Pixar's Movies
Steve K
Posts: 3,234
I just completed a Continuing Ed course on Pixar's movies at Rice University. We looked at six movies led by a Professor of English who teaches the same material to an undergraduate class (composition, I think). After the final lecture, we discussed which movie in the course the attendees liked best, and also what Pixar movie was the worst (not necessarily in the course). A handful of the attendees work for a local company that produces animated ads and games. One of those picked as the worst, "The Good Dinosaur" (which I had never heard of). He said, "It would have been a pretty good Dreamworks movie, but it's a crappy Pixar movie." I started laughing, and the professor tried to keep a straight face but then started laughing, also. It reminds me of the story about a pro sports team who sold a player to another team, and both teams got better. (And, yes, we all agreed that "Shrek" is a great movie).
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ogres are like onions
thefes a few studies out therre on Incredibles. ... couldnt find the one posted in commons a few years ago, ... mebbe this
The Cinematography of "The Incredibles"
http://floobynooby.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-cinematography-of-incredibles-part-1.html
http://flooby--nooby.tumblr.com/post/74192616479/the-cinematography-of-the-incredibles-part-2
Sounds like an interesting course.
It's difficult to choose the "best" in something like this. A movie can have superb animation and graphical effects, but still fail if the story and characters aren't engaging.
If we're just talking about Pixar made movies, I think "The Incredibles" is my favorite, with "Up" coming in a close second.
I recently watched "The Good Dinosaur". It wasn't "bad", but I thought the story was a little weak. But I was impressed with the water simulations.
could call it ... hydramation?
hydranime?
Sadly I think Pixar has lost its way of late. None of its recent movies show either the imagination or sparkle of the earlier films. Let's just recap the releases from the last few years:
Coco: A rehash of The Book of Life from 2 years earlier. That film was better.
Cars 3: A threequel. Did they really have nothing better to do? (althought there were a couple of fun set pieces)
Finding Dory: Same film, different fish
The Good Dinosaur: Yay, an original (if weak) story. Nice landscapes & water animation though.
Inside Out: The last actual good one!
And how are they going to wow us in 2018? The Incredibles 2 - another sequel!
I agree now that I have a little granddaughter as a critic! She loves Frozen, as do millions of others. So... making a sequel gives the little ones more of their fave character at little cost for effort. Whether it passes adult muster does not seem to matter. Their 'minders' will buy the DVDs anyways... so it makes ££££ sense. They are out to max profits, and ruling the artistic roost has now taken second place.
Looks like the Sky News sale to Disney is going ahead regardless of the other part of the sale.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/sky-news-walt-disney-rupert-murdoch-21st-century-fox-acquisition-cma-a8285806.html
From another source... The £37bn bidding war
The takeover of Sky has become one of the most complicated in the City in recent years. It began when Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox made an £11.7billion offer for the 61 per cent of Sky it didn’t own in December 2016. The deal became bogged down in concerns over Murdoch owning too many media outlets. Then in December last year, Disney came in with an offer to buy the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox – which would include Sky – for £37billion. This was trumped in February when US cable giant Comcast bid £22.1billion for Sky. Hedge funds have been increasing their stake in Sky to reap maximum profit from the deal.
Personal disclaimer: I cannot STAND Murdoch and his news empire...
Silene
OK, I will now go back to downloading more of my thousands of products....
.
The professor (of English) was very much interested in the story, and in particular the emotional content of scenes. I think his favorite was the first ten minutes or so of "Up". Most of the votes were for "Wall-E", "Inside Out" and "Up", maybe "Finding Nemo". The negative votes were mostly for the "Cars" movies. I voted for the original "Toy Story" (a violation of the rules since we did not discuss it in the class, only "Toy Story 3"). Not because it was the "best" (I think Pixar got better as they went along), but because it was such a breakthrough from anything that came before. All I can think of is "Tron", (1982!) which rumor has it that John Lasseter snuck over there to see what they were doing. Roger Ebert in his 1982 4-star (of 4) review of "Tron": "This is all a whole lot of fun ... maybe it's breaking ground for a generation of movies in which computer-generated universes will be the background for mind-generated stories about emotion-generated personalities. All things are possible." Yeah, maybe so.
In addition to "Tron", lets not forget "The Last Starfighter" (1984) as an early CGI user.
Continuous evolution. Remember Sky Captain?
Wow... I've never even heard of it.
Now I want to see it!
Caution - you might want to read a review before seeing it.
Yes, a favorite of mine, with lines like:
Alex Rogan: Hold it! There's no fleet? No Starfighters, no plan? One ship, you, me, and that's it?
Grig: Exactly! Xur thinks you're still on Earth. Classic military strategy, surprise attack.
Alex Rogan: It'll be a slaughter!
Grig: That's the spirit!
Yes, I recall some poor reviews, but Ebert gave it four stars out of four, connecting it to the "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet" stories from the 1950's.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sky-captain-and-the-world-of-tomorrow-2004
I finally got to see "Coco" and enjoyed it. From reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz at rogerebert.com: "Most of the time the movie is a knockabout slapstick comedy with a 'Back to the Future' feeling, staging grand action sequences and feeding audiences new plot information every few minutes, but of course, being a Pixar film, 'Coco' is also building toward emotionally overwhelming moments ... " I have not seen the similar movie "The Book Of Life" from a few years earlier, and which TangoAlpha preferred above, but both get very respectable IMDB ratings. There is a fairly hot debate about whether Pixar ripped off the earlier movie, but you'll have to check the details (5 million hits at Google on the debate).
they do cute animated logo
"For the Birds" is a favorite Pixar short. The "Making of" on the library DVD I saw for "Coco" was about "Dante", based on the dogs in Mexico, which are everywhere. The production team fell in love with them on their visit, especially the "Xolo Dogs".
a vintage disney. 1929 it says
Yes, "Piper" is pretty amazing, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2017. My wife is a serious birder and giggled all the way through it. (She's birding in Japan at the moment, I get another T-shirt).
is giggle worthy