I’ve been saying for a while now (ever since “Toy Story 2”, if memory serves me right) that we are living in the kind of golden age of animation that we thought had long since gone by. Pixar’s animated films, with their emphasis on story, their intricate visual brilliance, and their sheer magic, are the kind of things that people will remember as classics in a century’s time. Basically, they’ll think of Pixar today the way we think of Disney in the 1930s and 40s.
But since this is the Internet, it’s not enough to make a sweeping declarative statement: We need to turn it into a pointless, absurd comparison! (Woo, Internet!) So let’s go ahead and pit the Disney films of their classic era against the Pixar films of today, and see who comes up top.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves vs. Toy Story: On the one hand, Toy Story is a more densely layered, intricate story with more sophisticated narrative techniques. On the other hand, Snow White is sweeter, as the rivalry between Buzz and Woody is almost too intense at times to be “enjoyable”. And Disney, even in his first animated feature (actually, the first animated feature) already had a compelling grasp of imagery that made for some of cinema’s most iconic sequences. I think that I’m going to give Disney the edge here, even though Toy Story would probably beat most other entries.
Pinocchio vs. A Bug’s Life: Not even a contest in my mind. When it comes to orthoptera, Kevin Spacey’s mesmerizing Hopper easily beats out whiny, preachy, mealy-mouthed Jiminy. As to the rest of the movie, while Pinocchio does have some of the all-time champion scare-the-shit-out-of-little-kids sequences (Monstro the Whale, the kids turning into donkeys) it’s hard to actually root for the obnoxious little wooden dummy. The characters of A Bug’s Life are far more sympathetic and entertaining, and the plot holds together better than the “string of incidences” plot of Pinocchio. Pixar for the win here.
Fantasia vs. Toy Story 2: This is actually a very tough one for me. Both of these are among my favorite animated features (I’m watching Toy Story 2 as I type this) but one of them has to be better. Toy Story 2 earns major points for being a sequel with something to actually say rather than simply rehashing the incidents of the first film, but Fantasia was something never tried before (or, with the exception of Fantasia 2000, since.) It’s a dazzling feature, perhaps one of the purest expressions of art ever attempted by a commercial studio, and I have to love it a little bit more than Toy Story 2 for that. Plus, “Night on Bald Mountain”. Disney wins.
Dumbo vs. Monsters, Inc: Admittedly, Monsters, Inc isn’t one of the strongest Pixar films. Billy Crystal grates as much in animation as he does in live-action, and the sheer irritation factor of his character single-handedly knocks a great film down a notch or two. On the other hand, the crows in Dumbo? Much, much, much more than a notch. I realize that it was a different era, but still…wow. Pixar hands-down.
Bambi vs. Finding Nemo: Eerie parallels here, as both films are about single-parenting in the unforgiving world of nature. Disney’s expertly hand-animated forest is done as well in its own way as Pixar’s CGI coral reef, but I’ll give Finding Nemo the nod for its more involved story and the fact that its ending has not traumatized generations of small children. Those of you who believe that traumatizing small children is, in fact, part of what children’s films are for might choose the other way, but I’m picking Pixar here.
Cinderella vs. The Incredibles: I might be inviting controversy here by skipping films like Saludos Amigos and Melody Time, but I think that this should remain feature vs. feature, and so the Disney anthology films get a miss in favor of the full-length stories. Not like it matters, because this is The Incredibles we’re talking about, and pretty much any Disney movie is going to be steamrollered by it. I remain a comics fan, this remains one of the best super-hero films ever, and compared to it, even a sweet little Disney princess gets booted to the back of the line. No glass slipper for you, Cindy; it’s Pixar for the win here.
Alice In Wonderland vs. Cars: I know that Cars has its fans, but I actually feel like this is comparing two of the weaker entries in their respective canons. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland has the thankless task of adapting a story with almost no narrative drive whatsoever, while Cars is about car racing, a sport so boring that fatal accidents are actually welcomed as a brief respite from the monotony. Under the circumstances, I will choose the blessedly Larry the Cable Guy-free Alice, and give Disney the win on this one.
Peter Pan vs. Ratatouille: It’s interesting, but Ratatouille doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact the way that some other Pixar/Brad Bird films have; sandwiched between the immensely popular Cars and the ground-breaking WALL-E, it’s become sort of a forgotten Pixar film. And sad to say, it continues to get short shrift here, because Peter Pan is one of Disney’s best adaptations, Captain Hook one of its best villains, and Tinkerbell one of its best-loved characters. Which means that in this case, Disney wins. Poor little rat.
