#joe ranft

[90smovies]

[weaselbeaselpants]

All the storyboards I could find of James and the Giant Peach

I apologize for the low-quality. In some, if not most of these cases, this is all that exists and they're almost all on auction sites.

At least more than a few of these were definitely drawn by Joe Ranft, Disney/Pixar veteran. His drawings are so god damn cute for the bugs it's near criminal.

Here's Joe being a god to the giant peach

and a screengrab someone took of a promo of Joe explaining the storyboards for what appears to be the "we're going to New York City" scene. Abysmal quality. No there's not a view nicer/better than this.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

A Bug's Life (1998, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton)

09/06/2024

[thebutcher-5]

Cars - Motori ruggenti

Benvenuti o bentornati sul nostro blog. Nello scorso articolo siamo andati avanti con la saga di Tremors, arrivando a un punto dove le cose a livello produttivo sono cambiate parecchio e dando vita a Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Burt Gummer non dà più la caccia ai Graboid, adesso è il protagonista della sua web-series sul survivalismo. Un giorno lui e il suo cameraman, Travis, ricevono la visita di un…

[cinematitlecards]

"Cars" (2006) Directed by John Lasseter & Joe Ranft (Animated/Adventure/Comedy)

[camyfilms]

FINDING NEMO 2003

I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.

[theartofpixar]

[loveaetingkids]

Can I please have some facts about Coraline?

Wow,I never thought someone would be interested! I gathered a few fun facts,and while I’m sure they’re easy to spot, these are fun to tell to the new viewers:

•To start it off,the movers who were unpacking Coralines family furniture were modeled and named after Joe and Jerome Ranft,who worked on Nightmare Before Christmas:

•The dollar that was handled over to them has the image of Henry Selick on it,director of Coraline:

•Wybie Lovat is not part of Neil Gaiman’s novel-he was created so that Coraline won’t talk to herself( in the book we read about her thoughts,but  it’s much harder to do so in film).

•The medal of Mr Bobynsky is real one: it was awarded to the Chornobyl disaster liquidators(fun fact:the power plant is called ChOrnobyl, not ChErnobyl since it was built in Ukraine,so Ukrainian spelling style applies). His exposure to radiation explains Bobynsky’s blue skin and unwell mind:

•The “jumping mice” are also real.They are native to the south of United States:

•During Coralines first encounter with Other Mother,when she asks Beldam what rain is she talking about,we see a quick appearance of lightning which looks suspiciously like a hand. This is not a coincidence, as the hand is closely associated with the witch (this sign appears in the cup during the foreshadowing of Spink and Forcible; her severed hand chases the heroine at the end of the movie):

•It’s a pretty well known fact,but on the cake itself we see that “home” in “Welcome home” has an “o” written with a double loop,which according to pseudoscience called graphology means that the person who wrote it is lying.Thus,Coraline is welcomed but it isn’t her home:

•Here’s my own little theory: each time Coraline crawls through the tunnel to another world, it dims,until all the colors disappear and the true essence of the pathway is revealed - a cobweb with children’s toys in it(a trap for kids).Now it might be just a trick of light,but it’s interesting to think about nevertheless:

•The audience gets hints of Beldams fairy/witch nature throughout the film; the first time is when Coraline finds a well surrounded by a circle of mushrooms, which in the beliefs of many people was associated with fairies who lured people into them(sounds familiar?).The second time is when she was given a stone with a hole in it by Spink and Forcible.This rock is often called Hag stone,and is believed to serve as a protection against evil spirits.It is also believed that you can see through the guise of a witch by looking through the hole(exactly what Coraline did to find the eyes of missing children):

•Now,the bug theme in Coraline is really prevalent,and later in the movie we can see that Other Mother is heavily associated with spiders.Meanwhile Coraline has similar thing going on-she wears hairpin resembling dragonfly,who are known for eating spiders.Because of this,the game of predator and prey is turned on its head:

That’s it for now,hope these were interesting for you!

