The worlds of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation are going to change drastically in the years to come. For nearly a decade, both studios flourished under the leadership of John Lasseter, but on the heels of sexual misconduct allegations, Lasseter has parted ways from Disney altogether, leaving two leadership seats open: one at Pixar and one at Disney.

Frozen‘s Jennifer Lee is taking over at Disney and Inside Out‘s Pete Docter is taking over for Pixar. With the leadership now splintered, there’s a good bet that the styles and culture will begin to shift over at the studios, for better or worse. Speaking with Deadline, Domee Shi, the director of the short “Bao,” which aired in front of Incredibles 2, expressed her excitement surrounding Pixar becoming more individual.

“I feel super excited. Of course, I’m the biggest fan of Pete Docter’s. I’ve always just admired how creative, but also how humble and down to earth he is, and how he’ll always say hi to you in the hallway, and listen to people’s opinion or ideas. He’ll always take the time to listen to you, and to try stuff, and he’s so good at getting a huge crew behind his vision. Even though he’s made so many films, he’s never lost that sense of spontaneity and play, so I’m always inspired watching him make films, and I’m excited that he’s leading the studio now at Pixar. It’s cool because now that the two studios [including Walt Disney Animation] are run by two different people, you can really see Pixar distinguish itself even more from the other studios, which I think is going to be really exciting.”

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I have to say, I share her excitement. Sure, now that we no longer have the story bedrock that is John Lasseter (who understood storytelling as good as anyone out there), it’s a bit scary that both studios could suffer in overall quality, but in the long term, it could be a great thing. As the years have gone on, audiences who don’t follow the biz have had a harder time differentiating between films from the two studios, and I’m fairly confident a good chunk of you out there still think Ralph Breaks the Internet is a Pixar movie.

The reality is, with Lasseter at the head, there was likely a very consistent mentality in storytelling between the two studios. With there being two new leaders, they can now branch off in their own directions, and it’ll be really cool to see what they do differently from each other going forward. Are you as excited as I am about the whole thing? Let me know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Deadline