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Patrick R

"Cars sucks." - A Pixar Thread

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"I'm sorry, I can't come into work today. I have an infliction of Cars 2."

 

I work in an animation studio, they'll understand.

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It looks like we're going to be doing one movie every two weeks (I like this plan), should we have discussion open for the whole two weeks, or should we go "For the next two weeks the topic is ~~~, you'll have the first week to watch it and form opinions, discussion starts in the second week"?

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I think the former so people who only get a chance to watch the film at the start of the first week don't have to wait a week and end up forgetting their observations and precise opinions.

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Let's just do something similar to the FPS or LucasArts playthrough threads and just do our dirty business there. I think if we just update the thread title for each movie similar to what Ben is doing in his FPS thread and have a clear introductory post to kick off each movie, it should work out. Then we always have this thread for any spillover should any discussions continue past the two week window.

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The thread title change sounds good, but I think having two simultaneous threads going on might be messier than simply doing it all in here and allowing a bit of overlap...

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I've never understood all the love for The Incredibles. Is it the superhero thing? It seems like it's only good if you look at it through the lens of superheroes being popular. The Incredibles is Cars-tier as far as I'm concerned.

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If you give the premise of Toy Story ten seconds of thought you realize how insane it must be to be a sentient being who only exists for a giant's fleeting amusement, to have to suppress your personality and life whenever that giant happens to be around.


 


Kafka on fucking wheels.


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Should we try to organise viewings soon? It seemed like the consensus was that people wanted to start mid January-ish.

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Should we try to organise viewings soon? It seemed like the consensus was that people wanted to start mid January-ish.

 

I vote we start it on a Monday, rotating the movie every two weeks. I was thinking the 4th, I had the impression we were talking early January.

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As you may have guessed I already watched Toy Story, but I wrote up all my thoughts in a text document while they'e fresh, so I can do it whenever.

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A little late to the party, but I've added my picks to the list and I'd be interested in joining the rewatch. Are we starting with Toy Story this coming week?

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A little late to the party, but I've added my picks to the list and I'd be interested in joining the rewatch. Are we starting with Toy Story this coming week?

 

We're watching all the movies in chronological order, and I haven't heard any objection to starting this week, so yes, Toy Story. The list wasn't for anything important, just curiosity.

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I just watched Toy Story. Like Patrick, I've seen this movie so many times I was worried it would feel like a chore. Thankfully, I still enjoyed it and even noticed a few new little touches (Slinky's leg kicking while he sleeps in a panning shot, for example).

 

It's not quite the 4th yet, but I don't have observations of any depth, so I'll go ahead and say that this is still a very good film. Nice and short at 81 minutes (at a quick glance, the rest are all over 90 and most of them edge towards two hours), and with a pacey, satisfying structure. Inventive, great performances, sharp dialogue, and the central idea of toys all having their own insecurities and squabbles works really well. Mr Potato Head as the small-town agitator and Rex as a pre-Antz Woody Allen/George McFly type stand out. The direction and cinematography are a lot less perfunctory than I assumed, too - energetic without being distracting.

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Watched it yesterday. I personally haven't watched Toy Story (1) a lot since it came out, and possibly only saw it once before – in the theatre, when I was 17. I was even surprised when I saw Joss Whedon mentioned as a writer.

 

I still like the movie, but wow I don't think it aged well. The animation seems so dated and artificial. Which kind of works for the slick lines of a Buzz Lightyear, but less so for rugged little Cowboy Woody. Hellooo uncanny valley.

 

I found the movie's logic to be much more flawed than what Patrick suggested. The concepts of death and the 'rules' of toydom appear made up on the spot. When Buzz falls out of the window, the toy crowd calls Woody a murderer immediately, but still calls out for Buzz and tries to rescue him, with no doubt that he's still alive. When Woody waves Buzz' arm around, the toys are disgusted to the point of vomiting, yet they should be well aware that toys can be reassembled (especially Mr. Potato Head). The cheery lynch mob mentality of Potato Head & cie. near the end of the movie seemed especially crappy to me. It's quite frankly not a team I'd like to return to if I were Woody.

