Toy Story

Well, since I'd finally gotten around to getting some thoughts on A Bug's Life recorded, it seemed a good idea to finish the full circle and write about the first Toy Story. Now I have a full house of Pixar films, and this was one I'd been meaning to rewatch properly for quite some time. 

Of course, most animation fans know the story of Pixar. Formed of a chunk of Lucasfilm's animation department when a divorce-ravaged George was selling whatever he could (short of rights to Star Wars to Disney or anything crazy like that), Pixar by the mid-90s didn't seem that secure a prospect to their effective owner Steve Jobs. That is, except for that lucrative deal they had made with Disney for 3 animated feature films to showcase just what computer graphics could do. With Disney long-termer John Lasseter providing his signature big-heart style within a quirky setting, Toy Story was of course a smash hit and totally changed what was expected of an animated feature. Today, traditional cel animation is the rarity in America while CG films get churned out, and we have the success of this film to thank for that. As the first feature-length CG animation ever completed, it remains groundbreaking. 

Toy Story, aptly enough, is a story about toys, which builds upon ideas established in Lasseter's 1988 Oscar winner Tin Toy, which put Pixar on the map. Just as many children suspect, their toys come alive when nobody is around to see it, and have their own little societies in kids' bedrooms. One pleasant kid named Andy has a favourite toy, the slightly raggedy cowboy Woody. That is, until a birthday comes along and the all-new multi-functional Buzz Lightyear seems to be taking the top spot, in an inspired bit of contrast: Westerns vs Sci-Fi. A fit of jealous action sends the two on a lengthy odd-couple adventure, where the two prove perfect foils to one another and the unlikely pairing of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen proves utterly perfect. 

As the opening credits rolled to the still-familiar strains of Randy Newman's excellent songs, I reflected on how much more these names meant to me now. There's John Lasseter, who was then unknown. There's Andrew Stanton, not quite co-directing yet but clearly in a position of importance. There's Steve Jobs, many years from a household name still, and not even part of Apple any more when this film was coming out. Hey look - Lee Unkrich was just an editor! There's an example of a guy working his way up quickly. Wait, Joss Whedon is credited as one of the four writers? I had no idea! He hadn't even made Buffy by this point...I'll have to stop saying his being kept under the thumb for The Avengers was the only thing he's made that I've liked except that one episode of Firefly where they find the planet of people who worship Jayne. 

And well done Mr Whedon and others, because when it all boils down to the core, what makes Toy Story the success that it is can without hesitation be said to be its writing. Unless you're a real stickler for coincidence - yes, a Pizza Planet delivery van accessible for toys just happens to pass at the right time, and yes next door neighbour Sid just happens to be at the restaurant at the same time, and yes, a lit firework can be controlled in just that way by a simple toy - what you get is a very well-polished, well-paced and highly entertaining script. It's actually quite a feat that Woody is as likeable as he is, being at first smug, then petty, then malicious, then very belligerent, but thanks in no small part to Tom Hanks' performance but also because he is the butt of his fair share of jokes, he's very easy to root for – though apparently during a low point in production even Hanks thought him a ‘jerk’. Then there's clueless Buzz, whose utter failure to understand his position is endearing, and the fact that the two have such great chemistry as chalk and cheese types. Just having the two sparking off each other makes for good entertainment, but the pace of the adventure also works brilliantly - you have the chase dynamic of trying to get back to Andy, the brilliant surreal moment of the alien toys who are in thrall to 'the Claw', the suspense of future-garbage-guy Sid's house, then the big action finale. The humour is also spot-on, with the wisecracking Mr. Potato Head and Hamm not only getting brilliant one-liners but being part of the utterly inspired gags where they think Woody has become murderous. 

The film ticks a whole lot of boxes - pathos and then relief with Andy, romance with Bo Peep (much missed in the third film!), the foolishness of snap judgements with Sid's toys and even some horror pastiche. 

It doesn't do to think too hard about the toys' world - about how many of them must have truly miserable yet near-eternal existences, about why the rules of keeping still even exist in the first place, about the physics involved - but the film doesn't ask you to. Accepting the magical premise and simply enjoying is very easy. It is also of course a technical triumph, and while it is obviously the most primitive of Pixar's work and technically far behind even A Bug's Life, eyelids and animals in particular being noticeably less developed, but there is such joy to the animation, to making Woody's funny limbs move and Slinky the loyal dog stretch out, from the way toy soldiers have to waddle to Buzz's silly episode after he has an identity crisis, that the sheer amount of effort is demonstrable. 