[90smovies]

[j4m3s-b4k3r]

BACK TO THE FUTURE: the animated series

I was working at Disney France when John Hays contacted me, looking for an overseas supervisor for a Saturday Morning cartoon that he'd be directing for Colossal Pictures. I’d done such things before. What interested me about this particular gig was that John wanted the supervisor to firstly work as part of the pre-production team at Colossal. I absolutely loved that idea. So headed to San Francisco to work on the BACK TO THE FUTURE cartoon.

I’d been introduced to John by mutual pal Tony Stacchi while backpacking in the USA a few years earlier. When Colossal diversified from special effects & TV commercials into longer form animation, John remembered me. Thinking my experience in Saturday Morning animation would fit with this new project, that both he & Phil Robinson would direct.. 

The crew had not fully assembled when I arrived in San Francisco. In fact, it was so early in production that even the look of the show had not yet been locked down. Many freelance artists, including Steve Purcell & Dave Fiess, plus Colossal staffers had a crack at design proposals, and I had a go too. 

Colossal had acquired a new building for long form production, but it was still being refit. So, a few of us worked in a cold drafty room at Colossal’s 3rd street building. As the crew expanded, we were housed in a cramped annex in their Custer Street sound stage. Until we finally moved into the facility on 15th street. (That building would eventually host the entire Colossal animation department).

When some designs of mine were selected for the main characters, the plan for me to supervise production in Taiwan was modified. Instead, I became one of two art director/character designers on the series. The mighty John Stevenson being the other. 

There was such a back & forth between Colossal & Universal over the main characters (even the actors got involved) that it was hard to do anything truly unique (although I was happy with how Doc Brown turned out). But we definitely had fun on the secondary character designs. 

Private Stevenson & Private Baker..

John & I both worked on designs for the first episode together, then took it in turns thereafter. I designed characters on even-numbered episodes, and John designed for odd-numbered episodes. We both sat side by side, cracking each other up with sillier & sillier designs. Joyfully competing as the series progressed. (In my opinion, John utterly killed it with his designs for his ROMAN episode..)

Directors John Hays & Phil Robinson really assembled a mighty crew for this series. Dave Gordon & Richard Moore did the BG styling, with Dave doing a lot of great VisDev too. Robin Steele, and future Pixar heavyweights Bud Luckey, & Joe Ranft did the storyboards. Two more future Pixar legends, Bob Pauley & Bill Cone, led much of the layout & location design. Future LucasFilm directors Bosco Ng, & Steward Lee were stalwarts of the art department. Colour styling was by future CNN design director Dewey Reid, and John Pomeroy animated the title sequence! 

After years of living & working in countries where I struggled to learn the language, it was great to finally be in a city where I could actually socialise. I was very lucky to be working with utterly inspiring artists. We often worked late, as we were all excited to be working together.

The pre-pro team was enthusiastic and worked hard, with high hopes for the show. However, by this point in my career I had a pretty good idea of how the Saturday Morning sausage was made. Having worked in the bowels of the sausage factory myself for 10 years by that point. I was hopeful, but also knew that it was anybody’s guess if the show would get the same care at the other end..

A show about a kooky scientist, his young buddy and a time machine had the potential to be absolutely great. The best of Doctor Who and a (family friendly) Rick & Morty. But stories that went to a new time zone each week needed a lot of design. I kept hoping that the scripts would contain less characters & locations. So that we could really refine the model packets. But every script contained tons of NEW characters & locations. Plus new outfits/gear for the main characters too. SIGH..

We'd been promised the 'top floor' animators at Taiwan's Cuckoo's Nest studio, but "Uh oh.." early footage made it clear that we'd gotten the basement crew instead.. "DOH!" Back when I'd supervised outsourcing myself, I learned that if the good artists are already assigned to another project there wasn’t much you could do. So, despite an absolutely stellar design & storyboard team, and early optimism, the show itself came out merely 'OK'. It ran for two seasons on CBS.

