Part of growing up is learning to see the world differently. It’s an insight that the creative wizards at Pixar seem to have internalized. Most of the studio’s movies, going back to the original Toy Story, are all about presenting the world differently, either by adopting an unfamiliar point of view—of toys or bugs or fish, looking up at what we normally look down on—or creating a proxy world that’s like ours but also fantastically not. All of which is to say that Pixar is acutely aware of the power of perspective, as well as animation’s unique ability to both honor and manipulate it. At their best, these movies tend to saddle their characters with perspective shifts of their own. Think of Buzz Lightyear learning his true purpose, or the blobby leisure cruisers of WALL-E snapping out of their lifelong technological trance, or Anton Ego having his cranky, hard-won critical remove shattered by a transformative culinary experience.
On the whole, there’s nothing very fresh about the perspective of Onward, Pixar’s latest feature. (It came out in March, making it one of the last movies to hit American theaters before they all closed, as well as the last subject of this series.) Though set in a fantasy world that’s basically modern America by way of Dungeons & Dragons, the movie’s story is less than imaginative. It’s a cozy and derivative sitcom road movie about two elf siblings, teen wallflower Ian (Tom Holland) and table-top-gaming older brother Barley (Chris Pratt), who embark on a voyage to magically conjure their dead father for some beyond-the-grave bonding. The whole thing is weirdly formulaic by Pixar standards, with only one truly inspired idea: the half-presence of the boys’ half-resurrected dad, who spends most of the movie as an unspeaking pair of disembodied legs.
Yet Onward sneaks up on you. In classic Pixar fashion, it finds its way to a tearjerking finale—an unexpectedly moving destination after a journey of mild misadventure, life-lesson detours, and ’80s comedy clichés. It’s not exactly surprising that director Dan Scanlon and his team of cowriters deliver the four-hankie payoff their premise promises, with Ian and Barley eventually succeeding in temporarily filling in Dad’s top half. Where Pixar confounds expectations is in the details of the inevitable ending, in which Ian selflessly chooses to fend off the marauding dragon the two have awakened so that Barley can enjoy some quality time with their father before it’s too late. And this leads to a genuine twist of, yes, perspective, as the younger Lightfoot—boxed in by the rubble left behind by the beast he’s toppled—watches from afar as his brother and father share a final word without him.
It is, if nothing else, a beautifully directed and animated sequence. Scanlon stages the moment entirely from Ian’s vantage, cutting between a wide POV shot of the conversation and close-ups of the character’s secondhand appreciation as he peers out through narrow windows in the stone debris. At one point, Ian loses his footing and catches a glimpse, through another hole in the remains, of the setting sun, destined to take with it the father he barely remembers and won’t get to properly meet. Literally creating distance from the big emotional climax of the film has the paradoxical effect of making it more affecting: No dialogue could compete with the silent poignancy of father and son embracing across the way, and depicting that through the eyes of someone else effectively steers the moment clear of excessive sentimentality. One could maybe argue that we didn’t need the scene, a moment later, of Barley relaying to Ian what their father said to him. But it does reinforce the relationship between the two—the sense that the older brother has stepped up, becoming for his little brother what his father was for him.
It’s a smart subversion, providing catharsis but not the exact kind audiences might anticipate. Because Ian’s positioned as the protagonist, we assume all along that the heartfelt reunion will be between him and his father. But the crux of his journey turns out to be the realization that he wasn’t lost as a fatherless kid, because he had an older brother looking out for him; Ian’s sacrifice in the final minutes reflects his understanding that talking to their dad will mean more to Barley, who much more vividly remembers the man (sorry, the elf) who raised him. That’s the true pivot in perspective the film offers, underscored by the visual elegance of the ending. Meanwhile, the scene reinforces a more conventional perspective, too—namely, that there are few equals in American animation to Pixar, whose technical and emotional sophistication shines brightly as ever, even in an otherwise minor fable like Onward.
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Oof, that ending was such an emotional gut punch. I mean, that’s kind of rinse-repeat with Pixar but I’m not sure I’ve cut as many onions during any of their other films as I did during that scene.
