The “tow Truck”? Then I guess the other main character is “The red race car”. (rolls eyes)

Something on your mind, Mark?

I wish my least impressive work would be as good as either of these movies (relatively speaking).  Pixar does amazing work…

Cars is a permanent part of our lives thanks in part to a 4 year old son who loves all things that move, there seems to be no such inherent, almost genetic love for bugs in any kid.  Yes, we can blame Disney’s market saturation, etc. but his love for vehicles goes well beyond Disney (we have construction going on in our neighbor which means regular walks to see the mighty machines at work).

And I will say, I knew the ending of Bug’s Life from the very start.  Not sure how they would put it together but the ants were destined to win.  While, as noted, the ending of Cars was a wonderful, even tearful surprise.  And I found the use of more ‘surprise’ voices wonderful - Tom and Ray from NPR’s Car Talk, Bob Costas, Dale Ernhardt, Jr. and Michael Schumacher who races Ferraris.  Priceless.  If you have a chance to see any of the background on how they made Cars, the ‘research’ they did, etc. you hear some nice stories about how Mater came into being and more.

Cars is the best of the second tier of movies that Pixar has but also as noted above by RayH their second-best far surpasses what many production companies give us as their best.  Long live John Lassister, Brad Bird and others.

My six sons have seen both “A Bug’s Life” and “Cars.”  “Cars” wins hands-down in our home.  And I was pleased to see a movie made for children that finally made the older character the wise one.

I have always thought “A Bug’s Life” was pretty corny.

Bugs Life was terrible. Cars rocks!

Cars is a better movie, but thanks to my toddler, I’ve just watched A Bug’s Life several times in the last few days and, I’m sorry to say, the opening scene has a fallen leaf, not a twig (although a twig is mentioned). Did you review the movies before your critique?

For the record, I think Wall-E comes in close for their worst movie. It’s spectacular in the end. The messages about human waste and the environment are true but reflect a bit positively on climate pseudoscience/propaganda. The messages on how technology can affect our interpersonal relationships and our health are well-done and delivered in amusing fashion. I LOVE how the end credits reflect the rise of civilization and culture. However, the first half-hour or so is nothing more than boring, long, and lonely, although it does eventually give Wall-E and endearing charm. Watching him run around with misfit robots is not particularly meaningful, but amusing. There were a number of catechetical messages (what I look for in my line of work), but overall I didn’t find it to be one of the great Pixar movies.

Nonetheless, I love Pixar, although I think they should get out of the commercial business.

Even though he has never seen it, I am not going to tell my 2 year old son that Cars is not a great movie.  Thanks to the marketing arm of Pixar, and indulgent grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (he is the first in his generation on my wife’s side of the family), he already knows and loves Lightning McQueen and Mater.

My (almost 2) nephew watches cars nonstop, and some of the lines are still funny. “I’m happier than a tornado in a trailer park.” hah!

Also, there is not stupid “you can be anything you want to be” or “follow your heart” mushy nonsense. For one thing, if you are “born” a tow truck…you’re a tow truck. Further, the messages that there is more to life than money and power, respect your elders, you’re not a one man show, it’s not all about you, etc are great ones that we need in today’s society.

Besides, I saw a bug’s life once, and didn’t much like it.

@ Micah: Thanks for the correction, I remember the leaf now. I originally remembered the mention of the twig and forgot the actual leaf. If I were reviewing the movie and rating it, yes, I would have rewatched it, but for this kind of just-for-fun comparative blogging I rely on my imperfect memory.

BTW, Micah, I love the first half hour of Wall-E. I love its strangeness and Chaplinesque quality, as well as its audacity in daring—successfully—to try to engage and amuse children with such nearly wordless and bleak goings-on.

“entomologically stupid”

I will now attempt to insert this phrase into every conversation I can.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen A Bug’s Life, but I’ve long considered it to be the worst of the Pixar movies. I think your points are spot-on. Dh and I did not have high hopes for Cars, but we saw it in the theater and were pleasantly surprised. Not their very best of course, but much, much better than we expected. Now, as parents of 2 (soon 3) little boys, it is a regular feature in our home (and I’m very picky about shows/movies my kids get to watch). I cry at the end every time. Yes, pathetic. :)

I don’t have high hopes for the sequel, but I suppose I could be surprised again.

Even though I watched it a lot as a kid, what always bugged me about Bug’s Life was that the ants (boring insects) were the heroes, and the grasshoppers (cool insects with wings and carapaces) were the villains. Nowadays I just tell people it’s an allegory for the Communist Revolution, and see if they take me seriously (it’s a great litmus test for finding Lit. Majors) The ants are the oppressed proletariat, the grasshoppers the bourgeois, Flik and the Circus Bugs are the Bolsheviks.

Steven, I accept your explanation. :-)

I thought the first few minutes of Wall-E were good with the silence. It drew me in and made me curious, I just felt that it didn’t deliver before my attention span had expected something, and I have a pretty good attention span.

Cars and my 5-year-old son both made their debut on the same day back in 2006. We’ve enjoyed both immensely since, though one slightly more than the other, of course. In fact, we just showed the original Cars at our first “Neighborhood Outdoor Movie Night” last week. I give it two thumbs up.

