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Toy Story 3 Scrapped 391

Posted by CmdrTaco from the toys-in-space dept.
Snap E Tom writes "The Independent Online is reporting that Toy Story 3 has been scrapped. This is a strong clue that the Pixar guys are firmly in control at Disney. The ground-breaking films were being milked into almost as many movies as The Sims has expansion packs. John Lasseter, Pixar's creative head, was strongly against the idea of third and forth movies, while the old Disney regime pushed forward with it. Now with Pixar and Steve Jobs on the board, Lasseter has taken the necessary steps to prevent the franchise from being diluted."
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Toy Story 3 Scrapped More

Toy Story 3 Scrapped

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  • What a shame (Score:5, Funny)

    by cameronjdavis ( 946172 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:02AM (#14592920) Homepage
    I think they should have released it and called it

    Toy Story 3 : The cashening

    • Re:What a shame (Score:2, Funny)

      by hubt ( 465247 )
      Either that or:

      Toy Story 3: Electric Boogaloo

    • Re:What a shame (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:43AM (#14593020) Journal
      I was in Futureshop here in Toronto the other day...came face to face with an advertisement for "Bambi 2"... BAMBI 2??!?!? They're making a sequel to a 50 year old movie for crying out loud...

      We'll still see a Toy Story 3 one day, just not in the immediate future. Its as inevitable as the an american manufacturing job being outsourced to China...
      • Lassiter said that he'd might do Toy Story 3 at some point but it would be done when the story was there to support it and with the original people who brought Toy Story 1 to life.

      • Re:What a shame (Score:5, Funny)

        by Dr. Evil ( 3501 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:26AM (#14593162)

        The story on that one is quite good. A cyborg from the future is sent into the past to prevent Bambi from overthrowing the Matrix by killing his mother sooner so that he is never born. I know, it sounds a bit like the first one, but this time the robot is made of liquid metal.

        Apparently there's a bullettime sequence of Thumper getting redmisted.

        I can't wait for the videogame spinoff.

        • Re:What a shame (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Zangief ( 461457 )
          Pixar has made a lot of Videogame spinoffs on their own. Toy Story 1 & 2, Nemo, you name it.

          They are not affraid of cashing in their franchises. They just down want to make sequels for just the sake of it.

      • from BBC's The Young Ones, circa '84 (Score:5, Funny)

        by vain gloria ( 831093 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @01:51PM (#14593720) Homepage
        [Neil is crying softly]

        Rick: Shut up, Neil, shut up! What's the matter?

        Neil: I'm sorry, everybody. I'm sorry, Bambi. I'm just remembering, like, that bit when you got lost in the snow, and the rabbit found you, it was so beautiful...

        Vyvyan: Yeah, I liked the bit where you shoved the drill in the virgin otter's face.

        Neil: That wasn't in "Bambi", Vyvyan!

        Vyvyan: It was in the sequel, Neil. "Bambi Goes Crazy Ape Bonkers with His Drill and Set".

        Neil: [gravely] Is that true, Bambi? Did you do a Disney nasty?

        Bambi: So what if I did? I'm not apologizing. My life collapsed after "Bambi". I was a lovable fawn alright, unusable for anything else. I took the Babycham stuff, sure, thanks to Mike here, but I was finished. When the porn "Bambi" came along, well, I thought, this is where I get something back...If it hadn't been for the chance to present University Challenge and start a new life, I'd be giving executive relief to woodland creatures to this very day.

        c&p source [phatcatz.net]
    • Or perhaps "Monsters Inc"

  • Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:03AM (#14592921)
    According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.

    That sounds like a reasonably good premise, actually.
    • Uhhhh... No, it's a rehash of Toy Story 2, except where Woody was stolen and Buzz and the gang had to save him, it's the opposite.
    • What the article didn't reveal was that Toy Story 3 was full of adult jokes that the MPAA was going to have a fit over. Here is an example. [uncoveror.com]

  • Good for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arakon ( 97351 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:06AM (#14592930) Homepage
    We do not need another sequal factory. My recommendation? Disney should leave Pixar alone. They seem to be doing just fine managing their own assets and continued box office success stories. Something disney can't claim with their own movies. So let pixar do what pixar does best and let the money flow without interference. Let disney start claiming more of that success and have stock prices go up.

