PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS — current posts

That Old Pixar Magic: Reframing our Perception of Computer-Animation’s Beloved Studio

Undeniably, Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) changed the global animation industry forever, properly introducing the world to Woody, Buzz and a studio that would come to define the childhoods of millions of people. Following an unprecedented streak of beloved crowd-pleasing computer-animated films, Pixar Animation Studios made a name for itself with a brand built on a gold standard of quality, a reputation that has since become both a blessing and a curse. Ever since the start of the 2010s, and tied to the lacklustre reception of Cars 2 (John Lasseter, 2011), the common refrain that the latest Pixar release is missing that “old Pixar magic” has become a staple of most new releases from the studio.

EDITORIALOliver VigniOctober 4, 2024INDUSTRY, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment

Science as Fantasy: Humour and Human Psychology in Pixar’s Inside Out (2015)

Like parody and nonsense, fantasy questions the basis of a known reality. Fantasy is a “flirtation with limits of sense-making” and – with a friendly wink to Alice in Wonderland – “the mirror that sucks the body in” (Shires 1988, 267-268). The effect produced by fantasy has also been described as a “wildly abandoning experience of viewing oneself in a distorting mirror at the circus funhouse for the first time” or, in other words, as ecstasis in sense of the Greek meaning of the term: as “standing outside oneself” (Shires 1988, 268).

‘Take Me Back’- The Fantasy of Childhood in Modern Pixar Films

For a long time, the work of Pixar Animation Studios was routinely presented as something of a gold standard for animation. A critical darling and box office juggernaut, Pixar’s run of early films from Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) to Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019) were mostly unquestioned hits delivering nuanced meditations on everything from emotion to connection to self-actualisation.

EDITORIALMarkus BeekenAugust 12, 2022PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, CHILDHOOD, CHILDREN, FANTASY, HOLLYWOOD, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment

Review: Lightyear (Angus MacLane, 2022)

The critical and commercial resurgence of Walt Disney’s animation division since the company’s $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar Animation Studios nearly twenty years ago – crystallised by the global success of Frozen (Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee, 2013) and recent hits like Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2016) and Encanto (Jared Bush, 2021) – has coincided with a comparatively fallow period for its famous subsidiary.

Fictional World-Building in Animation and/as Writing Pedagogy

During the 2020-21 academic year, I convened a module on writing that used the significance of representation in fictional worlds (a key element of both fantasy storytelling and animated media) to guide undergraduate students through the challenges of writing across disciplinary boundaries.

Review: Turning Red (Domee Shi, 2022)

Franz Kafka once wrote that Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself in the body of an enormous insect. This Metamorphosis caused Gregor some difficulties, and both Kafka’s novella as well as the stage adaptation by Steven Berkoff explored issues of class and identity.

FILM REVIEWVincent M. GaineApril 15, 2022PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, ANIMATION, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, CHILDREN, CHILDHOOD, GENDERComment

“Silenzio, Bruno!” Where are the monsters lurking? An exploration of the Gothic in Disney and Pixar’s Luca

Under the sea, monsters lurk. Despite The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1989)’s Sebastian singing about under the sea being better, audiences have long held a fear of the ocean and what lies beneath. It is an understandable fear, linked to the fear of the unknown; after all, it is estimated that 80% of our oceans remain unexplored.

EDITORIALStephanie FarnsworthFebruary 25, 2022HORROR, GOTHIC, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, TRANSFORMATIONComment

Looking at Pixar’s Soul

Pixar’s much-delayed computer-animated fantasy film, Soul (Pete Docter, 2020), was originally scheduled for theatrical release in the U.S. on June 19, 2020, yet was finally released on the Disney+ platform almost a year ago in December 2020. The story follows the life of a middle school music teacher named Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) who falls down a manhole on the streets of New York City into another world, a world in which his soul is separated from his body.

Pixar’s Loop (Erica Milsom, 2020) – Celebrating Difference

Pixar’s Loop (Erica Milsom, 2020) is an animated short film from Pixar Animation Studios, and part of the “SparkShorts” program that was designed to discover new storytellers and artists by producing short films on a smaller time frame and budget, giving directors freedom to explore new stories, techniques and workflows.

EDITORIALJessica GibsonJuly 2, 2021PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, DISABILITY, GENDER, COMPUTER ANIMATION, DIGITALComment

Review: Luca (Enrico Casarosa, 2021)

Luca is a love letter to Italy – and it is written beautifully. In May 2016, I was on a train from La Spezia to Manarola, Italy, one of the five villages of Cinque Terre. Manarola had been on my bucket list since I saw the photo of this place, with its picture-postcard perfection, as a background on the Windows log-in screen. I remember when I got off the train and saw Manarola before me for the very first time, becoming teary at its beauty, as well as being overcome by fulfilling a long-held wish to see it for myself.

FILM REVIEWAnna ZsuboriJune 25, 2021PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, REALISM, PRODUCTION DESIGNComment

Reconsidering Arlo: The Good Dinosaur, Cuteness, and Subverting Meanings of the Dinosaur

Since its release in 2015, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (directed by Peter Sohn) has accrued a less-than-spectacular reputation. At the time of writing this blog, aggregated scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic place the film towards the bottom of Pixar’s oeuvre.

