Strong disagreement. The acquisition happened in 2006. The last few great Pixar movies were in the pipeline already (Ratatouille - 2007, WALL-E - 2008, Up - 2009).

I disagree too from a animation/story-quality perspective, but from a business perspective, Pixar seems to be doing well enough to meet OPs criteria of not being ruined.

> but from a business perspective

Nobody cares about this, the money they make isn't what other people interact with. It's the things they create.

Counterpoint: Inside Out, Soul

Inside out was good, but not great, IMO.

Counter-counterpoints:

Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University, The Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory, Cars 3, Coco, Onward, Luca, Turning Red, Lightyear.

The (not very original) point is: You can no longer count on a Pixar movie being excellent.

Lightyear was a letdown. My kids enjoyed it but I thought it could have been much better. I expected to see Buzz as at this exciting space ranger, but that wasn't what the movie was about. If I was Andy from Toy Story there would be no way I wanted a Buzz toy after seeing that movie.

Coco was excellent. But agreed on the rest.

Ah. Might have to watch it then. After a number of duds I gave up on watching new Pixar movies except for those made by Brad Bird, or especially recommended.

Coco and Turning Red were excellent. The rest of your list however, proves you more right than wrong.

I'd argue the only real misses were the cash grab sequels (Cars 2, Cars 3, and I can only assume Lightyear is in that group but looking at RT it seems like both ratings are still "fresh"). The rest of the movies on the post-acquisition list were good, if not great. Critically, I think the worst one on the list is the Good Dinosaur and even that's still generally well liked.

I'd argue that the old-school criterium for a "successful" Pixar movie was that it needed to be great, not just good.

My whole family enjoyed Luca FWIW.

Cars 2 was the only real stinker. I agree they're not 100% excellent, but most are at least okay. And from your list: Brave, Cars 3, Coco, Onward, Luca, and Turning Red I all consider great to excellent. I haven't seen Lightyear yet.

I'd argue that Marvel is another example, although a complex one. Marvel Comics has changed very little in terms of culture; Ike Perlmutter runs it very much the way he ran it when it was independent. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been great for Marvel but is no longer under Marvel Comics proper (it's part of the studio group now).

As long as we're doing Disney acquisitions, Lucasfilm is also still pretty independent and successful. Other Disney acquisitions have been less so.

Lucasfilm, perhaps.

LucasArts (now known as Lucasfilm Games)... tell that to the games that were put on hold and then eventually cancelled upon acquisition.

I’d argue that LucasArts was effectively dead before the acquisition, despite having in theory a few games in development. That said, I’d also argue that LucasArts would have wound up shuttered even if it had been in great shape, so you’re probably right either way.

Technically that was a merger, which made Steve Jobs the largest Disney shareholder (more than any member of the Disney family).

But yeah you have a good point. They retained their culture and in fact spread it further by having the Pixar folks take over Disney Animation.