Pixar Playlist #9 - WALL-E

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Wall-E is the 9^th film in the Pixar library, and back in the director’s helm is Andrew Stanton, who had directed Finding Nemo as well as co-written the Toy Story films and A Bug’s Life (though we won’t hold that against him) he was also came up with the plot with Pete Docter, and wrote the screenplay with Jim Reardon, who worked on the Simpsons as well as Tiny Toon adventures.

This film presented a unique challenge, as the main characters had a bare minimum of dialogue and they’d have to other ways to convey the information through the visuals, as a result, this film was their most complex since Monsters Inc, requiring 50,000 more storyboards than the usual 75,000 for a Pixar film.

The animators used silent films as a reference for getting their characters to emote without words, but their job was made even harder given what they were animating and the limitations that came with it. R2-D2 was apparently influential in that regard.

The budget for this film was $180m, another increase and more akin to the norm as the Disney era continues, the film made $533m at the box office, less than Ratatouille did but enough to be successful, this film was applauded by critics and audiences with ratings of 95% and 90% respectively. But where does it rank on my list? Let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #8 - Ratatouille

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Didn’t take long for Brad Bird to come back, did it? Today we’re looking at Ratatouille

This originally started as the brainchild of Jan Pinkava in 2000, she went through several drafts but none everyone was absolutely happy with. Bob Peterson was brought in and given control of the story for a while, but ultimately left to work on UP, a film that we will get to soon. Brad Bird, after his success on the Incredibles was brought in and was quick about changing things, certain designs changed to fit his vision.

In terms of animation, there were challenges here, a small scene in the sewers had more complex water animation than Finding Nemo did and there was also the challenge of making appetising looking food using CGI. The crew did their research in culinary arts, including taking classes and dining around the restaurants, they also had to learn about how a restaurant kitchen works and Brad Bird even interned at one for a time. As per usual, Pixar goes above and beyond in their research.

Pixar Playlist #7 - Cars

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 We come to the 7^th entry of the list and the final film to be produced under the original Disney/Pixar arrangements, Cars. Cars was not as successful as you might think at the box office, making $462m on it’s $120m budget, the first 9-figure Pixar budget, but it more than made up for in another lucrative area, merchandise.

There’s a reason Cars and Toy Story got their sequels first; their concepts make them exceptionally marketable and the toys sold. It’s the only Pixar movie that got Disneytoon spin-offs, that’s how marketable it was.

But let’s take a look at the film on its own, and see how it holds up.

Pixar Playlist #6 - The Incredibles

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The Incredibles represented a unique challenge for Pixar, as the first film that had leads that were all human, and an entirely human set of background characters, requiring new techniques for animating clothing, muscle and hair but this film presented unique challenges in animating fire, water, air, steam, explosives and dust. It had quadruple the number of the locations of other Pixar films and at the time had the longest run-time. Topping all that off, the writer and director of this film, Brad Bird was pretty new to the CGI game. His previous film was The Iron Giant, which did utilise CG, but not to this extent.

With all that in mind, it’s amazing this film ended on a $92m budget, $2m less than the much less innovative and shorter Finding Nemo. The film went onto making $633m at the box office and continues Pixar’s streak of critical hits with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating. But where does it rank on the Pixar Playlist, let's take a look

Pixar Playlist #5 - Finding Nemo

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

And we’re reaching the end of my Pixar Nostalgia now. Finding Nemo was released in 2003 and seemed to be the brainchild of Andrew Stanton, who used various experiences of his own, including visiting the dentist and enjoying the fish in the fish tank, and realising that he’d become an overprotective father.

I don’t have any technical innovations that came directly from this film (don’t worry, we will get to some with the Incredibles) but if you want another example of the dedication Pixar had to their craft, the artists behind this film took lessons in scuba diving so they could see the coral reef for themselves. Later, the animators would take crash-courses in marine biology to make the movements of the fish right. That is really impressive, and immediately this is superior to Shark Tale.

This movie hit it big for Pixar, making its biggest box office at the time at $940m on its $94m budget. And it has a highly impressive 99% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

But where does it rank in Pixar’s lineup, let’s take a look.

Pixar Playlist #4 - Monsters, Inc.

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What’s that monster hiding under your bed? Find out in Monsters Inc

Monsters Inc seems to be the Brainchild of Pete Doctor, who had had a major role in the production of all 3 of Pixar’s other films up to this point. This guy is a major talent at Pixar and made his directorial debut here, later going to make Pixar classics such as Up and Inside Out, both of which I intend to get to. He began working on the script during the Production of a Bugs’ Life, and after a lot of tweaking we got a story

Production required Pixar to step up their game, with the main character having over 2 million strands of hair, the task became about making them move correctly in accordance to the action of the character. The creation of Fizt the physics tool was a major breakthrough for them when it comes to the hair, and it also helped with another problem, clothing, although it took another algorithm to handle collision between different items of clothing.

This was Pixar’s most complex film, requiring more than double the number of micro-processors than Toy Story 2 to render.

So, do these innovations make Monsters Inc a good movie? Here are my thoughts.

Pixar Playlist #3 - Toy Story 2

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Well, it didn’t take long to get to the first sequel but here we are with Toy Story 2. The success of Toy Story really sparked something, and because it’s Disney and around this point in their history, if a movie made any money, it got a direct-to-DVD sequel.

The deal with Disney was at this point revised to 5 movies in 5 original franchises, so Toy Story 2 wouldn’t count towards it. Production for this film was not easy, with tight deadlines and a sudden rush for it to be theatre quality as it was changed to get a theatrical release, not to mention them nearly deleting 90% of their assets and staff members working to the point of actually getting wrist problems did put a dampener of things.

Released in 1999, the film made a respectable $497m on it’s $90m budget and is one of those rare films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so is it worth all that praise?

Well, yes and no, but I’ll get to that.

Pixar Playlist #2 - A Bug's Life

Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not: The Pixar Playlist

Goddamn it, I thought I’d gotten away from Kevin Spacey, f*ck this guy! I guess it’s time for A Bug’s Life! Released in 1998, A Bugs Life is notoriously started a spat between Disney and Dreamworks, as Disney conveniently stated the release day for A Bug’s Life on the same day as Dreamworks’ Antz film. The result of this is for another day, maybe…

But A Bugs life has a pretty positive reputation, a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average 7.9/10 and a respectable 79% audience score with an average 3.3/5. It made $380m on its $120m budget, which is a big budget considering the first movie had ¼ of that.

I won’t lie, I don’t like this film very much, so let’s start with the narrative

Pixar Playlist #1 - Toy Story

Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not: The Pixar Playlist

Whatever happens behind the scenes (and for the purposes of this review series, I’m going to ignore that) there’s one thing you can’t deny. Pixar have become pioneers in the animation industry. The dream of having computer generated animated pictures seemed a long way away back when the foundation of Pixar was being built, but today CG animation is everywhere, using computers to animate is practically the norm and hand drawn is saved for only the rarest of Japanese anime and some bits in Mary Poppins Returns.

Pixar’s first film is Toy Story, released in 1995, this film was made with a relatively small $30m budget. Disney handled marketing and distribution in return for profits and design rights. And boy was that a lucrative deal for Disney as Toy Story is an international phenomenon, making over 10 times its budget at the box office spilling into billions of dollars of merchandise, theme park attractions and sequels.

It’s well acclaimed, with a rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes Rating, so what do I think?