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The 62nd Cannes Film Festival opened with the first animated film to be given such an honor, the digital 3-D Up from Pixar/Disney. The reviews were raves, and the premiere as well as the press screening garnered standing ovations from crowds clamoring to wear those dorky 3-D lunettes. Here are some premiere photos…
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In the history of film, has any production company delivered similarly consistent quality and box office performances as Pixar has? Its quite amazing, really. It should have earned a best picture Oscar for Wall-e; maybe “Up” will get them one.
Can’t wait to wear those glasses! Way to go!
Unfortunately, the buyout of Pixar by Disney has to be parsed and analyzed. Any suggestion that Pixar would one day create a pg13 or R animated film for adults on the order of Miyazaki or others has been eradicated like the planet Vulcan.
WallE was a Harold Lloyd skit repurposed with state of the art renders. It is not state of the art storytelling, and is overrated. But then, I’m not six years old.
It is a disappointment that at one time Pixar was poised to be a truly independent American studio, capable of sophisticated, visionary storytelling, free of the mawkish, slightly priggish themes of its recent films (see the bitchy tone of Incredibles having to fit in with ‘normals’, the sniping attacks of humans in WallE, when let’s face it, some of the big names at Pixar are fat as it gets).
Pixar has yet to make a movie with as much rich feeling as Triplets of Belleville or Princess Mononoke. They now have the Disney marketing behemoth to sell whatever they make to undiscerning sheeple, but the ambitious creativity of Pixar’s early years is fading fast.
Don’t get me going on the ridiculous hypocrisy of WallE, a movie that chastises its viewers for landfill and waste, being funded by THE DISNEY CORPORATION!
Ridiculous, typical Northern California lifestyle hypocrisy.
Go Laika.
Can’t wait to see it! Pixar is the king of 3D animation. I’m there on day one.
To Johnny Marshall: They did win an Academy Award for ‘Wall-E’! Best Animated Film. It’s best to keep the categories separate.
Pixar is the gold standard (clearly and consistently better than the superficial dreck that Dreamworks turns out over and over), but I can’t help thinking that they also enjoy a certain cult status that has built up around them over the years that makes their movies seem better than they are. “Cars” is a good example, even “Ratatouille”. Both were decent films but they seemed to get praise that at least to my mind far exceeded the quality of the product. Now “The Incredibles” was a masterpiece and “Finding Nemo” one of the best pictures of the last ten years, but those films should not mask the deficiencies of the studios other efforts of which there are many.
every opening film in cannes gets a standing ovation…i’m over pixar
“every opening film in cannes gets a standing ovation…i’m over pixar”
NO they don’t. Check The Da Vinci Code from a couple of years ago.
It’s great to have a studio like Pixar, if not for them, all the american animation we’d be sugjected to are the hollow bubblegum variety.
Obviously,”AConcernedAnimationWatcher” is just some jaded hater and what not.
Pixar’s films are hatched NOT on the basis of HOW much money it’ll make merchandise-wise and the like. All disney does is market and distribute their films, and their marketing people made no secret their qualms over the un-marketable nature of their recent films (ratatouille and Wall-e. They have no say whatsoever in the entire creative process, had they had any, we would’ve had CARS 2,3, and 4 by now. To say that Pixar’s “ambitious creativity” has faded fast since they were bought by Disney is ridiculous, proven by their recent work that pretty much defied the typical conventions of American animation.
AConcernedAnimationWatcher, if Pixar people is fat and Disney is greedy corp STILL WALL-E has no problems poking at themselves, isn’t it still brave and “ambitious creativity”?
Pixar has never been trying to make PG-13 or R movies for adults, right at the first day they made effort with movies for everyone, every ages, movies that the whole family can watch together. And mind you, The Incredibles was before the buyout. If you like Belleville and Mononoke, why bother with Pixar and WALL-E to the point of hating?
Mark It, if Pixar has a cult status, Oscar won’t touch their films, and only geeks marvel at them while nobody bothers. This is not the case, critics, general audiences, and the industry still recognize them as the finest example for American animation.
Granted, they have to compromise with Disney (I know I’ll hate Cars 2 even now it’s not out yet) but still why doubt them when you have to accept they’re way better than junk animations (Space Chimps, Battle for Terra, Delgo, that hideous Star Wars cartoon… aren’t they the ones to blame for dragging down American animation?) People still make stop-motion and hand-drawn, but in the CG field, no one is better than Pixar, whether collectively or separately had it not for Pixar, American animation would’ve been in the dump.
Ryan – while I agree Pixar doesn’t typically make movies to make money, I have to say the Disney influence is clearly being seen as their next two films with be sequels (Toy Story 3 and Cars 2)…
Nothing wrong with that – the mother ship does have to pay the bills somehow, so it’s not hard to imagine there might have been some deal made between Iger and Lasseter. (“Okay, you guys can make your artsy/indie films Ratatouille and WALL-E, as long as you guys give me Toy Story 3 and Cars 2.”)
