that jazz.
But it's all spliced together with fun, kind of Simpsons-style tongue-in-cheek jokes.
...When his cape snagged on a missile pin.
Splashdown, sucked into a vortex.
No capes!
The Incredibles is a fun, charming twist somewhere between a domestic sitcom
and a costume caper.
And I thoroughly enjoyed both sides of that.
And as for honorable mentions, well,
just about every other Pixar movie.
Almost all of them are classics, from Up, Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Wall-E,
hell, about the most average one was A Bug's Life.
And that was one of their first movies, so of course it's going to be average.
I can't not mention this movie. I love this movie!
Inside Out is my favorite Pixar movie. Hell, it's my favorite Disney movie of all time.
But since I spent half of the best Disney movies talking about it,
which I could do again, but I don't wanna bore you, so let's look at some other Pixar movies.
Anyway, on to #1...s.
We're so Dad-gum proud of 'im. But I sure wish he'd hurry up and get back,
'cause we got a whole summer's worth...
But this applies to the whole dang Cars franchise in general.
I'm convinced. The Cars franchise is proof.
There's a saboteur in the ranks of Pixar trying to destroy their name.
And they clearly made all the Cars movies.
I'm not just going to tell you why this is so.
I'm going to show you.
See all these perfect Pixar movies?
Brilliant ratings. Everyone loves 'em.
But what's this? A sellout, bland movie about cars
that is so transparently trying to get toy sales that it scars the company?
Yeah, let's go with that.
It hits the lowest rank Pixar movies have ever hit up to this point.
So clearly, instead of making a sequel about... any of our other movies,
we clearly need to make a sequel about Cars!
Cars 2, also bombed in the ratings.
Clearly, what we need is a Cars 3.
Cars is the most boring concept for a movie I can imagine. Why three of them?
You could make a movie about chairs and I can find it more interesting.
What jokes, what possible references or puns can we come up with for three Cars movies?
To become the first car to circumnavigate the globe without GPS
ironically ran out of gas.
You've got these perfectly serviceable voice actors doing their lines fine.
Yet it feels like a gargantuan waste of everyone's time, because Pixar's put another $200 million
into another stupid Cars movie.
It doesn't matter how shiny or exciting you try to make this character.
It's still a car.
In a movie like Toy Story, each character bleeds constant individuality and relatable emotions.
But these vehicles of transport are barely characters.
Each one is just another overly-shiny vehicle with eyes that spout lines suitable
purely for their job choice.
Sure, it's got millions of dollars worth of flashy effects.
But I care about as much as I do in a Transformers movie.
Because I'm not invested in cars!
It's cars! Vessels of transport that go 'vroom!'
You must be crazy excited about winning his fourth Piston Cup! Four!
Are we gonna talk about how wonderful Mater's cupholders are next?
I'm sure the kids would love that.
There's some good pro-ecological messages about alternative fuel,
which clearly rings a bell with all those license-holding children driving cars.
I was offered a free ticket to the original when I was 15,
but you know what? No matter how desperate I was for human contact,
I could not justify spending zero dollars to go see Cars.
Cars 1, 2, and 3 are the most dull, pointless movies Pixar has ever made.
And hopefully, ever will make.
Now Pixar, if you're done fobbing off merchandise to children for three movies,
can we get back to the good stuff?
You still worried? - About Andy?
Nahh. It'll be fun while it lasts.
I'm proud of you, cowboy.
Let's face it, the whole Toy Story franchise is near perfect.
Toy Story not only began the CG revolution,
it's kept that high standard for decades.
Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Potatohead, Rex,
for many of us, we grew up with these characters.
And because they're just fundamentally good people, most of us like them.
Even the villains have relatable motives, like Stinky or Sid or Huggin' Bear.
And these voice actors don't just act these roles. They live these roles.
[Woody] Guys, wake up! Wake up! There's a yard sale outside!
Yard sale?
Sarge, emergency roll call!
Sir yes sir! Red alert!
All civilians file in position now!
And the movies are smart.
Although these may be called Toy Stories,
what makes a Toy Story series special is that these are fundamentally human stories.
You are a toy!
For how much longer?
One more rip and Andy's done with me.
And what do I do then, Buzz? Huh? You tell me.
Somewhere in that pad of stuffing is a toy who taught me that life's only worth living
if you're being loved by a kid.
Human struggles that deeply connect with most people,
in discussing issues of belonging, friendship, transience and individuality.
They didn't need to sell out like Sony would.
They just needed to do what Pixar has always done.
Tell a simple but timeless story that connects with people on a personal level.
And movies like Toy Story are the majority of Pixar.
And frankely, even the worst Pixar movie still feels 100x less manipulative than a Sony movie.
The beauty of Pixar is it's always just trying to tell a simple story that humans can relate to.
Even if it's a story about cars.
And what's a favorite Pixar movie to you? Or the worst Pixar movie?
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
And as always, thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.