But directed by Andrew Stanton... so kinda good news/bad news...

When I was younger, I really wanted A Bug's Life 2...still waiting...

Ugh, it's over as far as I see it. With Incredibles to Ratatouille to Wall-E it seemed like Pixar was really reaching out of the "kid's movie" game and were going to tackle more intelligent, adult stories. In retrospect Wall-E really was the peak of that kind of risk taking (or maybe the first 15 minutes of UP), and now it really is a steady fall back to known properties targeted at kids who will buy toys. I was really holding out hope for a kickass PG-13 pixar movie, but that hope is basically dead now.

I loved Finding nemo but it's in the same category as the rest of the ones they're doing sequels/prequels for. The story has been told, there is nothing more that needs to be told. So just stfu and leave it lie.

(Which is also my same argument for my loathing of the Ice Age sequels...but that's a whole thing that I AM willing to go full rage face over, so I'll stop now.)

I didn't think John Carter was that bad........

One word went through my mind when i heard the news. It was:

"Fuck."

OK, now that Pixar has fallen, and other animation studios are putting out good films... can we STOP referring to these movies by studio? Name the director. Name the head animator. Whatever. We don't assume all live action films from a studio have a certain quality, and we shouldn't in animation. Especially as the top creative people start to move around, freelance the same way live action directors do. Let's give the actual creators the credit.

I think the problem Pixar are having is that they've started to think up concepts and then build a story round it, instead of the other way round.  For example, I think I remember hearing that Toy Story was made because someone in Pixar had the idea "What happens to our Toys after we grow up?" which is an interesting question and a story that you can tell.  Now I feel like its more about the concept and the demographic that they're trying to target. For example, with Brave they wanted to make a film with a female lead to attract young females and then they realised they had to make a story, which seems to me to be a bad way to make a film.

And I think corporate politics, like has already been mentioned has had a big part in it.