    I fear if they start meddling with it we're going to start ending up with a lot of straight to DVD releases that no one will really want to see.

    • omg Disney is the freaking worst offender. They will make a movie that does good at the box office, and completely ruin it. I can't believe they are dumb enough to keep doing it. For example, Mulan. It was a pretty good success at the box office. So what does Disney do? Come out with an awful sequel that rides on the mulan name that is probably one of the worst Disney movies ever. They've done this at least a good 20-30 times with their box office hits. I don't even think they try anymore. They probably hav

    • Re:Good for them. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by peragrin ( 659227 )
      That's not the point. Toy Story 1 was a done with Pixar and Diseny. Toy Story 2 was all Disney trying to make money off the brand. Pixar didn't want a part of it.

      What's funny is that days after the buyout of pixar is announced major shake ups are going through Disney. It lends one to wonder who is really buying who out? Is Disney buying Pixar or is Pixar buying out Disney with Disney's own money?

      • A New Era in Cartoons? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Morosoph ( 693565 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:39AM (#14593006) Homepage Journal
        Is Disney buying Pixar or is Pixar buying out Disney with Disney's own money?
        It would be very cool if Pixar were to change Disney's ethos. Disney's got such a brand name that they don't need to hang on the brand of the specific production itself.

        Does this herald the rise of creativity in Disney's output? If so, it'll be a difficult one to sell to the accountants and the more conservative shareholders: re-runs are provably successful; improving the brand is more nebulous. Ultimately, you can never know the real cause for higher sales across the board.

      • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Informative)

        by sgant ( 178166 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:44AM (#14593023) Homepage Journal
        Toy Story 2 was all Pixar...this wasn't Disney. No Pixar movie so far was Disney. They may have distributed it, but they were all written, produced and directed by Pixar.

        Since John Lasseter co-wrote and co-directed Toy Story 2, it was hardly the "Pixar didn't want a part of it" deal. And arguably it was even better than the first one. Now, Toy Story 3 was different altogether. That WAS going to be only Disney doing it, not Pixar. That was going to just be to cash in on the characters etc etc.

        For the most part, sequels really suck...only on very rare occasions are they good. So let's hope the new people taking over Disney Animation will come up with original ideas instead of recycling things over and over and over.

        • Re:Good for them. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by R2.0 ( 532027 )
          The real rub over Toy Story II was that, after Pixar made it and it was a huge whopping success, Disney pulled out the contract clause that all sequels did NOT contribute to the original Pixar committment to Disney - Disney, in effect, got a freebie.

          This was a major reason behind Pixar's attempt to renegotiate the contract with Disney before its termination, and why they were willing to walk away from Disney in the end (or said they were, anyway).

          It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of cr
          • I doubt that. If pixar players leave after the buyout Disney CEO will be in hot water. Disney animation has sucked royally and produced flops lately while Pixar is flying high. Certainly not because of their equipment but their personnel.

            Normally I agree that after mergers the main company managers try to kick out the other companies since they want to keep their jobs and it cause poor internal culture. But in this case I think the disney management is soo poor performing and Pixar was so good and every

          • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:40PM (#14593457)
            A year passes, and then there's a purge. I don't think there will be any Pixar people left at Disney after 1 year, and Jobs will leave in 18 months: substantially richer, but disgusted.

            You have a point, but Disney has already gone through a huge purge - most notably the sacking of Eisner. I think there's a bit of a power vacuum. Jobs personality seems large enough to fill that vacuum, and the Pixar crew seems to have enough talent and experience to back it up with profitable films. Seems like a good formula, but only time will tell.

          • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by cvd6262 ( 180823 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @03:10PM (#14594016)
            It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of crap - since the movie was simply being done to fulfill a contractual obligation, Pixar would phoen it in, and Disney could choke on their contract. I wouldn't be surprised if "Cars" goes into turnaround now that there's a real reason to make it.