 

The second flaw that irked me somewhat is that Woody makes light of breaking what must be the cardinal rule of toydom. In all situations before, when under observation by humans, a toy must never move even if he/she is utterly crushed, mutilated, exploded or whatever. But, hey, let's just teach this kid here a little lesson. :mellow:

 

I've watched the third movie a few days ago, and won't go into too much detail here, but from the perspective of toy life logic and consistent toy morality, this movie was sooo much better than that first one. This movie series seems to improve with each new installment... which is interesting as usually, the opposite is the case. :tup:

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I think my opinion pretty much falls in line with Vainamoinen's regarding Toy Story 1. I still like it okay but this movie does very little for me now. I tend to like this movie less and less the more I see it and I've seen it quite a number of times at this point. I remember originally going to see this in theaters and being blown away by the visuals but man it looks rough by today's standards. Without that going for it, there isn't a whole lot else that makes this movie special aside from some good voice acting and a clever core premise. But given that that core premise has come to define almost all of Pixar's movies and seeing what they've built from this template, I think there is a certain amount of respect I will always hold for Toy Story.

 

The good: the premise of toys that come to life whenever people aren't looking is still really cool. The way the different toys interact, the heirarchies they form, the way they pass time when they aren't being played with, and their undying devotion to their owner is interesting.

 

The bad: their internal logic is all over the place. They set up the rules of the universe and the way toys work and then throw all of that out the window throughout the movie. Buzz Lightyear's character doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. He doesn't know he's a toy but freezes into toy form whenever Andy is around. He sits there and has his lifeless body played with by a child and still has these delusions that he is an actual space man. He's a fucking idiot. One would assume that this is the way all Buzz Lightyears are (as evidenced by Toy Story 2) and that would be a huge issue if it weren't for the fact that they still follow toy rules when people are looking. Also, the toys should have never revealed themselves to Sid. They really shot themselves in the foot plotwise by doing that because it lessens the tension from some of the other scenes knowing that they could pull that ace out of their pocket if they wanted to. And the worst one for me was the whole magic flying shit at the end. Now I know they try to sugar coat it and insinuate that Buzz was really falling in style but no, he fucking flew. And it was stupid. If you want to have magic in your movie, fine. But don't spend the whole movie telling me that there is nothing magical beyond toys that are secretly alive and then at the end change your mind so you can have a flashy, schlocky way to get the toys back to their owner.

 

At a fundamental level, I do think this is a good and important movie. But it has not aged well and as an adult, I find it one of the more difficult Pixar movies to enjoy these days.

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I just took a bunch of bullet point notes.

 

  • I will echo everyone else's surprise at the rough animation. Facial animations especially are JACKED. I always remembered this as being roughly equal to 2 & 3 but noooo no no no.
  • Speaking of faces, the humans all look really really creepy. I don't know if this is because of animation limitations or just really terrible design, but Sid's sister is the craziest looking thing in any Pixar movie. Truly unnerving.
  • Sid is awesome. Sid has way more imagination than Andy. If I had to guess which one would grow up to work at Pixar, it'd be no question. To think he's probably traumatized for the rest of his life because he likes to build things is messed up.
  • I was shocked at the lack of textures in general. If you look at the duct tape around Buzz at the end, it's just a plain grey. And the textures on the aliens look WEIRD, especially compared to Toy Story 2.
  • I concur with Ben, the pace is really great. I wish more live action movies would be daring enough to come in at 80 minutes. It used to be way more common in the era of the double feature. 
  • The hardest I laughed was either "Marie Antoinette...and her little sister" or all of Woody's pull-string quotes. "Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!" is HILARIOUSLY dorky. All those dorky quotes really made Woody feel like a real toy from a real time and place.
  • I watched it too many times as a kid to really be objective about this sort of thing, but I really love the army man sequence. I think it's beautifully staged and edited. Maybe the most iconic sequence in the entire film.
  • All the voices are incredible. Amazing casting all the way through. It's a shame it took a children's film for the world to realize the comedic potential of Don Rickles and John Ratzenberger as a duo, when it was too late for them to star in their own movies.
  • The animation feels a bit more "cartoony" and key-frame based than later Pixar stuff. Lot of more visual gags than later Pixar films. Probably because the facial animation wasn't at a point where you could really do strong subtle character-driven comedy. But maybe also the studio just wasn't there as comedy writers.
  • I think maybe they just didn't finish the scenes where Woody and Buzz are running through the arcade machines. The bottom of those machines look like a first pass.
  • Getting things to convincingly feel like they have weight and are propelling themselves through the world was still a little rough. A lot of the toys have so few points of articulation that they look fine, but whenever you see the birthday kid's legs running through the room, or Scud chasing them down the street, things feel a little floaty and off.