SDG, if you are comparing comparing Cars with Bugs life then yes, Cars is the better film. In fact of all of Pixars films, Bugs life is one of my least favorites…and in that genre I would compare Bugs life with The Ant Bully and I would say the Any Bully it a much better take on the whole ‘life of bugs’ idea.

Back to bugs life vs cars however…Cars wins.

m~

@Pierce Oka…LOL…You hit the nail on the head with bugs life…I always suspected that Bugs life was an allegory for the communist revolution myself. You don’t happen to go to Ave Maria do you…I had that discussion with friends of my sons once…LOLOL.

Cars also wins over Bugs life in the ‘rerun’ factor…I can listen to Cars over and over, but Bugs not so much.
M~

I know alot of people will think I’m nuts but Up is the Pixar film I like the least. Some great moments, but I just couldn’t get into it. Didn’t really like the characters and it seemed to drag on and on. I’ve pretty much enjoyed all the others.

Perhaps it has to do more with the ages of our kids, but I found Cars to be utterly forgettable while I have enjoyed Bug’s Life many times. Dave Foley and Kevin Spacey are spot on and there are many wonderful moments in it.

Loved Cars. Though I think some of the sequences were overly flashy, it’s better than A Bug’s Life. That movie, while still good (and sentimental, since I’ve literally grown up with Pixar) bores me more than any of the Pixar movies I’ve seen (haven’t seen Wall-E or TS3). 
And A Bug’s Life beats The Incredibles.  Only because it’s not played every other weekend.

I am pretty much in the minority but I found Up, Wall-E, Cars and even Finding Nemo to be underwhelming. Beautiful and much more story driven and appealing than anything Dreamworks has ever even conceived mind you, but underwhelming:
Up - a beautiful opening and afterwards just a mess (the dogs, the impracticalities of time and geography, the bird!)
Wall-E - beautiful but preachy and mostly boring
Cars - can’t remember anything but Paul Newman’s voice and dust
Finding Nemo - again preachy (all the heroes have some disability) predicatble and “icthylogically stupid”

Cars: As someone who is actually from a small town (and someone who loves NASCAR), I would have to say that Cars is one of my favorite Pixar movies. The humor is spot-on for my part of the country, although I would understand if people from a more city-type area thought it was boring. A Bug’s Life: Again, one of my favorite Pixar movies (though not as favored as Cars). It has a greater focus on humor than story, it’s true, but the circus bugs are funny, and Dot is just so darned cute. My least favorite Pixar is (and always has been) Finding Nemo. I’m not sure why; I guess it seems too long or too low-key. Then there’s Wall-E. To be fair, I haven’t seen it. But I have a friend who has. She can enjoy pretty much any movie, documentary, television show, or other moving visual media almost no matter how stupid or boring it is. As far as I know, Wall-E is one of only two movies that she has ever seen that genuinely bored her.

@ Bridget: What was the other one?

*SPOILER WARNING for CARS*

Firstly, I definitely prefer Cars to A Bug’s Life, but haven’t seen the latter since it was first released on DVD.

That said, the ending of Cars doesn’t work for me. As I recall (please correct me if I’m wrong), Lightning McQueen is nearing the end of the race and is having Brigadoon-inspired flashbacks to his time/friends in Radiator Springs. As he nears the finish line, Chick Hick’s causes the other race-car on the track to crash. Lightning McQueen pauses at the finish line, lets Chick Hick’s win the race, and goes back to help the other racer limp across the finish line.

Assuming that Lightning McQueen was concerned about the other racer’s life, it would have been easier to cross the finish line (he stopped short of it to have a ‘moment’), and turn back to help him.

I’m possibly the rare person who found Ratatouille to be the weakest Pixar film. The idea of mice cooking food is disturbing to me despite how well crafted the film may be.

@ Sara: Good news! They’re rats, not mice.

@ Joseph: [Cars spoilers] Lightning McQueen doesn’t stop short because he’s worried about The King’s life. He stops short because he wants to push The King across the finish line ahead of himself. It’s a gesture of respect for the famous racer’s dignity. “I think The King should finish he last race, don’t you?” he says. I find it a movingly sentimental finale, the perfect expression of the life lessons of respect and winning-isn’t-everything that Lightning has learned.

I caught most of A Bug’s Life on TV a few years ago, and it did not intrigue me enough to rent it and watch it in its entirety.  The same scenario applies for Toy Story 2, although I thought it was slightly better than A Bug’s Life.  Therefore, I would pick these two as the low films on the totem pole.

I have seen and enjoyed all of Pixar’s other films, but my two favorites by far are WALL-E and Finding Nemo.

@ Good Saints: You aren’t nuts. I wasn’t blown away by Up right away, although I liked it on my first viewing and loved it on my second. Have you read my review? Specifically, my concluding analysis of the shifting house imagery/symbolism? That blows me away every time I watch the film.
 
@ Matt: “A Bug’s Life beats The Incredibles.  Only because it’s not played every other weekend” ...wow. That would take ... a lot of weekends. I’m not sure there are enough weekends in my life for that.
 
