#in that Finding nemo is a very unsequelable movie and inevitibly the plot would be 'what if another fish got lost'

[dimetrodone]

Modern Pixar movies have me believe they should have stuck to making short films, because they're having a hard time padding out their concepts in meaningful ways.

I’ve heard a few people say this but I genuinely think this has been a hurdle with their movies since the very start. Up and Wall-e are some of their movies that felt the most like they lost steam trying to be a full length movie. On the flip side Elemental somehow pushes its weak premise a lot more then I ever thought you could do with "what if fire people lived in a city"

A lot of Pixar movies precariously sit between being built on single core premises while also often being quite "trim' in ways. Plots largely focus on only 2 or 3 principal characters, antagonists are often minimal in presence if present at all. Any sort of ‘worldbuilding’ feels exclusively built around driving the plot forward and skeletal under its surface.

Those arnt necessarily flaws but the streamline formula sometimes shoots them in the foot. Good Dinosaur and Onward feel especially screwed by the pulled back formula, both being very basic point a to point b plots with 2 contrasting protagonists and no core antagonist. Finding Nemo and Inside Out have the same formula but worked just cause they add more interesting things with the adventure and have engaging B plots, their strengths feel less to do with the inherent strength of fish and mind homunculi over dinosaurs and elves and more just a case of the writing being stronger and adding more things into the mix.