Pixar's Out (Steven Clay Hunter, 2020)

Featuring Pixar’s first LGBTQ+ lead, Out (Steven Clay Hunter, 2020) is a delightful, whimsical tale of love and queer identity. The short plays out as a comical exploration of the challenges faced by Greg, its lead character, when he finds himself about to be prematurely outed to his parents. Premiering on Disney+ in 2020, Out provides a rare instance of LGBTQ+ representation in the world of Disney (by way of Pixar).

EDITORIALJade EvansFebruary 12, 2021QUEER IDENTITY, GENDER, REPRESENTATION, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER ANIMATIONComment

How We Learn to Say the Unsayable: Grief in Fantasy/Animation

In many ways, 2020 is a year marked by many different intertwined sources of grief: all the different kinds of loss associated with a global pandemic and its effect on daily lives; the political and economic situations that have forced a reckoning with an acknowledgement of a loss of idealism – that maybe we aren’t, and never have been, the enlightened society we (the Western European and North America, the Anglophone West in particular) have considered ourselves to be.

EDITORIALMichelle Anya AnjirbagJanuary 22, 2021PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, GRIEF, TRAUMA, NETFLIX, DISNEY, REPRESENTATIONComment

Review: Soul (Pete Docter, 2020)

If the narrative of Soul sounds complex, that’s because it is. In a similar vein to Pixar’s Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015), which explores the abstract concepts of emotions (and, specifically, emotional development) through animation, Soul explores existentialism and the many manifestations of what having a soul can really mean, as well as how these connect to the idea of our lives having a specific “purpose” that we were born to fulfil.

Animating Plastic in the Toy Story Films

Pixar’s Toy Story (1995-2019) series explores a landscape full of plastic. Most of the main characters are plastic. Sheriff Woody isn’t made out of wood at all; his head, hands, and boots are all plastic. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, and their many anatomical add-ons, are plastic. T-Rex is plastic. The little soldiers are plastic, as are their parachutes. Mr. Spell’s outer shell is plastic. And Buzz Lightyear, when he first arrives in Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), is the shiniest, newest, most gorgeous piece of plastic anyone has ever seen.

EDITORIALBenjamin DaltonNovember 13, 2020PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, LOSS, PLASTICITY, CHILDRENComment

Growing Up with Pixar

The most recent Pixar film, Onward (Dan Scanlon, 2020), tells the story of two brothers, Ian and Barley, who set out on a magical quest in a bid to spend one final day with their late father. On Ian’s sixteenth birthday he is presented with a gift left to him by his father, whom he has never met, with the instructions that he and his older brother could only open it when they were both at least sixteen. Onward is therefore a story strongly embedded in loss. Ian is a teenager, unsure of himself and anxious about transitioning into adulthood.

Incredibles 2 and Pixar’s “intensified mise-en-scène”

My contribution to this blog will stress the animated more than the fantastical because I am here more concerned with the resemblance certain animated films – specifically Pixar’s CG animated features – possess to the solidity and concreteness of the so called “classical” style of live action cinema.

SEQUENCE ANALYSISTom BrownFebruary 14, 2020HOLLYWOOD, ANIMATION, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, FRAMING, MISE EN SCÈNEComment

Review: Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019)

Since Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) hit cinema screens worldwide in November 1995, audiences have witnessed a series of dramatic changes within the animated medium, particularly in Hollywood. Having signed a contract with Pixar Animation Studios in 1991, Disney were initially hesitant to give the very first computer-animated film about a collection of toys the same commercial backing as their traditional cel-animated features. Until, that is, they saw the toys come to life.

Fantasy and the Re-Animation of Othered Cultures

The intersection of fantasy and animation is increasingly also an intersection of nationalities and cultures. The world’s best known animation studios often look beyond their own cultures for inspiration, exploring and representing people, mythologies and folklore from across the globe. Japan’s Studio Ghibli, for example, frequently adapt Western sources, creating fantasy-inflected variations on European countries (Howl’s Moving Castle [Hayao Miyazaki, 2004]) or indeterminate settings bearing both Japanese and European influence (Kiki’s Delivery Service [Hayao Miyazaki, 1989]; Arrietty [Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010]; When Marnie Was There [James Simone & Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2014]).

EDITORIALRachel BrookJanuary 25, 2019ANIMATION, AUDIENCE, POLITICAL, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD, WORLD CINEMAComment

Animation, Fantasy and the Disney/Pixar Dilemma

The shifting place of fantasy within contemporary animation allows us to make some preliminary discriminations about how fantasy’s own icons and images function in relation to the shaping of Hollywood studios and their brand identity. The continued business strength of the U.S. animation industry in the post-millennial period thanks to Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and Blue Sky - as well as the parallel renaissance of Disney Feature Animation - has provided a growing number of critically and commercially successful test cases that showcase where fantasy does (and does not) appear in popular animated media, but also how fantasy has become a default and highly durable viewing strategy utilised by audiences in determining the precise terms of studio authorship.

EDITORIALChristopher HollidayOctober 5, 2018DISNEY, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, ANIMATION, FANTASY, INDUSTRYComment