Why Pixar Musicals Are Bad Ideas:

Pixar was initially under a great deal of pressure from Disney to make Toy Story a musical.

It was Disney’s brand after all.

Ultimately the two would reach a compromise that Id argue would set the stage for the future of all Pixar movies.

Instead of turning the movie into a musical, they settled on an agreement where Randy Newman would come in and write original music that was NON-diegetic that would heighten the story telling and emotional impact.

Which resulted in a pretty iconic couple of lovely tunes.

Randy & Thomas Newman would continue to write emotionally manipulative songs movie after movie, and Pixar used them in the films to really heighten the emotional story telling usually resulting in many kids asking their parents they they were crying.

Wheezy’s performance at the end of Toy Story 2 was epic but felt more like the Smashmouth Shrek number and less like a musical story telling moment.

Brad Bird really changed things up on The Incredibles, with a riveting and wonderful score by Michael Giacchino that was so retro fresh and iconic.

That superhero theme he built for the Parrs really butters my bread.

But I’d say it really wasn’t until Wall-E that Diagetic Music was really taken full advantage of as a plot piece.

Wall-E of course in love with Hello Dolly and the song “It Only Takes A Moment”.

The theme of which is played with constantly throughout the movie.

For the record if you’re this far in, Diegetic sound / music / songs are those in the story that the characters can hear and interact with.

Be Our Guest is a Diegetic musical number.

You’ve Got A Friend is not.

Nine Years after Pixar’s first tango with diegetic music in Wall-E, we get Coco, a movie with music in its soul.

But again this is not a musical movie, it’s a movie about music.

The only reason we have characters singing is because the story is about musicians.

I’d argue that Soul is the closest Pixar has come to making a full blown musical because a tremendous amount of the sound & music in the movie was diegetic and story driving.

A person getting into the zone and playing perfectly is the definition of a musical. Lol

But I think this is where it gets really interesting cause Pixar is a wizard at times with their emotional wind up for a hard hitting moments, and they use music as a massive weapon in story telling.

Imagine that opening montage from Up, but as a musical number that was sung.

Toy Story ultimately did get translated into a live theater show... and it really doesn’t play well as a live musical for a bunch of reasons that I go into in this video:

Finding Nemo somehow defies all odds and makes a pretty decent musical in Animal Kingdom with that very catch Big Blue World song.

But I think it works for a very specific reason, the score wasn’t particularly stand out, with Randy passing it to his cousin Thomas Newman.

I for one draw a blank when it comes to any music from Finding Nemo, and I think that’s what left it open for a great injection of original songs.

Nemo honestly works really well. They tell the whole story and then some in like an hour. Super impressive and super fun.

And I think perhaps that’s why @ratatousical works in a way, because that movie is a masterpiece of culinary realism.

And the music was great but not a uniquely memorable thing from the film, leaving a lot of room for a catchy song to be slapped on here or there.

I’d honestly bet Disney put effort into a Coco musical project over most any other Pixar franchise at the moment.

A close follow up maybe being Inside Out or Brave.

It’s tough to take a movie that has music so grafted into its bones and then make those bones work different.

So that’s why I don’t think most Pixar stuff works as musicals. Not to say that it can’t, but usually I want music to be used the way Pixar already is in those stories.

The music heightens my emotional connections to those moments.

I don’t need jazz hands too.