Lady and the Tramp vs. WALL-E: Did I say earlier that I gave Fantasia bonus points for trying something new, different, and artistic? Then I have to give WALL-E bonus points, too; not many films have the guts to open up with no human characters, no voices, and still be one of the most heart-warming and affecting character studies in years. Compared to the fantastic animation, the powerful story, and the overall quality of what could be Pixar’s best film, Lady and the Tramp is bound to come up short. Pixar by a country mile, and that’s nothing against Lady and the Tramp.
Sleeping Beauty vs. Up: On the one hand, I do have to give Sleeping Beauty points for what some consider to be the best villain in Disney’s canon, Maleficent. She’s got style, she’s got panache, and she even swears in a kid’s movie. But it also has a dull, passive heroine, a bland Prince Charming, and I’ve never been a fan of the animation style in this one. So it loses to Up on style points. Fair? Perhaps not, but I’m giving this one to Pixar.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians vs. Toy Story 3: Sorry to say, but at this point the rot was beginning to set in at Disney. The budgets were getting lower, the animation was taking short-cuts…even the films were getting shorter (One Hundred and One Dalmatians clocks in at just 79 minutes.) Pixar, on the other hand, seems to be getting stronger with every release; they’re finding more confidence, they’re learning how to do more with computer animation as processing power gets cheaper and graphics rendering becomes more powerful, and they’re established as the top dog at Disney and not worried about interference with their proven system of generating classics. This is where the picks start getting easier, and I suspect it’ll be a while before Pixar loses another head-to-head.
The final tally: By a final score of 7-4, Pixar wins! (I’m sure John Lasseter will covet this far more than the Oscars.)
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Real question is, New Disney vs. Pixar. I love Pixar, but it’s a fight to match-up with Little Mermaid, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (which beats everything else on any list) The Lion King, and Aladdin.
I’m a little disappointed that you’d deny Dumbo for the horrible horrible Crows, but Peter Pan get a free pass on nightmarish racism. Particularly when it’s up against something as awesome as Ratatouille.
Huh, that link didn’t link right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_at9dOElQk is the nightmarish racism I refer to.
Disney’s heroines may not be awesome, but at least they have some – Pixar gets one point for The Incredibles and any positive gain from Jessie is cancelled out by all the EW GIRLS YUK GAY KEN YUK and assumed masculinity of toys like piggy banks and dinosaurs.
You’ve got probably the best adapatation of the classic Italian folk story ever and you pick the bland and forgettable “Bug’s Life”? Seriously?
People on the love their Pixar, what a shocking revelation. Sorry if I sound snarky but I always found most of their work to be competent, enjoyable but ultimately forgettable: matinée material… Is the comparison just by relative order of release?
I enjoy Bugs Life. It’s much better than Cars… But I know I’m in the minority there.
i am so tired of pixar always winning at the oscars.
kung fu panda and how to train your dragon where fantastic.
Rango was brilliantly animated, and it captured the spirit of the Western really well.
Rande: Totally agree. Neither were on my favorites list, but Cars is one I’ll never watch again, even on tv. Bug’s Life at least holds some nostalgic value for me.
@TA: That scene’s been excised from most subsequent releases, whereas the crows are really too fundamental to the plot to get rid of. (We will soon know if Peter David is reading this blog, as he will jump in to defend the sequence.)
@lilacsigil: You do have a very good point, and I don’t think anyone at Pixar would disagree. They’re doing “Brave” next year, in no small part I think to correct their undistinguished record when it comes to female characters. (Although I think the reason that the non-gender specific toys in “Toy Story” are male are because they’re owned by a boy. I know from my own child that kids tend to project their own gender onto inanimate objects.)
@CommenCzar: Yes, the comparison was in order of release (skipping, as I said, the “package” films like ‘Melody Time’ that were really just a showcase for different shorts.)
A lot of this is apples vs. oranges. I mean, Peter Pan vs. Ratatouille? Both are brilliant–Ratatouille may actually be my favorite Pixar movie–but their aims are so drastically different that it makes about as much sense as comparing Star Wars and Annie Hall.
