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November 16, 2004

Bad Idea!

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

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I am begging Disney to not make Toy Story 3 without Pixar! (hat tip: Peeve Farm) Disney's recent outings have been terrible, and I fear that the bad taste that would likely come from this would take some of the shine off of the first two wonderful movies.

The problem with most movie companies is that they don't understand why a good movie is a hit. Jaws was not a hit because it had sharks, but because of its archetypal man-vs-nature struggle in which two unlikely heros get caught up in a fight almost beyond their ability to survive, which is why the sequels were so bad: they were about man-eating sharks. Similarly, Rocky was not about boxing, but about a man overcoming self-doubt and skepticism to rise beyond his expectations; the sequels were about boxing, and were terrible. And Toy Story is not a story about talking toys with emotions. The first movie was about identity and meeting others' needs and what makes life worth living, while the second was about friendship and self-sacrifice and the price of immortality.

I fear that the third movie, if Disney should be rash enough to make it with their recent track record, would be about talking toys.