It has been one of the counter intuitive aspects of my career that sometimes the fave projects are NOT the best projects.. Despite being merely a footnote in animation history, this was absolutely a linchpin project in my own career, and I have fond memories of it to this day. Many great opportunities that came later were thanks to this show. I met many wonderful artists, who became lifelong friends, who I still work with and/or socialise with, decades later. On this project, I fell in love with San Francisco. And, after living out of a backpack for years, made this kooky town my home. I’d later go on staff at Colossal Pictures, which became my favourite studio I ever worked at. Where I finally escaped from Saturday Morning cartoons, into TV commercials and other more challenging projects.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)

21/10/2024

[elrincondelcinefilo]

ℕ𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕤

"Corpse Bride" de Tim Burton se basa en un cuento folclórico del siglo XVII, que Joe Ranft (animador) introdujo a Burton mientras completaban "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993). "Corpse Bride" comenzó su producción en noviembre de 2003, mientras que Burton estaba completando "Big Fish" (2003).

La película tuvo un rodaje de 55 semanas e incluía 109.440 marcos animados individualmente (configurados y filmados con técnicas avanzadas de stop motion).

Se fabricaron 300 marionetas en total, que medían hasta 28 cm de alto. Algunos de los escenarios eran tan grandes que los animadores podían pasar agachados por las puertas del escenario.

🎬 "La novia cadáver" (2005) Dir. Tim Burton y Mike Johnson.

[therodwestheider]

Characters aren’t real, but it's an illusion that they are alive, that they've got something inside them that's motivating them and that's driving them. - Joe Ranft

[ptbf2002]

Here's My Top 10 Pixar Animation Studios Characters

#10 Woody (Toy Story 1, 2, 3, & 4)

#9 Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story 1, 2, 3, & 4)

#8 Barley Lightfoot (Onward)

#7 Lightning McQueen (Cars 1, 2, & 3)

#6 Nemo (Finding Nemo & Finding Dory)

#5 Joy (Inside Out)

#4 Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc. & Monsters University)

#3 Dory (Finding Nemo & Finding Dory)

#2 Wall-e (WALL-E)

And Finally #1 Luxo Jr.

Honorable Mentions: Carl Fredricksen (UP), Sally Carrera (Cars), Remy (Ratatouille) & Eve (WALL-E)

Credit For This Template Goes To edogg8181804

Meme: https://www.deviantart.com/edogg8181804/art/Top-10-Pixar-Characters-Meme-843900637

Toy Story Belongs To Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Toy Story 2 Belongs To Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin, Chris Webb, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Ash Brannon, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Toy Story 3 Belongs To John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, Michael Arndt, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Toy Story 4 Belongs To John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Josh Cooley, Valerie LaPointe, Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, Martin Hynes, Stephany Folsom, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Onward Belongs To Dan Scanlon, Keith Bunin, Jason Headley, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Cars Belongs To Dan Fogelman, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, Jorgen Klubien, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Cars 2 Belongs To Ben Queen, John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, Dan Fogelman, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Cars 3 Belongs To Kiel Murray, Bob Peterson, Mike Rich, Brian Fee, Ben Queen, Eyal Podell, Jonathan E. Stewart, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Finding Nemo Belongs To Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Finding Dory Belongs to Andrew Stanton, Victoria Strouse, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Inside Out Belongs To Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Ronnie del Carmen, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Monsters Inc. Belongs To Andrew Stanton, Daniel Gerson, Pete Docter, Jill Culton, Jeff Pidgeon, Ralph Eggleston, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Monsters University Belongs To Dan Gerson, Robert L. Baird, Dan Scanlon, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

WALL-E Belongs To Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

Luxo Jr. Belongs To John Lasseter, PIXAR Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Inc. And The Walt Disney Company

[movies-to-add-to-your-tbw]

Title: Cars

Rating: G

Director: John Lasseter

Cast: Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Richard Petty, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, John Ratzenberger, Joe Ranft

Release year: 2006

Genres: comedy, adventure

Blurb: Hotshot rookie race car Lightning McQueen discovers that life is about the journey, not the finish line, when he finds himself unexpectedly detoured into the sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs. En route across the country to the big Piston Cup Championship in California to compete against two seasoned pros, McQueen gets to know the town's offbeat characters.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Why I'm Looking Forward to ELEMENTAL...