There’s a lot of unfair dismissal going on here, especially of the Disney stuff; I mean, Dumbo is one of the most effectively told, innovative animated stories of all time (David Mamet–yes, David Mamet–called it “nearly perfect” from a storytelling perspective). As unfortunate as the racism is, using that as the sole basis to dock it below the rather bland Monsters, Inc is kind of bizarre.
I’ve actually never liked how Pixar movies get lumped together as if they were interchangeable. All of Disney’s movies listed here were all under a single, strong, authorial hand, Disney’s himself, and reflected a clear (if evolving) sensibility. Pixar has a certain house style, but it does have multiple authors who bring their own strengths and weaknesses to the table. Brad Bird is the obvious one, but Pete Docter deserves credit for his own distinctive style, and even Lasseter and Stanton aren’t the same (I find Stanton’s work to be the blandest of the four, and except for WALL*E, his movies are my least favorite Pixars.)
I’ve often got the sense that Pixar risks coasting on its reputation, but it has so much talent and drive that it’s been able to avoid slipping into that mode…so far. Honestly, though, with two sequels in a row, and Bird, Lasseter and Stanton all busy elsewhere at the moment, I’m a little concerned about where Pixar’s headed. “Brave” looks promising, but I’m not even clear what they’ve got on their plate past that point–I believe Monsters Inc. 2 is rumoured. Maybe Dreamworks’ newfound skill will give them the push they need?
I still haven’t seen the last few Pixar films, but for the earlier ones, I think I agree with you on all of them, except maybe Pinocchio vs Bug’s Life.
The Incredibles might possibly be the greatest movie ever made– full stop.
Whatever else you can say about 101 Dalmatians, I think you overlooked the fact that it has one of the other all-time great Disney villains in Cruella de Ville.
Won’t dare to knock Peter Pan. But Ratatouille has a moral core that we’ll be right about for years. Am I the only one found it the most moving Pixar pic, if only for its moral messages that can be appreciated – truly – by those of any age:
1. Pursue your dreams.
2. Don’t turn into a jerk in the process.
3. Your family has value you can’t always see, so hang onto it.
We’ll be right about it, yes, but we’ll be writing about it, too. Tears clouding my vision, don’tcha know.
While I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that Toy Story 3 is the better film, 101 Dalmations is one of my all-time favorite classic Disney movies, and I would even give it the win on the basis of Cruella De Ville alone (a villain so far ahead of her time she’s more relevant now than she ever was then, in addition to being one of the most entertaining in the Disney canon).
How is ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ sweet? Have you watched this film lately? It has not aged well.
The seven dwarves come home to a clean house and suspect a monster and raise their tools ready to strike and stop just as the covers are lifted.
After the girl is poisoned, the dwarves go out and form a lynch-mob and chase the ugly queen off a cliff.
Then, at the end, the girl is dead and placed in a gold coffin (the film uses the word ‘coffin’) and the Prince shows up out of nowhere and then engages in necrophilia. Sure it all turns out alright, but its still pretty damn creepy.
And then the girl goes off to live with the Prince (who she literally just met) and leaves the her friends behind in an instant.
This is not what I would refer to as a sweet tale of romance.
This comparison is actually more profound than I first gave it credit for, especially as a time line of innovation: Pixar could not exist without the trailblazing done by Disney, but they’re creating something completely new. A thematically ordered comparison would’ve spoken of other things.
@Garfield
I don’t know, those ideals by themselves sound extremely bland, stuff you could find in any dime store Young Adult novel. Surely the quality of Pixar films is in their heart and emotional honesty rather than the depth of the messages (for the most part, anyway)?
I think it’s basically apples and oranges, as others have said. Still, I think Disney deserves some extra notches for character animation. The early movies, especially, almost invented the art of creating specific personalities in animated acting, as well as bringing trippy, abstract animation into mainstream film (“Pink Elephants on Parade”). Many of the movies are notable for the individual personalities of the animators like the “nine old men.”
Pixar certainly does character animation, but they’ve also had real trouble overcoming the early stiffness of computer animation; Brad Bird overcame it to a certain extent but many of the other directors didn’t. Other studios, like Dreamworks with “Kung Fu Panda,” have arguably surpassed Dreamworks in showing that computer animation can be as fluid and specific as traditional.
Also, the crows in Dumbo? The smartest characters in the film, who give Dumbo some friendly teasing but help him, turning it into a story about different oppressed minorities banding together to win? There are a lot of racial stereotypes in modern film that are already looking worse than the very positive portrayal of the crows.