            Intersting theory. Mine goes like this:

            Cars was first scheduled for release last Fall, at the same time as Chicken Little. Disney, which holds all promotion rights, purposefully held off promoting Cars (which, to me, looks no worse than did The Incredibles, but that's just me), to force it into a poor or even showing against their in house CGI film. That way, when Disney lost Pixar they could assure their stock holders that Pixar was washed up anyway.

            So, Pixar calls Disney and says, the film won't be ready for another eight months. Chicken Little bombs (who saw that one coming?), and Pixar still has a chance.

            Anyway, just a thought.

          • ugh (Score:5, Insightful)

            by PollGuy ( 707987 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @03:15PM (#14594028)
            It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of crap - since the movie was simply being done to fulfill a contractual obligation, Pixar would phoen it in, and Disney could choke on their contract. I wouldn't be surprised if "Cars" goes into turnaround now that there's a real reason to make it.

            I can't believe nonsense like this gets to be modded to +5.

            John Lasseter is directing this film, personally. Doing a bad job on a film just to fulfill a contractual obligation would do incredible damage to the Pixar brand. No one with any position of authority would tolerate any trash going out under the Pixar name at all, let alone deliberately out of spite for one's business partner. And it's not like ALL the profits from the 5 (or, rather 6) films went to Disney, there was a somewhat even split, so Pixar has a lot on the line with each title.

            The teaser trailer for Cars wasn't that great, sure. To get a better idea of what the film will be, check out the little-circulated international trailer [moviezone.cz].
        • I think Toy Story 3 was Eisner's attempt to use Pixar's characters as a leverage point in the distribution negotiations. Before Pixar walked, it was the stick, in that Disney kept character rights and said we could do sequels without you. After Pixar did walk it was revenge for defying the mighty Michael (who had pissed Jobs off by saying to Congress that Apple owners were stealing music). Once it became clear that Michael was on his way out (partly for pushing out Roy Disney, partly for Pixar, and partly f

      • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JeffTL ( 667728 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:50AM (#14593054)
        The acquisition seems to be following the Apple/NeXT pattern; in that buyout, Apple bought NeXT, but NeXT management (e.g, Steve Jobs and Avie Tevanian) found itself seated in control of Apple. This appears to be happening again at Disney -- John Lasseter is now in control of animation at Disney, and Steve Jobs (who turns up once again) is the plurality shareholder and sits on the board. While in the management changes following the Apple buyout of NeXT, Jobs was more significant than Tevanian due to the need for a CEO capable of effecting a good turnaround, in Disney's acquisiton of Pixar, John Lasseter is the more significant; Bob Iger is doing reasonably well, though he could do better, and the problem at Disney is products, not management.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Parent is incorrect on all accounts (as noted by several good replies). Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, mod him down...

        Not only is the parent incorrect about who directed, produced, created Toy Story 2, to suggest that Disney was bought out by Pixar is laughable. Disney is not just Mickey Mouse [cjr.org]. Disney owns a hell of a lot of other things...

    • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:31AM (#14592991) Journal
      I've never really had a problem with Disney or other companies running their franchises into the ground. I just accept that Aladdin 4 or whatever is not made for me, it's made for younger kids who don't need quite the same level of quality or sophistication to be entertained. I'm not one to advocate letting the TV babysit your kids all day, but I have no doubt that my parents enjoyed the occasional periods of relaxation when a movie would keep my brother and I occupied for an hour or so. It may not be award winning cinema, but it's probably a bit more predictable than regular TV cartoons, and less likely to contain violent or inappropriate content.

      These tend to go straight to video because Disney isn't trying to pass it off as a high-quality feature film. So what's the problem with that? Nobody is forcing you to watch any of it. I guess some people feel that the cheaper commercialization somehow distracts from the quality of the originals, but that's really not the case, and if that sort of thing really bothers you, you need to get some perspective on the world.