This has been on my mind lately, as ELEMENTAL is inching closer to release.

I've been reading it everywhere... Something to the tune of: Pixar has lost its touch, its soul, they've been going downhill, etc. etc.

I get intense deja vu whenever I read a sentence like that...

Because around this very same time, a DECADE ago, in the year 2013... Pixar was also going downhill, they sold out, they lost their touch, their soul, Disney was poisoning them now that they owned them, blah blah blah-

And this was back when they had only released two movies in a row that didn't live up to the imaginary thing that is called "Pixar standards": Those very movies were CARS 2 and BRAVE. A prequel to MONSTERS, INC. was just a month away at this same time in 2013, which ended up getting a similar reception from these skeptics... We knew a FINDING NEMO sequel was in the works, in addition to a few originals. They didn't have high hopes for the studio's future.

When INSIDE OUT came out in summer 2015, after a whole calendar year without a Pixar movie, it was declared a comeback. But later that year, during the holiday season, THE GOOD DINOSAUR came out, and it was all "Pixar is dead!" again. People were freakin' hyperbolic, I tell 'ya... Strangely, I do remember that nonsense somewhat dying down once FINDING DORY came out, the following summer in 2016. As if they either accepted that their favorite studio was no longer going to make movies that they wanted to see, or they found something else to latch onto... and subsequent complain about that thing, too. Maybe the return of STAR WARS was enough of a distraction for these nerds? That's the king of complainer-heavy franchises right there!

So, I'm old enough to remember when Pixar was going downhill. It seemed like they've been going downhill, huh? Ten years of going downhill? Where does the hill end? Is it a very steep hill... Is it a cliff? Are they tumbling down Mount Everest or something?

But what's particularly alarming to me is this... There's a good-sized gaggle of people who genuinely want... John freakin' Lasseter to come back to Pixar and be their leader again!

Yet back in 2013, according to people who were insisting that Pixar was done for, it was *Lasseter* that was the problem.

That he was ruining Pixar with his dictatorial way of running things, his aggressive franchising of CARS, firing directors off of their movies, and mandating every director there except his favorites (Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, Brad Bird) to make the movies the way HE wanted them to be made. That he was their worst director, as CARS and CARS 2 "proved" that... Though apparently the guy never directed TOY STORY 1 & 2, and A BUG'S LIFE. (Oh, but that one sucked, too. Apparently. Also, Lasseter pretty much stole CARS wholesale from Jorgen Klubien. To me, Klubien and the late Joe Ranft are very much the directors of that film.)

Now a lot of this is true, Lasseter was a micromanager indeed. He removed a lot of up-and-coming directors at Pixar that didn't meet his "criteria", and this was true even before The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar and made him supreme leader. He screwed over Jorgen Klubien and essentially erased him from the creation of CARS, a movie he pitched and blueprinted and mapped out. Jan Pinkava was booted off of RATATOUILLE, but did receive co-director credit in the end. He also wasn't quite thrilled about then-outsider Brad Bird coming into Pixar with a superhero action picture, but Steve Jobs had Brad Bird's back and eventually, Lasseter was all-in on Bird. Then once he took over? Brad Lewis, Brenda Chapman, even veteran Bob Peterson, all fired from their movies. An unnamed director got booted off of MONSTERS UNIVERSITY as well, Gary Rydstrom got taken off of NEWT, and the studio ended up canning that film anyways.

