So the Pixar purchase of Disney seems to have gone ahead, making Steve Jobs the most powerful man in the universe, but the good effects haven’t stopped there. Disney may have lost their soul some time ago but it appears that the positive influence of the top dogs at Pixar is having some effect.

First of all Toy Story 3 has been canned by John Lasseter, and now the animation wings of Disney and Pixar won’t cross each other’s boundaries. Lasseter and Ed Catmill told Pixar Feature Animation employees:

Sequels should only be made if there is a really great story that demands it, and should be the domain of those who created the original film.

So, in other words, Toy Story 3 won’t be made simply because it’s a cash cow, and Pixar’s movies are Pixar’s movies. Pixar didn’t want to be involved and even the likes of John Ratzenberger (Hamm) had refused to reprise their roles, so it was going to be another soulless Disney DTV sequel.

If that wasn’t enough this appeared in the New York Times (registration not required):

Another hotly discussed question among artists has been whether Mr. Lasseter – despite having made Pixar’s fortune with a brilliant series of computer-generated hits – will bring back the traditional 2-D animation on which the Disney empire was built. Mr. Lasseter and other Pixar artists are known for their enthusiasm for the classic Disney films, and for the drawn features of the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.

Mr. Cook commented, “I’ve talked about reviving 2-D with John for some time, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if these a project emerged that we would want to do in 2-D.”

Lasseter is the man responsible for the excellent treatment of Studio Ghibli movies in the localisation process and he obviously realised what the rest of us knew – the last few Disney movies had shitty box office receptions because they were shit, not because people didn’t want to see the hand-drawn medium. With Pixar remaining autonomous but actually showing influence over Disney, are there any negative sides to this purchase?