Having had a hand in raising a MUCH (16-year age gap) younger brother, this scene had me feeling all the feels.
This one was sabotaged by its own marketing. It’s far better and deeper than the one-joke, boiler plate animation trash that the trailer made it look like.It’s interesting to reflect on family members who died before some of our younger ones were born. I wish they could have known each other, but it’s the ones who actually remember them who would have more to say.Also, best movie dragon ever.
That dragon is a work of art. I literally gasped at its coolness.Also, this is one of the last movies I saw in a theater before lockdown began, and I don’t regret it at all. I do regret the fact that the last movie I saw before lockdown began was that trash ‘The Hunt’.
“Huh, it made a dragon out of the rubble. Cutesy drawing of a dragon juxtaposing the danger, yeah yeah.”*School bell roar*THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER!!!!
Thank you for the dragon comment and while I am still partial to Vermithrax Pejorative I have to agree that Pixar did a wonderful job with this dragon. Also, the animation and action during the battle is fantastic and easily one of the best action scenes in a Pixar film. I think that word of mouth might have given this film some legs to stick around in theaters if the Covid shut-down had not hit so soon after its release.Definitely a bit under-rated and also those final moments with the brothers and their father…wow, that was such a beautiful and poignant moment. This is a Pixar film that has solid re-watch value.ETA: Forgot to mention that I was so thrilled that Disney+ put this up to watch for their subscribers so fast, that was just too cool as I had not seen it in theaters and was patiently waiting for it to eventually hit D+ perhaps later this summer, that it was available so soon after it had to leave theaters was beyond awesome
I feel like Onward is the Meet the Robinson’s of this movie generation. Great little film, destined to be largely overlooked
hell yes to Dragonslayer. Love that movie! Wonder if it’s on D+…
Pretty much all Pixar movies have had absolutely terrible trailers.The dragon was awesome.I saw Onward on Disney+ and to be hones, it felt like it belonged on there much more than it did in theaters. I also enjoyed the heck out of the Mom and Manticore more than the Avengers brothers.
Both the spell dragon and the house dragon were great, in very different ways. Mom was the real hero of the movie.
As the father of 2 very young boys, this movie struck me so directly that I was tearing up pretty much from minute 5. The ending was unexpected, definitely brought the waterworks, and made me really consider myself in that situation. I think that I would definitely have a lot more to talk about with my 3 year old than I would with the 6 month old if I were to die tomorrow and be resurrected in 16 years.I’m glad that there’s a Disney movie out there for brothers.
I totally agree. It’s Frozen for boys, and I’m so glad it exists.
I’ll be honest, this is one of the reasons I never bothered.Modern Disney is getting very comfortable with segmented markets over mass appeal. It’s always been floating around their IP, but I blame Frozen because oh dear god I never want to hear Let It Go again. So let’s use that.Frozen is not a movie that hits all cylinders unless you have a very similar relationship – I’ve even read arguments that it HAS to be an older sister. Inside-Out? Highly applicable if you’re an adolescent girl, I gave up and went to go play on my tablet after half an hour. Wreck-It-Ralph was aimed squarely at me, but I can recognize that if you’re not someone immersed in ‘80s-’90s arcade culture a lot of it is just weird filler. This? Every person I’ve talked to who reported loving the movie pretty much universally was a male with a brother, and they loved it because “it was made for me!”If you’re in the group the movie’s aimed at, it will almost certainly resonate in ways that… well… make you willing to become hated by playing the soundtrack nonstop for weeks on end in your work cube until multiple complaints from several departments make it a “turn it off or find new work” situation. If you aren’t? You may wind up being the person filing the complaint.
Concur. When I saw the lame joke of the centaur counting by stomping his foot, I decided that nope, not gonna see this.
The school bell ringing when it roared was an inspired touch.
Does it get better after the dadlegs appear? I got that far and was too tired of the by-the-numbers, rote plotting & characterisation. The beginning of Onward felt, to me at least, more insufferable than many a Dreamworks film- it veered into Hotel Transylvania bad.
It should be obvious that I think so.
Well I guess if you’re not capable of any more than a childish response, I’ll take what I can get. Sad that it’s the best you can muster, though.
