...in charting this course into feature film territory, Pixar came up with a few rules to differentiate themselves from other animated fare. In fact when Tom Hanks was approached to be part of [Toy Story], he probably summed it up nicely when he asked, "You don't want me to sing, do you?"Okay, so perhaps they've gone back on some of these commandments (I would certainly count Al from Al's Toy Barn in Toy Story 2 a villain, and of course Syndrome from The Incredibles...) but when they've revisited that which was forbidden, they've done a good job of approaching the cliches and making something useful out of them. Such as, say, Jessie's song from Toy Story 2, the emotional highlight of the film, or Syndrome's meta-villainous attitude ("Oh, you sly dog, you got me monologuing!")
Of course Pixar calmed his fears early on since they had already determined that in their films there would be:Interestingly enough, when the folks at Disney reviewed Pixar's "Toy Story" script, they were a bit concerned. So some guy named Tim Rice ( I believe it's Sir Tim Rice now) suggested they should add:
- No songs
- No happy village song
- No love story
- No villain
- No "I want" moment / song
It was at this point that Pixar knew they were on the right track...
- Songs
- A happy village song
- A love story
- A villain
- An "I want" moment / song
Cars perhaps went a little too far ("Life Is A Highway" annoyed me) but there you go. In the past 12 years, Pixar has done their damndest to retool American feature animation, to get it out of the Disney Story Mold. There's a lot more to do, and the production company certainly isn't infallible, but man, they've done a lot of good stuff.
Yes, I'm summing up by saying "they done did some more gooder stuff." Deal with it, pinkboy. My lunch is over and I gotta go back to work.
