REVIEW: Wreck-It Ralph

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Don't look now, but Disney just beat Pixar at its own game.

Wreck-it Ralph not only is terrific fun, it's the best movie made by Walt Disney Feature Animation since its glory days in the 90s. Heartfelt, visually dazzling and wonderfully clever, the movie tops such recent Disney efforts as Tangled and Pixar's Brave - both films I very much enjoyed -  but with reservations. Reservations are absent this time.

That's largely because, in a way, Disney has truly begun to assimilate Pixar and its storytelling techniques. All of Disney's feature films since Meet the Robinsons have been overseen to some degree by Pixar guru John Lasseter. But this is the first time Disney has truly mastered the mix of humor and heart that makes Pixar so potent. I expected to have fun, but not this much fun.

Like the Toy Story films, Wreck it Ralph takes kind of a behind-the-scenes look at a very familiar world. This time, it's the world of 80s/90s video games. Many people have said the game in the movie, Fix-It Felix, resembles Donkey Kong, and it does, but it most reminded me of another 80s game called Crazy Climber, the first game I can recall that talked. Your climber character said "Ouch" when people dropped things on its head, and then screamed "Oh nooooooo!" when you finally fell off.

I digress, but this movie was a nostalgic blast that constantly reminded me of games of yore. But even better, that conceit isn't just a gimmick. It's a doorway to a well-thought-out story where Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) tires of being a villain and jumps to other games to be more heroic. One of the other games is called Sugar Rush, which is like Candy Lane gone delectably berserk. There, Ralph meets the impetuous but endearing Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) who enlists Ralph's help to race in a go-kart game.

Wreck-It-Ralph blends the best of its Disney and Pixar fathers. Ralph's quest to be loved is not unlike the "I Want" quest of Disney princesses. And the relationship between Ralph and Vanellope is like a slightly more mature take on Sully and Boo in Monsters Inc. And just as Pixar made Larry the Cable Guy endearing, Wreck It Ralph pulls a similar miracle here with Sarah Silverman, who normally annoys me, but utterly won me over here.  For the first I laughed at loud at Oreos, and more than once, I had to adjust my 3D glasses because I had something wet in my eye.

So yes, it's emotional and flashy, in all the best ways. All the gameplay will appeal to boys, but Vanellope is a much stronger character than the ads let on, so girls will love it too.

Most movies based on video games falter because it's like watching someone else play. This one scores because it lets us all in - even a guy like me, who has  never owned a video game console. Not even an Atari 2600.

GRADE: A

REVIEW OVER

Memo to Disney: And no one lived happily ever after

I just read the story on the LA Times Website that says, in a nutshell, that Disney is shelving fairy tale stories for the foreseeable future. I hope to Tinkerbell that's not true. 


The article says 

""Films and genres do run a course," said Pixar Animation Studios chief Ed Catmull, who along with director John Lasseter oversees Disney Animation. "They may come back later because someone has a fresh take on it … but we don't have any other musicals or fairy tales lined up." Indeed, Catmull and Lasseter killed two other fairy tale movies that had been in development, "The Snow Queen" and "Jack and the Beanstalk."

Now, in fairness to Mr. Catmull, after this piece was published, he had this to say on  Disney's Faceboook page: "A headline in today’s LA Times erroneously reported that the Disney fairy tale is a thing of the past, but I feel it is important to set the record straight that they are alive and well at Disney and continue this week with Tangled, a contemporary retelling of a much loved story. We have a number of projects in development with new twists that audiences will be able to enjoy for many years to come."


As Grumpy might say "Hah! Mush!" 


Quite frankly, I find Mr. Catmull's about-face more than a little suspect. Consider his quotes in a previous LA Times piece: 

“We did not want to be put in a box,” said Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, explaining the reason for the name change. “Some people might assume it’s a fairy tale for girls when it’s not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody.”

And 

Pixar’s movies have been huge hits because they appeal to girls, boys and adults. Its most recent release, “Up,” grossed more than $700 million worldwide.

“The Princess and the Frog” generated considerably less — $222 million in global ticket sales to date.

“Based upon the response from fans and critics, we believe it would have been higher if it wasn’t prejudged by its title,” Catmull said.

Hmm. Sounds to me like Mr. Catmull has been less than 100 percent supportive of fairy tales in the not-too-distant past.Was he misquoted then too?

Here's something else that makes me suspicious: Consider this LA Times article that predates the others. 