      I guess the one true complaint, at least in Disney's case, is that they've seemed to be so busy milking old franchises that they haven't bothered to create any new ones. But I really don't see any reason why those two have to be linked. It seems to me that it's tied to the vision and choices of the management. Really, this is a case where they can have their cake and eat it too. Put your best minds on the high-quality stuff, and everyone else on the franchises. Hire more people if you need to. There's definitely money to be made at both ends of the spectrum.
      • I guess the one true complaint, at least in Disney's case, is that they've seemed to be so busy milking old franchises that they haven't bothered to create any new ones. But I really don't see any reason why those two have to be linked.

        I think they are linked, simply because putting resources into crap like that cheapens the whole studio as well as the franchise. The Disney name should stand for quality.

        I'm not saying sequels are bad. Aardman does a terific job with the Wallace and Gromit franchise. The
        • Along similar lines, if there ever is a Toy Story 3 it should be directed by Lasseter. I think that was actually one of the points Jobs made at the press conference - that sequels should be directed by the people who made the original.

          That's gonna be real tough with Bambi 2!

        • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Bing Tsher E ( 943915 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:37PM (#14593448) Journal
          The Disney name should stand for quality.

          Agreed, but speaking as somebody who remembers watching the Walt Disney show on television on Sunday evenings, the show where Walt himself always spoke at the beginning to introduce that night's programming, it's been a LONG time since the Disney name stood for quality.

          Some of us leapfrogged over the whole last two decades of film and television (too busy doing interesting things with electronics and computers to sit and watch TeeVee I guess,) and really can't understand what could possibly be sacred, or even respected, about the Disney company at this point in history.

      • Re:Good for them. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @03:47PM (#14594142) Homepage Journal
        Why should kids watch crap anymore than adults? Letting kids watch crap is how we end up with stupid kids. If a movie has depth and meaning then it will help to shape the audience and kids are especially open to this shaping. If not then it will either have no effect or a negative effect. Movies like Robin Hood and the Sword and the Rose combined with my collection of fantasy and sci fi adventure books certainly helped shape my mindset and morals. I don't want children that have been shaped for nothing other than to be a good consumer and a pacifist.

        Okay I have a grudge this week. The other day I was at McDonalds and a bunch (maybe two dozen) of junior high kids came in and literally were having a massive food fight and left without even dumping their trays in the trash. Obviously all brats that have been taught no values or respect for other people at all. Worse, some of their parents were there and let them do it.
    • I got a better idea:

      How about Pixar guts Disney...

    • I wholeheartedly agree with you on this subject.

      BUT... I would not mind seeing just one more "Incredibles" movie. A second story would be possible since you can cover the reemergence of the hero population across the planet, deal with the kids "coming into their own" with their powers, and take on a new Arch Villain.

      A third movie past that would be too much for the franchise, but I can easily see a second quality movie.

    • What other effects might this have? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:15AM (#14593134) Homepage
      Ignoring all of the possible positive potential this might have on the creative process at Disney, this isn't the only effect the merger might have.

      Keep in mind that until the Sony rootkit, Disney has historically been one of the worst offenders as far as pushing DRM. (If I recall correctly, they were one of the most solid backers of DIVX - no, not DivX, DIVX. There's a big difference. I'm also pretty sure they were also one of the only backers of DIVX that apparently intended not to ever allow customers to "silver" a disc - paying a one time flat fee for unlimited viewing, you would only ever be able to view your Disney DIVX discs as pay-per-view.)

      Jobs, on the other hand (well, at least Apple with him at the helm), has had a much more lenient approach with DRM. Apple's DRM has typically been described as "the bare minimum to keep content providers happy", and Apple has actively resisted attempts to force increases in the restrictions of their DRM. Keep in mind that throughout this all, Jobs was also a content provider, since he also ran Pixar.

      Could Jobs calling the shots at Disney mean a more consumer-friendly Disney? I hope so.

      • Re:What other effects might this have? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Generic Guy ( 678542 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @03:55PM (#14594174)
        Disney has historically been one of the worst offenders as far as pushing DRM.

        Not just the DIVX discs, they also refused to release titles on DVD -- at least until the DIVX format went belly-up and they had no market. Disney was an early adopter of Macrovision on videotape, kept prices higher than other typical movies, and limited the quantities available on the market -- the infamous Disney Vault, where they only release a movie a shorttime every 7-to-10 years. Disney was also involved in designing the "disposable" DVD discs which degraded over a couple days after you open the plastic wrapping.