@ Randall Gremillion: Thanks for taking the contrary (or even contrarian) view! Also, big bonus points for “icthylogically stupid” (but you’ve got to give it up to Mr. Ray and his musical oceanic pedagogy!).

@ Evan: You might want to give Toy Story 2 another chance. I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and I consider it unquestionably superior to the original.

@ Stephen: [Cars SPOILERS] True, it does fit with the themes of respect and priorities. But there’s also the theme of community and being a team player. His Radiator Springs team helped him win the race, and he threw it away. Lightning McQueen could have won the race (for the team) and respected The King at the same time.

@ Joseph: [Cars SPOILERS] Anything Lightning might have done to respect the King after first winning the race for himself would have cost him nothing, and therefore would have been dramatically empty. The ending is dramatic only because Lighting is willing to honor The King at a cost to himself.

Lighting’s Radiator Springs crew would have been delighted with a win. But I think the movie indicates they’re even more gratified at his demonstration of realigned priorities and respect, which reflects their influence on him—and which wins him even more acclaim with his public and with the classy Dinoco people than a Chick-Hicks style me-first win would have done.

“Beyond that, I have met people who count Cars as their favorite Pixar film. I’m not saying A Bug’s Life isn’t somebody’s favorite Pixar film, but I haven’t met them.”
“them” should be “him” because its antecedent “somebody” is singular.

@Steven: Considering that I really enjoyed Toy Story, and now Toy Story 3, I was surprised that I didn’t care as much for Toy Story 2.  I have considered giving it a second chance, but haven’t gotten around to it.  Thanks for the initiative.

BTW, have you considered doing a comparison/contrast with your favorite Pixar films?

My wife and I finally consented to let my boys (4 and 3) watch Cars last week and I was less than pleased by some of the language used in the film. Too many phrases I don’t want my kids repeating, the Lord’s Name taken in vain… The whole thing seemed cruder and… just lower than other Pixar films.

@Steven - what language? Where is the Lord’s name used in vain? I can’t recall this happening.

@ Steven: The other movie my friend got bored watching was South Pacific. I’ve never seen either, but they seem like an odd pair of movies to dislike… One’s a musical, and the other is an animated movie with little dialogue (from what I’ve heard).

Thank goodness in Ratatouille they have rats cooking food rather than mice! That’s so much more hygienic. ;)

I think the language referred to is when Lightning McQueen calls Doc an idiot (under his breath) and later Mater says “Lord” while exerting himself to the point of passing gas. I didn’t think it was any different than what I hear out in public every day or the ladies in my church saying, “Oh Lawd!”
I can’t get my five year-old son to watch many movies twice because of the bad guys: Mulan has bad guys, Tangled has a bad lady, Lion King has a bad guy, Up has the bad dogs, even Horton Hears a Hoo has the bad kangaroo lady, and Bug’s Life has the bad grasshoppers (the list is endless). In movies like Finding Nemo and Cars, the “bad guy”, for the most part, involves a situation, not one bad individual you can heap all of the blame on. So those movies win in my house. But if you’re going to have issues with mild language such as this from characters who either have a paradigm shift (hence showing their past behavior is unacceptable) or who are clearly “good people”, you are going to have issues letting your kids see ANYTHING. You hear worse than that on Nick Jr. and in kindergarten. All of these movies are ultimately about good triumphing over some form of evil… so I think about that when discussing them with my kids.

I had always preferred “Toy Story” to “Toy Story 2.”  Then I took my boys to the Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3-D limited release at the theaters.  “Toy Story 2” was hysterical.  Way better in 3-D.  And I usually don’t care for the 3-D versions of anything.  “Toy Story 3” made me cry.

Cars and Wall-E are the two favorites in my house. Both my children adore them and my husband and I like them as well. Cars is especially cool for hubby because he’s a car enthusiast. If you pay close attention- and know anything about cars- literally almost everything in the movie is car related, from the correct sounds each vehicle makes to the shape of the buildings and the mountains in the background (which all look like various car parts). Hubby gets the biggest kick out of that.

My least favorite is Ratatioulle. I do not like that movie at all. The voices are all very grating and I don’t care for the character designs. I’m sort of a foodie, too, so this one should appeal to me but just doesn’t. I found it annoying, actually, and it is the one Pixar film that I actively avoid watching.

A Bug’s Life is definitely Pixar’s weakest film for me.  And the ants only have four limbs!  And I think Ratatouille is the next weakest; I wasn’t impressed with the characters or the voices.  I liked Cars, especially Mater.  And Up gives me two lines I just love - “Squirrel!” and “Kevin’s a GIRL?” (my brother-in-law’s name is Kevin).

Cars wins and squashes Bugs. What I liked about Cars is the way that it pays respect to a simpler life before super-highways and all the post-WWII conveniences which have become necessities. (except they’re not)

BTW, I read your UP review. It reminded me that I wrote my own review of UP sometime ago. It was nice to go back and re-read it and compare my thoughts with yours. I compared UP to Romeo and Juliet. It’s how the story ends when Juliet doesn’t die an unnatural death as a young woman, but a natural death as a mature woman. And yet there is still that same sense of tragedy. Human love is temporal. The only eternal love is Our Father in Heaven.

