Friday, November 12, 2021

The Most "Out There" Pixar Movies


I just rewatched The Good Dinosaur with the kiddos. Not the best Pixar movie ... but as we all know, even a subpar Pixar movie is better than most of the noise available to us. But rewatching The Good Dinosaur struck me how strange it is that there's a scene where Arlo and Spot get high. Let me repeat that for those of you who haven't seen the movie (because let's face it, most of you haven't). Arlo and Spot GET HIGH off of fermented fruit. And it's not just that cute drunk stupor that cartoons sometimes show. This is a full on hallucination scene. Spot's head gets huge, Arlo grows extra eyes, they switch bodies and float off into space. 

Like, what the ... ?

So I decided to look at all 24 Pixar movies and find the ones that are the most "out there". Here goes...

#10 The Good Dinosaur

This is actually a pretty white bread movie, with one really trippy scene. Probably the trippiest single scene in any Pixar movie. And it's trippy enough to put the film on the list. 


#9 Soul

What a sweet flick. Introspective and deep and so inspiring. But it also features a man's soul trapped in a cat. And Tina Fey as a black man. And it posits that  the pre-mortal life is run by talking line drawings. 


#8 Up

One of my favorite movies on this list. Not the trippiest, but it does have a cadre of talking dogs, a giant momma bird named Kevin, and two geriatric men as the main characters. Oh, and the main plot point is that a house gets carried away by helium balloons. Okay, maybe it's more out there than I thought. 

#7 Coco

This film makes me cry. Every. Darn. Time. But in spite of some  very real emotional pull, the world of Coco is inhabited by talking  skeletons who regularly lose body parts. And giant psychedelically colored beasts.

#6 Wall-E

Robots who fall in love. 
Skyscrapers made of garbage. 
Humans that have turned into blobs of lifeless goo.

Okay that last one is pretty spot on. But the rest is kinda out there. 

#5 Ratatouille

Are we even going to talk about the fact that Remy controls Linguini's brain ... by pulling his hair?

#4 Monsters, Inc.

Wait. So monsters are real? And they need children's screams (and laughter) to power their  world? And Jennifer Tilly plays a tolerable character? 

Yeah, that's a tripped up fantasy. 

#3 Toy Story

Close your eyes and picture that scene where Sid's toys come alive, Woody's head spins around, and he says, "So play nice!"

Now picture that happening in real life. 

'Nuff said. 

#2 Onward

This movie is just as imaginative as it is strange. But in addition to the magic, the manticore's destruction, and a giant cheese puffs, this movie gives a major amount of screen time to a living pair of legs. Like, the legs are a main character! But the trippiest part? We connect emotionally with those legs! Thanks, Pixar. 

#1 Inside Out

Where do we begin? Our brains are actually a hivemind. References to the bears in San Francisco. The existence of Bing Bong, who squeals like a dolphin and cries candy. The abstract thought shortcut scene with non-objective fragmentation, etc. Pizza with pineapple!

So so so out there.


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