John Lasseter said: “One of the first decisions we made, when [Pixar and Disney Animation Studios President] Ed Catmull and I came to Disney was to return to the sincere fairy tale,” Lasseter said. “I never quite understood why Disney hadn’t made a sincere fairy tale since ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ My two nieces would dress up in princess outfits all of the time. I realized there was this huge audience out there for this.”

Lasseter said this only about a year ago.  And now all of a sudden Disney is turning its back on fairy tales?  What gives? My suspicion is this: I notice that quotes about the Disney company lately come more from Mr. Catmull, who seems to be listening too hard to the marketing suits. We haven't heard much from Lasseter lately. I know he came in to co-direct Cars 2, and that may be eating up his time, but my educated guess is that Lasseter was stung by the relative underdperformance of The Princess and the Frog, and so has faded into the background - publicly, anyway. 

I wouldn't be at all surprised that someone at Disney (maybe even Lasseter?) saw today's LA Times story, and said "WHAT??!??!" So now Catmull is backpedaling, saying "No, no, no, that's not what I meant!" 

I really hope it's not, Mr. Catmull. Because if the LA Times piece was correct, then that saddens and angers me. 

In the LA Times Story, an "expert" is quoted thusly: "By the time they're 5 or 6, (girls are)  not interested in being princesses," said Dafna Lemish, chairwoman of the radio and TV department at Southern Illinois University and an expert in the role of media in children's lives. "They're interested in being hot, in being cool. Clearly, they see this is what society values."

Oh really?

If the fairy tale is really so uninteresting to little girls, why did Disney just re-release Beauty and the Beast on disc? And if girls really don't like fairy tales anymore, who do so many of them pack the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques at the parks? They're not all under 5 years old, either. 


You say in the newest LA Times piece: "If you say to somebody, 'You should be doing fairy tales,' it's like saying, 'Don't be risky,'" Catmull said. "We're saying, 'Tell us what's driving you.'" If that's true, sir, and fairy tales really are out of fashion, isn't presenting a fairy tale itself a risk?

There is no doubt we live in constantly changing times. There is no doubt that tastes have changed over the years. Some of us may be lamenting the fact that this isn't our world anymore. It happens when you get older. 

But little girls will always be little girls. And there are many girls who are still little at heart even if the rest of their body is bigger. 

I really hope Mr. Catmull means it when he says the fairy tale isn't really dead at Disney. It wasn't so long ago that Roy Disney blasted the company for being rapacious and soulless. For awhile it seemed that Disney seemed to find its soul again. But now, I get the distinct feeling the bean-counters are riding herd. If Disney really does abandon fairy tales, it won't just be soulless. It will have broken a lot of hearts. 

Pull out the other glass slipper, will you? 

Adults like animation? Who'd-a thunk it?

Normally by this time I would have written a review of Toy Story 3, but I am waiting so I can see it with my favorite young artist and her fine folks. Rarely has my patience been so steely. ;)

In the meantime, I came across this post on EW's Popwatch blog, in which writer Josh Young marvels at the fact that a showing of Toy Story 3 drew - GASP! - mostly adults!?!??!?!

Really? You're just NOW finding out that adults can enjoy animated movies without the company of a child, EW? I've been aware of this fact for decades. About as long as your magazine has been around, in fact.

And I'm not talking only about myself, an admitted sucker for animation. I was noticing that adults were attending animated movies as far back as Beauty and the Beast. I saw that movies 6 or 7 times in theaters and noticed a number of adult couples there without any kids in tow. It was a date movie for them. And this was 19 years ago

Granted, the always high quality of Pixar's productions probably has  increased adult willingness to view animated movies without kids. But this is hardly a new phenomenon. And Pixar isn't even the only party responsible for this. As Young does point out, the works of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Ponyo, etc.) have had an impact as well.

There's also something to be said for the fact that many people who saw the original Toy Story as kids in 1995 are flocking to the third chapter as well - they grew up along with Andy. In fact, the voice of Andy in all three movies, actor John Morris, is now a 25-year-old graduate of UCLA's Theater Arts program. (I hereby apologize for making some readers feel old.)

But really, anyone who has paid attention to Pixar knows the studio doesn't make films for children - they make films for everyone. If they made films solely for children, they wouldn't be nearly as successful as they are.

