Disney protects the status quo
By now you’ve probably seen Wreck-It Ralph Disney’s homage to old-school arcade games. It’s a terrific movie a sort of Toy Story for Donkey Kong fans and proof that Disney can make quality CGI films to rival the work of Pixar.
Which raises an interesting point: Pixar is now owned by Disney. Pixar honcho John Lasseter is credited as executive producer for Wreck-It Ralph . Lots of viewers are going to assume that Wreck-It Ralph is a Pixar film although such people tend to ignorantly assume that every big-budget CGI film that comes along is from Pixar. So the question is since Disney and Pixar are one big family now why didn’t they just make this a Pixar film? Well obviously because the Pixar team was hard at work making Monsters University and Toy Story 4 and also because Disney probably wanted to reclaim a little bit of the dominance they lost in the family film industry when that upstart company Pixar came along. More importantly looking at the output of the two companies they seem to have quite different philosophies. Disney likes to protect the status quo while Pixar seems to enjoy shaking things up.
That’s a pretty broad generalization but bear with me. In Wreck-It Ralph we have a video game antagonist (Ralph voiced by John C. Reilly) who seems dissatisfied with the routine of getting hurled off a building every day while his neighbours cheer at his defeat and humiliation. Yeah that sounds like it would get tiresome after 30 years. Ralph boldly decides to make a new life for himself but doing so leaves his game unplayable and if he doesn’t return soon the game will be shut off forever and all of its inhabitants will become homeless. The film becomes a race against time for Ralph to reclaim his former role before he dooms all his friends. (Well colleagues. None of the other characters treat Ralph like a friend.)
Compare this scenario to the Pixar film WALL-E (2008). Here again is a protagonist (the adorable little trash-robot WALL-E) with a regimented daily routine that doesn’t really suit his personality. Like Ralph WALL-E decides to go against his programming and try for a different life. In fact he spreads this idea of “going against your programming” to virtually every character in the film and they all jump on that idea like it’s a full canteen in the middle of the desert. By destabilizing the status quo does WALL-E ruin everything? Does he regret his rashness and meekly return to his soul-crushing drudgery? Hell no! By following his heart he breaks the whole of human civilization out of its self-destructive rut and brings hope to the universe! Everybody starts thinking for themselves and they change the God damn world! The villain turns out to be the autopilot that kept everybody trapped in their routine all those years. Meanwhile in Wreck-It Ralph the villain is a renegade video game character who like Ralph decided to change things up. The heroes win by putting everyone back where they “belong.”
The message of the Pixar film is “Be awesome follow your heart break out of your bad habits and good things will happen.” The message of the Disney film is “Keep doing what you’ve been doing for 30 years or you’ll ruin everything.” It’s the difference between a new upstart company and a company that still relies on selling Cinderella tablecloths and Mickey Mouse ears.
Now Disney not only owns Pixar but Lucasfilm as well. The company that resists change is going to be making Star Wars films. Disney will probably ignore all those Star Wars prequels that creator George Lucas worked so hard on and start making films exactly like the 1977 original. Stormtroopers unambiguously evil villains Wookiees droids Death Stars….
Actually that sounds pretty good. Yay Disney!
