Wildlings

Thoughts on Pixar’s Inside Out: I remember the sheer wonder of the early Pixar movies – Toy Story in particular. Since then they’ve devolved a little into formula; a more sophisticated one than the story arcs that most mainstream animation manage for sure, but it’s that sophistication itself that becomes troubling.

Everything about a Pixar movie is precisely calibrated, even it’s flights of fancy. In Inside Out, the sequence where the characters end up in a realm of Abstract Thought reminded me of the God sequence in Studio 4C’s Mind Games

But whilst the latter left your mind reeling with possibilities, suggested meanings, Pixar’s sequence did exactly what it was intended to do, and no more.

And that extends to the movie as a whole. Part of the wonder of animations like Totoro and Mind Games is the feeling of anarchy, of the meeting of imaginations, an openness. With Inside Out, you might be moved, you’ll laugh, be dazzled – but it’ll be exactly in the same way as everyone else. It’s a sort of contradiction – a studio filled with incredibly imaginative minds, making movies where the wildest imaginings become part of a preconcieved cookie cutter plan.

Storytelling Part 2

A couple of contrasting reviews to Malinky Robot, at least with the storytelling. Over at CBR’s Pipeline, Augie De Blieck appreciated the art (“I could stare at it all day. The inks, the colors, the panel compositions, the cityscapes, the facial expressions, the meticulous backgrounds… Beautiful stuff. Everything is well designed, pieces that belong to a whole but look unique and interesting on their own…..There’s an atmosphere to this book that is hard to capture in many other comics.”), but categorizes it as an “Art Driven” Comic, meaning one where the story is perfunctory, or in his words, “forgettable and occasionally nonsensical”.

Over at the Westword Blog, Thorin Klosowski also likes the art (“…some of the best you’ll ever see”), but thinks that the stories “are so filled with nuance and subtlety, you’ll need to read them a few times before it all really sets in.”

And a while back Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good (also from CBR) thought it was a “powerful work and well worth you picking up”, with”Karakuri” described as an “extremely well-crafted tale”

So: differing reactions, and that divide is a  question I’ve mulled over for the longest time, ever since The Comics Journal ran a review on “Stinky Fish Blues” way back when, lumping that story together with Farel Dalrymple‘s  Pop Gun War as “shallow” ones that ” create…barriers between the reader and the beautiful drawings” .

There was a discussion on a blog post a few years back, over the nature of good storytelling:

What is Storytelling?

No real conclusion then, not sure what the conclusion would be now.

What makes a good story? The kind Pixar movies tend to tell? What about your art house stuff, someone like, say, Tsai Ming Liang or Hou Hsiao Hsien?

Those who do end up reading the new Malinky Robot collection, do let me know your thoughts, good or bad 🙂

What is Storytelling?

The above image, from this website, shows some of the concept art for “American Dog”, a Disney movie that turned into “Bolt” after its original director, Chris Sanders was removed.  This was apparently due to disagreements over storytelling with John Lasseter, and therefore raises parallels (in my mind) with other projects where the orginal directors/creators were removed for failing to solve “storytelling problems” (Jan Pinkava on Ratatoullie is another case and maybe Glen Keane on Rapunzel Unbraided as well) .

Apart from any talk of conflicting egoes, it does make me wonder: What exactly is good storytelling?

Pixar movies have been used as a gold standard for a while now in critical circles, and on Ratatoullie, Brad Bird is often cited as having fixed numerous storytelling issues in a matter of weeks. But here’s the rub though: as much as I loved the 2 Toy Stories and Iron Giant, I’ve been underwhelmed by later Pixar movies, from Ratatoullie to Wall-E; Bolt was a pretty bland movie as well.

Which makes me wonder what the movies would have turned out like if Sanders and Pinkava had been allowed to carry out their vision; something more personal, less commercially driven perhaps? Or were there really objectively quantifiable problems with their approach? Is good storytelling a subjective thing or is there some sort of universal (or at least human) standard we can point to? (say…a 90% rating on rottentomatoes? :p)

I guess I worry about these issues working on my own stories, particulary the current Malinky  Robot GN: is there  enough direction in the plot? Emotional engagement of the reader? Is the conflict resolution placed at the right time, at the right intensity? What would a John Lasseter make of the Brothers Quay or Jan Svankmajer?

Who exactly do we write for, and to what end?