One of the most important animated films in history, it could also have been a disaster, and what ensured that it was a hit was not the technical achievements or the bold new aesthetic. It was the writing, the concept and the performances, which in all mediums are the things that matter most. 

Toy Story 2: link

Toy Story 3: link

A Bug’s Life

I have seen every Pixar film as it has come out, but a few of them predate my efforts to write down my thoughts, so those have to wait for me to have a repeat viewing before I jot down any impressions. I was going to have to qualify that with a statement that I didn't actually catch Planes, but that was Lasseter working with Disneytoon, so it turns out I don't have to. One of the films I never got around to writing anything about was A Bug’s Life, which I don’t think I’ve properly watched since the early 2000s. Though it shows its age now, A Bug’s Life still thrives on its heartfelt story, likeable ensemble cast and ambition – and besides, we make allowances for 90s CG. Even if the fact is that if it came out today, it would be called badly-done, we are aware how pioneering it was at the time, how much better than contemporaneous video game intros – and, indeed, Antz – it looks, and as a result make allowances for it. Besides, vibrant older animation looks  quite a lot like some highly advanced claymation in any case.

The story of A Bug’s Life isn’t a thousand miles from Timon’s story in The Lion King, especially if you’ve heard his cut verse from ‘Hakuna Matata’. Flik works in the ant colony, paying his dues, though he doesn’t accept without question the prevailing view that not only is an ant’s life one long grind, but that their lot in life is to not only gather food for themselves but for the big, mean grasshopper gang as well – an option not explored by Aesop, I must say. When one day, just before the ‘offering’ to the grasshoppers is made, one of the crazy inventions Flik makes to try to speed up the harvesting process goes awry and knocks the entire feast the colony has prepared into the water that surrounds the ants’ little island. His carelessness makes him the outcast of the society for a while, but when he seizes on the idea of going out into the wider world to seek ‘warrior bugs’ who will fight off the grasshoppers, the elder council see it as either suicide or a very lengthy waste of time – so agree to let him go.

In the ‘city’, Flik does indeed find some big, tough-looking bugs, but what he doesn’t know is that they’re actually circus performers. They think he’s a talent scout, he sees them getting lucky enough to knock out some flies, and there’s a classic misunderstanding. However, once everyone realises the mistake, Flik still tries to cover everything up by devising a plan of his own. Meanwhile, the grasshoppers debate what’s really at the heart of this film – the fact that when a small minority oppress and effectively enslave a larger group, they end up using fear to avoid rebellion, but how long can revolution be held off? It’s a fascinating mirror to historical events, and gives thought-provoking analogies to racial conflicts of the past.

First and foremost, though, of course this is a kids’ comedy about a misunderstanding, revolving around insects. The most memorable element of the film is the collection of insects who make up the circus – personalities made to reflect or invert expectations about how a particular insect is expected to behave. There’s the beautiful butterfly girl, the rather doddery old mantis who plays a mystic, the ladybird who of course wants to be seen as a tough guy, the big fat ridiculous caterpillar and…well, Niles from Frasier in stick insect form. They work brilliantly together, and Pixar stalwart John Ratzenberger does well making his flea ringmaster likeable despite him being the one to not only fire our heroes but inadvertently messes up their more high-minded plots not just once but twice.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this ensemble is that Flik – quite intentionally – looks a lot like all the other ants (four-legged to look less freaky, I assume). Amidst such a cast neither he nor his princess love interest really stick in the mind, and the everyman hero becomes rather forgettable. But at the same time, there’s a point made there about the unremarkable one being able to be brave enough to stand up for himself…though as histories of war unfortunately show us, most invading forces wouldn’t have threatened so much killing and never managed it.

The bad guys are also well-crafted, with Kevin Spaacey having a marvellous time as the lead baddie and his dimwitted brother in the comic foil role is also not so absurd that he irritates. There’s a crazy feral grasshopper, too, who gets one of the best moments in that sadly now-gone institution of early Pixar – the fake blooper reel during the credits. This one may be the best of them all.

A Bug’s Life doesn’t quite have the universality of Toy Story, the emotional wallop of Up, the cuteness of Wall-E or the frenetic energy and beauty of Finding Nemo, but it has so much of each of them that it still comes near the top of any essential-Pixar list. 

