Today, January 18th, the animation community got a shock when veteran Pixar director Lee Unkrich announced that he left the acclaimed, Emeryville-based studio after a 25-year tenure there…
via The Independent
Unkrich, who is 51 years old, was an integral part of the features since the beginning, having served as an editor on the original Toy Story, and quickly moving his way up to the director’s chair shortly thereafter. Unkrich’s first directing gig was Toy Story 2, a film that had been put in quick turnaround after accumulating into a mess. Lee worked alongside John Lasseter, and though he’s listed as “co-director” (which I suspect was Lasseter’s fancy way of not giving full credit to another director on any given picture), I feel a lot of that sequel’s strengths very much came from him. Lee continued “co-directing” other films, such as Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo, and also made some editing contributions to various projects. After John Lasseter became chief of Pixar, Unkrich became part of the studio’s “Brain Trust”…
Eventually, he got to direct a feature on his own, and no surprise, it was a film about the Andy’s Room gang. Lasseter, being in a high position, was unable to direct a third Toy Story, so it made sense that Unkrich got the job. With Toy Story 3, Unkrich stayed true to what made the first two films so great, while also injecting it with a bit of a newer flavor. The evolution in computer animation technology certainly helped, for Lee helmed a film that was gorgeous. Artists such as Dice Tsutsumi influenced the look of the film, which boasted striking color work and lighting. Writer Michael Arndt of Little Miss Sunshine fame added a fresh voice to the series. It was one of Pixar’s prettiest, most emotional, and even darkest films. Toy Story 3 doubled down on the uncomfortable truths raised in Toy Story 2, and wisely skipped time. While Toy Story 4 exists and will be playing in multiplexes this coming summer, Toy Story 3 truly felt like the end of a perfect trilogy, which is why many an animation fan is rightfully concerned about how the fourth movie – which Lee himself contributed to – will stack up.
Not too long after the release of Toy Story 3, we had heard that Unkrich was developing a new, original story. With that, we were going to see what he was truly made of. Instead of working with familiar faces and worlds, he was going to give us a new world, new friends to meet, a new story to get lost in… After years of development, the result was the Mexico-set Day of the Dead tale Coco, which had a “co-director” in Andrea Molina. Coco was an original story that followed a long line of Pixar movies – some of which were originals – that went through production troubles. As Lasseter became more powerful, upstart directors found themselves struggling with features, trying to do their thing while heeding the demands of someone who felt his singular vision was king. Pixar had also made a good number of sequels during this seven-year stretch, with some of them giving the impression that the needle was kind of stuck at the studio. I felt that the body of work that comprised Pixar’s post-Toy Story 3/pre-Coco line-up was overall good and at times impressive, especially Pete Docter’s masterful Inside Out. But again, there seemed to be a little slowing down. Coco happened to be released right as Lasseter was outed for inappropriate behavior, and it couldn’t have been anymore fitting, because Lasseter’s Pixar was also not inclusive (women and non-white people didn’t have much of a say) and too controlling on up-and-coming directors who attempted to breathe new life into the Emeryville. Directors such as Brenda Chapman…
Coco felt like a burst of something unique, a breath of fresh air, to use a well-worn phrase. To me, it was half “old Pixar”, and half “new Pixar”. Coco isn’t perfect, for a lot of its first act is kind of clunky in its pacing, and a lot of it lifts moments wholesale from previous Pixar films. Miguel’s dreams and him having a hero to look up to are right out of Ratatouille, him being at odds with his staunch anti-music family is reminiscent of Brave‘s central conflict, and the film has yet another twist villain in Ernesto de la Cruz. His comeuppance is basically the same as Mr. Waternoose’s inadvertent confession in the final third of Monsters, Inc.
Yet despite the use of overly familiar parts, the “new” stuff is glorious, mainly the human story set in a culture that wasn’t American or European. Coco wasn’t a light tapping of Day of the Dead, the film immerses itself into the holiday, family life, and traditions. So much so that it is the highest-earning film in Mexico. A direct antithesis to John Lasseter’s more white-centric reign at Pixar, certainly, this was something new. Coco, much like Toy Story 3, also wasn’t afraid to dip into darker waters.
Many Pixar films don’t shy away from harshness or even outright frightening content, but I think Lee’s two films almost kind of wallow in darkness. Toy Story 3 is almost entirely about the uncertainty of the future, as the story is mainly spurred by Andy heading off to college. The film isn’t entirely gloomy, as it does seamlessly transition from a toy version of Cool Hand Luke to a rousing prison break romp, but in its third act, it briefly falls down the black hole before emerging triumphantly with a bittersweet ending. It wasn’t enough that Andy ceased playing with his toys for years, it wasn’t enough that the majority of the toys felt that they were to be tossed away, it wasn’t enough that they dealt with a near-totalitarian daycare setting run by a misanthropic stuffed bear (who Woody could’ve very well become in the first Toy Story), no… They had to literally face hell – in the form of a garbage dump incinerator – before having one last playtime with Andy and a new owner who will take great care of them. Nothing in the first two Toy Story films matched the sheer intensity of Toy Story 3‘s third act. Again, the fourth movie has A LOT to live up to after this.
