A generation of kids who grew up endlessly watching home videos of the Toy Story movies and other Pixar films can now in their twenties perhaps for the first time see these beloved characters on the big screen and in 3-D which at least partly explains the over $100 million in its opening box office over the weekend, not to mention to nearly $50 million in oversees box office. Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toy gang are indeed back and the joy of toys is too.
As my family and I walked into the theater, my son, anxious that the film might be another disappointing sequel, muttered, “please be good, please be good.” I responded, “I’m not worried,” since I knew that, unlike other studios, Pixar’s production process has insured that all along the four-year process it takes from conception to post-production, quality control principles allow anyone in the creative process to speak up and critique the story’s development. If you catch story problems at this point and offer corrections and improvements, which is how things work at Pixar, you eliminate 99% of a movie’s problems.
This union of audience appeal with artistic innovation using digital animation has resulted in a string of nothing but hits for the studio 11 feature films, unheard of in Hollywood history. Toy Story 3 is perhaps the best film yet from Pixar, an amazing achievement given the risks of a second sequel when other franchises begin to show creative exhaustion (Shrek 3, Spider-Man 3 for example) and the demands of executives to squeeze more dollars out of a popular property when there are no good new ideas. But this being a sequel to the revloutionary first Pixar feature, the team was determined to get it right.
Andy’s toys have been gradually left behind as their owner’s teen years have naturally drawn him away from childish play to more age-appropriate interests. Woody is the only toy Andy plans to take to college, so the rest of the toys, feeling neglected, welcome a move to a nearby daycare center. Thus begins their next great adventure as they discover that not having a child who owns them means not being special anymore. And there’s more than the rough treatment by toddlers too young to play appropriately with them–the gang soon realizes they’ve been set up by other toys to serve as virtual prisoners in the daycare center. As they did in the earlier films, this involves another Odyssey-like journey of escape back to Andy, if they can find him in time, except this is the most dangerous adventure yet, and probably the funniest–the trademark Pixar rapid joke frequency we’ve experienced since the first film is firmly operational as every gag possibility is full exploited–only Pixar’s writers seem to know the magic of creating laughs that appeal to both child and adult without depending on mostly pop culture references, as the Shrek films have, to a fault.
And the Disney Digital 3-D process adds depth to the images although I question the necessity of this in such well-executed storytelling–I peeked over the top of the glasses several times and saw how much brighter the picture was without them and prefer that to the 3-D image that quickly loses its wow factor.
The level of invention is so high in the film that I couldn’t help thinking it seems ten times more creative than anything in the family category and most others as well (as evidenced by the groan-inducing trailers for upcoming kids animated films). This generosity continues in the famous Pixar end-credit sequence that takes us from the deeply moving climax back to guffaws and joy. Frankly, I feel privileged to live in an era where such instant classics dependably come to us annually, as if Walt Disney was back on the job–in a way, he is; Pixar’s wizards, led by Disney creative honcho John Lasseter, have always loved Disney’s animation classics and sought to perpetuate his vision and spirit. In a summer poor in mainstream movie entertainment, enjoy another miraculous work of great all-ages storytelling.
I, for one, was literally blown away. I haven’t felt such awe and wonder since seeing Beauty and the Beast for the first time at age 4. (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating, but still.)
I’m almost ashamed to say I cried during the opening montage. The story hadn’t even started yet and already I was touched. Maybe by memories of my own childhood, and my rapid entrance into the adult world. (I’m still torn between these two worlds to this day. And probably will be all my life.) I wondered how this once unknown studio had been able to produce hit after hit. Disney himself would be pleased at the studio that was carrying out his lifelong dream- bringing great stories to life. I marveled at how they managed to do it all.
Last night, I was channel surfing, killing time waiting for a Star Trek re-run to come on that hubby had wanted to see. I stumbled upon the opening credits of what appeared to be some sort of film. It had a child, sprawled on the floor, coloring with crayons. I was expecting some sort of Hallmark family film. But I was in for a shock.