I will say however, that “AConcernedAnimationWatcher” is clearly hating. When has Pixar ever created a movie like Triplets or Miyazaki? And who says they should strive for that style anyway? They have their own style, and they’ve succeeded without trying to become something they are not. This “parsing and analysis” of the Disney buyout resulting in this mythical watering down of Pixar’s quality because they didn’t come out with an answer to Waltz with Bashir is laughable.
No, Xaminer, my keen scrying of Pixar’s future is not laughable. Pixar could have been a limitless, creative powerhouse for pan-generational audiences. Instead, it is settling for just-superior-enough films that are not as ambitious as they could be.
AConcernedAnimationWatcher isn’t hating, he’s sighing. At the usual corporate digestion, upbeat song-singing of unbridled creativity, when that deadening corporate yoke is settled over the backs of future generations of animators. Yes, watch Cars 5, 6, 7…let your kids watch it too…Pixar’s answer to ‘Waltz With Bashir’ is exactly what I’m talking about, and it’s only laughable to you, Xaminer, because you accept this mitigated entertainment reality.
You’ve all carefully backed away from the inherent hyporisy in the plotline of WallE, but then, you should…
To say that Pixar has “lost it” ever since Disney bought them is preposterous. Like Xaminer said, it is a myth, a flat out busted one. It is far easier to hate than to praise or tip your hat to someone for a job well done.
If Pixar has “lost” something, it is that tried and true formula of American Animation which the other studios strictly abide by. Oh,wait, I take that back. Pixar never had that to begin with, and I-and the majority of the moviegoing public-are damn happy about that
“AConcernedAnimationWatcher” is probably Jeffrey Katzenberg
Pixar rocks! nuff said
Okay, lets talk about hypocrisy. You’re over here whining about the “deadening corporate yokes settling over the backs of future generations of animators” (good grief, exaggerate much?), then bash Pixar for their movie showing a message that completely goes against the marketing of their parent corporation. Sorry, but that’s major hateration right there.
As I’ve asked, when was Pixar ever poised to make the types of movies you are talking about? What movie did you watch that Pixar made in the past that made you think they were ready to create Persepolis-type movies? Finding Nemo? A Bug’s Life? Please tell me. Closest one I can think of is the movie you keep complaining about. They’ve made rated G movies as far as I can remember, that when The Incredibles ended up being rated PG, some were shocked.
Quit being a drama queen about the whole thing. There’s room for Pixar’s style and Laika, who I noticed you cheered for. In the meantime, pissing and moaning about how Wall-E didn’t end in some tragic mass suicide or whatever else you were expecting is – as I said – laughable.
I’ve been working in the film industry for over 15 years now, and pretty much know the nuts and bolts of this crazy industry. At no point did Pixar ever allude that they intend on going the route of rated R or pg-13 animated films like Bashir and others. Andrew Stanton is developing John Carter of Mars for Pixar but it will be LIVE ACTION.
Pixar Animation, imho, has stayed true to their principles despite being bought by Disney, which is something I thought they would lose when Disney bought them. I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong my entire life. It seems to me that they are one of the few left in the industry that truly comprehends the motto “Story is King.”
Though they have Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 coming in 2010 and 2011, they have not gone sequel crazy like the other studios. Disney wanted those sequels done a LOOONNG time ago, but Pixar operates on their own timetable regardless of what disney-and their stockholders-want, and devotes most of their time to original fare.
In closing, I’ve seen UP! and it is amazing. It ranks up there with their best, but it trumps the rest in terms of sheer emotional punch. The film has it all, laugh-out-loud moments, heart, and dazzling visuals. And, they did NOT use 3D in a gimmicky way, but were rather judicious in their use of it. They didn’t use it in a “here’s coming at ya, be prepared to duck” kind of way. A superb film from top to bottom
@ June: Andrew Stanton is not developing JCOM for Pixar, but rather for Disney.
I think people don’t realize an animation house is one of the most precarious businesses to run. It’s ALWAYS on the edge of bankruptcy. Sheer disaster is ALWAYS looming just over the horizen. A couple of things to go wrong in succession and your company’s history…like so many others. The ever-present nail biting pressure to keep ahead of disaster, is very difficult to live with day in and day out. You would think that the bigger your house becomes, the more stable it is, but that’s not true. Here at Pixar, we have a tremendous amount of talent that is expecting to be paid EVERY month, and the fact that we’ve been able to sustain that, is not only a testiment to the talent itself, but also to the prudent decisions that management has made over the years. Decisions such as Disney playing the role it has, and will in the future.
malcoda