All in all I'm still all about this. I can't not be, it's too deep in my blood.

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I think my opinion pretty much falls in line with Vainamoinen's regarding Toy Story 1. I still like it okay but this movie does very little for me now. I tend to like this movie less and less the more I see it and I've seen it quite a number of times at this point. I remember originally going to see this in theaters and being blown away by the visuals but man it looks rough by today's standards. Without that going for it, there isn't a whole lot else that makes this movie special aside from some good voice acting and a clever core premise. But given that that core premise has come to define almost all of Pixar's movies and seeing what they've built from this template, I think there is a certain amount of respect I will always hold for Toy Story.

 

The good: the premise of toys that come to life whenever people aren't looking is still really cool. The way the different toys interact, the heirarchies they form, the way they pass time when they aren't being played with, and their undying devotion to their owner is interesting.

 

The bad: their internal logic is all over the place. They set up the rules of the universe and the way toys work and then throw all of that out the window throughout the movie. Buzz Lightyear's character doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. He doesn't know he's a toy but freezes into toy form whenever Andy is around. He sits there and has his lifeless body played with by a child and still has these delusions that he is an actual space man. He's a fucking idiot. One would assume that this is the way all Buzz Lightyears are (as evidenced by Toy Story 2) and that would be a huge issue if it weren't for the fact that they still follow toy rules when people are looking. Also, the toys should have never revealed themselves to Sid. They really shot themselves in the foot plotwise by doing that because it lessens the tension from some of the other scenes knowing that they could pull that ace out of their pocket if they wanted to. And the worst one for me was the whole magic flying shit at the end. Now I know they try to sugar coat it and insinuate that Buzz was really falling in style but no, he fucking flew. And it was stupid. If you want to have magic in your movie, fine. But don't spend the whole movie telling me that there is nothing magical beyond toys that are secretly alive and then at the end change your mind so you can have a flashy, schlocky way to get the toys back to their owner.

 

At a fundamental level, I do think this is a good and important movie. But it has not aged well and as an adult, I find it one of the more difficult Pixar movies to enjoy these days.

 

A lot of the broken logic and messed up physics (it always bothered me the way they replace the light fixture on Sid's front porch) feel like growing pains of being somewhere in between a cartoon and something that feels like a real physical space. There's so much you can get away with when everything's removed from reality, but once things begin to feel more or less like the real world then all of a sudden Buzz's flying is obviously impossible and fake.

 

But the "Buzz doesn't move in front of Andy stuff" never made sense to me, even as a kid. I bet Pixar knew it too, which is why they didn't really have any scenes of Andy playing with Buzz outside of montages.

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A lot of the broken logic and messed up physics (it always bothered me the way they replace the light fixture on Sid's front porch) feel like growing pains of being somewhere in between a cartoon and something that feels like a real physical space. There's so much you can get away with when everything's removed from reality, but once things begin to feel more or less like the real world then all of a sudden Buzz's flying is obviously impossible and fake.

 

I try to remind myself of that when criticizing this movie. For being the first full length CGI movie ever made, this movie set a very high bar and I can't imagine it being easy to hit every note perfectly with a new technology like that.

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I haven't watched yet but it is undoubtedly technological limitations that make it look much worse than you remember. This was the very first feature length 3D animation, so they had to figure a lot of stuff out. Faces actually require a LOT of detail to look right. I'm not even talking realism, I just mean if you want to animate a mouth it requires a lot of detail in that section of the model that probably just didn't exist. Realistically using textures would have done better but may not have sold the full 3D and toyness of it. I should note that part of the idea of using toys was that it fit with the 3D look, especially making things look like non plastic materials. You'll notice the humans look the worst in this, which is why they're kept to relatively rare occurrences.

 

A lot of this really was a test/proof of what could be done to lay future groundwork. In that way it's actually fun that we're going in order so we can see the evolution.

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