I guess that I am the proverbial ‘somebody’ that thinks ‘A Bug’s Life’ is far superior to ‘Cars’. Cars plot is slight and singularly unoriginal for Pixar, although the ending is somewhat redeeming. It includes several questionable references not found in other Pixar movies: The pinstripe ‘tramp stamp’ on Sally, ‘Like what you see?’ said by the Sheriff to McQueen while Doc has him up on the lift, the widening of McQueen’s eyes when Mater attaches the hook to tow him (proctology reference?), again with the exposing the rear end (undercarriage) by Ramone with the whole ‘Von Dutch’ sequence. ‘Medicated bumper ointment’ (Preparation H) as McQueen’s main sponsor? I do not even want to think about what the rusty bumpers were supposed the represent in that context. The pattern there is downright disturbing. It is the kind of low humor I expect from Dreamworks, not Pixar. Additionally, the basic concept of Cars has always been jarring to me: Where did the cars come from? How are they built? If there are no people, why do they have door handles? Sloppy work all around, and yet Pixar manages to make an average film out of it. In contrast, Bugs has a very well developed plot with strong individual characters, a good lead and villain, and inventive action scenes. Additionally several characters grow and change throughout the story, while only McQueen changes in Cars. Cars is the weakest Pixar film by a country mile.

A part of me is tempted to say that A Bug’s Life wins simply because it’s more quotable, but at the moment I can’t think of more than one or two quotes that I or my friends and family might have used (e.g. “Do I… look stupid… to you?”) ... and even then, not recently.  On the other hand, I can’t think of *any* quotes from Cars that anyone of my acquaintance has ever used in conversation.

One of the interesting things about A Bug’s Life is how, as an early Pixar film, it celebrates technological innovation, whereas later Pixar films such as WALL-E and, yes, Cars have become quite critical of technology and its impact on our society, even as the films themselves continue to further technology’s impact on our society.  (Consider also how different A Bug’s Life is in this regard from Antz, which came out just a month or two earlier; in A Bug’s Life, the ants are farmers on the cusp of mechanizing their agriculture, which is presented as a good thing, while in Antz, the ants are part of an industrialized society in which the individual person doesn’t count for very much.)

Oh, and note to Quid est Veritas? re: “‘them’ should be ‘him’ because its antecedent ‘somebody’ is singular.”

In Latin, yes, or so I am told; but in Anglo-Saxon, and therefore English, not necessarily. For more info, see here: http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html#X1a

@ Quid est Veritas: See Peter Chattaway’s link on generic use of “they.”

@ Bridget: Your friend and I have something in common: I also am bored to tears by South Pacific. I like Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, but South Pacific is just awful. However, I love Wall-E.

@ Sara: Well, they do wash their hands. :)

@ Neal: Do you quote that line often? If so, is Up your brother-in-law’s least favorite Pixar film?

@ Sled: Actually, the proverbial “somebody” we’re looking for is the person who claims A Bug’s Life as their favorite Pixar film, like many people claim Cars as their favorite Pixar film. What’s wrong with Preparation H?

@Steven: Proverbial point taken. Although with the likes of TS3, the Incredibles, and Monsters, Inc out there, I would guess that the only young boys would choose Cars as their favorite.

What is wrong with ‘Rust-eze’ is its place in the context of the other things I mentioned. Wasn’t there enough low humor already without giving Preparation H a prominent place on McQueen’s hood? Thankfully, Cars is the only Pixar movie to stoop this far, although I am dreading what they will do with Mater’s increased role in Cars 2.

What I liked about Cars is the scenery…the Mother road. It bought back to mind some of the places I got to visit, like Tucumcari,  Gallup, Flagstaff, Barstow. The Cadillac Ranch etc. The film, did well in adding life to the abandoned ghost towns along the route. Very sentimental.

Sentimental, yes; but it’s a fraudulent sentimentalism, and tinged with misplaced moralism, which is why Cars is actually offensive to me in places in a way that A Bug’s Life never is.

I say “fraudulent” for several reasons, but a good place to start might be to look at how the highways were depicted “forty years ago”, when Pixar seems to think these roads were tranquil venues of good citizenship, indeed neighbourliness; you don’t really need to look any further than the Goofy-starring Freewayphobia cartoons that Disney released in the mid-1960s to see that Pixar’s nostalgia here is, well, “half-baked”, as Steve puts it (more gently than I would).

My preference is A Bugs Life, mainly because I can identify with Flik: he is a lot like me, seeing everything differently and sometimes beside himself as to why others don’t get what he gets.  My son too is even more like him.

Frankly, I found Cars the only Pixar movie which was unacceptably preachy.  The whole Save Americana thing was like Zen-and-the-Art-of-Motorcycle-Maintenance on steroids.  Make that transmission fluid.  This is strong enough so that even if I felt detached from Bugs’ Flik, I still would have preferred it.