I said the marketing made it look like exactly what you described and that it was far better than that. What more of an answer can I possibly give? Frankly, I felt like you used my positive post to get your negative opinion out there instead of just making your own post.
No, I was being honest- The first twenty minutes didn’t hook me, and I wanted to know if the film took a different turn and was worth returning to. There was no such intent as you imagined it- I didn’t say anything less than the article above. Why you decided to be an asshole before having an honest conversation on how you understood my comment is far from the best response you could’ve gone with.
Well, I don’t know specifically what you consider “rote” and “by-the-numbers” about it, but I enjoyed the movie and felt like it was at least middle-tier Pixar. Clever — by which I do not mean “full of Flintstone-like anachronisms and analogs”, which was what the trailers seemed focused on — and surprisingly emotional. And they get some legitimately good physical humor out of the legs.
I should be fair to you, I over-explained my feelings on the film must have seemed to just want to shit on it. My intent wasn’t to make you defend your taste, just to explain my reaction to the set-up of the film.That said, what I thought was rote might have been what you saw as middle-tier. The film seems to be lampooning the 80s-era coming-of-age films with the long-lost dad, geeky kid trying to fit in, goofy older brother that embarasses the protagonist, and overly loving mother. The film isn’t doing any of that HORRIBLY, it’s just executing the formula in a fashion that didn’t hook me. I wanted to know if the proceeding bit of the film upends the tropes enough to hook me back in, or if the film embraces the tropes and the rest of the film is consistent to the set-up.And just to cap-end all that, Onward seems very innocuous, and even if I watch the rest & don’t enjoy it, you seem to really enjoy it, and I appreciate that. I never want to represent the whole “I hate the film so people who enjoy it are beneath me” sentiment, and I find it uplifting to hear what enjoyment a person gets from a film that I didn’t like.
That’s fair, and I apologize for being quick to defensive sarcasm.I wouldn’t say it completely upends those tropes, it remains a brotherly coming-of-age story. But it still goes some surprising places. And even if the plot disappoints, the climax I think is worth it for multiple reasons.
I appreciate that we can meet on a middle-ground! You don’t get that much on the internet-thanks for being you 😛
Also, there’s a killer LOTR gag right at the beginning. The brothers are driving past the fast food joint Burger Shire, and the sign reads ‘Welcome to Burger Shire! Now Serving 2nd Breakfast!’I just watched it again, and man, that last 10-15 minutes are so damn good. The dragon fight, the moment detailed in this story, all of it.
The dragon had that Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man vibe of looking goofy while being simultaneously scary.
Kid, I’m glad your older brother was looking out for you all these years, but you mom might’ve contributed a little to. She’s right over there, swinging a goddamn sword for you!
Not to be ribald, but she might have enjoyed the fact that her husband’s lower half was back, as well.
Damn i just made this comment. I should’ve scrolled Onward to see yours first.
I don’t he’d do it for her anymore now that she has a Centaur lover.
It’s not the size of the wand, but the motion with the potion.
That was pretty cool. I appreciated that they wrote a climax that was able to get the whole family involved, since naturally, this would be a big deal for their mom, too. I also liked the general idea of a mother slaying dragons for their kids, because in essence, this is what moms do 🙂
It’s almost like his one parent could be a good substitute for his other parent, but ICK…moms can’t throw baseballs!
As a man who was raised (almost entirely) by a single mom after my parents divorced, and as someone who loves that mother dearly and thinks she’s a living saint, it’s not the same. My mom was so busy being my mom (working, going to school at nights, cooking, running errands, etc., all the things that a single parents needs to do on their own) that I didn’t really get to know her as a person until I moved out of the house. Even though I only saw my dad once or twice a month, whenever we were together, Dad wasn’t running errands or working, so I knew a lot more about what my dad liked to do, rather than what he had to do. (Unfortunately for me, my dad likes to do yardwork and keep his cars very clean.) In a two-parent household, more of the mundane parenting stuff gets shared (hopefully), and each parent is allowed more time to share their interests with their kids.My mom has always tried to avoid speaking ill of her ex-husband (my dad) to me and my brother, but she’s said very explicitly that one thing she resents him for is forcing her to be the “un-fun” parent, who shouldered all the burden of doctor’s visits and discipline and nudging us to do chores or study or get a job.In this specific instance, there’s also the gender-roles situation: their mom can show Ian how to be a good person, but she can’t be a role model on how to be a good man, in a society that still expects different things out of men and women.