        So, yes. Disney has been involved in DRM, if that's the right term, for many many years now.

  • Logical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saiyine ( 689367 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:06AM (#14592931) Homepage

    It was too much, no film franchise could resist a fourth release without a big hit on quality. I hope this marks a trend on the industry.

    I find also interesting the Cringely's take on the adquisition [pbs.org], as he says it's only a way for Jobs to diversify his income.

  • Me too (Score:5, Funny)

    by zaphod8829 ( 754076 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:12AM (#14592944) Homepage
    I am likewise firmly against movies being created with FORTH.

    • FORTH (Score:2, Funny)

      by Corsair2 ( 950441 )
      Hey--at least they wouldn't dream of doing it in LISP--although some of the characters might have one...

    • Re:Me too (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:57AM (#14593070) Homepage
      Hey, FORTH was used for the motion control cameras in the movie, The Right Stuff [imdb.com]! I know because I actually worked on those systems. (And got to meet Chuck Yeager, very briefly, but that's another story.) Anyway, I happened to like that movie--and not just because I contributed in a small way. So, while FORTH might not be my first choice these days, even for motion control, I think it's proved that it can be used to make some pretty good movies.

      So you and "Snap E Tom" can just go soak your...oh wait. Do you suppose that was a typo, and Tom really meant "fourth"? Nah, this is Slashdot; the editors would never let something like that slip through! :)
    • One could argue that it was a homophonic typo, and that the original author meant "third and on". It's amusing in either case.

  • Eventually... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:14AM (#14592949)
    Eventually this spells the end of Debian. They will run out of toys.

    At the current release rate, we should be able to predict the date of Debian's demise.
    • Damn. you were there first!
    • It would please me greatly to see the end of that naming system. Adult Disney fans, particularly the devout ones, should be rounded up a la Douglas Adams and sent on an important interstellar mission.

      • Adult Disney fans, particularly the devout ones, should be rounded up a la Douglas Adams and sent on an important interstellar mission.

        This will take care of fans of the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Quentin Tarantino, M. Night Shyamalan, and Kevin Smith, as their films are distributed in the United States by Disney. And speaking of Douglas Adams, even the movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide is a Disney movie.

    • Re:Eventually... (Score:5, Funny)

      by darc ( 532156 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:29PM (#14593399) Journal
      I have calculated the date of Debian's demise based on the 4 remaining main Toy Story characters. In 2952, after four releases, Debian will cease to exist. All right geeks, better start e-merging now, you might finish by then.

  • GOOD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by a_greer2005 ( 863926 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:20AM (#14592967)
    At least someone in the entertainment industry knows when to say "its been agood run" and move along to new things. The problem with entertainment today is that the industry has gotten so big that they have forgotten the first rule of showbiz, always leve 'em wanting more.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:27AM (#14592981)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Pixar will save Disney (Score:5, Informative)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:40AM (#14593010)
    Well - Disney animation, at least.

    John Lasseter and Ed Catmull truly understand how to make good, original films -- and with Jobs riding shotgun upstairs as the biggest shareholder, they can actually get things done. This decision is proof that they are firmly in control. I think Lasseter, Catmull, and the terrific artists over in Burnbank are going to create some great films - and I'm sure some of them will be 2D as well (Brad Bird - here's your chance)

    There's some great quotes from Disney artists about the managements change over at Cartoon Brew ( http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ [cartoonbrew.com] ) Here's one from Floyd Norman (story artist who started at Disney in the 50's and has worked at many other places as well)

    Not too many guys can say they've worked for both Walt Disney and John Lasseter, so I can offer a unique perspective.

    Different cultures at Disney and Pixar? Naw, it's the same culture. Eisner's managers simply choked all the creative life out of Disney. The Disney culture is finally returning to Disney. Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter will be returning it shortly. This is good news for all of us who love animation, and the Disney legacy in particular.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • That's good, however... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StressGuy ( 472374 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:44AM (#14593024)
    I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to The Incredibles. I think they left an excellent door open for that. I see it based around the family learning to function as a team.

