I grew up watching Pixar movies and loving them. Movies like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Monsters Inc., Wall-E, and more were my childhood favorites. Heck, Finding Nemo is my favorite movie of ALL TIME.
But honestly, I don’t like the direction Pixar is headed in. Movies like Finding Dory only reinforce that fear. “Hold on just a minute, Spencer,” you might be saying. “Doesn’t Finding Dory have a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes? How could you not like it?”
It’s pretty easy, actually. The writing was cringey, the characters (except for Gerald, of course) were mostly just lame and unfunny, the animation wasn’t as good as Finding Nemo’s 2003 animation does, and more. Just that opening 10 or 15 minutes made me cringe SO HARD. All in all, it just didn’t work for me. Not even the nostalgia from the first one made me like it any more. So why didn’t it work?
Simple— it didn’t seem natural. Finding Nemo, by no means, needed a sequel. There was no cliffhanger ending or overarching storyline that needed to be wrapped up with a second movie. It’s not a Star Wars-esque story that needs 8 installments to be told. It was a story that wrapped up cleanly and beautifully with the first movie’s end. I’d also submit that it didn’t seem like the writers at Pixar had their hearts in it this time— just their wallets.
Am I worried for modern Pixar? Yes. Is there hope for the future? Also yes. Pixar has still shown that they know how to make a good movie with recent work like Inside Out, and I am super psyched for The Incredibles 2. But seriously, WHY DOES CARS 3 EXIST?!
W.I.P. 
When I saw Finding Dory in the theater, I was disappointed. I think I had built my expectations too high. I rewatched it a few months later and found it more enjoyable for some reason. The movie definitely isn’t as good as Finding Nemo, but I still think it is decent.
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