There hasn’t been a genre that can capture the imagination with as much urgency as fantasy. Whereas other genres have these limitations that require some semblance of familiarity, fantasy is a place where anything is possible. Magic is a key component that you can’t exist without, watching these fantastical creatures fly overhead as humanity exists in its awe. On the page, it’s an endless landscape of potential, presenting worlds that force the reader’s imagination to form its own surreal form. How can you not be drawn into that idea, where the ultimate form of interpretation exists to throw us out of our dull lives?
For Disney, that has long been their selling point, though the level of how wild and out there the imagery is has differed from project to project. For Outward (2020), they have attempted to create their most creative entry since Aladdin (1992). This is a world that combines the magic of worlds that we have only read about, played in Dungeons & Dragons-style games, with something more familiar. While characters resembling humans don’t really exist, there’s a microcosm that looks like your average suburb found in New Mushroomton.
Imagine a world where unicorns have become the equivalent of feral raccoons, eating out of trashcans and serving as a Menace II Society. The schools are lined with your variety of fantasy archetypes ranging from trolls to goblins and warlocks, all seeking a better education. They wear the uniforms you’d find in any high school story, with bright varsity jackets proudly establishing school allegiance. Then there’s Ian, the nebbish kid who is about to turn 16, who is a bit of an outsider. This is in large part because of his own insecurity and that his brother, the metal-head prototype Barley, is an extroverted weirdo who drives a rundown van called Guinevere. They’re the typical sibling duo, though Barley’s love of the world of hard fantasy makes him seem socially different.
Their journey is kicked into gear on Ian’s 16th birthday. He has the power to conjure up his deceased father for a 24 hour period using a special stone. When things go awry, Ian and Barley must go on a magical quest. This is because the spell only kind of worked, meaning that they only get the legs of their father running around. There’s little that’s expressive about a pair of legs and you can give credit to Pixar in trying to make the least emotional part of a body into something greater.
There is a strong cosmopolitan of character archetypes to be had. They are largely pulled from the Dungeons & Dragons landscape that informs the story. Barley for starters has a love of a similar game that gives him a map to the mystical world from a bygone era. If they follow the path, they will be able to solve the problem and get to spend at least an hour with their dad.
The only issue is that this magical world has been paved over. The Manticore’s Tavern used to be a place where all of the illustrious magic happened. However, it’s now your run of the mill TGI Fridays restaurant where families gather for meals in a kitschy environment. There’s a sense of corporate takeover that is commented upon and leads its manager, The Manticore, to have an existential crisis. The map that guides Ian and Barley the rest of the way hangs from a wall more as decoration than significance, making one wonder why they have forgotten about the magic of the past.
The rest of the journey creatively mixes fantasy imagery with metropolitan landmarks. In a major scene in the story, Ian and Barley get into a freeway chase with biker fairies. This is as Barley has accidentally shrank and Ian (who doesn’t have a license) has to get them to safety. It’s broadly comic and shows one of the many examples of this story becoming a journey of siblings bonding. Ian personally believes that he hasn’t done much with his life and thinks that talking to his dad will create some deeper affirmation. What he doesn’t realize is that he has slowly been gaining these skills through his personal adventure with his brother. By the end, Ian is braver and more confident in how he uses magic and lives his life than when he started. This is a journey more defined by his sibling connection than any big revelation with his father.
Another story about a young boy who goes on a quest of sorts in a fantastical landscape can be found in the stop-motion masterpiece from Laika Studios called Kubo and the Two Strings (2017). The film has many of the hallmarks of the studio’s desire to innovate the format, including featuring the tallest stop motion figure in history.
Unlike in Onward, Kubo is an only child having to take care of his mother. He’s also more confident than Ian in that he plays a guitar that conjures origami to tell stories. This skill has done him well as he walks into town like a street musician, preparing to dazzle them as papers come to life and create worlds that exist outside the frame. Unlike Onward, Kubo and the Two Strings exists in a world that doesn’t feel as reliant on mysticism, and as a result every small element of fantasy feels richer, that only the strongest of people can conjure its magic.
The issue is that Kubo cannot complete the story because he doesn’t know how it ended. He has heard this story of his missing father from his mother, whose memory is deteriorating. In order to find the answers, he must go on a quest using these symbols of protection: Beetle and Monkey. They come to life, keeping him company as he journeys into a landscape of mystery to find the ending. What fate lies ahead for this samurai who fought nobly for justice?
It’s a cliffhanger that draws Kubo forward, teamed with two characters who couldn’t seem less compatible. Beetle is more like a carefree father in the mold of every Matthew McConaughey character, J.K. Livin’ and cracking jokes whenever he can. He’s what you’d imagine a fun father would be like, and it’s why Kubo is more drawn to him than Monkey’s more protective, serious demeanor who has to comment on Beetle when he’s acting foolish. These characters in some ways mirror Ian and Barley, who are emotionally different from each other but complement each other in forwarding the story with sensible measures.