Wreck-It Ralph (plus Paperman)

The gripes about Wreck-It Ralph have been few and far between – a few gamers begrudge them suggesting Zangief was a ‘bad guy’ when that was really only in the movie and he was no more a bad guy than most of the Street Fighter II cast; some overbearing mothers think no kids’ film should have characters from a bloody game like Mortal Kombat in them; and here and there animation fans think that Disney’s CGI films ought to blaze their own path to regain an original voice rather than doing something very easily mistaken for a Pixar film – which sadly I’ve heard far too often, though some amusing jokes have been made about Disney having made Brave and Pixar having made this, and then the two studios deciding to swap credits. But the number one gripe I’ve heard about Wreck-It Ralph has been more or less exclusive to this fair land: how come America got it in October and we don’t even get it til February of the next year? I’ve only managed to see it because I got a preview thanks to the special offer of a cinema chain – general release is still over three weeks away! Isn’t that just encouraging piracy?

Despite this quibble that has nothing to do with the film itself, I can announce myself an instant fan. It was aimed squarely at me and my generation, but it still managed to be far better than I had hoped for, and much more emotionally engaging. This is how it was most like Pixar – not in the perspective, or the visuals, or the pace, but in how it got me to care.

Before the film came a short – very Pixar, that – showing a romance almost lost but then saved by inanimate objects. Done in rather lovely cell-shading, with a smart decision to make it monochrome but for red lipstick, it was lovely to behold and sweet, but rather trite and threw away its believability rather too much when paper aeroplanes came to life.

Then the main event, and from the start it was right on the money with what appeals to the tail-end of Generation X and the early years of Generation Y – and those of us born in the transitional period. Iconic Disney logos are presented with 8-bit graphics, and there’s chiptune in the music. We’re introduced to Ralph, who is somewhat like Donkey Kong with a touch of the monsters from Rampage – in his game, he tries to demolish a building that displaced him from his home, while the hero, Fix-it Felix Jr, repairs the damage with his magic hammer. When the damage is all repaired, the occupants hurl Ralph from the roof and Felex is rewarded with a medal. The film opens in the support group for bad guys seen in the trailer, which so delighted 20- and 30-somethings with its iconic group of antagonists from Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man, Altered Beast and more. After announcing he’s sick of his life, Ralph returns to his home, notices a party is happening in the penthouse (my one cringe in the film was when I saw Skrillex was the DJ, but this is a reference that will soon be swallowed by time – whereas surprisingly all the 80s and 90s references will likely last a very long while). He goes up and uses Felix’s crippling need to be an awkward nice guy to get himself invited in, but this only leads to disaster. He leaves vowing he’ll transcend his nature and earn his own medal. In the bar from Tappers, where many famous faces are up on the wall and Ryu is having a quiet drink, he meets a space marine from Hero’s Duty, and winds up climbing a tower after the arcade is shut for the night and getting himself a medal. Unfortunately, he also ends up in an escape pod with a hostile, adaptable alien, and shoots into cutesy Mario Kart clone Sugar Rush. He meets the apparently annoying Vanellope there, but soon finds out that more than he expected is going on under the surface in Sugar Rush. Meanwhile, Felix sets out to find his one-time antagonist, with only the ass-kicking female commando Calhoun from Hero’s Duty – whose backstory is perfect - to help him.

One of the joys of the film is the background details. See Sonic fall and lose his rings, or Chun-li spending some time with the Nintendo princesses. I had been told to look for graffiti, especially ‘Aerith lives!’ and though I missed that one, it was only because I was admiring the Internet-pleasing ‘All Your Base are Belong To Us’. I also got a kick out of (LEROY) ‘JENKINS’, the Konami code and little Pong and Dig Dug cameos. There are plenty of foregrounded references thrown in, from a casual mention of Lara Croft and a nod to DDR to the brilliant scene where all the bad guys leave the Pac-Man world and are represented as small 8-bit sprites, but it’s the fine details that will make me and doubtless many more want a repeat viewing.

Not only is the style at the peak of being in fashion with a crowd big on nostalgia and keen for its own variation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, with its easy melding of styles and screen space shared by unlikely costars, there also needed to be a little time gap to prevent any accusations of this being a rip-off of ReBoot, which is after all fairly similar in basic outline. It was interesting to me that the whole thing is set in a single arcade, and thus presumably these are but a few of many, many versions of the same characters, bringing the scale closer to that of Toy Story. The clash between a twee older world and a frenetic, violent, modern game is hilarious, and that the game ends on a Pac-Man-ish kill screen is priceless. The references are also not limited to games, with Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz having sound-based jokes, and even a little poster of Bolt can be seen.