  • So.. lets get this right... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:44AM (#14593026) Journal
    Disney pays 7 billion for Pixar. As a result, Pixar is calling the shots at Disney.

    Who owns who?

    • Exactly... (Score:2, Redundant)

      by tinrobot ( 314936 )
      Very similar to how Apple 'bought' Next... and AOL 'bought' Time Warner.

      The next few years should be very interesting.
    • Maybe Disney realizes that Pixar's formula is working, and they ponied up the dough to keep Pixar happy and to make sure they are a part of Pixar's success. Disney is good at promotion and distribution, and Pixar is excellent at delivering great movies. Why would Disney want to lose that business?
    • Disney pays 7 billion for Pixar. As a result, Pixar is calling the shots at Disney.

      That's what happens when you have a brain transplant. The brain calls the shots.

      It's the same thing that happened when Apple bought NeXT.

    • Re:So.. lets get this right... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MrWa ( 144753 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @05:14PM (#14594616) Homepage
      This type of acquisition is really quite normal. Do not think of this as Disney buying Pixar - it is more along the lines of Disney, the corporation, hiring the management of Pixar the hard way. Really, what kind of incentive package could Disney have offered that was better than this?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:47AM (#14593038)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I guess it never occurred to anyone at Disney that milking these franchises to the point of nearly destroying them not only ruins the value of the first few good ones for future generations (like what the Matrix sequels did to the first one) and the exploitation of old stories instead of creating new ones tends to make a company look washed up to its customers.

      "But we're rolling in money, so who cares what they think of us?"

      It's short-term profit-taking thinking at work here. Give them the golden goos

    • the exploitation of old stories instead of creating new ones

      I don't wholly disagree with you, but this particular canard is one that always gets my goat. There is ample room in art for reusing old stories and still creating valuable art. There is a difference between using old stories and "exploitation" -- but "creating new ones" is not the only possible route to real art.

      Think of, oh, say, Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz? They were just screen adaptations of bestsellers.

      How about James
    • They were all planned together in one big story, sorta like the Star Wars series. You can tell because the first Matrix was pretty weak by itself, but with the other two movies, it was more coherent and became stronger.

      They'll never put out another Matrix movie, because, the story was said.

  • TS3 not completely out of the picture (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @10:59AM (#14593076)
    If you read the quotes, they simply would want the original team that did 1 and 2 working on 3, so it's possible they may do one. There's no sense in being rigidly pro-sequel or anti-sequel. The only rational position is "make a sequel if some has a good story to tell in the Toy Story universe". The market for it is probably there.

    Can we hope to see this sort of thing spread? Can we hope to see the creative arts industries wake up and kick the coke addled, bromidic MBAs out of the animation studios and film sets, and into their little offices so they can work on their little spreadsheets like they are supposed to?

  • Disney and sequels--bad business (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tgibbs ( 83782 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:01AM (#14593087)
    Toy Story 2 was something very unusual for Disney--a sequel that was actually good. Their usual practice is to follow up a great animated film with an utterly crappy direct-to-video release. Perhaps they fell into this habit as a result of their fairy tale films; there's not much chance of making a good sequel to "Beauty & the Beast" or "The Little Mermaid." But Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote dozens of sequels to Tarzan, all of them pretty good; there was no reason why Tarzan 2 had to be crap. Nor was there any reason why Casper the Friendly Ghost 2 had to be crap. Either one of these could have had a strong sequel. Running strong properties into the ground like this is simply bad business.

  • A Tragedy for Debian! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:02AM (#14593093) Homepage
    All the names of the Debian releases so far have been based on characters from Toy Story. If there's no more Toy Story movies made, Debian will soon run out of characters, and will be forced to give up on making systems! :)

  • I was worried about this acquisition... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by httpamphibio.us ( 579491 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:04AM (#14593098)
    Pixar is one of, if not the, finest film studios around right now. I was really worried about Disney ruining everything that makes Pixar great, and I was also worried about the Jobs reality distortion field making things worse.
     