It is true that a lot of people tend to ghettoize animation as being "just for kids." I often hear fathers complain they don't get to see anything in the theaters except for "kids movies." If they're talking about crap like Marmaduke, I sympathize. If they're talking about Pixar, I don't feel sorry - and neither, I suspect, do the fathers.

Brad Bird, the writer-director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, once said in an interview (by EW, as it happens):

I can't tell you how many times somebody will come to me and say, ''My kids really love your work.'' And then you go, ''But you like it too, right?'' And they go, ''Oh, I love it.'' But they don't ever lead with that. It's like the kids are their beard to get them into the theater. Or people will say, ''I'm happy about this film because I have a 5-year-old.'' And I'm like, Well, congratulations, but I didn't make this for the 5-year-old. I made it for me, and I'm not 5. I can't think of one other art form that has its audience so narrowly defined. If you work in animation, people tell you, ''Oh, it must be wonderful to entertain children.'' Yes it is. But that's 10 percent of the audience I'm going for.

Yes, EW, adults can enjoy animated movies without kids - and it's time people stop being surprised by that.

More on the 'Rapunzel' tangle

All apologies, but a truly hectic work day Monday has turned my brain into the same word you use to get sled dogs to run. And I'm sorry to say this may be true throughout the week. I do not possess the presence of mind to write a truly thoughtful post, or to do even the formatting that goes with the DVD posts.

For the time being, however, I wanted to point your attention to this column by Kim Voynar at Movie City News, who, like me, calls bullshit on Disney's rationale that The Princess and the Frog disappointed because it didn't appeal to boys. She cannily sites box office evidence that gives the lie to that reasoning.

MCN: Voynaristic: From Rapunzel to Tangled? Disney's Dicey Decision

I do take issue with Voynar in her claim that the film failed because it wasn't appealing - most people who actually saw the film loved it. It got an A Cinemascore and an A- from Yahoo movie raters. I think the problem was two-fold: Disney was facing not only those damn Chipmunks (Squeakuel indeed!) but it was also fighting years of distaste that arose when many people found their  hand-drawn films lacking. 

As it happens, The Princess and the Frog comes out today for home viewing. I am more than confident that it will find the larger audience it deserves. Here's my full review of the film. Don't lump it in with the misfires. It's a step in the right direction for Disney. Give it a chance and check it out. I think you'll be glad you did.

Disney's newfangled 'Tangled'

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!

I mean, um - Walt Disney Walt Disney, let down your guard!

Seriously, Disney, I'm worried about you. For quite awhile you seemed to have things figured out. You settled that whole Eisner mess, you made sure Pixar stayed in the fold and your own animated movies started getting better, culminating in the revival of hand-drawn animation with The Princess and the Frog.

Unfortunately, however, that movie did not do as well at the box office as it should have, taking in about $103 million. Not bad, certainly, but I know you were hoping for better, especially considering in the early 90s, you sometimes made twice that - more if you adjust for inflation. It didn't help that you guys had to compete with the Chipmunks "Squeakuel." God bless young kids, but they're not exactly known for their discriminating taste.

Understandably, you wanted to make sure your next movie, Rapunzel, avoided a similar fate. Not understandably, you gave it a new name. Tangled.

Tangled?

Tangled??

Tangled??? 

Ick, blecch and yuck. Where's the hairspray when you need it?
 
Come on  - that sounds like your classic misbegotten, studio-group-think screw-up. That's almost as bad as Sony changing the title of a Nicolas Cage/Bridget Fonda romance from the very intriguing Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million Tip to the utterly bland It Could Happen to You.
 
What's Tangled supposed to mean, anyway? As Linda Holmes of NPR so wittily stated, "So now, instead of sounding like a princess movie, it sounds like a Lifetime movie about a murdered salon owner. Fantastic."

This decision is starting to remind me of your animation output of about 10 years ago, when movies like Atlantis and Home on the Range  felt script-noted, focus-grouped and test-marketed to death. NOT the era you want to evoke.

You guys are geniuses at selling your movies, but testing them? Not so much. What are we to make of the supposition in this Jim Hill Media story that "According to the Mouse’s market research, it would seem that – outside of the United States & Germany –  the story of Rapunzel itself has very little name recognition. More to the point, even those among surveyed who actually recognized Rapunzel’s name, these people had little or no knowledge of what her fairy tale was actually about."

Uh huh. Like Mulan was a household name?