SNOW WHITE = first animted feature? not hardly.
From Wikipedia: “The first animated feature film was El Apóstol, made in 1917 by Quirino Cristiani from Argentina. He also directed two other animated feature films, including 1931’s Peludopolis, the first to use synchronized sound. None of these, however, survive to the present day. The earliest-surviving animated feature, which used colour-tinted scenes, is the silhouette-animated Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) directed by German Lotte Reiniger and French/Hungarian Berthold Bartosch. Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) is often considered to be the first animated feature when in fact at least eight were previously released. However, Snow White was the first to become successful and well-known within the English-speaking world and the first to use cel animation.”
PRINCE ACHMED has aired on TCM several times; it’s an odd but charming film & well worth seeing.
A Bug’s Life is my favorite remake of The Seven Samurai ever.
And while Monsters, Inc. was charming, I’ve never made a point of rewatching it the way I have with Dumbo. Despite the crows, this is still one of the greatest animated movies ever made. If you can watch the “Baby Mine” scene and not tear up, you have no soul.
I’m surprised the Rex film wasn’t green-lighted to compete with Bolt. 😐
On the one hand, Monsters Inc. doesn’t have the crows, but it also lacks Pink Elephants on Parade, which is somehow more psychedelic than all of Fantasia.
I feel compelled to speak up on behalf of Cars.
For two- to five-year-old boys at our house, this movie is completely dominant, chosen more often for re-play by a 2:1 margin… vs. all other movies. We wore out the DVD and made an immediate shopping run to replace it. The toy cars have also been in consistent use over a period of some years.
Now, I won’t dispute your scoring of this one for Disney, as the demographic in question may be, perhaps, a little narrow.
But, boy, did Pixar ever nail it.
I don’t think Aurora is the protagonist of Sleeping Beauty. It’s more of a fairy mafia story, focusing on Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather as they defend their territory against rival fairy Malificent. Aurora and the other humans are developed into sympathetic characters but because they form the battleground on which the fairy mafia war is fought their roles are necessarily passive.
I can’t get past the Sleeping Beauty vs UP – it should be a tie at the very least. The animation, for that time especially, is amazing. The style may not be your cup of tea but it was the first that Disney did in 70mm and the detail to reflect medieval tapestries is amazing. I think you need to give more credit for Disney taking a chance on making a film that had more emphasis on the style of it than any of the other previous films. And to back up Carter the movie is more about the fairies than any of the other characters.
UP is good but so is Sleeping Beauty.
I’m really glad to see the props for Captain James Hook. He’s in my top five villains. For reference, the others are Darth Vader, the Joker, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Hans Landa.
Dude, this is far from a Golden Age of animation. That age has LONG since passed. Animation now is in this weird state where no one knows what to do except try to copy what becomes popular. I look at films Rio, Alpha and Omega, and the Shrek series and realize just how far the medium has fallen.
Oh, and there is no way in HELL you can compare A Bugs Life to Pinocchio, or Monsters Inc to Dumbo. Pinocchio and Dumbo were masterpieces of animation, their quality as yet to be rivaled. Pinocchio especially, it’s hands down the greatest animated movie of all time. Bugs Life and monsters inc were just whatever, footnotes in Pixar’s legacy. And while Up was touching at all, I’m sorry but Sleeping Beauty was the much better animated.
I think one of the interesting things about comparing animation is that, on the one hand, you have technical execution and innovation to compare, and then you’ve also got story comparison with popularity vs. (SUBJECTIVELY) perceived quality as an internal factor as well.
For example, I have been bored by most of Pixar’s films, because I wasn’t able to relate to them as a young girl– and as an adult, though I can appreciate The Incredibles, and the heartbreaking montage in Up, things like Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 are going to sail right over my head, because I lack the background viewing to support enjoying those films. Plus, I’m not the target audience, but that’s more of a side point than anything else; kids’ entertainment can often be better than what’s aimed at adults (try and compare Avatar: The Last Airbender to Cameron’s Avatar on story alone, I dare you).
And while I grew up watching Disney (Golden Age and Renaissance) 2D features, I can tell you most of them have not aged well at all from a storytelling point of view. Even if you want to excuse the casually blatant racism and misogyny as remnants of the time in which the movies were made or leftover details from the source material, which I only tend to do on a case-by-case basis, Disney is also very inconsistent movie-to-movie despite being rather formulaic. Also, you instantly lose points for rotoscoping, and then copying your own rotoscoping. It’s an animation contest.
