5 Thoughts I Had While Watching ‘Onward’
Pixar’s Dungeons & Dragons send-up went from theater to streaming in a hurry because of the pandemic
I finally watched Pixar’s fantasy-comedy Onward on Disney+ two months after it premiered in theaters.
Normally, Pixar’s movies are summer blockbusters. Pixar doesn’t usually dump their blockbusters in late winter, a cinematic wasteland populated by born flops, low-budget gambles, and misfit toys. That Onward was coming out March 6th, 2020, and not July 4th was a red flag that Pixar didn’t have as much faith in it as they would, say, Cars 4.
But I didn’t care at the time. I was excited for an eye-popping computer-animated romp about wizards and elves and dragons. But the pandemic shut that plan down. The pandemic shut down all the plans, save for one. That plan was to self-isolate, stay home, don’t go out, save yourself and your friends, and your family. Stop the spread and buy some time.
The last movie I saw in a movie theater was The Invisible Man, which wasn’t a terrible final movie. I miss the hell out of movie theaters. I knew it would be a long time until I was able to sit in one and inhale popcorn mid-March. I remember watching the trailer to Vin Diesel’s slice of cinematic superhero meatloaf Bloodshot and thinking “Will I be…
