1. Just Try Hard And You Are 100% Guaranteed To Succeed/Winning Is All That Matters - Planes
I know what youre about the say; you said you weren't going to populate this list with Disney films. Correct - I did say that - but as Planes came from DisneyToon Studios, makers of all the sequels to the original classics, its an entirely different, more depressing beast. Its become a growing trend in childrens films to have painfully saccharine messages; if you try your hardest eventually you will eventually succeed. While its certainly not a good thing to quash childrens dreams, theres no realism in such an ideal. Monsters University perfectly aped this by having the cute Mike Wazowski try his absolute hardest to become a scary monster, but no matter how much effort he put in had to eventually accept he just couldn't make the grade. Any kids film that celebrates the positive side of making mistakes gets a massive thumbs up from me. Planes came out just a couple of months later and despite coming from a Pixar series (that, ignoring all the hate, has some nice themes) it rested heavily on simply trying. Dusty, an unimaginatively named crop duster, is scared of heights but wants to win the big, world spanning race (originality be damned, lets just rip off Cars). Ignoring the tweeness of it all, the fact he manages to win against jets after severe setbacks due to sheer determination and no talent is just horrible. Theres nothing wrong with romanticising things for kids, but this, like Turbo and his sudden acquisition of powers, is laying the groundwork for a generation of kids thinking belief is all you need to succeed. I know I sound horrible here, but a rounded viewpoint that presents something other than the joy of winning would make for something of worth in moral terms, not just merchandising. A sequel has bizarrely been announced. Less bizarre is that quality control is so low itll be hitting the big screen in less than twelve months time. Titled Fire And Rescue, it has Dusty become a fire fighter (probably because he wished really hard). Expect more mundanity and a continued smear on Pixars reputation.
Can you think of any more famous movies that had pretty terrible messages? Air your frustrations in the comments below.