Nothing was done about this, as Pixar scored box office hit after box office hit, and sometimes Oscars to go with that... Nothing was done, until Lasseter was rightfully outed for sexual harassment during the Me Too movement in late 2017. With that, Pete Docter assumed his Chief Creative Officer role in mid-2018. Ever since Pete took over, not a single movie made at Pixar since then lost its director, and to me... All the newer films feel quite unique to one another, and feel like the visions of their respective directors. They have gotten one Oscar since then, for SOUL in 2020, LUCA and TURNING RED were nominated in their respective years. Only LIGHTYEAR lost money at the box office, had a hard time appealing to audiences, and got a slightly more mixed reception from critics. Everything else is a COVID case... Not that box office and Oscars mean anything, but under Lasseter they seemed to easily rack those things up regularly. With one or two major exceptions here and there. Just an observation, that's all.

So now... They want him back? Am I reading that right? But they all insisted that he had to go, and that the 2010s Pixar was all bad original movies (save for INSIDE OUT and COCO) and "unnecessary" sequels. Keep in mind, these same people *demanded* an INCREDIBLES sequel from Pixar... And the Venn Diagram of folks who disliked INCREDIBLES 2 that never shut up about how "bad" it was and those who demanded that the sequel be made in the first place is probably a circle.

These same complainers clamor for the Pixar of yore, the studio during its so-called halcyon days... And yet they're dismissive of the new movies they make that are trying new things (the old Pixar of 2003-ish would've never greenlit LUCA or TURNING RED)... And the movie that's going back to the classic "what-if" premises that directors Lasseter/Docter/Stanton/Unkrich indulged in? Oh, it's "generic Pixar", "it looks like a parody of Pixar", "it's as if an AI generated a Pixar movie"...

What do they want, then?

If they make a movie that's just like TOY STORY or FINDING NEMO or RATATOUILLE or UP, it'd be written off as "trying to replicate the past". If they do something new and fresh, it's "mid" or whatever, "go back to what you did best."

This studio has released 26 films, and in a month, 27. Not all of them are going to appeal to you anyways. They have yet to make a movie that I myself personally dislike, but that's just me.

I sometimes think that Pixar's earliest films hit these particular folks hard because they were made during a time when American feature animation was in a weird state. That initial "Renaissance" period wore off, Disney was having trouble, other studios were releasing 2D films that flopped and got bad critical scores, and it seemed like Pixar (and some early DreamWorks) hit that sweet spot. Nowadays, everyone's making big animated movies, and there's innovation happening elsewhere as well. New Pixar movies share the space with films like INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, Guillermo del Toro's PINOCCHIO, etc. etc. We also have a wider Internet than ever before, streaming, whole libraries at your fingertips... Maybe back in 2003, you had so-so internet connection and a PC with a boxy monitor, and it seemed like Pixar was the only game in town.

But also, early Pixar was smaller, much more tight-knit you could argue. Ostensibly, it was a bunch of nerds riding around on scooters and wearing Hawaiian shirts, like the place was a blast to be at, each new movie of theirs a test for them, it was them going big or going home. Every new movie of theirs seemed like a pending flop... that defied all expectations, each movie worked on critics and audiences. Their contract back then sucked, and they weren't allowed to make sequels to their movies, TOY STORY 2 was strongarmed into being a Pixar-made sequel and not the direct-to-video B-team picture it was originally meant to be. There's definitely a particular feeling, an early-era excitement to the stretch of films made from 1995 to around 2004, and after the Disney buyout, Pixar's atmosphere is no longer the chimp and the wacky guys on scooters. In reality, Pixar was always cutthroat. Lasseter was always egotistical (again, just ask Jorgen Klubien), it was a studio and a business just like everything else. There also exist people who are not in love with that studio, and maybe only enjoy a handful of the movies they made during their so-called heyday.