But a million funny references in a bad film would still make a bad film. And this is far from it. There are really three plot arcs – Ralph’s attempts to get a medal and rehabilitate himself, the truth of Sugar Rush and why Vanellope is ostracised, and the escaped alien from Hero’s Duty. All become action-packed because of Ralph, all come together nicely, and all are tied up well. Being the type to aim to spot twists, I put together this one’s but was blindsided until only minutes before the reveal because the one in question was shown to secretly be acting for the benefit of another even though it was hard, and teaching that to Ralph – which led to one of the most touching scenes as well as feel-good reparations. Emotions are actually struck very well, from hopes and dreams being dashed to the thought of having to abandon someone to die – and I never thought I’d be so uplifted by the thought of someone punching mentos into diet coke. The fact is that the characters all became likeable, even the ones who seemed annoying, including the silly king with his old-fashioned Disney performance. Fantastic.

I loved it. I only want to know two things – why Vanellope is on the side of the cabinet yet still glitchy at the end if it wasn’t the antagonist’s doing, and…well, just what happens when the arcade closes down…

Paperman post-Oscars note: well, I can’t say I was greatly moved by Paperman, but it was a weak year. It’s a shame – put it against any of the 2007 nominations I’ve seen and it totally pales. 

Cars

After reading some pretty poor reviews, including several from disappointed Pixar fans, I wasn’t expecting much from Cars. I was led to believe I would be seeing something cliché, irritating and preachy in its condemnation of the modern world. Happily, I was pleasantly surprised, and Lasseter has served up another winner.

Let’s face it, Pixar do not write original plots. That’s not their thing. Pixar’s style of writing is to take a very traditional, predictable story format full of wholesome themes of loyalty and redemption and then to put a twist on it, usually by placing it in an unusual setting – amongst bugs, monsters, toys…and now cars. They do something that’s tried-and-tested and even purposefully old-fashioned, and they do it very, very well, all the real beauty of the stories coming from the characters. It just works.

Pixar have created a world in which all living things – people, animals, insects – are cars. Simple as that. As with books for little kids, we don’t need to know the logistics involved; that’s just how it is, and it provides some funny visual gags. Equally, everything that is a vehicle in this world...is alive.

Here, the star of the racing world is Lightning McQueen, a cocky, selfish rookie who doesn’t have a real friend in the world. His selfish actions indirectly lead to him ending up wrecking the road of a small town, and in the time it takes him to repair the damage, he learns important lessons about friendship, trust and what is really important in life. Told you it was wholesome.

Visually, we have here the pinnacle of CG animation. Beside some of the cheap, horrible animation in the trailers before the feature, Pixar’s supremacy in the field is evident. Don’t just look at the big bold surfaces of the cars’ eyes. Look at the skies, the clouds of dust and most of all, the astonishingly realistic reflections on the shiny surfaces of the cars. Breathtaking. At least, for me, a bit of a geek when it comes to CG. And the way the cars move works so well, considering how difficult it must be to make a machine like a car look and move in a way expressive enough to make people care.

Taking a tried-and-tested route also means bringing out the stock characters, and while I think the stereotypes here are harmless fun, I know plenty of people will be rolling their eyes at ‘The sassy black one’, ‘the slightly slimy Mexican one’ (played by poor old long-suffering Cheech Marin) and other broad stereotypes. At least the hillbilly was fleshed out a little and made likeable. I don’t know who ‘Larry the Cable Guy’ is, but I certainly don’t share the hatred for him most American reviewers seem possessed by, and found Mater didn’t grate like I had expected him to.

There’s much to be said for writing to a formula when it’s done well, and the emotions behind it are genuine. Cars won’t surprise you, nor change your outlook on life, even as the same happens to the protagonists. But it will lift your spirits, entertain you and make you laugh. That’s all I had hoped for.

(originally written 6.8.06. Cars 2 here)

Toy Story 2

I went to see Toy Story 2 in the cinema back in the February of 2000. Seems quite bizarre now that it was so long ago – over a decade and only a few weeks into the millennium. The third in the trilogy was a long time coming!

I had started a diary not very long before, but all I jotted down on the 25th of that month was, ‘Saw Toy Story 2 today. It was REALLY good. Best committed to memory again.’

