The Pixar Story

As a huge animation fan, I like the Pixar films very much. They are funny, poignant and are beautifully animated with lovable characters. In fact, while I prefer some of their films over others there is no Pixar film I hate. I saw this documentary by chance knowing little about it, and I loved it. The Pixar Story was so interesting and even moving. The interviews are well delivered and written, and I found them and how certain scenes were animated and done really intriguing. I also loved the music and the animated sequences featured especially for the door climax from Monsters Inc and the incredibly moving When Somebody Loved Me from Toy Story 2(Tom Hanks summed it up brilliantly). The Pixar Story goes along at a good pace and is a perfect length too. If anything though, I would have liked to have seen more of the Pixar shorts, as some of those are gems. But this is just nitpicking and doesn't take away from the fact that this documentary is wonderful. 9/10 Bethany Cox

It is basically about how pixar came to be through its hardships and successes. It is a very interesting and informative documentary. It taught me a lot about the history of computer animated movies that i had not known before seeing it. Im not usually a big fan of documentaries but something about this just kept me watching the whole way through. I definitely would recommend this.

I'd heard this was remarkable, but it seems like a lot of that was hype. Pixar seems like an unbelievably cool place to work, and I loved the message of "quirky small company refuses to give up their personality for financial stability" but there were only a small handful of moments that really felt like big deals. It's amazing how many huge names they wrangled up for the interviews, though, (seriously, you got Steve Jobs and Bob Iger to sit down for a good length of time? That's pretty impressive) and those little chats are the most revealing, interesting moments of the entire documentary. Once the subject of Toy Story comes up, it becomes a tale of "and here's how we made our next big, huge, runaway success." It's also overproduced to the point of distraction. Good but not great.

Pixar has made so many blockbuster hits, each just about being almost better than the last in terms of anticipation translated to box office receipts, that it's tempting to speculate whether an upcoming movie will be the one infamously credited to bringing the juggernaut to a temporary halt. Going by what The Pixar Story presented, so long as the team stays hungry, focused and passionate with transforming their ideas into films stemming from the heart, then it's probably a formula that would be difficult to break, and computer animation fans will be in for a treat, for a long time to come.

The Pixar Story is a documentary charting the meteoric rise of the company we all have probably in one way or another, come to love, with its groundbreaking effects and animation taking the world by storm with each new release. It's tough for any studio to build upon and better the success of its previous release with the new one, but somehow Pixar always managed to come through unscathed. But as the documentary reveals, it's never plain sailing, and thank goodness most of the cockups, especially weak stories, get junked and reworked, rather than the company crossing its fingers that a mediocre work could cut it. Technological advances also meant that animators get constantly challenged to break new ground, and the film systematically presents these challenges so that we the audience could take a step back, and appreciate the efforts.

Most history buffs will already know that Pixar has its first origins from Lucasfilm (and you can sense George Lucas reeling from letting this opportunity run away), where a division with a mixed expertise of computer scientists and animators spun off to do what they love, and that's to explore the possibilities of combining their skills to make animation. And with angel investor Steve Jobs providing seed funding and despite the studio being in the red in the first few years, one short clip lead to a short film, and with Disney on board in an initial uneven partnership, Toy Story was born, and as they say, the rest is history.

The first parts of the documentary devoted quite a lot of time to John Lasseter, who's credited with making things work with his direction of the first crop of movies coming out of Pixar. It traces his professional start as an animator with Walt Disney, the run ins and the unfortunate firing, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise on hindsight. We see how he, and the rest of his co-workers, had to undertake pressure to perform, each pouring in copious amounts of personal sacrifice to turn their dream into reality. And with each success, the director taking over the reins for the next movie, will no doubt feel the pressure of its predecessor's success, especially Pete Doctor coming off Lesseter's impressive track record, and others like Brad Bird coming from outside the company culture.

We take a sneak peek into the facilities at their swanky company grounds, admiring the grounds in which Pixar creations are conceived, but what is of extreme value here is the tons of archived footage, most of which are unseen because they never see the light of day, be it rough storyboard sketches or skeletal computer animation, most of which contain early stages of the characters with whom we've been acquainted with. The Pixar Story spent significant amount of time on Toy Story (since it's the first movie), and you can witness how the early Woody character and storyline was rejected because they didn't seem right. And it seems that Pixar doesn't compromise on quality - that plans do get trashed if they don't measure up, even with a fixed deadline looming. Talk about grit, determination and perfectionism all rolled into one.

With plenty of interviews with the creators, big name CEOs past and present, and the stars sharing their experience with providing the voices for their digital counterparts, director Leslie Iwersk also provided a brief look into the political wrangling behind the scenes, just for completeness sake, making The Pixar Story well suited for anyone curious to know how it call started, and how the energy is sustained until this very day.

Jasper102011 here to review The pixar story.

Pixar is the company with a luxo lamp as a mascot and a cabinet full of academy rewards.

This film shows that great movies and great story's can go through pain and hard work and even one of the best film company's can go through that.

The man himself john lasseter has the idea for computer-animation or CGI but Disney dumps it with john stuck at lucasfilms and make very famous short films.

A hard-core pixarfan would stare at the screen watching every step of the way because I am one and one word would move the story onwards.

The pixar story is a overall brilliant documentary, the movie tells that its not the technology that makes the movies great, but its the people who make it.

I really like the film with its interviews with famous Disney animators and tells you when pixar had a problem, it tells you how they solved it.

i wish pixar make a sequel for the more modern movies.

If your a really big fan or you just heard of pixar i highly recommend it so grab some popcorn and enjoy!