Talk:Finding Dory/@comment-27754500-20160719105446/@comment-25097798-20160724234532

Spot on. You know, I think the blame for the downfall of that franchise is somewhat on Shrek and maybe Toy Story, indirectly of course.

With Disney out of the picture in the early 2000's, the absolute dominant companies of that era were Pixar and DreamWorks, with their computer animated films thriving on the map. Everyone was exclusively interested in comptuter animated films at that time, so the companies decided to cash in on their successful properties and offer more to the masses. Toy Story and Shrek were the flagship properties of Pixar and DreamWorks back then (if not even now). So Pixar and DreamWorks decide to make sequels. The thing is, Pixar and DreamWorks managed to make the right steps with their sequels. Toy Story 2 and Shrek 2  are widely considered as equally good with their predecessors, if not marginally better. So what does Blue Sky do? They cash in on their most profitable property. IC:The Meltdown might not have been as good as the first movie, but there was obviously a try, an effort to make a good, worthwhile sequel there. Having no other way to stay above the surface, Blue Sky decided to make as many sequels for their franchise as possible. Problem is, the characters, the setting, the whole plot in general didn't age well. By the time the 3rd one was out, most people had lost interest in those characters.

And this is where we are today. With a 5th movie being out to overwhelmingly negative reviews and with Blue Sky Studios looking like they don't give a damn at all (if the wikipedia article about Ice Age 5 is to be believed, they're planning on making a 6th one... God help us). With (a) movie(s) full of bad slapstick humor and none of the passion, heart and emotion of the first one. What's even more sad is the fact that Blue Sky Studios are painting a pretty bad picture for themselves, when in reality, they're one of the most underrated animation studios out there. They're completely underestimating themselves, making tons of sequels for Ice Age like: "Listen, we can't write any other good stories or make animated movies besides Ice Age! This is the only thing we're good at! Have some more sequels!" The truth couldn't be further from it. Have they forgotten about Robots? Have they forgotten about Rio? Have they forgotten about fricking Epic???

Well, at least I'm glad that they're still planning on making new, original movies, since they're planning on releasing a movie called Ferdinard this very next summer. Let's hope that they still know how to make a good animated movie.