I've long loved Pixar films. MONSTERS, INC. was the movie that made me a fan of theirs, though I had seen their first three films made before that. I've seen all of their movies in theaters except the three movies that went straight to Disney+ during the pandemic. That being said, I am able to differentiate a studio from its filmmakers. Early Pixar is largely the work of Lasseter, Docter, Stanton, and Unkrich. Or what I like to call "Team TOY STORY". Lasseter directed TOY STORY, everyone else listed were a major part of that movie, and were a major part of TOY STORY 2 as well. Unkrich co-directed TOY STORY 2, MONSTERS, INC. and FINDING NEMO. Andrew Stanton co-directed A BUG'S LIFE and then was main director on FINDING NEMO - which he conceived, Pete Docter conceived and directed MONSTERS, INC. They're all John's guys, his buddies, his magic circle, or as Jorgen Klubien put it in an interview with the Skull Rock Podcast: His knights of the round table, "The Beatles of Pixar"... Then there was Brad Bird. Again, a relative outsider, didn't get the warmest welcome, but became a solid part of Lasseter's circle because he had backup, and his movie ended up being a big hit. Team TOY STORY and Brad Bird were "early Pixar": A bunch of liked-minded guys out of Cal-Arts in their 30s and 40s with a lot of creative freedom making the animated movies they wanted to see, and using cutting-edge and always-evolving technology to make them.

But those days were over after Lasseter took complete control and solidified his Brain Trust. Who knows how a movie like BRAVE would've been received in 2012 had he not fired Brenda Chapman from it, the very movie she conceived based on her motherhood. Better? Worse? Same goes for Bob Peterson, what would his GOOD DINOSAUR have been? It was always *very* telling to me that the post-2010 Pixar movies everyone seemed to agree on being pretty good were the movies directed by Pete Docter (INSIDE OUT, SOUL) and Lee Unkrich (COCO)... and that everything else was subpar. But... They'd either say those movies stunk because Lasseter controlled them too much, or they were just bad because they weren't made by their favorite directors.

And that was even more evident to me after Lasseter was sent packing. ONWARD, Dan Scanlon's first original Pixar movie after directing MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, was "good but not Pixar good" at best, and the same non-criticism was thrown at Enrico Casarosa's LUCA as well. There is no such thing as "Pixar good", you actually mean "I don't like it as much as the movies made by Team TOY STORY." You like those select few directors, then, not the studio itself. And that's fine! The studio is merely the building where these movies are made, it's not the author of the movies... That'd be like calling ABBEY ROAD your favorite Abbey Road Studios album, not your favorite Beatles album.

Also worth noting: Brad Bird had directed THE IRON GIANT before coming to Pixar, and he's directing RAY GUNN for Skydance Animation - with Lasseter as his boss again, may I add. He's the only person in the original Pixar director lineup of filmmakers to have directed an all-animated feature somewhere else. Pete Docter's only animated movies are Pixar films, ditto John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich's.

Lasseter's no longer at Pixar, Pete Docter likely is done with directing after SOUL, Andrew Stanton hasn't directed there since 2016 and likely won't be back for a long while because he's trying to do more live-action stuff, Lee Unkrich straight up retired, and Brad Bird - again - is off at Skydance.

I don't really subscribe to the whole collective thing. The original appeal of Pixar, to me, was it being a place where directors could come in, pitch a wild idea, and make that wild idea a movie that Disney or the other studios at the time wouldn't have made. Problem was, it looked that way on paper. In reality, it was Lasseter's show. It's not anymore, and Docter is not like Lasseter, he wants the people at Pixar to tell their stories... THEIR way. That's very exciting to me, and I feel it has shown in a lot of their most recent films.

This is why I'm interested in seeing ELEMENTAL, I'm game to see what director Peter Sohn has in store. He previously directed THE GOOD DINOSAUR, which he took over from Bob Peterson of course, but this is his movie from the ground up. He has said that it is based on his experiences as a son of Korean immigrant parents in New York, his coming of age in the 1980s, but told using people made of the four elements living in a city based around said elements. I'm there for the personal story more so than the premise, but from what I've seen of the movie itself, it's fascinating seeing characters where every part of them moves. Flowing water, ever-burning fire, etc. They're very very animated. This must've been a lot of work!

Anyways, ELEMENTAL... When do the tickets go on sale? I'm looking forward to it, I hope I enjoy it!