And commit it to memory I did. I haven’t seen it again since, but I still remember the plot pretty well – and I’ve moved past the days of avoiding writing down my thoughts because I can simply remember what happened. At a yard sale, Woody ends up accidentally put on display and is then stolen by a toy collector. He is, it transpires, a valuable collector’s item, and the collector can now sell a complete set of toys based on the TV show Woody’s Roundup for a handsome sum. But Woody is still Andy’s toy, and his friends are determined to rescue him – even if it must be at the last minute inside an airport.

In many ways, the expansion of the cast makes for scenes that write themselves. Woody the cowboy doll was a part of a TV show with other key members – a cowgirl, a horse and a sidekick. Buzz has a nemesis as well – but he is not rare and there are other version of Buzz Lightyear about, with the same mindset he had at the start of the first film. It’s a good way to develop a sequel to a film where there is an odd couple at the centre of the drama – reveal more of their worlds when they are separate from one another. The idea of toy collectors makes for not only obvious story progression but visual jokes (what happens to toys that are mint in the box if they come to life when nobody is looking?) and allows for some interesting questions about whether toys ought to be preserved when what they’re made for is to be played with.

The sequel wasn’t originally intended for a theatrical release. Disney sequels tend to go straight to video, courtesy of Disneytoon, and after all Pixar had never done a sequel before this. The story is that the design work was so impressive, and Tom Hanks and Tim Allen so vehement after signing on again for a small-scale video sequel, that Disney requested Pixar make it into a theatrical feature. Pixar had given the task to a secondary unit, but did not feel the work was of a quality they could be proud of, so reworked it, got Lasseter back as director and made something that was a resounding success.

It is the weakest of the three films, without the pioneering graphical quality and brilliant establishment of the concept the first film can boast, and nor does it have the penetrating emotional high notes of the third film’s theme of growing up and passing on childish things. But the fact that it cannot quite stand up to two such brilliant and successful films is no great slight, as it remains probably the best sequel to an original animated film there has ever been.

Cars 2

So here it is, Pixar’s first flop. It always seemed a very odd decision to make sequels to Cars, by far the least critically acclaimed of Pixar’s films. Toy Story’s sequels had a difficult production story, the second film originally intended as direct-to-video and later got expanded and completely rewritten, causing something of a rift between the studio and Disney bosses. The Incredibles is in consideration for a sequel, but what I think makes a crucial difference is that Cars is John Lasseter’s baby, perhaps even more so than Toy Story. Lasseter continues to be the most recognisable of Pixar’s directors, but has acted as an executive producer to most of their feature films since the last Cars film, and only now has he returned to the helm.

I thought it would be a bad idea when I saw the trailer. I had seen the Cars Toons shorts, and thought that would be enough – especially as some of the ideas (like the Japanese setting) looked like they would be rehashed. I didn’t think much of the secret agent angle and the slapstick jokes did not seem funny at all.

So I was surprised and pleased to find that Cars II was actually enjoyable – and certainly better than I had expected. And while the film lacks the nice, wistful tone and yearning for an old, semi-mythical America that made the first film more than it could have been, it also has fewer moments where the racial stereotypes really get too close to offensive, fewer moments that could be called predictably mawkish, and rather more visual spectacle.

In the first film, Lightning McQueen had discovered the good hearts and great expertise that can be hidden in small communities. Our story opens with him returning to Radiator Springs after a successful racing season. His best friend Mater, the halfwit tow truck, hears cars on television mocking McQueen for not entering a grand prix designed to promote a new biofuel and calls in to argue, with the result that McQueen himself intervenes and ends up entering himself. With his team of friends from the little town, he goes to Japan for the first race. After some of the usual culture-shock comedy, the race takes part – but Mater has managed to get himself mixed up in a conspiracy and has been mistaken for an American undercover operative by British secret agents, and confusion over his radio communication leads McQueen to lose the first race.

After the two argue, Mater means to return home, but ends up bound up with the intrigues between agents, who remain convinced his is a brilliant act so that nobody will suspect him. There are two more races – in Italy and in England, but cars are starting to blow up during the races. Can Mater and his new friends get to the bottom of it before McQueen is targeted?

If it sounds a long way from the usual small-scale Pixar set-ups with a lot of heart and nostalgia, it is. But the film is still centred on the friendship between two unlikely buddies, and how they should believe in one another. The sight gags are still clever and the visuals are still superb – the streets of London in particular look like they could be live action rather than CG. And because of the pacing, simplicity and the fact that actually, Mater isn’t that annoying and is actually quite likeable, it works.

It’s no Wall-E or Up. It’s definitely one of the weaker of Pixar’s films. But as bad as it looked, and as bad as so many reviews have made it out to be? Certainly not.