About the whole finish line thing, I was perplexed as to why Lightning didn’t finish first and then get The King.  I get the whole respect and sacrifice thing, but he was already winning, and King was not going to win even if he wasn’t knocked out. 

And I felt the “keep an eye on him” gag with Sherriff and Mater was a ripoff of Tolkien’s “Both eyes, as often as I can spare them”

I feel like a minority here but my fave was WALL-E (have not seen Monsters, or first half of Incredibles). I note that one of Pixar’s strongest suits is the parts of their movies without dialog.  Think about it, these are basically a glorified cartoon, yet how captivating they are.  The opening of WALL-E is nothing short of extraordinary.  Yes it is grim to the eyes and the ironic contrast between this lovable robot (recalling R2D2) and the rest of the dystopic world is jarring. But I agree with the Chaplin comparisons, remarkable that it can work at all. 

Some of the other dialog-free segments of other movies are amazingly moving.  I compare the space “dancing” scene in WALL-E to the lighting of the beacons scene in Return of the King, stunningly beautiful.  Jessie’s story in Toy Story 2 nearly moves me to tears, as does Carl’s compressed life in UP.  The passing-of-the-torch at the end of Toy Story 3 *does* move me to tears, as does Carl’s discovery in the album in UP. 

UP and Ratatouille are close seconds, mainly for the reasons that I would think no way one could take the premises of these movies and make them work. Remarkably, they do. 

My favorite Pixar lines, for discussion:

“Rejectamenta” -Remy
“If you never let anything happen to him, nothing will ever happen to him” -Dory (or words to that effect; amazing how a simple tautology can be so profound)
“I hate it when someone gives away the ending” - Hopper

Given that so many “family” films are full of non-stop dialogue—a lot of which is really quite awful—I certainly applaud Pixar for allowing whole stretches of their films to be virtually dialogue-free at times.  But I wonder if they get more credit for this than they deserve.  I mean, Charlie Chaplin has already been mentioned in this thread.  But what about Shaun the Sheep, or any of countless other kids’ cartoons that are popular all around the world precisely because they don’t need to be translated?  I don’t think Pixar or anyone else is necessarily doing anything all that *challenging* just because they abstain from using words every now and then; they just know that they don’t always need words to make a movie work.  (Although, given how audience members these days tend to start blabbing whenever the movie characters stop, I don’t blame filmmakers for trying to drown the audience in non-stop noise of one sort or another.  My screening of Peter Jackson’s King Kong was ruined by an idiot behind me who kept saying out loud, in words, whatever he thought was going through the giant monkey’s head.)

Cars SPOILERIFIC:

@ Stephen D. Greydanus: Does the race ending in Cars logically make sense? Well, no. If the object is for the King to finish his last race, he could do it just as easily after Lightning as before him (which in fact is exactly what would have happened if he hadn’t crashed), and, further, if Lightning is TRYING to finish after The King, that’s called “throwing the race”, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a race.

Of course, even though the movie’s ending is logically incorrect, dramatically it IS correct. It allows Lightning to show that he’s learned humility and it ties in with the honor-the-past theme of Radiator Springs. The logically correct ending would have done neither of these things, and so would have disastrously failed to work in terms of either character or theme. It is, I think, a flaw in the structure of Cars that the dramatically correct ending is not also logically correct, but of the two possibilities, there is no question that the right one was chosen.

@ Bowmen, people often behave in illogical ways, so it is not an improbable ending.

I loved A Bug’s Life, although I haven’t seen it in years. I guess I am a sucker for that storyline - I loved the Seven Samura AND The Three Amigos, so hey. Sue me. I thought the ants were fun, Heimlich was hilarious, and the grasshoppers were suitably evil. I thought I would hate Cars because I do hate car racing, but I really enjoyed it. The art was amazing, but I do remember being unhappily surprised by a couple of references although, as I have never had a desire to rewatch it, I don’t remember what they were. I don’t own it (do own Up and Wall-E) and don’t particularly care if I never see it again.

Can’t stand Ratatouille. The end is FABULOUS—but after sitting through the whole thing once I will never do it again. Can’t stand that “artsy child vs. blue collar parents” stuff, at least not in this storry, and the neurotic-New-York-guy-who-should-be-in-therapy thing does not do it for me. The dad in Finding Nemo was the same sort of character, but Dorie saved him from being unwatchable. There is no one to save the rat. Again, the end is so good that all is forgiven, but you can’t make me watch the rest again.

Did Pixar make Atlantis? I don’t remember. It was a dopey, New Agey story but again the art was amazing and it was fun to watch—once.

Seeing were talking about Pixar movies.  Off the Bugs and Cars topic but still Pixar. Maybe someone can answer these thoughts about Up. Although I liked it there were a few things that bothered me. It’s been awhile since I have seen this, so perhaps I might not describe everything as accurately as I could. Ok here we go. 
1. From the time the kid got on the floating house to the time they landed at their destination seemed to be too short.  I wool have thought they would have had a series of adventures before actually arriving at their destination. It seemed to quick.
2. They introduced a plot point that they abandoned. The villain talks about searching in some valley for the bird, but it seems they actually never venture in this valley or series of caves or what ever it was they were talking about.
3. A plot point that bothered a friend of mine, but not me was that the main character’s childhood hero turned out to be the villain. Her remark “Can’t we keep our childhood heroes?”

