On Wednesday, I decided to watch Terminator Salvation instead of Pixar’s Up. I stand by that decision because it would have been the 2D print of Up. I’m not going to see Pixar’s first 3D film through a lesser medium! Although, thus far 3D still seems like an unnecessary gimmick to me. Prove me wrong, Pixar! Plus, Terminator was not terrible. The ending was silly and doesn’t come close to the awesomeness of the first two. That’s irrelevant right now, though. In honor of Pixar’s tenth film, here is how I think the previous nine rank among each other.
9. Cars
Cars is widely regarded as Pixar’s poorest film. I suppose I agree. It has some cool moments and it may be one of their best looking movies, but it doesn’t feel like the kind of groundbreaking stuff we’ve come to expect from the studio. It does look spectacular on Blu-Ray, and the disc (like all Pixar releases) is excellent.
I struggled with the bottom two. I wasn’t sure how to rank them. I like them, but don’t love them. Ultimately, I ranked Cars last because I fell asleep near the end and had to rewatch the last 20 minutes before returning it to NetFlix. I don’t remember ever seeing Toy Story 2 in its entirety prior to recently. When it was releases in 1999, I’m sure the heart-tugging song near the middle was surprising and effective. Looking back, it’s the same stupid thing that every other animation studio uses nowadays.
Or maybe this is regarded as Pixar’s worst – or maybe their most forgotten. A Bug’s Life is a fine movie. It came out about a month after Antz, which I remember preferring back in the day. I slid Antz up my NetFlix queue to find out if my memory has not completely fallen about. We’ll see.
Finding Nemo is widely regarded as Pixar’s best film (at the very least, by Box Office standards). Again, I don’t love it. I do love under the sea type stuff and it is beautiful looking. Everything is done extraordinarily well. My problem is Ellen DeGeneres. I can’t stand her and she talks nonstop throughout the movie.
Toy Story is one those movies that everyone has seen, right? It inarguably changed the film industry. If John Lasseter and Pixar didn’t take the chance on this movie, if Steve Jobs didn’t throw his money in, what kind of kids’ movies would we be seeing? Jumanji 5 (I realize we just got Jumanji: In Space)? Re-Releases of Disney classics? Free Willy 8: School’s In? Actually, I think I would pay to see all of these over
I remember being home on lazy Saturday night a couple of years ago. I stumbled upon Monsters, Inc. on the Disney Channel. I threw the remote to the ground with the intention of falling asleep to the kids’ movie I knew very little about. Something crazy happened, Monster, Inc. gained my attention. It was original and entertaining. I put it among my favorite movies and most desired DVDs. I rented it from NetFlix a couple months ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to that original viewing, but still is totally different than anything that has come out since.
I try to talk Wall·E down a lot and I’m not sure why. There’s a lot of eye candy and it is a fairly bleak look at the future of humanity. And sometimes I worry that it doesn’t effectively reach its target audience: kids. All that said, Wall·E is a wonderful piece of cinema. Also, the two disc DVD and the Blu-Ray include the informative documentary about the history of Pixar, The Pixar Story.
Brad Bird! Woo! I think Bird is one of the ten best directors in the world today (a list I’ve never really written, so that statement could be retarded). If The Iron Giant had been a Pixar movie, it would have been in the top three as well. It works as a kids’ movie and a big-budget summer blockbuster.
I love Ratatouille. It’s probably one of my 20 favorite movies ever. I love it so much that I don’t have to look up the spelling every time I type it. It’s a simple story, but it’s told so phenomenally well by Brad Bird, his animators, and his cast.
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