Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)

[networkpro]

Well I'll hold off on my determination, but Princess and the Bear didnt like it

 

[CaptainAmerica]

They've already started with the excuse-making on Facebook.

This time it's "if you don't go see Elemental, you're a bigot against Korean immigrants."

 

[BlakeW39]

"if you don't go see Elemental, you're a bigot against Korean immigrants."

uhh... how??

 

[CaptainAmerica]

uhh... how??

 

[Chi84]

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How does it follow that if you don’t see Elemental you’re a bigot? It seems like a sweet personal story.

 

[TalkingHead]

*biting my tongue*

 

[Disstevefan1]

I have a feeling it's going to be a busy summer for the stone carvers, so I have them getting a "head" start..

 

[BlakeW39]

Currently the film has a 58 on metacritic... not looking good. For reference, Cars 2 got a 57 and Good Dinosaur got a 61...

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I’m sick of it too.

It starts with the premise that everything Disney produces now is garbage so no one can reasonably like it. They classify this as fact, not opinion.

Yes, quite often I read these forums and think of a certain Simpsons character.

 

[Disstevefan1]

View attachment 724323

When did they change from the lamp to ratatouille for the i in Pixar?

 

[Phroobar]

They've already started with the excuse-making on Facebook.

This time it's "if you don't go see Elemental, you're a bigot against Korean immigrants."

So if you didn't watch "Good Dinosaur" your a bigot against dinosaurs and their wolf-boy pets?

 

[Sir_Cliff]

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I must say I am puzzled that anyone would feel personally attacked by a note like that.

Do you genuinely anticipate anyone in your life accusing you of being a bigot for not seeing or not liking the film? Has anyone been accusing reviewers who didn't like it of being bigots?

It's just a personal message from the film's director giving context for the themes contained in the film as part of the online marketing campaign.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I must say I am puzzled that anyone would feel personally attacked by a note like that.

Literally nobody said anything about feeling personally attacked.

It's just a personal message from the film's director giving context for the themes contained in the film as part of the online marketing campaign.

It's not about the note, it's about Disney's recent creative strategy in film after film. They keep handing the reigns to filmmakers who want to tell "deeply personal" stories and every time, it goes over with audiences like a wet fart. Filmmakers need to stop making films for THEMSELVES and start making films for, you know, the people who they want to buy tickets.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Literally nobody said anything about feeling personally attacked.

Well, that's certainly how responding with 'This time it's "if you don't go see Elemental, you're a bigot against Korean immigrants"' reads as a reaction to the letter.

It's not about the note, it's about Disney's recent creative strategy in film after film. They keep handing the reigns to filmmakers who want to tell "deeply personal" stories and every time, it goes over with audiences like a wet fart. Filmmakers need to stop making films for THEMSELVES and start making films for, you know, the people who they want to buy tickets.

I agree you can certainly argue whether this tendency toward films that are "deeply personal" for the filmmakers is working and whether it's resulting in films that don't connect with audiences. On the face of it, I understand why they would allow their filmmakers to explore such issues, and Luca at least springs to mind as one of these films in which I think it worked nicely (I think it's particularly a shame that one never got a cinema run). It's not unreasonable to think that if a film comes from a sincere place that it will connect with more people, but maybe that isn't happening for one reason or another.

I think that's a different conversation, though, to Pixar accusing people who don't go and see this film of being bigots.

 

[Chi84]

Literally nobody said anything about feeling personally attacked.


It's not about the note, it's about Disney's recent creative strategy in film after film. They keep handing the reigns to filmmakers who want to tell "deeply personal" stories and every time, it goes over with audiences like a wet fart. Filmmakers need to stop making films for THEMSELVES and start making films for, you know, the people who they want to buy tickets.

But what does that have to do with being accused of bigotry if you don’t see the film?

 

[dreday3]

Literally nobody said anything about feeling personally attacked.


It's not about the note, it's about Disney's recent creative strategy in film after film. They keep handing the reigns to filmmakers who want to tell "deeply personal" stories and every time, it goes over with audiences like a wet fart. Filmmakers need to stop making films for THEMSELVES and start making films for, you know, the people who they want to buy tickets.

