I watched Coco this weekend. (Twice actually, once in Spanish, for practice.) Of course it was great. Of course I teared up at the end. But then, I started to get a little cynical. Like Disney and Pixar just know how to press our buttons with surgical precision now, and while I think the movie was objectively quite good in any number of ways, I also feel manipulated. Like I'm sure I would have the same reaction to Incredibles 2 (or 62 or whatever number we are about to be on) and just like I did with Toy Story and Up. It feels a little like they have a plan to press the right buttons (the poignant, sweet, heart-warming buttons) and they just need people to build out a story that can surround pushing those buttons. I shouldn't be upset, since the story was good. I felt the only thing that didn't quite hang together/was not explained was how Miguel "died" in the first place. If they are going to have such strict rules about how he gets back and what happens if he doesn't, it would have helped to explain the rules that got him there in the first place. But, I mean, that's like a blip on the screen. But it does feel like soon they might not even bother with stories that hang together so well, or good animation, if it's not required to press the buttons that get us emotional/attached to it.
And I go off on this somewhat ridiculous tangent because it feels like just the other side of the coin of all the other emotion-flaring rhetoric in our society that really is at the expense of substance. The hate and fear mongering of Trump and Fox News being the prime example, which they have honed to surgical precision over the last decade or two. There is almost no substance left behind their button-pushing emotion-driving content. And our country is certainly a worse place for it. Not that I'm arguing for "boring" movies or movies that aren't done to the best quality possible, but I just wonder if that really means most emotional possible. I guess when used in the service of a good message, I ought to celebrate it. But it still has a touch of soulless manipulation to it for me, even though I know most people would find "soulless" to be the most inaccurate word possible to use to describe Disney/Pixar films.