Good old Pixar traditional patriarchal bullshit.
“Hey, where’s the clip??”oh yeah – this movie’s only three months old. Doesn’t seem possible, does it?
This is one of the last movies I saw in a theater before lockdown began, and I don’t regret it at all. I do regret the fact that the last movie I saw before lockdown began was that trash ‘The Hunt’.I dug this movie a lot. It’s basically ‘Frozen’ for boys, and its message seems to be ‘don’t be an asshole even though your emotional and mental boundaries as a young man seem to be limiting you to be absolutely nothing but an asshole’. Something we could use a lot more of.
The biggest crime of The Hunt is using the same (admittedly generic) title of 2012’s The Hunt, which is a goddamn masterpiece that doesn’t deserve the slight taint of being associated with the 2020 film.
The new one is just dreadful. The dialogue seems to be so focused on ‘let’s keep this as evenly balanced between left/right standpoints’ that it forgets how to sound like anything anyone would actually say. It seems to have been written with a sledgehammer dipped in fake blood, with an intent to bash its audience over the head with as many ham-handed social allegories and faux-political buzzwords born from the bowels of TMZ and Twitter that it possibly can over the course of about 90 minutes. It’s really barely even a movie at all, playing more like a stupid joke told at a frat party that some film school freshman overheard and then made into their final project. Utter trash.
And of course, the big twist that Debbie from GLOW actually isn’t the alt-right nut they meant to kidnap, and we aren’t given any indication what her actual politics are, meaning the audience doesn’t have to do any scary thinking about whether we should actually be rooting for her.
If that’s all Hilary Swank can get herself into these days, I hope she invested well. Also, what the fuck was with how Betty Gilpin kept twisting up her face? Did she have a stroke and I didn’t notice?
the film makes her apolitical/centrist which is a load of horseshit that wouldn’t make me root for her.
Mother of 2 boys here, and Frozen is Frozen for boys (as much as the marketing department might dispute that).
I mean it is the same kind of story, but being told with boys in the primary roles. I don’t care what boys or girls watch. There are no girl movies and there are no boy movies.
I’m glad I got to see this one just a few days before our state told movie theaters to close.It was fine for what it was, but that ending still got me to cry.
Saw this recently on Disney+ and can’t say it was anything special. I was actually really interested in the setting of the evolved fantasy world but they didn’t do anything interesting with it. I think pixar has been leaning *way* too hard into the sappy melodrama lately and their storytelling has become lazy as a result. It’s like they start from “how do we make people cry at the end?” and work backwards instead of letting their stories develop more organically. I guess it works for them as people seem to love all of their releases so they’d be fools to do anything different…maybe my tastes have just changed.
I caught this on Disney+ and ending up loving it, and really wish I hadn’t let lukewarm reviews keep me from seeing it opening weekend, especially as it would have been the last movie I saw in theaters (possibly forever).
It was the last movie I saw in theaters before they closed. And I am glad I did. I think it was great. I think the lukewarm reviews are now the fate of most, if not all Pixar films. It feels like the conversation over any new Pixar film is not about that individual film but how it fails to live up to the expectation of my (the reviewer´s) personal favorite. Which is a boring conversation. To me, the fact that it is ¨epic quest” where learning to merge is a key challenge was enough to me say ok this is clever film that gets growing up and raising kids.
The ending was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but not good.
Or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but done right.
Or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but done equally well, just differently.
Or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 done equally well, where Spider-Man was Starlord and Starlord was Yondu and the music was far less memorable.
I found this movie somewhat disappointing. I know that part of the plot hinged on the fantasy world losing its connection to a magical past, but did Pixar have to make that world an extremely boring version of our own? Pixar is at it’s best when they bring us to an exciting new place. Onward was like a trip to suburban Ohio.