However, the world that lies beyond is far more creative and wondrous than Onward. Whereas Pixar is fine just recalling modernized take on fantasy tropes, Kubo and the Two Strings drops the audience into something more old school.
If Kubo has any powers, it’s through how he can play his guitar to conjure up spiritual forces. Like Ian, he is ultimately wanting to learn something greater about his capabilities by entering a pit of peril. The only difference is that where Onward finds biker fairies and floating on Cheetos as an answer, Kubo finds forces greater than its own. The forces grow from within the core of the environment, making the very ground he walks on much more interesting.
In the film’s centerpiece, Kubo is forced to take on a towering giant that is blocking the path. It’s a moment reminiscent of anything out of J.R.R. Tolkien, but due to Kubo’s limitation, he must climb atop the beast and pull a sword from out of its body. With the help of Beetle and Monkey, it’s a daring moment that finds them using distraction techniques to dominate a force outside of their control.
This is each film’s essence. They both exist to top indomitable forces, but Kubo feels like he’s fighting forces with more of a challenge. Onward is too rooted in comedy to every let a set-piece not have some levity and basis in ambiguous magic. Kubo doesn’t have that advantage. What he has is a life or death conclusion amid some of the most kinetic action moments in any animated film of the decade. Every new force comes with a dazzling beauty that shows an animation crew actually having fun with the world that they want to create. For instance, the world of Kubo and the Two String’s sea life alone is majestic and manages to make something as simple as an eyeball creature scary in a palpable, family-friendly way.
Onward builds to the final moment where they must slay a dragon made up of concrete pulled from Ian’s high school. The family has come together to fight the goofy creature in a dizzying mix of moments. The issue is that while it captures an emotional resonance as Barley confronts his father and gets the closure he so desperately wants, this is the peak of Onward’s visual creativity. It doesn’t have much time to make the fantasy feel like it’s seeping out of the 21st-century landscape that it thrives under. It’s there, but never is there a wonder beyond a pair of sentient legs and a Manticore having an existential crisis.
Both end with a fight that leads to revelations about a loved one. For Onward, it’s Ian sacrificing the chance to meet his father. For Kubo and the Two Strings, it’s a better sense of growth as a person. He has matured along the way, fighting the mysterious force known as The Moon King whose credits include stealing Kubo’s eye as an infant. He creates this lingering threat that makes the final fight difficult, especially as it comes with its own form of conjuring the dead and finding a deeper understanding of the passing. He has come to understand his self-worth, managing to fight the evil forces on his own. In that way, Ian and Barley are the same in terms of growth. However, there's little that feels essential about Onwards resurrecting dad besides easy emotional manipulation.
Onward falls short in making the scope feel rich. Beyond obvious visual and tonal differences, the journey to the answer feels less satisfying. Sure, it has some emotional beats where Barley questions his own value after being called a screw-up, but for a story that seeks to make the audience believe in the wonders of magic, it does so with little effort. We’re mostly looking at an animated landscape that we’ve seen before with sprinkles of something grander. At most it has heavy metal music references that feel subversive for a family film, but it’s more of a tapestry than a trait.
Both stories deal with the struggles of the family dynamic within the realm of fantasy. They are meant to feel epic, taking the viewer into a world that we haven’t seen before. The only issues is that Onward is maybe too jaded in how it explores corporate takeover of magic, ultimately suggesting that we need to bring magic back into our lives not because the journey has warranted it, but that it’s just cool.
Meanwhile, Kubo and the Two Strings earns its meaning because it makes the magic seem cool. It’s about the way that legacies inform the stories we tell, especially as it creates a more complex understanding of our ancestors who have passed. Kubo gets his closure in ways that inform his desire to know the ending of the story as well as forming his own confidence. He has gone on his own quest and come out a better person. The audience has been rewarded for this experience by believing in the power of storytelling as something greater than what we could imagine. It makes the impossible possible, and that's what's most important.
It isn’t just that Kubo and the Two Strings has a visually different approach. Onward arguably had more tools at their disposal, and yet their inability to make their reality feel more wondrous and exciting is a great shortcoming. When it comes to telling a story about how great magic is, why not embrace its fantastical charm? Sure Onward can get by with a third act emotional twist, but the peril of Kubo and the Two Strings makes it feel baked into the DNA of the whole trip. We come to the end with a sense of relief and joy at Kubo’s accomplishments. Onward feels like scrap paper of ideas that Pixar used better in other films. At the end of the day, nothing quite matches the awe of Kubo and the Two Strings not only visually, but also emotionally. We will remember the imagery long after we left the cinema. I can't say the same for Pixar's latest.
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