Pixar Animation Studios has been the most consistently creative and innovative production company over the past twenty years. The company was originally a division of Lucasfilm until 1986 when Steve Jobs bought it after he left Apple. Pixar’s eight feature films, from 1995’s Toy Story to 2007’s Ratatouille, have a theatrical worldwide gross of over $4 trillion, and that doesn’t taken into account the usually more lucrative DVD market. Pixar’s success over the years resulted in The Walt Disney Company acquiring them in a stock transaction worth over $7 billion.
This DVD collection presents 13 shorts by the Pixar team, 12 with commentary tracks. Industry people and film-festival attendees primarily knew the early shorts from the late ‘80s. Post-Toy Story, most of these shorts have been seen in front of Pixar theatrical releases and available on other Pixar DVD releases except for “Red’s Dream.”
“Andre & Wally B” from 1984 is their first film as a group under the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project banner. It is rather simple as there’s not so much of a story as there is one joke, and it looks more like a test of 3-D shapes. It was shown at SIGGRAPH, the convention for the Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques, and was very impressive for the time.
Aside from becoming Pixar, 1986 saw the creation of the landmark short “Luxo Jr,” whose title character became the company’s logo. The short is a few seconds longer than “Andre,” but it is in a completely different league. The amusing story is about a young architect’s lamp playing with a ball. Even though they had no faces to express themselves, the personalities of the lamps shown through their movements. The detail is astounding, in particular the cord rippling. This was the first computer animated short nominated for an Academy Award. Years later it was released in front of Toy Story 2 and appeared on that film’s DVD.
“Tin Toy” from 1988 is almost five minutes and is another leap for the company. The story is grander, it’s their first human character, and is noteworthy as being Pixar’s first association with toys. The short is about a toy trying to escape from a baby for fear of being slobbered on and smashed. It won an Academy Award and was included on the Toy Story and the Ultimate Toy Box DVD
Article comments
1 - Ginger Haycox
These are fabulous! We had Volume one, & just recently bought it over again in Blu-ray format because we upgraded our system with a PlayStation 3. We were blown away! Pixar has long let the pack with their work & as a frustrated Disney animator wannabe, I loved the history addition to the set as well. Anyone who hasn't seen Birds or Lifted has missed out on what masterful minds can do. There is no such thing as watching these shorts too many times.