How DreamWorks Got its Groove Back, and watched Disney trip itself
Its time to talk about Dreamworks…and of course Disney.
The “rivalry” between these two from the 2000s era (under an eternally-bitter Jeffrey Katzenberg) has all but died down because DreamWorks ultimately changed ownership while bleeding money, Katzenberg moved on to other ventures, and Disney started consuming planets of intellectual properties and continued scoring hit after hit from their -two- major animation studios, with Pixar’s epic 2007-2010 run pretty much cementing their spot on top of the animation world for a very long time.
Similar to how the first Disney Renaissance pretty much wrecked Don Bluth’s animated films out of the water, the second Disney Renaissance combined with Pixar’s yearly instant classic releases overwhelmed anything coming out of the DW section of animation. In the 2010s it was a lot of sequels, a few obvious cash cows, many ho-hum efforts, and to be honest nothing really outstanding besides the latter How to Train Your Dragon chapters. Even more insane was how during the 2010s, even Nickelodeon (the criminally underrated Rango) and Sony (the almost-flawless Into the Spider-Verse) ended up with more Oscar gold than Dreamworks during the 2010s.
The output from the animation studio dramatically decreased over the years, especially in the last five years with the pandemic (as expected) causing delays on top of all the directorial and script changes occurring during the productions. But somewhere along the line, DreamWorks realized that their approach has to change, citing the previous examples I just mentioned as well as their very own output in the 2000s.
It appears that DreamWorks felt like if they wanted to get their groove back, they have to revert back to what made them successful in the first place: becoming the obvious wild child in the world of animation again, subverting expectations in their films while having its proper visual identity.
The 2000s gave us Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, two excellent examples of films with their own proper identity instead of being just another computer-animated movie to entertain kids. In the examples during the 2010s, Rango had its hilarious blend of Tex Avery and amazingly realistic backgrounds and environmental effects. Into the Spider-Verse was an absolute game-changer, substituting realistic visuals for a comic book style that was unapologetically wild. I mostly love what I saw from Pixar and Disney during the 2010s, but let’s be honest besides Inside Out and probably Zootopia, the art styles blend in together---they’re nice but none pushed the envelope visually. Disney’s strengths during this decade was strictly in their narratives and outstanding performances supporting the screenplays and music.
2022 gave not one, but two very VERY good DreamWorks films that dare I say ranks in the top 10 of the best animated films the studio has ever made. They both have their unique visual flair, their undeniable charm, excellent voice acting (which has been a notable weakness for a long time), and scripts that isn’t afraid to certify its PG rating with darker themes and more risqué jokes for the adults to laugh and then slightly cringe at sharing the space with their children.
The Bad Guys is a comical version of a European-inspired heist flick, with a very slick fast-paced aesthetic that looks straight out of underground French animation studios. They ditched the biggest names and instead went with a great blend of reliable talent that are usually B-players in their other works, and it results in not one performance upstaging the other, its all blended in beautifully. Excellent chemistry supported by a screenplay that even if it’s a little predictable was nonetheless a fun time because its never boring as the narrative quickly skips to the next beat before it becomes stale.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish might become the first DreamWorks film to win Best Animated Feature since Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Ware-Rabbit (another great DreamWorks film with a distinctive visual style), its that good. Its so shockingly good, that you wish you could forget that it’s a sequel to that movie where Puss in Boots teams up with a talking…egg. The Last Wish is an animated fantasy that blends comical subversions of popular children stories with a Sergio Leone-esque action chase and dark thematic elements featuring mortality and legacy. Without spoiling anything, one of the villains in The Last Wish is arguably the best animated villain from -any- studio since Lotso in Toy Story 3 (who I still hate, to this very day). Puss in Boots has a legitimate story and character arc that would make for a spectacular final chapter in his saga, unless DreamWorks decides to revert back to their cash cow franchise Shrek and produce yet another sequel. If we’re being honest, I’m all for the reboot above another attempt at a sequel.
Above all else, give me more John Mulaney portraying an animated villain.
So DreamWorks is back in business and it kinda feels like they are back on top, above Disney for the first time since 2005 when Disney Animation was in an Eisner-related coma and Pixar rolled out the first Cars (good movie…but definitely bottom-tier in Pixar’s filmography).
So what’s happening to Disney?
Well, their recently-ousted boss had all but confirmed that he doesn’t care much for animation at all, which would explain his decisions made during his short tenure.
It feels like DreamWorks is back on top because Disney has delegated their animated projects, especially their best ones, to Disney+ or extremely short theatrical runs. Pixar Animation Studios was notoriously frustrated with Chapek because they saw Soul (understandable, pandemic era reasons), Luca (eh…it deserved a theatrical run regardless), and then post-pandemic Turning Red (unacceptable) ending up straight to Disney+ without a chance to be released in theaters across North America---despite there being theatrical runs in other countries. Then there was the horrible marketing for Lightyear (movie was admittingly a bit of a mess), Encanto (which also got hit with a brutally short run instead of attempting to extend beyond the holiday season and rely on word-of-mouth), and especially Strange World---which most people didn’t even realize released back in November.
Turning Red is superior to not only any animated film released this year, but MOST films in 2022. But, with no time in theaters, it has none of the momentum, it has none of the deserving praise you’re seeing from DreamWorks movies. Much like what DreamWorks did with their 2022 films, Turning Red is a turning point (pun possibly intended) in Pixar animation, as it deployed an exaggerated Eastern Asian anime-inspired aesthetic that created one of the most visually distinctive movies under the Disney banner since Princess and the Frog’s last gasp effort for Disney Renaissance traditional animation.
DreamWorks got better, and at the same time Disney under Chapek completely undervalued the medium of animation as a whole, and therefore created a situation where Disney Animation and Pixar and churning out beautiful movies that are destined for streaming instead of the big screen. Disney became 2010s DreamWorks, a company just throwing out animated films for profit and without the proper respect to the people who made them and the cinephiles that enjoy animated content. Its as if they’ve swapped mindsets.
Puss in Boots’ battles against *hidden by spoiler alert* deserved the big theater treatment, as well as their funny action sequences sprinkled throughout. Turning Red’s chaotic final act that featured a wild kaiju battle as well as multiple beautiful astral plane sequences deserved the big screen treatment, and never got it. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish could have easily become a streaming exclusive on Peacock, but it got the theatrical run it deserved, and with strong word-of-mouth could end up making $200 million in the U.S. alone. Turning Red is an afterthought, and it didn’t need to be.
I am celebrating DreamWorks’ return to quality storytelling and filmmaking, as they gave us back-to-back top-tier animated films. At the same time, they were fortunate that Universal Studios handled the films as nicely and delicately as they could with strong marketing campaign and being consistent with the number of theaters to give everyone a proper chance to enjoy them. Disney is now back under Bob Iger, who was responsible for buying Pixar in the first place, so maybe he too will treat future animated projects with said same respect. I’m not saying the rivalry is coming back, or that Disney should be scared of DreamWorks, but what I am saying is that DreamWorks is finally back to making quality animated films that can actually stand with Disney and even Pixar’s better efforts (especially recent ones).
DreamWorks has once again learned to love animation again, and thus has got its quality groove back. But this is also in part because of Universal Studios respecting the medium, respecting the moviegoing audience, and respecting the future of film in a post-pandemic world. Here’s to hoping that Iger and his friends over at Disney does the same.
Encanto and Turning Red deserved much better.