Can Pixar ever go wrong? Not likely when even my least favorite of their films (Cars) was far beyond what nearly every other animation house is releasing. While other studios are creating movie after movie of computer animated fare that forgets about telling an actual story with actual characters instead of simply marrying celebrity voice with random animal (“I know, we’ll do one with talking fish, but like Will Smith AS a fish!”), Pixar has constantly and consistently crafted some of the finest movies year in and year out.
While enough has been said by others about Pixar, I thought I’d chime in a bit as simply a way to preface showing off the trailer for this summer’s release Wall-E… this one looks to be amazing: heartwarming, exciting and visually stunning. Can’t wait.
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In some ways, even based on the trailer, Wall-E seems like a direct response to all those ‘celebrity voiced’ animated movies simply because it appears like there is very little dialogue by the main character, a robot. While he does have some very retro analogy vocal utterances, its clear there is not a lot spoken word to help move the plot forward, instead, relying on the animation and action to emote and move the story forward.
While Pixar’s movies have rarely overly relied on the celebrity voice — casting for the character, rather than say animating Jack Black’s personality into a talking panda — Wall-E seems to be Pixar’s way to say they can tell a fantastic story AND bring people to the theatres in droves without that marketing device.
Sure they’ve had Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, John Ratzenberger, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Craig T Nelson, Jason Lee, Patton Oswalt and so many more famous names voice their characters, but for the most part after about five minutes of screen time, you forget all about them as you become engrossed in these fully formed characters. This is a testament to Pixar themselves for putting the story well ahead of anything else.
Pixar at this point is such a picturesque brand to the point where people look forward to the next film, in the same way people are interested in the next Spielberg or next Scorsese film. When was the last time you looked at the upcoming movie listings and excitedly exclaimed ‘holy shit the new Dreamworks movie is coming out’ or for that matter the ‘next Lionsgate?’
The difference is that the studio stakes its claim and reputation on the storytelling, and use their phenomenal technology as a device for the story and not the inverse. So no matter if you are watching toys, fish, monsters, cars, superheroes, robots or whatever, you know they will pull through with something that will be memorable and quality. Anyway, cant wait.