ICS Weekends: Disney Debates

DSquared

DSquared

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hello everyone, and welcome to a Disney Debate! I am your host DSquared. Throughout the weekend, we have 3 eager competitors all vying to win the first forum based game. Let's introduce these three.

@tcool123 @spacemt354 @TheOriginalTiki

Now, let's Debate!

Our first question is the opposite of the first question from the live show.

Pick the best Pixar movie, while EXCLUDING the Toy Story franchise.

One of you, take it away with opening statements!
 
TheOriginalTiki

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
I will be arguing my case for "Inside Out". This is the movie that was so good it made up for nearly a half decade of good to decent Pixar films that barely made a dent in the grand scheme of things. Inside Out is a grand artistic achievement. For years Pixar excelled at messing with our emotions...With this film they've cut out the middle man...a bold and ambitious story direction that showed the studio still has great concepts up their sleeve.

What more...This movie fires on all cylinders. It introduces us to a concept that is utterly limitless in its scope and potential. The dynamics between the main emotions are priceless. Pixar is known for "odd couple" style pairings of main characters, and what they did with Joy and Sadness brought that entire concept together in a definitive and mind blowing way. No big villains or goofy comic relief...just a deep, dark, emotional, and spellbinding journey into the literal heart of imagination. It's still a newly released film, but having seen it a total of five times I can say with confidence it is my personal favorite film the studio has ever released.
 
spacemt354

spacemt354

Chili's
I am arguing for Up as the best Pixar film (other than Toy Story 1,2,3)

Up is a film I had no expectations for going in. Seemed to me like the concept was strange. A man makes his house fly with balloons? However, about 15 minutes into this film is the most emotionally packed, musically invigorating montage that I've ever seen. At that point, I knew Pixar meant business.

The motivation and heart of this film is what makes this the best Pixar film in my view. At its core, Up brings Pixar to a level of story telling that cemented why they are the best at what they do.
 
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tcool123

tcool123

Well-Known Member
For my best Pixar movie I choose Wall-E. For me the first time I ever saw WallE was on Dusney Channel, and over the course of the film I fell in love with it. The first half of the film although mostly silent was great it really set upthe dismal mode of our future if we dont take care of it. This wasnt the only thing great about the first half. The second strong point is the chemistry with WallE and EVE, and far WallE to go to proctect her.

The second half is equally as stunning from the first. From the space scenes to the interior of the Axium its truly creative. And do I need to even mebtion the astounding Define Gravity scene? Towards the end we see EVE save WallE completing the circle of Robot love. During the credits we see the Earth begin to return to its former state and see WallE and EVEs relationship improve. In the end WallE is a top knotch film that truely shines above the rest of Pixar films.
 
TheOriginalTiki

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
I very much disagree that Wall*E's second half is as strong as its first. To me that film is the definition of "front-loaded". Don't get me wrong, there are some terrific sequences here and there throughout the second act...but I've never been able to get my head around certain things. The 2001 HAL rip-off villain was under-cooked and uninspired. The human characters were bland cardboard cut-outs for the most part, and all the side robots only have one or two moments to shine. It's Wall*E and EVE's story first and foremost, and that's why the film always disappoints when we get aboard the Axiom and the story starts to get scrambled and focus more on the humans than the central robots.

Up is definitely a harder film for me to argue against, but I'll do my best. To me Inside Out represents basically an entire movie's worth of the emotional gut-punch you get from the Married Life segment. While I famously stated in our "Inside Out" review that none of the individual scenes in the film are as strong as Married Life, on a whole the movie is much more consistent with the emotion. Up punches you in the gut in about three to four scenes throughout the film..and in between we get goofy poop jokes, an annoying kid, and ridiculous scenarios like dogs flying bi-planes. Inside Out is an absolute fusion of LITERALLY mind-bending creativity with all the emotion that the key parts of Up did so well carried through the entire film.

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spacemt354

spacemt354

Chili's
Okay, so I'll start by saying this is tough because I like all of these movies...it's hard to find faults in them because they are all really well made and when we made our lists of top 3 Pixar films each of us had these films on the list in a different order;)

With that said...

Inside Out - I would hope that a movie about emotions would be more "emotional" than the rest:p Going off of that though, I didn't think the concept itself was as original as the general audience felt, but that's also because of my love for Cranium Command. This concept felt very similar. Also if we are going to knock Up for having some ridiculous scenes....we could basically say that about every Pixar film, including Inside Out. I'm pretty sure your brain isn't composed of islands and canyons etc.

And to defend Russell, I didn't think he was annoying. He paralleled Ellie's fanaticism, excitement, and oddities...plus it added Pixar's first Asian lead in a film. The East West Players, an Asian American theater group praised Pixar for not only the inclusion of an Asian character as a main character, but also for a good represention.