Any meaningful thoughts on the subject. I would revisit Up and hopefully I can be convinced about how wrong my observations are.

Thanks.

I came to this post late, so I’ll content myself with a couple brief comments:
 
1. A rehashing of a years-old forum discussion does not a blog post make. You’re cheating your readers.
2. Mr. Greydanus’s taste in musicals is somewhat eccentric. Is it Joshua Logan’s cinematic version of South Pacific that bores you to tears, or is it the story and the score? If the former, I can understand even if I disagree, but if the latter, I’m flabbergasted.

@Bowen Simmons: (Cars spoiler) I find Lightning’s action completely logical. He wanted King to finish the race, in keeping with his dignity. If Lightning had crossed the finish line, he would have finished the race and ceased to be a participant in the race. His pushing King across the line at that point would have been illegal assistance and disqualified King. Only by stopping short of the finish line could Lightning have remained IN the race and legally helped King across. Watch the sequence again and pay attention to the sportscasters’ discussion questioning the legality of Lightning’s assistance.

@Mark Wilson: concerning your issues with Up.

1. I think Pixar’s reasoning behind fast-forwarding to their destination was that the powerful storm propelled them far faster than a typical balloon ride. Either that, or Carl had a really long nap.

2. The point of the villain was that once the bird got into its home habitat, it was safe. Muntz could only catch the bird when it was outside its home. In the movie, Muntz caught the bird at the point where it was almost home and safe. If you look at the DVD extras, there is a description of an abandoned alternate ending where Muntz finally pursued the bird to its home, got hopelessly lost in the maze and met his end there.

@ Stephen D. Greydanus: Yes, I had read your review of Up and thought it was excellent. Your review was the reason I watched the movie at all. Keep up the great work!

I personally have enjoyed most of Pixar’s movies.  However, the litmus test is with my 5-year-old girl and almost 2-year-old boy.  Two years ago, my daughter insisted on being called “Lightning McQueen”—DH was “Mater,” I was “Sally,” her new brother was “Doc Hudson.”  This phase lasted about 6 months and has never been repeated with any other movie, even those of the Disney princess genre.  She’s a pretty sensitive little girl, so movies that show much in the way of violence or evil strongly affects her (we have to skip parts of Snow White and Cinderella, etc.).  Even the original Toy Story was too much for her because of what happened to the toys in the neighbor’s yard (we never did finish the movie with her, it was too upsetting).  Personally, I found the language in Toy Story much more offensive than in Cars due to its heavy doses of sarcasm and insult.  From the perspective of my little guy, Cars is great because—well, it’s about cars!

Animated flicks I’ve enjoyed and found memorable include Up, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Cars, Ice Age, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Shrek, Ratatouille.  Unmemorables: Ants, A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, TS2, Shrek 2.  But most of these flicks I wouldn’t show to my kids just yet because of their age and/or sensitivities.

I’d just say Monster’s Inc had long been my least favorite of the Pixar films. Monster in the closet was considered the most trite and overused stories in the arsenals of student animators when I was in animation school.
So you lost me early on trying to pitch the line of their later climb.

Cars was trying to do something hard with Cars in trying to generate his nostalgia for the forgotten highways behind the interstate. But its still one of their most beautiful films visually. And just because cars are in it, it is popular with really young kids.

Bug’s Life was for me a delight. It was lovely, it had a gorgeous musical core, was very funny and I really enjoyed the characters. I know its usually not a top pick but I always admire when someone places it high on their list of favorite pixars.

Bug’s Life. I seem to be in the minority but I enjoyed it much more than Cars—although to be fair when I saw Bugs it was at the stage when you watch your kids movies with them dozens of times and by the time Cars came along it was a one off.

I still like a Bug’s Life. I have not seen Cars but I might have to know

I partially agree with Micah, who said “For the record, I think Wall-E comes in close for their worst movie. It’s spectacular in the end. The messages about human waste and the environment are true but reflect a bit positively on climate pseudoscience/propaganda. The messages on how technology can affect our interpersonal relationships and our health are well-done and delivered in amusing fashion.”

This is the part I definietly agree with. You can have a moral without being didactic. I also found it a bit problematic that they had live action footage of humans from the past. I saw that as a total copout in that it was used to show us “real” images of Earth history in order to “make a more emotional impact” but the only message I got out of it was that they went way overboard shoving the message down our throats in the most heavy handed way. But even more important is that it undercut the medium of animation. IT SENT THE MESSAGE THAT THE DIRECTOR DID NOT BELIEVE IN ANIMATION AS A POWERFUL ENOUGH MEDIUM TO EVOKE THE APPROPRIATE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. And it was lazy.

I disagree however with you that “the first half-hour or so is nothing more than boring, long, and lonely, although it does eventually give Wall-E and endearing charm…”

I thought the first half hour was some nice solid non-verbal, visual storytelling. I hate how everybody needs words and talking all the time. I thought it was very tastefully done. I thought this was the film’s redeeming quality.

