Would a story without a bad guy make sense?

[kennyc]

And in toy story 1 Sid is the antagonist, in toy story 2 the chicken man is the antagonist, and in toy story 3 the huggy bear and his crew are the antagonists... Aren't they? Woody has a lot of inner baggage he has to deal with in his relationship with buzz, but there are actually distinct antagonists. (My son's favourite movies)

Yep...I've only seen the first one though....

 

[Drakevarg]

I wouldn't say Sid is an antagonist so much as he's an obstacle, in the same way that the T-Rex in Jurassic Park is. Yes he's dangerous to the protagonists, but the main objective with him is to simply be somewhere he isn't. Unlike, say, the Xenomorphs or the I-Rex from Jurassic World, who even if you run will be actively hunted down by. Listing him as a villain would be like listing the Wampa from Empires Strike Back as part of the same rosters as Vader.

Actually one example of a movie with no real antagonist I thought of while trying to come up with a comparison is King Kong, at least the Peter Jackson version. Nobody's evil or has any real active malice, all sides of the conflict are portrayed as being sympathetically flawed motives clashing with one another. The most one-dimensionally hostile characters in the movie are probably the dinosaurs, who are just looking for food. And maybe the tribespeople, who seem to be acting mostly out of fear of Kong.

 

[Heliotrope]

That is a good point. Yep. You are probably right.

 

[Devor]

I remember seeing headlines recently pointing out that Pixar's Inside Out doesn't have a villain. Joy causes all of the trouble herself when she refuses to let Sadness play her role. The conflict is fueled by a sense of desperation on Joy's that leads her to repeatedly make bad decisions.

 

[Velka]

I find stories that have antagonistic forces that aren't a 'bad guy' to be the most interesting. Sure, you can throw some people in who stand in the way of the MC's goal, but to have another person be the sole, or major, source of conflict gets tired pretty fast. I'm inclined to reading more character-based stories, so MC vs. him/herself is what I find to be the most interesting. I rarely have a star antagonist in my works, but including people who act as minor antagonists with their purpose being reflecting the MC's flaws is something I've found works the best for me.