Pixar movies are awesome. This is basically widely known. The little lamp logo might as well be animation’s Seal of Greatness. Everyone knows this. But I think I’ve found one of the reasons why: adventure.
Whole entire lists could be made, and probably have been made about what makes Pixar movies amazing. The animation, relatable characters, the writing, the list is endless. But on my current Pixar watch-through (I just finished The Good Dinosaur), I stumbled upon another one: Pixar are perhaps the most prolific exploiters of adventure in film. Almost every Pixar movie (glares at the Cars sequels) involves an adventure or journey of some kind. The Toy Story franchise has the Toys leave Andy’s room for one reason or another, kick-starting the story. Cars (the good one) sees Lightning tossed in the middle of nowhere. A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Inside Out, they all utilize this tool of thrusting their characters into a journey, almost always involuntarily. This obviously allows the rest of Pixar’s magic to come into play but it’s all hinged on that initial get out, or in the case of Monsters Inc, get in.
Why is the adventure important? Because Pixar movies all have an inner self-discovery method about them. Remy in Ratatouille, Lightning McQueen in Cars, Woody in Toy Story, all the main characters in Pixar movies discover their “true selves”, or become better people/cars/toys/monsters. And the best way to get the character to the evolved version of themselves is to take them on a journey. This journey usually has the end goal of “I’ve gotta get back home”, and by the time they do get back to their original starting point, they’ve grown and experienced things and become better (except WALL-E. Man was perfect from the jump).
During this adventure to get back, all the great Pixar tools (the award-winning animation, the excellent worldbuilding, and so much more) will help to bring the adventure to life, making it more than just “I need to get back to where I was”. The existence of a vibrant world outside of that which our characters know and are used to and it forces them to re-evaluate that which they knew (or thought they knew).
It’s no coincidence that the one movie (so far) that can be labelled bad is the one that does not adhere to this pattern. There is no adventure in Cars 2. This along with a laundry list of other problems (who the hell makes Mater the main character?) means that not only does it fail as a movie, it fails as a Pixar movie as well.
Pixar is great for many, many reasons, and I put it to you that one of the most important reasons is their excellent use of adventure in telling stories and crafting characters.
