It’s a tale as old as time in Hollywood: go woke, go broke. This time, the drama unfolds under the flickering lights of Pixar. Once-upon-a-time, Pixar was the crown jewel in Disney’s empire, pumping out blockbuster after blockbuster. But recently, it seems they’ve had a run of unremarkable releases. Peter Docter, the head honcho at Pixar, had quite the revelation — perhaps audiences weren’t looking for movies that felt like “hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.”

Back in the day, Pixar built an empire on stories of talking toys and adorable monsters. But it seems somewhere along the line, the studio traded universal appeal for niche narratives. Docter finally acknowledged that maybe movies should appeal to everyone — a radical idea, I know!

It seems audiences weren’t exactly lining up for another round of woke storylines. Moviegoers were left asking why such niche narratives took precedence over the compelling hero’s journeys that once made Pixar great.

In this high-stakes saga, the creative team thought an LGBT storyline would serve up a hit, only to find out it wasn’t quite that simple. Parents didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect of their family movie nights turning into unplanned therapy sessions. Evidently, the decision to cut the more specific aspects of the story left the film without much substance. Who knew audiences might not be interested in sending the kids to watch an identity crisis unfold on the big screen?

So what’s next for Pixar? Well, it seems they’re getting back to their roots. With sequels to classics like Incredibles and Lilo & Stitch in the pipeline, it appears Pixar is returning to form. Maybe it’s a lesson learned, that the best stories are the ones that unite rather than divide. After all, movies are intended to entertain, to unify, and not necessarily to preach. As the old phrase goes, go woke, go broke. Time will tell if Pixar heeds this age-old warning, but for now, they’re rolling the dice on a return to what made them great in the first place.