Besides which, the lines are going to be blurring even further (Disney and Pixar have had a complicated professional relationship, and Disney’s also entered an arrangement to back and release Dreamworks films under one of their subsidiaries), so Company X vs Company Y grows increasingly pointless without narrowing the categories to “2D Princesses,” “2D Animals,” “3D Animals,” “Inanimate Objects,” etc. etc.
Just my 2c.
After seeing you pick A Bug’s Life over Pinocchio, I couldn’t finish the rest. Pinocchio is one of the greatest works of animated storytelling, period. Nothing in ABL compares to Stromboli, the harrowing transformation on Pleasure Island, Monstro the Whale, etc.
Nuts. Nuts, I say!
Pinocchio vs. A Bug’s Life: You’re completely out of your gourd. Bug’s Life was bland and quippy, with characters that were largely one-note or plot gears. And you really found the naive curiosity of Pinocchio more annoying than hyperactive non-entity Flik? And when you start comparing plots, you’re really talking about Kurosawa and Collodi, not Pixar and Disney.
Dumbo vs. Monster’s Inc.: YOU’RE COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR GOURD. And I even like Monster’s Inc. a lot more than the other commenters here.
Bambi vs. Finding Nemo: See that gourd right there? The one belonging to you? You’ll note your external spacial relationship to it. You make a lot of the reasoning behind your decisions clear here: “more involved story.” What you’re appreciating are Pixar’s modern storytelling sensibilities. Sure, Bambi can’t compete with Finding Nemo for plot or action, but it far outstrips it in terms of the pure iconic power of its scenes. Nothing in Nemo approaches the menace of the fire, the delight of Bambi’s first winter, the playful beauty of the rainstorm, or, yes, the anguish of his mother’s death. In Bambi, tone is more important than plot, and it stands out amongst even contemporary animation as a richly personal, emotional story. Nemo, for all its charms, is generic by comparison.
lilacsigil
“all the EW GIRLS YUK GAY KEN YUK and assumed masculinity of toys like piggy banks and dinosaurs.”
Yeah, I remember throughout that movie how Ken was always like Ew Girls Yuck every time he encountered Barbie. So incredibly homosexual, what with the being attracted to male characters and not being attracted to female characters. If only he had been a witty, thematically consistent deconstruction of misrepresented gender modes in lifestyle porn, instead of a woman-hating flamer. But you’re right, it does suck how all the dinosaurs in the Toy Story franchise were male. Couldn’t they have balanced out the dominating machismo of stereotypical He-Man Wallace Shawn with a single female dinosaur? Say, a triceratops played by Kristen Schaal? That would have been a big improvement.
Jaime Weinman
“Other studios, like Dreamworks with “Kung Fu Panda,” have arguably surpassed Dreamworks [sic] in showing that computer animation can be as fluid and specific as traditional.”
Uh, really? Because I thought Kung Fu Panda, even forgiving its excessive pose-to-pose snapping as in line with it’s focus on Kung Fu, had some really unnatural, formulaic animation. About the third time a shocked character had a frozen, open-mouthed face with a twitching eyelid, I got pretty bored. The action scenes were well-directed, but the dialogue scenes relied almost entirely on mise en scene and music cues for pathos and impact.
Gena
“things like Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 are going to sail right over my head, because I lack the background viewing to support enjoying those films.”
Well La Dee Da. Why not watch the season finale of The Wire and say it’s hard to get into because you don’t know what’s going on?
“try and compare Avatar: The Last Airbender to Cameron’s Avatar on story alone, I dare you”
Gee, it’s almost as if the TV show has orders of magnitude more time to develop the characters and plot details than the movie. Now why don’t you try comparing the MOVIE The Last Airbender to the MOVIE Avatar?
“Also, you instantly lose points for rotoscoping, and then copying your own rotoscoping. It’s an animation contest.”
Regardless of the fact that none of the movies John mentions copied previous animation, it’s a good thing this isn’t an animation contest, because pretty as they are, and with all their advanced technology (really, you’re shitting on rotoscoping when Pixar uses shaders, tweening, and physics simulators?), Pixar films fall laughably behind early Disney in terms of visual experimentation, character design, and vibrant movement.