Finding Dory

It's on my list of things to see, though I haven't been terribly impressed with Pixar of late. I loved Inside Out to the extent of seeing it thirteen times in the cinema, but it was the first Pixar film I've really loved since The Incredibles and their next production — The Good Dinosaur — was a complete turd of a film. I thought Finding Nemo was insipid and unimaginative and its main justification seemed to be "look, we can do water now". The reviews for Finding Dory seem to be positive so perhaps it'll turn out well.

Finding Dory is very good, it's not as good as Finding Nemo but it's close.

I think Walt Disney Animation Studios has upped their game in the last few years with Zootropolis, Big Hero 6, Frozen etc I'm really looking forward to Moana.

Pixar and Disney are still top dogs in animation IMO I saw The Secret Life of Pets which is by Illumination and was disappointed in it, it was animation by numbers at best.

I have watched Pixar movies since Toy Story came out in cinemas, but it was only until Finding Nemo that I fell in love with their work

Ratatouille to Toy Story 3 was for me Pixar's Golden Age. They weren't all perfect but I thought the imagination put into them was astonishing. They appealed to both children and adults, finding the right blend of humour and poignancy. I'll never forget the monologue the late Peter O'Toole delivers at the end of Ratatouille, WALL-E and Eve flying through space, the married life montage in Up, or the toys stuck in the incinerator

Then of course it has gone down hill since then with the worst film they've made, Cars 2, and the average Brave and Monsters Uni. The Good Dinosaur doesnt sound hopeful either (that was the one where John Lasseter removed Bob Peterson from directing the film that he had been working on since 2009)

Inside Out though has for me become the best Pixar movie to date, and I wish Pixar would go back to creating more original stories like that instead of another Toy Story and Cars. I'm more interested in the Coco movie that is coming late next year that is set around the Mexican holiday, Día de Muertos.

Thankfully the sequel many a pixar fan is dying to see, The Incredibles 2, will finally be coming (in three years time)

There's an interesting fact that back in 1994, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Joe Ranft were brainstorming ideas over lunch for what should come next after Toy Story. They came up with Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and WALL-E all those years back. I think they need to have one of those lunch breaks again really.

I think the difference runs much deeper than just an emphasis on story.

Most animation tends to be dismissed as "cartoons for children". Some films are quite definitely pitched squarely at young children and are pretty much unwatchable for adults — I had trouble just sitting through the trailers for the recent Peppa Pig movie — and some are unquestionably suitable for adults only, but in the middle there's a range that are suitable for a wide span of ages and that's where things get interesting.

Some films are clearly children's films with some adult humour added on top. The characters have no great depth and their motivations are simple, and the core storyline is basic, straightforward and easy to understand. There are few or no powerfully emotional sequences and the parts that go over the heads of younger members of the audience don't change the meaning of the film in any way. Much like a pantomime, a five year old and a fifty year old see the same film; the latter sees it with a couple of dick jokes in it but it's basically the same experience. I'm looking at you, Minions. But only once, because you're too shallow to justify a second look.

But some films — and I include most of the Disney films and many of the Pixar ones in this group — are significantly different. There's a greater emotional depth to them. The characters and their motivations are far more complex, there's a greater maturity to the stories being told and they have a multitude of threads that interact in intricate ways, and the overall demand on the audience is far higher. The core of the film is pitched at an adult's level and children miss out on some of what's going on at the heart of the story because they don't have the life experience to appreciate it in an adult way. Children don't have the understanding to see how eighteen years of systematic psychological abuse affects Rapunzel's view of the world, or what it means for Elsa to cut herself off from her beloved sister because she thinks that's the only way to keep her safe, or how Riley's parents set up the situation that ultimately leads to her inability to cope, or what lack of fulfilment does to Mr Incredible's home life and what that means for Elastigirl. Children enjoy the adventure but they miss out on many of the layers of meaning and richness of emotion. They have a fundamentally different experience from adults because at heart the films are adult films with all the depth and complexity of any adult-oriented live-action production. And that's why the films keep working so well.

I agree with this but occasionally animated films from other studios get it right, maybe not so much on emotion but story wise like The Lego Movie which promoted creativity being a good thing or Shrek where the moral is that beauty is skin deep. 

Pixar and Disney aren't afraid of going dark, Zootropolis had plenty of quite perilous moments but one that always struck was Big Hero 6 when  

You compare to Minions or The Secret Life of Pets and you realise how lackluster those films are in comparison. Pets tries to go for the emotional core but fails because it isn't earned. Their saving grace is the animation and gags. 

Finally saw Finding Dory on Friday in Leeds. As Matthew, I found it a bit too predictable and there were a few coincidences too many for my liking, but overall I really liked it. If they'll ever make another sequel: Please make Dory a little less annoying.
Bluray is preordered, but I doubt that I'll be seeing it again in the cinema.

Oddly enough, I found the pre-film feature Piper to be even better than Finding Dory.

Also, after seeing the trailers, I can't wait to finally see Moana. And Sing seems to be also fun.

Okay I can officially say that whilst Finding Nemo 2 was not needed, Finding Dory deserves a place amongst Pixar's better films. Just not their best.

The film works on its own terms. The pacing is faster than Finding Nemo, which I found a bit disconcerting at first as we see familiar characters flit by. But it fits within this story about a frenetic Dory going back and forth trying to find her parents. Whilst the story feels familiar structure wise there's plenty of new adventures and characters to enjoy

The animation and acting is top notch as usual

My only problem is that the writing was digging itself into big holes at times, and dug its way out in the most convenient ways possible. I bought how characters were able to get around the aquarium out of water, but when we got to the final act I was scratching my head thinking how they were going to get out of this one.

And they did that in the most bonkers way possible. I was laughing at how funny and utterly stupid the plot had gotten all of a sudden.

Not Pixars finest hour, but this film had the makings of a great film that could have been as good as Finding Nemo for its own reasons.

Definitely not an unnecessary sequel

Oh and the short, Piper, was absolutely adorable