I mean, really, guys. Tangled sounds like you're trying to hard to be "hip, contemporary, with it." No. When it comes to animated movies, that's not your job. Leave that to your inferior rivals like DreamWorks. The charm of the Disney brand for animation is that it's timeless, ageless. Rapunzel speaks to that. Tangled does not.

Speaking of DreamWorks, their next animated movie, How to Train Your Dragon, comes out later this month. It's directed by two guys who used to work for you - Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who helmed Lilo & Stitch, one of the best moves you made this past decade. I get the sense that DreamWorks is going to beat you at your own game, because Dragon seems to have more Disney charm than Tangled does.

But I hope I'm wrong. I'm still very fond of Disney. I like most of your animated movies very much. I will see Tangled, but I'm forced to admit I'm more worried about it than anticipating it.  In that sense, the title change is very appropriate after all.

REVIEW: The Fox and the Hound

Being on something of a Disney kick of late, I decided to start catching up with some of the animated features I'd never seen.

Well - I'm not really sure I'd never seen The Fox and the Hound. Watching it Sunday night, it felt vaguely familiar to me, as if I had seen it years ago and then forgotten about it - which is odd, because The Fox and the Hound came out in 1981, and I have much clearer memories of The Rescuers, which was released in 1977. Perhaps the difference is that I know I saw The Rescuers in a theater, and I did not see The Fox and the Hound until some years later on TV, if indeed, I saw at all.

But I have clear memories of The Fox and the Hound now, and they're mostly fond ones, even if they are rather ... recent, shall we say.

The movie actually starts somewhat shakily. The early scenes, with Todd and Copper as kids, are just this side of too cute, even for this sentimentalist. The sidekicks Boomer the woodpecker and Dinky the finch are neither particularly funny nor memorable. And "The Best of Friends" aside, the songs and score are indistinct at best.

However, the core characters are very strong, and the ending, with its frightening bear attack, is just about as efffective as anything in Bambi. Because that central friendship is so solid, I got caught up emotionally in it, to the point where this sentimentalist got misty-eyed, as he so often does with Disney movies.

The DVD has a featurette  about how this film marked a turning point in Disney animation. The legendary "Nine Old Men," from Walt's era,  including Wolfgang Reitherman, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston started the picture, then  the new generation of animators finished it, including Glen Keane (Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin) and John Musker and Ron Clements (The Littler Mermaid, Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog) finished it. The featurette runs a mere 10 minutes, I would have loved to see something at least a little more in-depth, considering the film was so pivotal.

 I rate the film just slightly below The Rescuers, if only because of the nostalgia that film carries for me, but The Fox and the Hound recalls both the glories of Disney's past - and points the way to the renaissance of the then-future.


GRADE: B+

Reviews of every Disney 2D animated film I've seen

Some people are most looking forward to seeing Avatar this holiday season. Some are most looking forward to Up in the Air. Some are most looking forward to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel. And I really hope I can look down on most of those people.

Ah, but the film I most want to see in the remainder of this year is Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

I freely admit, I'm a fool for most things Disney, and with good reason. Their animated films were among the first powerful stories I heard in my youth. And being a Disney aficionado has earned me some of my most wonderful friends.

While I have been a staunch Disney defender, and even something of an apologist for their work, I have to admit, the past decade has not been kind to Walt Disney Feature Animation. There have been a couple great films and a lot of good ones, but the 2000s have been nowhere close to their magnificent run in the 1990s. Somewhere along the way, Disney's storytelling went slack.

Pixar picked up that slack, and I've made it abundantly clear I adore their work. However, Pixar is not Disney. Pixar picked up a lot of traits from Disney, to be sure, but each studio has a very different vibe. I want both. And I am very hopeful that Disney is on the rebound with a most welcome return to hand-drawn animation, given the reviews so far.

I hope to see The Princess and the Frog on Saturday. In commemoration and in preparation for that imminet viewing, I offer up short reviews of every Disney hand-drawn animated film. (Please note this list does not consider hybrids like Mary Poppins or Pete's Dragon,  and certainly does NOT cover the direct-to-video titles, which were largely responsible for watering down the brand.). The list that follows is considered Disney's official roster.

