"Finding Dory," Pixar's 17th feature film, officially hit theaters Friday, June 16. The reviews are already declaring it a wild success, and rightfully so.
If you ask the people at Pixar what the secret is to the studio's continued string of box-office hits, they'll tell you there really isn't a secret.
I know. I've asked.
Recently, I spoke with Pete Docter, the director of several Pixar films, including "Monsters, Inc." and "Inside Out," along with Jim Morris, the president of Pixar Animation Studios, about what makes Pixar movies so special.
Both told me the same thing: The reason Pixar is worth billions is that the people who work at the studio direct all of their creative energy toward crafting the best stories possible.
Here's what that looks like.
Give people a relatable main character
Docter says one of the company’s guiding principles is that no audience member will care about Dory or Merida or Wall-E if they can't live through that character in some way.
"The main character is like a surrogate for you, the audience member," Docter tells Tech Insider. "They're learning and discovering information at the same time you are, so that by the time the film ends, you feel like you've gone on the same emotional journey the character has."
Pixar knows that if you learn a piece of information before the main character, you'll feel superior. If you learn it after, you'll feel left out. By learning how the world works at the exact same time, the audience and protagonist become one.
Their feelings about a new and strange world effectively align, leading you, the viewer, to feel the same sense of triumph when the film (hopefully) ends happily.
Tell a small story everyone will relate to
Morris explains that what those characters do and say along the way — the actual plot of the film — also enhances a movie's capacity to move people. "When you get right down to the core of it, they're not grandiose ideas," he says. "They're small things we all go through."
Take the company's first feature, "Toy Story," which taught kids the virtues of cooperation over pridefulness.
Only after Woody teams up with Buzz Lightyear does he realize that being the favorite toy isn't as important as the solidarity offered by friendship. Early screenings of the film, packed with zip-lipped children, proved the studio was on to something.
Leave something to be gained for everyone
The stories themselves may be simple, but Pixar movies as a whole are wildly complex, made up of multiple layers that appeal to audiences of all ages.
As Pixar writer and director Andrew Stanton revealed in 2013, he spent much of the early 2000s feeling like he was being overprotective of his son. From that concern came the 2003 megahit "Finding Nemo," in which a worrywart clownfish showed kids how their actions affect others and showed parents the dark side of helicoptering.
Or take the 2015 film "Inside Out," Pixar's most ambitious film to date.
Docter says the film mirrors two experiences from his own life: his childhood move from Minnesota to Denmark and his daughter's slide from goofball kid to angsty preteen.
Bringing those stories together literally inside the mind of an 11 year old, personifying her emotions, only gave Docter more room to explore the lesson of respecting our emotions.
"I've had a lot of people say, 'My son had a lot of problems talking about how he feels, but watching your film kind of unlocked something,'" he says. "Which is pretty cool."
A model for future success
"Finding Dory" will certainly follow this well-worn path to success that Pixar has paved over the last 30 years.
"Not only is it a story about finding Dory's family," wrote Tech Insider Senior Editor Kirsten Acuna in her review of the movie, "it's also about realizing the family you're looking for may have been right beside you all along."
Audiences will laugh because Dory is a forgetful, happy-go-lucky fish. They'll cry because she endured a painful childhood rife with learning disabilities. And by the time they're back at their car, they'll probably see the world in a whole new way.
That's what Pixar understands better than any other movie studio: that moving films are built on relatable characters whose stories convey some core truth about being alive. It doesn’t matter one bit if those stories are seen through the eyes of monsters, robots, cars, or clownfish. Good stories transcend the species of their characters.
Dory may be a forgetful Blue Tang, but her story is eternally human.
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Here's what the 'Suicide Squad' stars look like in real life