Wall-E - I loved the ambition of the film having little dialogue at first, but I'll be honest I have no seen this film in a while...perhaps adding to why I had this 3rd on my list. I do agree in a sense with Tiki in regards to the story and how I wish the humans were focused on less and focused on the two leads.
 
TheOriginalTiki

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
First thing's first, I'll admit that I pulled the "annoying kid" card on Russell only as a debate tactic and don't really consider that character annoying (outside of the poop joke which doesn't belong in a Pixar movie...but I'll let it slide...) Good on @spacemt354 for defending the character as he made some great points.

My argument still stands though. Up gave us maybe four real tear-jerking moments (Married Life, Russell's backstory, Carl finding Ellie's message, the "death" of the house...) Inside Out was absolutely littered with them. While I don't think the strength of the film comes exclusively from how much of an utter gut punch it is, I do think that has a lot to do with why the film touched so many people on such a deep level.

The environments and characters alone really elevate Inside Out for me. We got an almost "Inception" level of detail in terms of how the human mind operates. The core emotions might be the best main group of characters ever in a Pixar film with each one of them having layers of development that extend FAR beyond their initial namesake. Joy and Sadness are THE Pixar "odd couple" for a new generation. I can't really say much that hasn't already been said. I respect Wall*E for what it was trying to do but I don't think it stuck to landing in the second half. I see "Up" as almost a predecessor for Inside Out...something that was genius in its own right but presented the blue prints for Pixar to build on and create something even better. Both of them are fantastic film and easily among the best in the studio's cannon, but I give the edge to Inside Out simply based on how consistently the film nails what it set out to accomplish.
 
spacemt354

spacemt354

Chili's
So sorry for the delay, we just had a family gathering.

For my closing statement, I will say that it's very tough to differentiate between these films. I like them all for different reasons and why I chose Up was because of the fact that the film touched me on a personal level. Out of all of these options its the one I related to the most. While not a completely legitimate claim (as I don't believe the Academy Awards have been announced) I will say the one thing that separates Up from the rest is the original score.

It won not only the Golden Globe for best original score but also the Academy Award as well. And was nominated for Best Picture, a feat that only a handful of animated films have ever accomplished. It comes down to me of which one I put in the Bluray player first. And for me, I'd choose Up based on my connection to it, the musical score, as well as the all around creative film.
 
TheOriginalTiki

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
Quick interjection if I may which I forgot to point out in any of my arguments. Inside Out has in my opinion THE best score out of any Pixar film. Every emotion is represented by a different instrument which makes the entire thing flow together in a really interesting conceptual way. Also this is subjective but "Lava" is my personal favorite Pixar short and compliments the film perfectly.

My bad. Not trying to step over other arguments just completely forgot how great the score for Inside Out is. (Not dismissing the score of Up by any stretch of course...)
 
spacemt354

spacemt354

Chili's
TheOriginalTiki said:
Quick interjection if I may which I forgot to point out in any of my arguments. Inside Out has in my opinion THE best score out of any Pixar film. Every emotion is represented by a different instrument which makes the entire thing flow together in a really interesting conceptual way. Also this is subjective but "Lava" is my personal favorite Pixar short and compliments the film perfectly.

My bad. Not trying to step over other arguments just completely forgot how great the score for Inside Out is. (Not dismissing the score of Up by any stretch of course...)
Click to expand...
Shhh...I like the score for Inside Out too...it's the same guy who did Up;)

I wouldn't be surprised if it got nominated for Best Score...however I had to throw that in there to try and help the argument:p
 
tcool123

tcool123

Well-Known Member
For my closing statement I would like to say again that all these film in my mind are equally great. I couldn't find anything bad about the other two films, but still Wall-E holds up among these three films with it's amazing visuals and it's astounding score. Along with chemistry found with Wall-E and EVE. Wall-E is the Pixar movie to watch for fun, for laughs, and even sadness.
 
DSquared

DSquared

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'll do like a one sentence review so my final decision makes sense to you guys.

Tiki:

You did a good job at picking the other movies apart, but I think Russel is ment to be a bit annoying so you can relate to Carl a bit more. And he's not annoying enough that it ruins the movie.

Space:

Nice work defending your movie in the closing, as well as mentioning it's Academy nominations. I don't think Cranium Command is in the public eye enough for it to make Inside Out less original than it already is. You could poked at Inside Out in more specific ways.

TCool:

You really used the first act of Wall-E to your advantage by explaining how the chemistry in the movie works well. Wish you would have picked aprt the other two movies more though.



With that, this win goes to........

@TheOriginalTiki



Good job everyone! This was really close
 

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