Pixar and Me

Magical, inventive, exciting, funny, brilliant, tear-jerking, inspiring, – these are just some of the superlatives that can be used to describe Pixar films as they continue to not only push the boundaries of animation but of film. Ever since the decline in quality of Disney’s hand drawn animated films, the last being of note was Emperor’s New Groove back in 2000, Pixar has become the king of animation, only rivalled by Studio Ghibli. Since 1995, we have seen such stories involving a dysfunctional superhero family, a robotic romance, and a rat chef in Paris and the story of an ambitious ant. These descriptions sound cold and if you had not seen the films, you would find it hard for anyone to believe these stories could be filmed; however, Pixar did it, grossing $3.2 billion from their six first films.

Pixar started as a by-product of Lucasfilm in 1986 headed by John Lasseter, beginning with Pixo Jr, the brilliant short of a lamp playing with a small ball and jumping around. It’s speechless. It’s only focused on one shot. It’s restrained, simple, understated, and entirely about story and entirely brilliant. This is what makes Pixar so superior to any other animated film is that they enjoy the freedom the animation gives them, however, they mix in sophisticated character development, wit and real emotions, for example, “What chance does a toy like me have against a Buzz Lightyear action figure?” from Woody showing doubts over his value and purpose in life. This would never be seen in a pop culture Dreamworks film or any classic Disney film and this puts Pixar in the league above everyone else.

My personal connection to Pixar is that it started my love of film. At the age of 5, my parents took me to see Toy Story for my first film at the cinema. Since then, I’ve never looked back, it made me laugh, cry and feel all these great emotions I’d never felt before. It’s still my favourite Pixar film to this day and grossing over $352 million worldwide on general release, it showed that Pixar’s mixture of story and animation was the way forward. Pixar goes from strength to strength going from Toy Story’s joyous imagination to Ratatouille beautiful nostalgia scenes to the brave silence at the beginning of Wall E. Pixar continues to raise the bar for animation and each film continues to leap over it in style. It’s hard not to love Pixar, the way they can capture an idea so perfectly, inject it with life and verve and make you believe in this fantastical ideas and places so effortlessly is astonishing.

However, Pixar are not perfect. For example, Cars was met with mixed response stating it was too commercial and criticising the strength of the story. Nevertheless, the context of which the review is made should be taken into account as they are comparing it to the perfection of Toy Story, instead of looking at the film as a stand-alone piece of entertainment. In comparison, Disney in the noughties has a terrible track record of producing straight-to-DVD sequels such as the horrors of Cinderella 2 and The Jungle Book 2. Thus on the grand scale, Cars stands up pretty well against those shockers. No other studio has the consistency of excellence that Pixar has, thus people expect the best and every time they deliver.

Since 2001, when the animated film Oscar category was created, all seven Pixar films have been nominated and four have walked away with the big prize. To use Jack Black’s quote “”Each year I do one Dreamworks project, then I take the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar.” And now, with the Best Picture category nominees extended to 10, their latest feature Up is one of the hot favourites to be nominated. It is not going to win but it is step forward for animated films being taken more seriously and seen on the same level as live action film.

The future of Pixar looks to continue their rich run of form with the upcoming release of Toy Story 3 next year and with other releases including Newt, Bear and the Bow and Cars 2 coming up as well. Pixar is not just the best studio making animated films but one of the best studios making films, full stop. You just have to love Pixar.