Disney vs Pixar - the Fanfic Faceoff

[tealin]

It occurred to me while visiting California Adventure (soon to be Pixarland*) that despite Pixar's modus operandi of 'creating worlds,' my imagination is never tempted to explore them outside the confines of the film, whereas I often find myself mentally wandering the possibilities of Disney worlds. The only explanation I could come up with is that Pixar movies are more self-contained ... everything in them was created for them; nothing exists that does not relate to the plot or characters; everything is explained and there are no loose ends. It's a very tidy way to make a movie but it doesn't give much room to play – it feels like the movie is shot on a sound stage rather than on location, that if you wandered past the end of the street that is visible in the establishing shot, you'd either meet a blank concrete wall or ... nothing. I don't wonder about the rest of the characters' lives, or 'what would happen if...', or how their society works or anything, because everything I need to know is spelled out for me and nothing further is hinted at, which squashes all curiosity I might have. And for all that the world is painstakingly created I never wish I could just go there to hang out – it's a closed-off room that exists for the purpose of the movie and the movie alone; it doesn't have any doors.** So I wondered: am I the only one? Is your imagination piqued by Pixar movies as much as Disney? I did a brief and extremely unscientific survey of fanfiction.net and the fic tallies for Disney and Pixar movies seem to prove that I am speaking out of my butt, but I cannot recall one Pixar character that, for example, has a squeeing fangirl following. Have you experienced Pixar fandom online? Is it as fruitful or pervasive as the Disney fandoms I followed for a while before running away screaming? What are your thoughts/observations/comments/suggestions/snarkings? Is it better to make a beautiful, clean, perfectly-wrapped up origami of a movie, or leave some loose ends and cracks that the imagination can crawl into?

ETA: I ought to set Incredibles a little bit aside from the Pixar pantheon – it's really much more of a Brad Bird movie than a Pixar movie, and he's the only one to my knowledge who can stand up to Lasseter and get away with it. He directed Ratatouille too, but it was someone else's project that he took over.

ETA2: This seems as good a time as any to point out one of my favourite Daily Show clips ever ... Forks!

*Not officially. But basically ... yeah.
**with the exception of Monsters, Inc which has a lot of doors (literally) ... but none of them open into my head (figuratively)

Comments

[cornedbee.livejournal.com]

Many good points here.

I've written (well ... started) a fan fic for Lion King once - nothing original, just what Nala experiences while Simba is away. I can't see myself writing fan fic for any other Disney movie, even though I love nearly all of them.

With Pixar, I could see myself writing stuff in the Incredibles universe (oh, I love that movie), but not really anywhere else.

For me, fan fiction is about loose ends. Harry Potter is extremely rich in loose ends, or things that could easily have turned out differently. There's an endless amount of plot bunnies available for this story. For most Pixar films, it's not that way. (Also, I'm far less inspired by movies than books in general.) There are no lose ends in most of these films - deviate from the path, and you usually get instant catastrophe. Try to change anything about A Bug's Life that results in a change that is not insignificant and that still lets the ants win in the end. It's hard.
The Lion King is full of possibilities. There's years in the pride unaccounted for. The movie finishes on a coronation, on a new era, but we don't hear anything about that new era. (Until the second movie came out, anyway.)
The other Disney movies? Many of them end with "prince marries girl", and I really can't see me continuing that.
I think one of the problems with Pixar films is that they are too neat.


By the way, what is NIMH?