I'm betting Coco was a deeply personal film to the director (Adrian Molina). And it was spectacular. And a hit.
So was Luca - directed by Enrico Casarosa. Maybe it wasn't a financial hit, but it was excellent and most beloved by us Italian-Americans!

 

[MisterPenguin]

I prefer films in which the writer, director, or produce had no emotional feelings toward their works and the message and theme of the film is totally foreign to them.

 

[TsWade2]

I think what you're describing, though, is along the lines of what is meant by the term "toxic fandom". One extreme variant of that is harassing actors and actresses or other creative professionals. But it also involves this kind of hostility not based on subjective judgements of the quality of, in this case, Disney films, but a sense that Disney as something you cared about is personally disrespecting you through the entertainment it is produces. This is then translated into an effort to wrest back control of what they are producing mainly through this kind of relentless negativity in the fan community.

To be clear, I am not saying you are toxic nor that everyone needs to be positive about anything they don't like. You and I have agreed on other threads about things we see as highly negative in the parks. In general, I am of the opinion that Disney has made visiting WDW too complicated and expensive for it to be worth it for the time being.

What we were talking about here, though, is thread after thread full of people gleefully rubbing their hands over the prospect of films failing they both haven't seen and don't have any interest in seeing as a way of sticking it to Disney. In this case, the reviews aren't even particularly bad and it is supposed to be the thing everyone wants: an original story. Without seeing it, though, people are declaring that it needs to fail because the story isn't good or original enough as what I think is a fig leaf for a more general desire to see Disney suffer.


Exactly. What is striking to me is not that people don't find certain films appealing. In my case, I never bothered seeing Lightyear or Strange World, for example, as neither really appealed. What is striking is that there seem to be a small group dedicated solely to predicting and cheering on the failure of film after film.

I blame WDWPro and Valiant Renegade for making people get angry at Disney and wanting to go bankrupt and be gone forever. It's ridiculous. I don't agree what Disney is doing nowadays, but I know that they can fix their mistakes and get better again. I just can't imagine why people are rooting for Disney's demise which we know that Disney going bankrupt is unlikely.

 

[dreday3]

All these straw-man arguments are rather interesting and telling. When some of us point out that there are posters who come to these threads solely to cheer on the failure of films they have no interest in or experience of, we are not being hyperbolic: it is an observable fact, with the posters in question openly stating their purpose. Yet the response to our criticisms of this zealous negativity are a series of unsubstantiated or outright false statements that try to make it seem as if there are two sides to the equation. There really aren't. Only one "side" is going into this debate with its mind already made up.

Well, I would never go as far as to say what Captain America was describing doesn't happen. On other forums (ahem, Reddit) some posters who post they didn't like a movie are accused of some pretty bad stuff when in fact they never did say that.

Sometimes the topic is tip-toed around here, but not like I've seen elsewhere.

But in the instance of Elemental, I think it was reaching to say that Disney was already preparing to blast anyone as a bigot. Also weird to say that people don't like movies when the director has an emotional connection.

 

[Phroobar]

Deadline afternoon box office update:

“Second place at 4,035 is Disney/Pixar’s Elemental with $11M today, a 3-day of $33M, and 4-day of $36M. Yikes, let’s hope it gets better.”

How do they know what the totals will be for the near future? Presales times guesses?

Disney is hoping that Elemental, which closed the Cannes Film Festival last month, gets to $35M. We’ll let this film breathe, hoping it can get a boost on Father’s Day Sunday before we examine the corpse.


The Disney/Pixar movie leaned 60% women, and 65% moms with girls outweighing boys, 66% to 34%. Women over 25 showed up at 32% (85% grade), women under 25 at 27% (89% grade), men over 25 at 25% (85% grade) and men under 25 at 15% (67% grade). Diversity demos were Caucasian 31%, Hispanic and Latino at 27%, Black at 17% and Asian at a very strong 20%.