Why is Pixar so good?

I watched Turning Red yesterday. Man, Pixar is good… Here are some of the reasons:

1.) Powerful openings. Go watch the first seven minutes of a Pixar film. Then try to stop watching.

Hard, right? Their openings suck you in. They make you fall in love with the characters.

The average person probably takes this for granted, but as a storyteller, I feel a sense of awe watching their openings. How the hell do they pull off this magic trick so consistently?

2.) They take four years to write each film. They experiment with so many different drafts and edits that they’re sure to have an opening that sings.

And not only an opening but an entire movie. They workshop their films till there are no lulls. Everything works.

3.) They know how to twist expectations. The classic example is the match at the end of Toy Story. Here’s the scene:

In the original edit of the film, Woody used the match to light the rocket. But that was too obvious, so the Pixar writers searched for something that surprised them.

Or how about in Coco when Ernesto de la Cruz turns out to be the villain?

Or sometimes it’s something subtler, like in Turning Red when Mei turns into a red panda. I thought, “Okay, now she has to keep this a secret till the end, as in a superhero film or in Brave.” But no. The movie opts for something fresh.

4.) They pitch their ideas to each other. There are no lone geniuses at Pixar. The writers work in groups, and they have to sell their ideas to their collaborators.

This is a double-edged sword. It prunes away bad ideas, but it also limits the film’s individuality. Look at Pixar’s recent movies, Inside Out, Coco, Soul, and Turning Red. The same themes abound (eg, souls and bodies, the afterlife, the danger of emotional repression).

But self-plagiarism is a small price to pay for mastery.