Despicable Me 4’s Biggest Continuity Problem Is Part Of Why Illumination Is Dominating Over Disney

Summary

• Despicable Me 4’s continuity issue shows Illumination’s lighthearted approach, appealing to children.
• Disney’s focus on adult audiences may have contributed to its recent box office struggles.
• Realistic details in animation can be enjoyable, but not at the expense of children’s fun and imagination.

People have been pointing out a continuity problem in Despicable Me 4, but this small detail is part of why Illumination has been performing so much better than Disney at the box office. The film sees Gru grow his family, introducing a new baby boy with his wife, Lucy Wilde. This comes some years after the events of Despicable Me when Gru adopted his three daughters, Margot, Edith, and Agnes. However, the timeline of this Illumination film franchise doesn’t quite add up, and while this might bother some viewers, it’s actually a sign that Despicable Me is doing things right.

The Despicable Me franchise has been massively popular, with Despicable Me (2010), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions (2015), and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) bringing in a combined $4.6 billion at the global box office. The movies have also done phenomenally well on streaming, where each installment found itself in Netflix’s Top 10 movies for a time. Despicable Me 4 is projected to do just as well and will likely join the billion-dollar club during its stint in theaters. This all comes despite the continuity problem regarding the characters’ ages.

Despicable Me 4’s Age Discrepancy Shows Illumination Isn’t Taking Itself Too Seriously

The Characters Haven’t Aged Or Changed In Despicable Me, But That’s Okay

The timeline in Despicable Me 4 is a touch confusing since the characters don’t seem to have aged since the first move. This is especially evident in the kids, with Margot remaining a preteen after all these years while little Agnes is still just older than a toddler. The lack of change is all the more evident since it seems that Gru and Lucy have welcomed a baby boy since the end of Despicable Me 3, which means more than a year must have gone by. Obviously, when looking at a realistic continuity, this doesn’t make sense.

Kids don’t care whether characters grow up like real people.

However, when asked about this, director Chris Renaud was unbothered. He said that they are taking a Simpsons approach with Despicable Me, where the characters are frozen in time and don’t age even after five, ten, or twenty years have gone by. Renaud noted that he doesn’t “think the audience cares,” and since the target audience for Despicable Me is children, he’s entirely right. Kids don’t care whether characters grow up like real people. If anything, this simply shows that Illumination isn’t taking itself too seriously, and it’s obviously working.

Disney Has Lost Sight Of Its Target Audience (While Illumination Isn’t Afraid To Be Silly)

Disney’s Recent Problems Aren’t Caused By Any One Thing, But Its Target Audience Change Could Be A Problem

People caring about the realistic continuity of an animated movie or TV show seems like a fairly recent change. In the ’80s and ’90s, it was pretty typical that cartoon characters wouldn’t change at all over time, remaining the same age and even wearing the same clothes again and again. This creates a consistent familiarity, which tends to be good for child audiences. However, it seems that, recently, animation studios have begun to target adult audiences, working tirelessly to avoid criticism about plotholes and continuity issues. However, this seems to have sapped the fun out of children’s media.

Disney is especially guilty of prioritizing adult audiences’ expectations over that of children. The studio has produced some wonderfully realistic animated movies, demonstrating phenomenal attention to detail that adult audiences love. However, most kids couldn’t care less about such things. Though it’s difficult to say if this is why Disney has struggled at the box office in recent years, there’s something to be said about children’s movies being aimed too solidly at adults. Illumination isn’t afraid to be silly and contradict sense, and its films are doing stupendously.

Realistic Details In Animated Movies Can Be Great (But It Can’t Go Too Far)

Disney Can Take A Hint From Illumination’s Success

Of course, Disney shouldn’t just stop paying attention to the finer details. It’s fun to see sequels like Moana 2 age up the characters or to watch Tadashi breathe in Big Hero 6. It’s important that adults enjoy children’s animation as well since any kid at the theater must be brought there by a grownup who is hoping to have a good experience as well. However, this is taken too far when there is so much focus on realism in animation that the wacky fun that children love is lost.

Despicable Me 4 hits theaters on July 3, 2024.

Despicable Me is all chaos and outrageous events. None of it makes much sense, so the lack of aging children is the least of the problems. This has been true since the first movie was released in 2010, and it appears to be the same in Despicable Me 4. However, as a multibillion-dollar franchise, it’s clear that Illumination is doing something right.