I haven’t seen it but that part of the trailer was a turn-off. I get that magic would become just as ho-hum as any other part of life once you’re used to it, but the jokes seemed like they would get stale in about five minutes. It’s kind of like Cars substituting, well, cars, for everything. “Oh look, the bugs are VW Beetles. Heh.”
It’s actually a little different. Magic has become extremely rare and almost forgotten in the world of Onward. That could have been a springboard for an interesting re-imaging of a parallel fantasy world. Instead, it just looks like a dull early 80s suburbia, occupied by blue people and centaurs.
I felt that the prelude of the film would’ve made a much more interesting movie; How do wizards feel when they’re slowly losing their status and can’t be special anymore. Do they try to adapt or try to destroy technology in order to be worshiped again?
Really good write up – matches exactly how I felt when the moment arrived. I’ve really enjoyed this whole series and the variety of focuses and opinions involved (especially finding a moment worth writing about in some of the more tepid entries, such as Finding Dory). I’d definitely be up for a later addition for Soul, just as it’d be nice for The Marvel Moment to be extended for Endgame and Far From Home. Failing that, how about The Spielberg Moment in the build up to West Side Story?
I would’ve liked the movie more if the kids left that bottom-half dad at home for the thicc elf mom (a classic MELF) to put to good use.
I sure hope that after this film, Disney has reached the point where they can stop acting like a kid who’s been dared to touch a dead bug when it comes to gay representation, throwing in a single line about a girlfriend and then running for cover. Which is still a step up from that debacle with the Beauty and the Beast remake, so let’s just see if they’ve learned the sun will still come up in the morning if they make an actual meaningful character.
They’re not worried about American right-wingers anymore; they’re worried about Chinese censors.
Nah, they’re still deeply in bed with American homophobia, blaming the Chinese is just a racist diversion.
Government censors =/= the entire population of the country. They cut Le Fou dancing with a dude out of Beauty & the Beast. They cut Joe Russo out of Endgame. This isn’t some cultural stereotype; it’s actual government actions.
And after the James Gunn debacle, Disney is definitely gonna think twice about believing right-wing social-media ranting.
I have a feeling the marketing overstates the importance of the moments that were added.
Goddam, when am I gonna see a movie in theaters again? I saw this, and, like, maybe I’ll see Wonder Woman when it gets pushed back to 2021 eventually? I hate everything.
I signed up for a free week of Disney+ just to watch this, and I really liked it. I do think it would have been better on the big screen – the dragon especially, delightful as it was on my tv, deserved to be towering over and above the audience to be fully appreciated.Also, Chris Pratt, man – he does loveable oaf better than anyone, and he really pulls out all the stops in Onward. The perspective of the reunion between Barley and his dad was unexpected and it packed a wallop, but without the audience’s investment in Barley as a character, it wouldn’t have been nearly so effective.The only real ding I have is that the music was obtrusively generic. You’re on a road trip! With magic! Maybe they didn’t want to tread too closely to GotG and The Awesome Mix because of Pratt, but come on – put in a *little* effort.Also, I was utterly baffled by the gelatinous cube until I saw a reference to it on a rerun of The Goldbergs where they were playing D&D. It really upsets me that I had to learn something from The Goldbergs.
This movie is absolutely steeped in D&D culture. Pixar collaborated with Wizards of the Coast (see links below) on it, and there’s a lot of references to the game and its culture throughout the film, including the Manticore and the Gelatinous Cube. If you watch all the way at the end of the credits, Pixar gives them a shout-out.For an old school D&D fan who can still close my eyes and picture the garage I used to campaign in with all my middle school friends waaaaay back when, seeing a Gelatinous Cube in a movie like this one is a big damn deal. Totally blew my mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_of_the_Coast https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/onward-spoilers-dungeons-and-dragons-easter-eggs-explained-manticore-gelatinous-cube
This was a lot better than I expected, but I also kept on thinking they should have put more effort into the music. Instead of having the rock songs sound like the kind of “classic rock” some composer came up with, why didn’t they get some actual metal bands to write songs for the movie. I would have loved to hear Mastadon in a Pixar film.