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs - I always thought Snow herself was kind of dull, but the dwarfs and the wicked queen absolutely make the move. GRADE: A

Pinocchio - Still my favorite animated film of any kind. Magnificent. GRADE: A+

Fantasia - Remains ahead of its time, nearly 70 years later. GRADE: A+

Dumbo - "Baby Mine" ... oh god ... GRADE: A+

Bambi - Bambi's mom. oh god ... GRADE: A+

Saludos Amigos - Fun, but too slight; it's barely a feature. GRADE: B-

The Three Caballeros - Delightfully zany and trippy. One of the studio's most underrated films. GRADE: A-

Cinderella - My favorite of Walt's princess movies. GRADE: A+

Alice In Wonderland - A little disjointed story-wise, even for a Lewis Carroll adaptation, but visually inventive, very funny, and far too maligned over the years. GRADE: B+

Peter Pan - A bit dated, particularly in its depiction of the Indians, but mostly delightful. GRADE: A

Lady And The Tramp - The famous "spaghetti kiss" is seriously one of the most romantic moments in the movies, animated or otherwise. GRADE: A+

Sleeping Beauty -  I've never cared much for the angular style of the animation here, and story problems abound. On the plus side, Maleficent is one of the most terrifying villains ever created. And the three fairies are quite funny, just to balance the scales. GRADE: B

101 Dalmatians - Great fun, and Cruellla is another great villainess, but for some reason I can't quite define, has never been one of my favorites. As dog movies go, Lady and the Tramp has it all over this one. GRADE: B+

The Sword In The Stone - Has one great scene in the battle between Merlin and Madame Mimm, but otherwise, this is depressingly average, and the weakest movie of Walt's era. GRADE: C

The Jungle Book - Walt's final film is just a touch thin narratively, but great characters and irresistible songs carry it a very long way. GRADE: A-

The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh: (Starts humming the theme, which means you'll all have the theme song stuck in your heads now.) GRADE: A-

The Rescuers - Not one of the great Disney movies, but I have a very soft spot for it because it was the first new Disney film of my childhood - that I can clearly remember, anyway.  GRADE: B+

Oliver & Company - Billy Joel's musical number "Why Should I Worry" is fun, but otherwise, barely memorable. My vote for Disney's low point. GRADE: C

The Little Mermaid - Hello, renaissance! GRADE: A+

The Rescuers Down Under - Entertaining if fairly indistinct sequel. GRADE: B

Beauty And The Beast - My absolute favorite of the "renaissance" period. It should have WON the Best Picture Oscar. GRADE: A+

Aladdin - The funniest movie Disney has ever made. GRADE: A+

The Lion King - Excellent at its best, but I never understood why people went SO bananas over this film. It has some excellent scenes, but "Circle of Life" and "Hakuna Matata" aside, the songs were weak. GRADE: B+

Pocahontas - Not a great film overall, and it IS a tad on the preachy side, but I will forever maintain this is a better film than The Lion King. So there. GRADE: A-

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame - The comedy mixes a little uneasily with the drama, but this is the great underrated Disney film of the 90s. The opening sequence especially is a knockout, and Alan Menken's score is one of his best. GRADE: A

Hercules: Yes, this one is underrated too - and I thought that even BEFORE a certain bias took hold, just so you know. GRADE: A

Mulan - The songs are a bit flat, (by now, "Reflection" has been sung by 341 American Idol contestants too many), but quite moving and powerful on the whole. GRADE: A-

Tarzan - Stunning in almost every respect, particularly in the amazing visuals rendered with the "deep canvas" process that made camera movement more fluid and the backgrounds more lively. GRADE: A

Fantasia 2000 - Couldn't possibly match the original but at times comes astonishingly close. GRADE: A

The Emperor's New Groove - I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by the trailers,  then couldn't stop laughing when I saw it. GRADE: B+

Atlantis: The Lost Empire - Has some great action scenes and fun comedic touches, but the story is  extremely scattershot. It feels like the script was endlessly tinkered with and picked over. GRADE: B

Lilo And Stitch - The ad campaign intermingling Sitich with classic characters was a stroke of genius - and the movie pretty much lived up to it. GRADE: A

Treasure Planet - This dazzlingly inventive movie got shafted, even by its own studio. It did NOT deserve to stuff at the box office the way it did. GRADE: A

Brother Bear - What do you know, another underrated film. The moose Rutt and Tuke's comedy alone makes it worthwhile. GRADE: A-

Home On The Range - Has some funny moments, but it evaporated from memory very quickly, and it contains not one memorable tune. Alan Menken was way off his game here. GRADE: B-

Unseen 

Make Mine Music/Fun And Fancy Free/Melody Time - I've seen parts of these omnibus films, but never the complete works, so I can't consider them here.

