Of course this is an opinion piece. A piece about how Disney shouldn’t have won on a Disney focused blog?–Gasp!  Yeah, just because we like Disney doesn’t mean we blindly agree with all the choices being made. I’m sure this will be a very unpopular opinion in some Disney circles, where any criticism is met with mockery and contempt. But I am mostly in animation and pop culture circles, and not Disney ones, so I know my opinion is not as unpopular as it may seem.

Last night at the Academy Awards Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story 4 won for Best Animated Feature– but did they deserve it?

They were up against How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, I Lost My Body, Klaus and Missing Link.

A lot of people were mad that Frozen 2 was not nominated as well. A lot of animation fans that I know are upset that Toy Story 4 won at all.

As an animation fan and a Disney/Pixar fan, I don’t think they should have won either.

Wait. What?

I’m sure some people reading this are trying to figure out why I’m ‘hating’ on Toy Story 4. I’m not. I’m praising Klaus for being a better film. There is a difference.

Innovation and a great story made the difference.

Klaus was a much better film overall and was better animated. It actually used 2D mixed with Digital animation to create stunning effects and beautiful sequences. All while having a better story than Toy Story 4 too.

Of course I’m not saying Toy Story 4 was a bad film or was badly done. It was a good film and it was very well done, and I can see why it was nominated, but Klaus was also a great film that was done better.

The team at SPA Studios innovated. Sergio Pablos found ways to return to 2-D Animation but integrated 3-D technology, in ways that are new and fresh. It’s as groundbreaking as it is beautiful and well written.

One of their own team developed this new 2-D animation technique and they spent months finding a programming company who could develop the new technology. Les Films Du Poisson Rouge partnered with them and they developed an new and very intuitive process to bring their story to life.

Then they also used a program that any of us could buy, Toon Boom and Maya, to do work on other elements of the film. It’s quite brilliant how they put this all together and the results were amazing and inspiring.

Disney and Pixar aren’t the only companies that can innovate and tell stories. Everything Pixar does is not the best simply because they are Pixar. I think that SPA Studios did everything better with Klaus. They truly deserved the Oscar this year over Toy Story 4 in my opinion.

I was hopeful that last years Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse win was going to rock the boat and push everyone to do better and innovate again. Steel sharpens steel after all.

But it’s a moot point now.

I do want to offer congratulations to Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4 for their win. They also did a good job with that film. Maybe now that the competition is heating up in the animation world, they will do even better things in the future.

Source: Befores and Afters