    Instead of my fears of Disney corrupting Pixar it looks like Pixar is going to help Disney get back to where they used to be and that would be an excellent thing. I wonder what the minds at Pixar could do with the Muppet franchise.
     
    My fingers are crossed.
    • I was really worried about Disney ruining everything that makes Pixar great, and I was also worried about the Jobs reality distortion field making things worse.

      I wonder what the minds at Pixar could do with the Muppet franchise.

      I don't understand how these two statements go together. Its weird. The way I picture it, you've got one post making the first statement. Then, you've got some disney-fan-club-dude with a room full of memorobilia arguing with the second statement. I mean, you're welcome to
  • Its much easier to have integrity when you already have a billion dollars and
    full control of production than when you dont! :)
  • It's misreported in this article that Pixar and John Lasseter didn't want to make another Toy Story sequel. In fact, they do. They just don't want to make the sequel that Disney had planned. Evidently John has a better story in his head, and wants to make it with that story. With Pixar's track record vs. Disney's track record, thank goodness they're going to get a chance to scrap the current story and do it themselves. I saw Robert Iger was quoted somewhere as saying he felt like the people at Pixar, who we

  • Toy Story 3 'pointless' w/o Slinky Dog (-_-) ;_; (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iamcf13 ( 736250 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:27AM (#14593168) Homepage Journal
    Rest in peace Jim 'Ernest P. Worrell' Varney....

    P.S. If they do the 3rd film, perhaps they'll have Slinky Dog in it
    featured prominently (yet silently) in the background of various scenes.

    Or maybe the other toys will mourn his passing in the film -- going to
    that 'great junkheap in the sky'....

    To get a 'soundalike' to do Slinky Dog for a 3rd film would be wrong and besmirch
    Varney's memory and his memorable characterization of Slinky Dog.

    This is somewhat similar to Steve Whitmire doing Kermit The Frog -- taking over for
    the late, great James Maury Henson when he passed away back in 1991. Steve (now) does Kermit practically as good as Jim did but I know it is just not the same any more....

    Food for thought.

  • It's not just Hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Woldry ( 928749 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:31AM (#14593179) Journal
    I don't get why so many people seem to think that endless sequels are some phenomenon that Hollywood recently invented.

    Lord of the Rings was a sequel that Tolkien was encouraged to write to cash in on the success of The Hobbit.
    Ditto Huckleberry Finn as a sequel to Tom Sawyer.
    Ditto Bride of Frankenstein as a sequel to Frankenstein.

    All of these are pretty widely considered to be superior to their originals.

    Then there are the endless Pink Panther series, the "Thin Man" movies, the multiple history plays by Shakespeare, various sequels built into the books of the Hebrew Bible, and even the Aeneid and the Odyssey, both of which are sequels to the Iliad.

    Sure, most sequels don't approach the level of artistry of many of the above. But a sequel per se, even one motivated by the desire to cash in on the original, is not a priori a bad thing. The judgment cannot be made till after the sequel is made.

    I refer you to Sturgeon's Law [jessesword.com] (more accurately called Sturgeon's Revelation [google.com]).

    • and even the Aeneid and the Odyssey, both of which are sequels to the Iliad.

      Hmm.. I remember reading before (though I can't find any link supporting it now) that the Iliad and Odyssey were originally connected together in a larger story of the Trojan war. If that's true, then they are different sections from the same story that have been pulled out of context (Star Wars would be a good example of this in movies.)

      The Aeneid is fairly disconnected from the homeric epics and has a different author. I w

    • Re:It's not just Hollywood (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "All of these are pretty widely considered to be superior to their originals. "

      Let's assume you're right.

      You managed to name 4 sequels that "worked".

      How many sequels were released last year in Hollywood alone? I'll give you a pass on Harry Potter, primarily because the stories are essentially taken verbatim from the books.

      But everything else? What about all those mindless remakes of TV shows? King Kong???? AGAIN????? How about another remake of a comic book? Here's a new rule of thumb...chances are a J
    • Yes... sequels (or reworkings) where there's more story to be told and someone who loves the story (either the original author or someone else) tells it, are great. The bad sequels are the ones where you have to reach to extend the story at all and then it tends to be done by either an original author who doesn't really want to or an impostor brought in because he's willing to do the dirty work.

