Onward and the Pixar Formula

Is it real heartbreak if you can see it coming from miles away?

This was a question I couldn’t quite get out of my mind throughout the near 2 hour running time of Onward, Pixar’s newest film. Real heartbreak, at least in my experience, seems to require an element of surprise, some emotional tragedy that springs up at you from nowhere. Whether fiction or reality, foreknowledge always seems to ease the pain. And in Onward, from nearly the first frame (or at least from the moment the whole shape of the plot comes clear) you can almost hear the clock ticking down to the anguish the movie intends to inflict on you.

None of this is to say I didn’t enjoy the movie. Onward, directed and co-written by Dan Scanlon (Monster’s University) is a very good kid’s movie in the classic Pixar mold. It is often hilarious, both Tom Holland (as main charter Ian Lightfoot, a socially awkward elf lacking in confidence) and Chris Pratt (as Ian’s older brother Barley Lightfoot, a DnD analog nerd who is shown to somehow be the epitome of happy-go-lucky bro fearlessness. A strange combination in my eyes) do fantastic voice work. As does Julia Louis-Dreyfus as their ordinary and then extraordinary mother. Special praise should be given for just how perfect her character design is, from the hair and glasses to the perfect cool-mom sweater. The world, sort of the early 90’s if a majority of people were some kind of fantasy creature, is fairly unique to movies and it seems like there might be room to explore it further. I honestly do recommend it. I can’t imagine any vaguely nerdy kid from ages 7-13 not loving the movie. There is a good chance that a lot of them will declare it their favorite film for at least a few years. As I said, it feels unique, it’s very funny, the story pulls you right in, and for them at least, the heartbreak at the end might very well be real.

I also cannot imagine anyone who’s grown up with Pixar as I have (my dad and I still have running jokes based on Toy Story 2) will be surprised at all by how the story plays out. We have been trained by decades of these movies to sniff out the formula, to be ready for the moment they try to bring out the tears. So when the plot kicks into gear, when Ian and his brother receive and then cast a magic spell their departed father left behind that could bring him back for just one day, older viewers (those sitting with their children or those, like me, who just went with a couple friends to see a decent movie for nostalgic reasons) might start having suspicions. When Ian is only able to complete half the spell, which manifests his father’s legs but nothing else (a lot of the comedy comes from the Weekend at Bernie’s-esque antics that results from trying to get a pair of legs across country), meaning the brothers must therefore go on a quest to retrieve an object that allows them to finish the spell; you can almost feel everyone over drinking age in the theater tense up in preparation for how the movie plans to tug on their heartstrings. We recognize the formula, recognize the aim. The same aim as the opening scene of Up, as many scenes in Toy Story 3, as Wall-E, as Inside Out, as Coco, as Finding Nemo. They want to break your heart.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the Pixar formula at all. It’s barely a formula in fact. Pixar, from what I can tell, is all about gorgeous 3D animated visuals; shy child or teenage characters overcoming adversity and gaining self-confidence; dealing with big questions like environmental catastrophe (Wall-E), aging and exploration (Up), the emotions that shape you (Inside Out), or even death itself (Coco) in a way that’s cute and kid-friendly yet meaningful to adults; and making both kids and grown-ups cry. It almost feels ungrateful to complain about such a loose collection of traits culled from a studio making very good movies (and all of those listed are fantastic animated films). But it wears on you after a while, you know? Onward, for all it’s many merits, felt like just another good Pixar movie as I sat there in the theater. I didn’t feel like that watching Up or Toy Story 3 or Inside Out. Walking out of the theater, my friends seemed to have similar feelings. There was nothing we could point at to say this specifically is why this movie just didn’t move us like those earlier Pixar works did. It just felt a little more slight, just another in a long factory line of very quality product.

But that’s not what we heard from the kids exiting the theater. For them Onward was literal magic. The heartbreak at the end was new and gorgeous and maybe even shocking. And that’s when I remembered that this movie wasn’t for me. This movie was for them. (I may need to work on realizing just how many things are not for me) Pixar can have a decades long formula because there will always be kids that haven’t figured it out yet. That are waiting to be amazed, that are waiting to feel emotions no other movie has inspired in them yet. And that’s a good thing. It’s good that there’s a movie studio out there catering to children that isn’t afraid of real emotion, of asking real questions that both kids and adults ask. That’s not just a forgivable formula for a movie studio to employ, that’s an admirable formula. Marvel could learn lessons.

But for myself (my name is literally the name of this site), Onward just made me aware of the strings they were trying to pull. It was still very enjoyable, but I was surprised at how analytical I remained the whole time. At how my friends seemed to feel the same way. It may be pretty late, at 27 years old, to finally remain unmoved by the strategies of a children’s movie studio, but hey. Better late than never.

Maybe we’re just growing up.