The Pixar Story: To Infinity and Beyond
The adventure started when Johnathan and I were at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Last Thursday, we saw a movie around mid afternoon and out of sheer curiosity, checked the movie listings for the rest of the festival (which runs through today). Imagine our surprise when we saw a movie called The Pixar Story listed among more obscure international titles! Unfortunately, by the time we noticed it and went online to check for ticket availability, we found that it was on standby, which meant lining up an hour or more before the movie was scheduled to start, then waiting around to find out if we would be able to be seated after all the current ticket and pass holders had been seated. Thankfully, we got tickets five and six, so we were able to get in, though it meant sitting in the very front row. John Lasseter was pretty much right in our faces!
The film chronicles Pixar’s history starting with John Lasseter’s college days and early career at Walt Disney Animation. It goes through the early days of their inclusion in LucasFilm, branching into the very early days of Pixar as its own studio with Steve Jobs as the primary investor. It follows Pixar’s meager beginnings while they struggled just to pay the bills, through its contractual friendship with Disney and repeated movie successes. It continues on to tell the story of the poor politics of Walt Disney Studios and how greatly it had the potential to affect Pixar’s future as well as how it affected the morale around the somewhat untraditional smaller studio. The film wraps up with information about the new merger between Disney and Pixar and the shakeup that merger meant for Disney as well as the possibilities that it allows for Pixar in the future.
Overall, it was an excellent documentary - well-paced, including enough information to enlighten anyone but not so much as to bore the less enthusiastic fans. It included interviews with various people who worked for or with Pixar over the years, including John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, Brad Bird, Lee Unkrich and Joe Ranft. It also includes interviews with greats such as Roy E. Disney, Michael Eisner, Robert Iger, Ollie Johnson, George Lucas, Frank Thomas, Glen Keane and Diane Disney Miller.
After the documentary, however, we found that we were in for an unexpected (for us, at least) treat. After the credits finished and the lights came up, we were introduced to none other than Lee Unkrich. He obliged those who were able to get in to see the documentary with a fairly lengthy Q&A session. (For those who are obliging me with blank stares, Lee Unkrich has been with Pixar for over fifteen years and is the director for the the coming Toy Story sequel, Toy Story 3.) He answered questions from everything to what Steve Jobs is like (he had only good things to say about the contribution of the well-known Apple company founder) to what the future of 2D animation is at Walt Disney Studios.
Some facts that came out of the Q&A:
- John Lasseter has plans to revive the 2D animation studios at Disney, giving a new place to the art form on which the Walt Disney Studios were built.
- There will be no more Direct-to-Video sequels as was announced last year, but John Lasseter has something up his sleeve that will go directly to DVD. However, according to Lee Unkrich, this project is something “original.” He did not share any additional information about this project, just that it would not follow the way of the Direct-to-Video Sequels which, in his words, lacked in integrity.
- Brad Bird is moving on to live action films, as he has interest in making many different types of movies.
- And in truly unannounced news, Lee Unkrich revealed that for the first time in Pixar history, a woman is scheduled to direct a full-length Pixar film. The feature has not been announced to even be in production yet, so many thanks to Lee Unrkrich for the scoop!
The Pixar story was educational and interesting, but more than that, there is nothing that can beat the energy of a room full of people who love Pixar. Johnathan and I came away feeling positive about the futures of both Disney and Pixar, especially with John Lasseter at the helm of Disney Imagineering and as Chief Creative Officer for Disney Animation. The future at Disney once again looks bright, and with Pixar now at a release schedule of one movie a year, the future of Pixar looks set to prosper as well.
2 Responses to “The Pixar Story: To Infinity and Beyond”
Netflix and Amazon have it listed but no release date is set at this point. It’s only been out a little while.
I do think that I read somewhere about them planning to put it into a wider release, though.
Oh man, I’d love to see this! Any idea if it’s ever going to have a wider release or be available on DVD?