...Nonetheless, I love Pixar, although I think they should get out of the commercial business.”

I agree completely, and I also hope they get out of the sequel business. For the past 10 - 15 years we’ve looked to Pixar as the one truly creative powerhouse in a sad, sad industry. But now they’re turning into a sequel factory, and I’m wondering if the place is drying up for new ideas. Well my mind is drying up from old ideas. I think I might just wait for Pixar sequels on video.

Cars has Larry the Cable Guy, which automatically disqualifies it from any contest since he is painfully unfunny and ruins everything he touches.

I like A Bug’s Life better, but I’m biased—I’ve always been much more interested in insects than in cars.

@the_tof ... The main reason that the director of WALL-E chose to use live action humans in the video sequences from the past was to tie-in with the use of footage from “Hello, Dolly!” Deciding to use that movie’s “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” song breaks the barrier between live action and animation early in the film, and establishes a definite link with the live action world. And it wouldn’t have been enough to simply use the song alone, because it is WALL-E seeing the human characters in “Hello, Dolly!” hold hands that provides a critical motif for the rest of the film. I don’t think it was lazy at all. WALL-E was directed by Andrew Stanton, who also directed Finding Nemo. He seems to be a firm believer in the power of animation. But the desire to use the existing movie clip would have have meant the stylized humans previously (and since) used in Pixar movies would have been a bit of a design clash.

As far as sequels go, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them. Only Cars 2 is really arguably worse than its predecessor, and I still enjoyed it. It’s too soon to say what Monsters University will hold, but Toy Story 2 is very close to the first Toy Story (and better to many), while Toy Story 3, to me, is the movie to which they were both building, whether that was planned from the beginning or not. The scene in the incinerator is just ... extraordinary. One of the best, most affecting scenes in a movie I’ve ever seen, it rivals the last 30 seconds of Monsters Inc. (the most perfect ending to a movie I’ve ever seen) for greatness in Pixar movies—or any studio’s films.

I wouldn’t say Toy Story 3 is “worse” than its predecessor(s), but I *would* say it is “less good” than TS2, at least.  And despite the elements TS3 recycles from the first two films, I wouldn’t say it feels like the first two films were building up to TS3.
For one thing, TS2 establishes that Woody has been through multiple owners before—he’s an “old family toy” who has been around since the 1950s—but TS3 never builds on this revelation when Woody and the other toys face their next change of ownership.  If they’ve been through this before, then why do they never refer to that precedent now that they’re going through it again?  And if they have no memory of those previous owners—if, say, change of ownership includes something like a memory wipe—then why do they still have their memories of Andy at the end of the film (and why does Jessie still remember the owner she had before *that*)?
And the scene in the incinerator is undermined, for me, by the climax with the claw.  The three-eyed aliens used to worship the claw as something higher than them that “chose” them—and now they manipulate it?  I suppose that’s of a piece with other aspects of TS3, where the toys take their destinies into their own hands rather than let the children continue to rule their lives, but still, it represents a thematic shift (or a shift in sensibility) from the first two films that I’m not entirely happy with.

@Scott

[re: live-action in Wall-E] Was that from an interview with Andrew Stanton? If so, please share a link to it. I’m not negating your claims; I’ve just never heard about that before.

If that’s true, I still don’t understand why Fred Willard’s character was live-action, and the post-Exodus (if you will) humans aren’t. I understand the connection between Willard and “Hello, Dolly!”, but the end confuses the distinction.

The second film does establish Woody as something of a family heirloom. But does that necessarily mean that he’s been through a similar situation before the events of the third film? I presume that the circumstances in Woody’s past were different enough that this seems unique to him. Perhaps previously, there was no break between him being played with by one family member to another—or no serious threat that he might be abandoned. Also, Woody has a more selfish nature prior to the first movie. Perhaps the other toys around him didn’t mean as much to him then—as long as HE kept a place of honor, he was happy enough. And other than Jessie, we don’t know that the other toys (of the group remaining in the third film) have ever previously been through this. We know Buzz hasn’t, at least. None of the rest of them are singled out as heirlooms, anyway.

I don’t think the power of the scene with the incinerator is undermined. The knowledge that the toys were willing to face their end together is enough—I don’t require the movie to make them go through with it. And I’m not sure why the scene with the aliens manipulating the claw would bother anyone—the “aliens” once believed it was a higher power, but it was actually just a tool—which is the same purpose it serves in TS3. I don’t think this makes some sort of thematic comment that there is no higher power, which is what it seems to me you’re suggesting.

In some textbook manner or another, maybe the third movie isn’t as good. I do know that my strongest emotional reactions came watching TS3. For me, it works best out of an overall excellent trilogy.

One other thing I particularly like is the more active role for Andy this time. His decision to give his toys (for which he still clearly feels a special attachment) to Bonnie mirrors Woody’s decision to let Andy go. Plus, it gives a character who has heretofore been essentially a macguffin (“We have to get back before Andy moves away/gets back from cowboy camp”) something to do and a decision to make, as befits his transition from childhood to adulthood. And then there’s the scene at the end of the film where Andy gives the toys to Bonnie, and the two of them spend some time playing with them before Andy leaves. For most of the toys, it is their last playtime with Andy and their first with Bonnie. I have to marvel at a movie that can present images of seemingly ordinary toys, and despite their static, decidedly non-animated expressions, make me feel the special brand of joy they are surely feeling at that moment.

