Caitlin Roper tells the story. “Once upon a time, around the turn of the century, in the sunny town of Burbank, there was a great old animation company that was no longer great. Its films were various kinds of bad, but they all had some things in common: They didn’t resonate with audiences, they didn’t introduce unforgettable characters, and they didn’t sell tickets or DVDs.”

Disney Animation wasn’t being run by artists anymore, perhaps not even by people who loved movies, Roper says. They had unremarkable business people picking stories and making movies happen.

“Disney’s movies just seemed to lack … heart,” Roper says. “Take Home on the Range. From its predictable opening song to its by-the-numbers plot about a cow that’s lost her home and her friends, the movie was a dusty ride through stock archetypes and one-note sidekicks. In contrast, Pixar’s The Incredibles, which came out the same year, immediately introduced audiences to a unique and relatable protagonist as he struggles to attach a microphone to his spandex supersuit…. Mr. Incredible may be a superhero, but he’s just like us. That epitomizes Pixar’s approach to storytelling. ‘The connection you make with your audience is an emotional connection,’ Lasseter says. ‘The audience can’t be told to feel a certain way. They have to discover it themselves.’”