Now that’s toys, Coco is about humans and deals directly with death. Nearly three-quarters of the movie takes place in the Land of the Dead, there’s dead people everywhere! Yet there’s a fun element to it all. The dead are appealing, stylized, painted skeletons with eyeballs, hardly menacing or off-putting. The land itself is like a heavenly, lively Mexico, save for the slums where the forgotten people spend their final days. In a sequence where Miguel and Hector visit an old friend of Hector’s in that area, Coco gets incredibly bleak. Those who are forgotten in the real world fade away into nothingness for good, never to enjoy eternity in the Land of the Dead… We see THAT happen… It’s going to happen to Hector unless Miguel successfully helps him, and to make matters worse (again, much like Toy Story 3), there’s a monstrous individual who is determined to prevent that, alongside a major misunderstanding that needs to be ironed out. The lengths de la Cruz goes to to keep Hector from being remembered as the true songwriter of the famed musician’s biggest hits simply added a black cherry on top of the dark cake. Killing Hector in the land of the living wasn’t enough, de la Cruz is out and out one of Pixar’s most horrible villains… And it was very fitting that this particular film debuted after the beginning of John Lasseter’s prolonged ouster from The Walt Disney Company.
Coco ends similarly to Toy Story 3, where happiness prevails, but at a cost. With Toy Story 3, the gang say goodbye to their longtime owner. Coco? The titular character, Miguel’s great grandmother, passes away, but lives on with papa Hector – who will always be remembered, as his name was thankfully cleared – in the Land of the Dead. Such a perfect ending. For me, the film is the reverse version of Up. Up‘s first ten minutes are in a league of its own, the rest of the movie is still great, but perhaps it’s a little unfair that those first ten minutes preceded it. How does another 80-or-so minutes even begin to live up to that? Coco is plain great up until those final thirty minutes, then it’s on a whole other playing field. Astounding…
It’s a little bittersweet to see Lee Unkrich leave after contributing two rather distinctive films to the Pixar pantheon, and being a major part of their evolution. While he intends to spend more time with his family and pursue more personal projects, it’s debatable whether he’d ever return much later down the line. Who knows, but if he doesn’t, he’s left quite the mark at the studio.
I feel that he’s one of the few directors at Pixar who got to establish their style. Pete Docter, to me, has always been the guy who made quirky, sometimes screwball stories that happen to be honed in by strikingly raw emotion. Up and Inside Out show that in spades. Andrew Stanton directs the epics, the stories that are enormous in scope, whether they’re from the perspective of bugs or fish or robots (or, if they’re space operas, in the form of the ill-fated live-action Disney spectacle John Carter of Mars), they have serious emotional weight as well. Thomas Newman frequently scores his movies, so that’s a stamp, I’d say. Brad Bird is the cutting edge director, his animated features – including The Iron Giant, which was made for Warner Bros. – have an edge to them, aren’t concerned with any particular target audience (for Bird is an outspoken advocate of his medium, and a vocal critic of the many misconceptions regularly belted at the medium), and take many cues from live-action classics. The Incredibles differed almost heavily from the five Pixar films before it, and many that came after it. Incredibles 2, much like half of Coco, was like a punkier Pixar picture. Lee showed that he too tells heartfelt tales, but his dance with darkness a little more than others.
It is hard to say this about other folks who directed features at Pixar. Some of them have yet to make their sophomore efforts (Dan Scanlon, director of the pretty good Monsters University, will show what he’s made of with his highly personal original feature Onward, due out in spring 2020), others simply got fired from their movies. What if Brenda Chapman were allowed to finish Brave? What will her future films be like, now that she’s successfully doing things elsewhere? Veteran Bob Peterson got kicked off of his Good Dinosaur, but he has another feature idea, so we’ll see where that ends up in the post-Lasseter Pixar studio. Pete Sohn, who finished what Peterson started, could establish his style with a second feature if he’s given the opportunity to direct one (and he should), alongside those who have one feature under their belts, like Brian Fee (Cars 3) and Mark Andrews (finishing director of Brave). First-timers like Domee Shi are sure to make a real mark, and that will truly be exciting to see, especially under the leadership of Pete Docter.
I wish all the best for Unkrich in his future endeavors, and hopefully we’ll see more distinctive, perhaps game-changing films come out of the new era of Pixar…
Kyle Loves Animation and More... 