  • Originality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by portwojc ( 201398 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @11:33AM (#14593185) Homepage
    Originality:
    Pixar has it.
    Disney needs it.
    Disney got it wether they wanted it or not or even know it.

    When you wish upon a star be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.
  • I don't know about scrapping Toy Story 3. Personally I would watch another just for the laughs. The latest Cars previews just don't capture my interest. However maybe Pixar will end up dazzling me once again. It's early to tell. In fact from what I know I'd put Toy Story 3 and Cars on the same interest level right now.

    It makes you wonder though, how many hits in a row can you produce. Pixar's had an awesome streak so far.

  • Movie sequels almost always dilute the brand (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lord sibn ( 649162 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:05PM (#14593312)
    Generally, the only movies that ever have good sequels are based on a tv show, or a line of open-ended books. Such stories are designed for later "episodes." I wish I could elaborate more on why it seems this way to me; the same reasons that make normal movie sequels suck play the same integral part in making the "based on tv" sequel actually work.

    Either way, John Q Public will eventually get bored with Star Trek as a concept, and move on to Sex and the City or something else. I suspect pretty much anybody on slashdot could point out numerous cases of Star Trek jumping the shark.

  • Initially I was worried (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:40PM (#14593458) Journal
    Initially I was worried about this buyout. Pixar is responsible for my personal favorite film (The Incredibles, narrowly edging out Serenity).

    But I was talking with some people about this last night and I realized something. First, Steve Jobs has had a lot of experience with the media industry thank to iTunes and his experience at Apple. Granted, that's more music than movies but I think the same basic forces are in play. I think he has a clear view of how both industries are, and the quality problems that Disney has, and the inevitable financial consequences that will eventually follow.

    Second, Steve Jobs is an excellent businessman. I don't think he would trade 50+% of Pixar for 7% of Disney, unless he had some good reason to believe that Disney was going to be able to grow more than Pixar. The only way that would be true is if the merger deal included a lot of control over Disney by the Pixar crew, because clearly Business As Usual at Disney wasn't going to get it done.

    I haven't heard about the specifics of the deal; maybe it's been covered, but the only clue I have is basically TFA (which I saw earlier). But it gives me a lot of hope. Still not convinced, but "hopeful" is a major improvement from when I figured that Disney would just kill the golden goose.

  • It's all about the story stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iJavaJoe ( 891265 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @12:56PM (#14593524)
    The Pixar mantra has been "It's all about the story". If Lasseter says the "Disneyfied" TS3 is scrapped for now, then the developed story "stunk". It's not possible to start with crap and turn it into honey. More power to PIXAR-isney.

  • Disney's crap sequel division (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @02:18PM (#14593803) Homepage
    Disney actually has a whole business unit devoted to turning out low-end sequels - DisneyToons. [wikipedia.org] DisneyToons is completely separate from the main Disney feature animation operation in beautiful downtown Burbank. Most of what DisneyToons really does is manage animation outsourcing.

    David Stainton, who was running Disney Feature Animation, came up via DisneyToons. He's out, apparently.

    Incidentally, if you want to track what's going on in the animation industry, read The Animation Guild [animationguild.com] newsletter, The Pegboard, published by Local 839, IATSE. 85% of the film and TV industry is unionized, and they're working on organizing the video game industry.

  • Toy Story 6? (Score:3, Funny)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Sunday January 29, 2006 @07:18PM (#14595216) Homepage
    I thought they already made Toy Story 3: Monster Edition? [imdb.com] Followed by Toy Story 4 Underwater [imdb.com], and Toy Story 5 Supertoys [imdb.com].

    (This joke shamelessly stolen from The Daily Show).

  • Well done Pixar (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ross.w ( 87751 ) <rwonderley.gmail@com> on Sunday January 29, 2006 @09:53PM (#14595793) Journal
    If only George Lucas had thought as you do.

  • ipod? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lehk228 ( 705449 ) on Monday January 30, 2006 @01:05AM (#14596405) Journal
    how long before the entire contents of the disney vault are available on itunes?

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