On a completely different note, here’s the question that always nagged at me from the first movie ... Buzz Lightyear spends much of that film believing he’s a REAL space ranger. Why, then, does he react as the other toys do and go slack whenever a human is present? He doesn’t think he’s a toy, so why does he behave as one?

Nice to “see” you again, Peter; I haven’t done so since the old days of the Steve Taylor mailing list!

@Joseph ... I’m pretty sure I heard Stanton talk about the choice to use Fred Willard as a consequence of deciding to use the live action from “Hello, Dolly!” in more than one source. I’m 99 percent sure it is addressed in the commentary on the Blu-ray/DVD. I also found the following ‘“It came out of a logistical conceit that I knew that I wanted to use a musical from a live-action movie,” Stanton explained about the surprising presence of Hello, Dolly! “I have the luxury of evolution on my side, so we don’t have to worry about matching. Since we knew we were going to use footage from Hello, Dolly!, that’s what made us go, ‘We’d better make some promotional stuff,’ using, as our own source, the live-action footage.”’ That’s at http://www.awn.com/articles/stanton-powers-iwall-ei/page/2,1

Scott:  The Steve Taylor mailing list?  Oh, that takes me back. :)

There are some interesting questions around Woody’s past, to be sure.  TS2 tells us he’s been around since the ‘50s, and TS1 tells us he has been Andy’s favorite “since kindergarten”, which would seem to be only a couple years before the film takes place—and the jealousy Woody feels over Buzz Lightyear, combined with the animosity that several of the other toys feel towards Woody (an animosity that has more or less evaporated by the time the sequels come along), leads me to wonder which toy was Andy’s favorite before Woody came along.  Presumably there *was* one?

And if kindergarten was, for Andy, just a year or two before TS1 takes place, then how does Andy’s acquisition of Woody relate to the birth of Molly? Or to the never-explained disappearance of Andy & Molly’s father? Did Woody once belong to this father, perhaps? Given his age, maybe Woody even belonged to Andy & Molly’s *grandfather*?

And hovering all these questions is another: If Woody is, indeed, a family heirloom, as Andy’s mother says in TS2, then the odds are good that Andy knows this, at least by the time TS3 takes place. What, then, are we to make of the fact that Andy gives Woody away in the end?

As for the “aliens” and the claw, if they have somehow lost their belief that the claw is a higher power, then I don’t believe the films ever actually *show* them losing this belief. But I don’t think there is a gap in the storytelling, per se, here; to me, the scene where the aliens manipulate the claw and save the other toys is simply one of those moments where the filmmakers were more interested in a gag, in a self-referential in-joke you might say, than they were in anything that made narrative sense. I can live with gags of this sort if I have to (I used to dislike the “I am your father” moment in TS2, but I’ve gotten used to it, and it doesn’t really affect the story in any way), but it’s a little too glib to work as part of the movie’s climax.

And I don’t think the movie is “commenting” on the absence of a higher power so much as it simply reflects a shift in sensibility. Woody no longer lets Andy make the decisions: he nudges Andy in a different direction. The aliens no longer worship the claw; they control it. And, as the final credits roll, we see that the toys at Sunnyside are now taking turns letting the kids play with them. The toys are in charge, the children are not, and all is well with the world.

The question about Buzz going slack in TS1 is an interesting one. It seems involuntary, doesn’t it? Kind of like how the ghosts in The Sixth Sense don’t realize they’re dead even though they are doing things (like moving through locked doors) that they would be incapable of doing if they were alive. But then Woody gets all of Sid’s toys to “break a few rules” in Sid’s presence. So they can switch modes at will? It kind of brings to mind the old argument re: whether the protagonist in Memento is suffering from a physical condition or a psychological condition: if it’s physical, he shouldn’t be able to do certain things, and yet he does; but if it’s psychological, then what logic does it follow, and why does it manifest in the way it does? Etc., etc., etc.

These sorts of questions can sometimes be bent for a single film, maybe even two. But each sequel, and each expansion of the world established by the earlier films, runs the risk of pushing these things to the breaking point—and I’m afraid TS3 did that, for me, in some areas. I mean, it actually made me doubt aspects of TS2 that it had never really occurred to me to doubt before. And if the rumours are true and a TS4 is in the works, then I expect we’ll see more bending-turning-into-breaking in the future.

Saw Bug’s Life and didn’t care for it. My dislike for it carried over to Pixar films in general.

Well obviously people who have kids that were born in late 2000
Is going to pick Cars. Now kids that were born in the 90s like me,
Is going to pick A Bugs Life. I do. They came out in two different generatons.
So technically it is not fair to choose out of the two.

My boys were born from 1988 through 2004, fairly evenly spread, but they all preferred “Cars” over “A Bug’s Life.”  However, “Toy Story” remains tops with all of them, out of all Pixar films.

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