Pixar has a new movie in theaters today with the release of Onward. The film follows two brothers on a quest to find a magical stone that will help them finish a spell to restore their deceased father for a single day. On the surface, there's plenty that's new and exciting with Onward: the fantasy setting combined with modern conveniences, a story focused on brothers, and all the comedy and sharp storytelling we've come to expect from the beloved animation studio. But it also fits into a formula that the studio has had a hard time shaking: the buddy picture.

The following Pixar movies use a buddy picture structure: Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Brave, Monsters University, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Cars 3, Coco, Toy Story 4, and Onward. That's the majority of Pixar movies. To be fair, these movies may also contain a subplot revolving around a cast of characters like Finding Nemo or Coco, but the A-plot usually revolves around two characters who play off each other, their relationship gets strained somewhere around the 2nd act turn, and then they patch things up and their relationship is even stronger. They also usually have something to teach each other that ties into the main theme of the movie.

I get why Pixar keeps going back to this well, and that's because it works for them. These movies win Oscars. They're box office hits. You keep using a formula if the formula works, and it's not like you could necessarily criticize these movies as being "the same." No one would mistake Coco for Inside Out or The Good Dinosaur for WALL-E. Pixar provides enough detail to their worldbuilding and characterization that the buddy picture provides a starting point where they can begin. It's the foundation, but not the totality.

And yet that foundation can be oddly limiting when you look at all the other ways there are to tell stories. For example, Pixar hasn't really attempted an ensemble picture since A Bug's Life. Yes, Flik is the hero, but you've really got Princess Atta and the whole circus troop coming together with all the other ants to take on Hopper. Cars 2is really more of a solo Mater adventure, and the film is bad, but not because it separated Mater from Lightning McQueen. It's telling that both The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 don't exist in the buddy movie mold and both hail from filmmaker Brad Bird, the only person with sole writer-director credits in Pixar's filmography (the buddy picture of Ratatouille is one Bird took over late in development and has a co-director credit for Jan Pinkava).

Again, there's nothing wrong with the buddy picture formula, but think of all the other kinds of stories Pixar could tell. For a studio acclaimed for its creativity, the notion that every movie must rest on two mismatched leads and their charming friendship seems a bit bizarre. When we see movies outside of Pixar, we don't start wondering, "Okay, who's the leading duo in this picture?" Sometimes there's just a single hero. Sometimes the action moves between multiple characters who are all equally important. This kind of diversity creates different outcomes whereas a buddy picture, especially for family movies, keeps you constrained to particular resolutions. The catharsis or revelation may change, but the heroes' journey must always reinforce the friendship. Even in Toy Story 4, which is about saying goodbye, Woody has moved from one close friendship (Woody & Buzz) to another (Woody & Bo).

Perhaps under the new stewardship of Pete Docter, the director behind Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, Pixar can find a new way to tell stories without losing the spark and creativity that's made them such a powerhouse in American filmmaking. No one wants Pixar to stop being Pixar, but they should know better than anyone that creativity requires some element of risk. The buddy picture is a safe harbor where they've launched picture after picture, but eventually they could become too predictable and familiar. For a studio that prides itself on imagination, they need to start imagining a story that doesn't have a couple of mismatched protagonists