What I was watching, was the history of Pixar Animation. A documentary titled “A Pixar Story”.
The documentary made in 2007, followed the dreams of John Lassiter as he graduated from Cal Arts to work as an animator for the Disney studios. One of his first projects was a climactic scene in The Fox and The Hound. But he knew something was amiss. The films he was working on lacked the magic that Disney was once known for. Depth of art and storytelling was sacrificed in the name of profiting in the short term. And Lassiter, who had loved Disney all his life, was quickly becoming disillusioned. Having studied at Cal Arts, an animation school started by Disney himself, he had been taught by Disney’s own Nine Old Men. Even they had grown weary of the second class fodder that the studio cranked out year after year. But John’s love for Disney would soon be united with another love of his… computer technology.
Computers had long been feared by animators, who believed that the technology would replace them, and destroy what was left of an already dying art. But where most animators saw the end of their careers, John saw untapped potential and a new frontier in animation. After being fired from Disney during his production on The Brave Little Toaster, he teamed up with a few other computer animation enthusiasts, and went to work as a division of George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic.
Together they developed technology which quickly began to revolutionize the industry. They even won an award for the very short computer animated sequence in Young Sherlock Holmes, where a man hallucinates that a stained glass window image of a knight comes to life and attempts to kill him. All throughout, Lasstier was desperate to convince animators that they needn’t fear computer technology. He emphasized that it was merely a tool to be used. In 1984, Lassiter was given a chance to test computer technology in terms of creating a compelling enough story to convince other animators of the computer’s potential. Lassiter responded with the short cartoon Andre and Wally B. The short was very successful, and caught the attention of someone else who wanted to see what computer technology could do for the industry. That man was Steve Jobs.
Jobs became an investor in Lassiter starting his own hardware company to produce computer technology to improve visual effects in film. But there was trouble brewing. Lucas was impressed with the technology that Lassiter and his group managed to produce. This included the RenderMan system used to bring dinos to life in Jurassic Park and the Pixar Animation Computer, the first computer ever designed specifically for computer animated graphics. But Lucas quickly tired of Pixar as a computer production company, and the department was in danger of being completely disbanded. Lucas knew Lassiter had much more potential than he was showing, and he would never fulfill his potential in programming. Lassiter, he knew, was born to tell stories.
And so, Pixar became an entity in it’s own right. But they needed someone to partner with. In the meantime, Lassiter was still desperate to get animators to accept computer technology as nothing more than a new medium for their art. He was so determined, he spent day and night, often foregoing sleep, working on a project for the SIGGRAPH computer exhibition. The short film he had created for the even premiered, and received a standing ovation before it was even over. The short was the first computer animated short nominated for an Academy Award. It was a computer animated segment about a Luxo Lamp, and a ball. Luxo, Jr. was the key Lassiter finally needed to open the door for animators to accept computer technology. Lassiter was so encouraged by the response, the hopping Luxo lamp became part of the Pixar logo, a symbol of the tenacious spirit shown by the company’s founder.
Still, Lassiter knew there was more to himself and his company than shorts and commercials. And so it was that one fateful day, Lassiter approached his former employers at Disney, and pitched a film idea to them about the world from a toy’s point of view. The film once greenlighted, was produced on a shoestring budget by a small handful of animators so devoted to what they were doing that they often slept in the office to work around the clock.
The film premiered on November 22,1995. And the rest, as they say, is history.
And I’ve only given an overview of the first 20 minutes of the story. It may be on again later this week, if you haven’t already seen it. If it’s not, I think it’s on YouTube somewhere.
When we left the theater after seeing TS3, Keith asked me why it was that Pixar was doing so well for so long.
I told him what I believe to be the truth: Pixar has returned to the roots that Disney was founded on. As an animator, Disney was less concerned about marketing and profits, that he was about his biggest passion: story. And if Pixar, the Little Studio That Could, if you will, can hold on to that idealogy of “story matters most”, then I think, we may be pleasantly surprised for years to come.
Comment by Ashley — June 22, 2010 @ 6:04 pm |