With 2 sequels to Toy Story and one unwanted sequel to Cars Pixar was no longer delivering one original movie after the other. Last year they returned to original territory with Brave with mixed results.
While I really enjoyed Brave as a kids’ movie it had notable flaws that previous Pixar tales had not. So when a prequel to Monsters Inc. was announced my expectations were modest at best.
Would Monsters University be the final confirmation that Pixar had lost its mojo?
After Ice Age 4 predictably failed as a family film and after seeing the uninspired trailer for Madagascar (insert number) Brave made an undeniably positive impression on me.
2011 will probably mark the first year where Pixar is not the lock for the best animated Oscar category seeing how Cars 2 got ripped apart (German speaking countries have to wait until 27th July to judge for themselves if those reviews are accurate). Maybe people were too harsh on Cars 2 because it is made by Pixar and looking at the trailers it seems more like a Dreamworks cashgrab instead of a sequel like Toy Story 2 and 3 – but then again Pixar has set the bar so high they are bound to get measured differently.
Thankfully 2012 will mark Pixar’s return to original stories with Brave: