I didn't want to write about "Elio"

But the latest Pixar box-office bomb is yet another sign of crashing media kingdoms

I really didn’t want to write about “Elio.”

Then I ran into this Joe Wilson review of the latest flick from Pixar, posted at the must-bookmark “100 Movies Every Catholic Should See” website.

This is the subject that matters to most to me, today:

As I walked into a completely empty theater to watch Pixar’s latest offering, I asked myself: how did we get here? How did the King of my childhood, the studio behind Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, end up producing bomb after box office bomb? Back in the day, even my family went to see Cars in the theater, and we only went once every two or three years! I had skipped the last few Pixar movies so I was generally curious to see whether Elio truly was as bad as people have been saying Pixar’s latest slate generally is.

It wasn’t that bad. If only it was; I’d have more to talk about in this review. It was worse than bad: it was aggressively mediocre.

Yes, this is another update on the themes explored in my Rational Sheep post with this headline: “Age of the crashing Hollywood empires.” To be blunt, Pixar — now caught in the Disney+ trainwreck — was one of the Hollywood giants that mattered the most to me and to my family.

So, let’s start here, with a few marketplace questions, including my own responses. This Forbes timeline of Pixar history will help.

What was the last Pixar movie that:

(1) You paid to see in a movie theater? (“Inside Out,” a decade ago)

(2) You RUSHED to experience in a movie theater, absolutely sure that what you were going to see would soon be added to your family’s shelves of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs? (“Brave,” in 2012)

(3) You seriously considered — based on reviews by critics you trust — going to see in a movie theater? (“Soul,” in 2020)

(4) Represented a kind of “death” for your friends and family, a sign that there was no going back? You read and watched the reviews about the film, then screamed in frustration because you could not believe what was happening. (“Lightyear,” 2022)

A few more personal questions: What is the Pixar movie that you pull off the shelf more than any other? For me, that would be “The Incredibles,” which tops “Monsters, Inc.” by a nose. How about the Pixar sequence that hits you in the gut, more than any other? For me (no surprise here) it’s the opening of “Up.” And I still wish that “WALL-E” had been an almost completely silent movie, in the classic style of Buster Keaton.

In other words, do you remember Pixar?