The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad - I've seen the Ichabod sequence many times, and it's great, but I've still never seen Mr. Toad. I know him only from the fairly lame ride.

The Aristocats - The first actual Disney film of my childhood, but I was a wee bit young to see it then and have still never gotten around to it.

Robin Hood - My understanding is it's better that I've missed this one.

The Fox and the Hound: Actually, I have seen this one, but it's been so long, I can't review it fairly.

The Black Cauldron: It can't be THAT bad, can it?


The Great Mouse Detective: The Disney film I most regret missing. Many say the renaissance had its roots in this movie.

I'd love it if my readers would chime in with their own Disney critiques - or at the very least, name their favorites.

An honest letter to Disney RE: DVD and Blu-Ray

Russell seems as perturbed as I am about the Up DVDs

To Buena Vista Home Entertainment:


Hey guys. You oughta know by now that when it comes to most things Disney, I'm a big fan. I love a great deal of your work and the Disney connection has gotten me some truly wonderful friends. 

So it really hurts me when you make me feel ripped off and devalued. 

How? With the packaging of the Up DVDs. 

Up is my absolute favorite movie of the year, so I was very excited to buy it this week. Then, when I watched the disc, I was sorely disappointed at how you skimped on the extras.

Let me backtrack a bit: The Pixar DVDs have been among my favorites in my collection, not just because of the movies themselves but for the excellent, comprehensive packages of extras. All the Pixar movies, from Toy Story through The Incredibles had outstanding packages of extras.

Then along comes this high-def format called Blu-Ray. And then you started skimping on the extras for regular ol' DVD while still loading the Blu-Rays with content. Unfair. Unjust. Greedy, even. 

The Cars and Ratatouille Blu-Rays had all kinds of goodies while the DVDs had hardly anything. I know some features only work on Blu-Ray, but it seems to me a lot of what was on those Blu-Rays could have gone on the DVDs too. Why should we be shortchanged because we couldn't invest in a high-def system yet?

Then WALL-E came along and you seemed to wise up. Both the Blu-Ray and the DVD had very nice extras packages. All seemed right with the world. 

Now, along come the Up DVDs and the configuration is rather maddening. There are three editions: 


1. A single-disc DVD which is pretty bare bones


2. A double-disc DVD with a few extras


3. A 4-disc Blu-Ray set.


The Blu-Ray was obviously out for me, so I figured this would be like WALL-E: get the two-disc set with more extras. Well, as it turns, out the second-disc of the DVD set is nothing more than a "digital copy" of the film, which I will never use.  Sorry, but I think watching movies on iPods and the like is pointless. 

Meanwhile, the Blu-Ray is stocked with all kinds of nice bonuses that aren't on the DVDs, like:


*Geriatric Hero. History behind the creation of our old guy. All of these documentaries are interview oriented with sketches and film clips to supplement.
*Canine Companions. In depth analysis on the breed choices, training and dog behavior studied to get the dogs in the film to be more - dog like.
*Russel Wild Explorer. Covers the reasons for his character to have the loss and why he was "egg" shaped as opposed to other sketch ideas.
*Kevin (bird). Nice reference to the Swiss Family Robinson ostrich; covered the hardest part of any of these animation films - the feathers.
*Homemakers Pixar. Enjoyed the work that went into them studying sub-floors and lighting options in making this look so real in the house.
*Balloons and Flight. Tells the now famous number of balloons used; some interesting dirigible history; shows the Pixar group using that local Bay Area air service I keep seeing fly around here (research stuff).
*Composing for Characters. Have to be into the musical/scoring stuff for this one. 


Now why on God's green Earth couldn't you have put those on an actual second disc? I can't think of any good reason. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have the commentary and the few extras I have, but I still feel cheated  - especially since, with sales prices, the Blu-Ray is actually CHEAPER than the two-disc DVD set. That is nothing less than galling. 

Forget it, guys. You are endlessly pimping Blu-Ray, but when you pull this crap, that just ticks me off. I'm not convinced Blu-Ray has a long future anyway, and these kinds of shenanigans only make me LESS inclined to support it. Surely that wasn't in your plan.

All I can say say is if you pull this BS with Toy Story 3 next year, I think you'll find a lot of unhappy Sids, Scuds and Zurgs out there. 

Indignantly,

Sir Critic