This was also weird because the universe was filled with “generic led zeppelin soundalikes”, yet the mother had real world Let’s Get it On as her ringtone?
The perspective of the reunion between Barley and his dad was unexpected and it packed a wallop, but without the audience’s investment in Barley as a character, it wouldn’t have been nearly so effective.I cry easily in movies, but this didn’t quite wring it out of me even as I appreciate what they were going for. It just didn’t land due to the incredible awkward way they set up Barley as the surrogate father. First with the clumsy trope of “magic truth” to devastate Barley finding out that Ian thinks he’s a screwup (like he would care?). Then with the confusing conflated flashbacks to them sharing adventures plus growing up together. This all probably worked much better in writing than what ended up on screen.Also Chris Pratt just recently starred in a father figure switcharoo movie.
Yet Onward sneaks up on you. In classic Pixar fashion, it finds
its way to a tearjerking finale—an unexpectedly moving destination
after a journey of mild misadventure, life-lesson detours, and ’80s
comedy clichés.
This perfectly sums up my time with the movie. As Onward moves along, it’s… fine, I guess. Kind of average in the way a Dreamworks movie is average, (maybe D&D/fantasy fans get more mileage out of it, because a lot of the more loving references went over my head) but then the ending happens that totally justifies its Pixarness. It’s a swerve that wrecked me, it’s a slam dunk, and it retroactively makes the entire journey worth it.
Agreed! I -like several others here- actively chose not to watch it in theaters (before everything closed), bc of how terrible the trailer was. Of course, that just made the expectations-shatterring even more powerful, albeit on my stupid tv screen
It’s not Wall-E or Incredibles level, but it’s solid and had more than a few inspired moments (including the finale discussed here.)
(SPOILERS)
In no particular order, I loved:
– The highway sequence involving the attack by the pixie biker gang
– The bit where Ian and Barley disguise themselves as the cop (yes, sigh) that their mom is seeing
– The “using magic to walk across the canyon” bit
– The very clever sacrifice of Barley’s van (and all of the carefully seeded coincidences that made it emulate a pegasus ascending into the heavens)
The movie definitely hit me in the feels unexpectedly. The trailers just sold it as a road trip movie of two opposing brothers. But Pixar managed to hit the emotional sweetspot by the end. Definitely the scene where Ian remembers everything Barley has done for him over the years hit the nice note as did the scene mentioned in this article. As the last movie I watched in theatres before lockdown, this holds a special place in my heart. Not top tier Pixar but solidly second tier.
so did Jack Black turn down the part of the older brother?
I liked Pratt just fine, but yeah, Jack Black would’ve been a blast.
it certainly felt like Pratt thought so too – he was almost channelling Black!
I love Jack Black in the Jumanji movies so much. It’s like he was born to play a 16-year-old girl.
The character even looks like he was modeled on a young Jack Black.
This is one of the best Pixar movies in a while in my opinion. Right up there with UP, CoCo and Toy Story.
I still haven’t forgiven them for making the LGBT+ character a cop. That’s just a fucking disgusting move considering the history of Pride.
I still dislike the movie, but I did like the finale. I wish it could’ve been as good as the finale but personally, it felt too peppy and happy for when they could’ve made it more morose; Lilo and Stitch and Coraline come to mind for that type of atmosphere of realistically damaged families. Like, having the older brother purposefully leave their mother behind because he’s a dick towards her seems to make more sense than just kinda ditching her for no reason at all.
I’m starting to think that Pixar bets too much on the big emotional finales because its beginning to feel rather calculated.
Now that it’s over, obligatory Pixar rankings:22. Cars 221. The Good Dinosaur20. Monsters U.19. Brave18. A Bug’s Life17. Cars16. Monsters Inc.15. Onward14. Cars 313. The Incredibles 212. Finding Dory11. Toy Story 410. Up9. Inside Out8. Toy Story 27. Ratatouille6. Coco5. Toy Story 34. Finding Nemo3. The Incredibles 2. Toy Story1. Wall-E
I wish that the soundtrack had been more metal.