The Pixar Story

An informative, inspiring, and important film, spanning Pixar's story, and the story of technological advancement through 3-D animation. The documentary walks us through the pre-Pixar era, covering the rudimentary computer graphics in development through the 1970s and 1980s, when Star Wars and Star Trek's special effects ignited a new era in filmmaking . Then, the film describes the early day of Pixar's early founders (e.g., John Lasseter) in venturing through Disney's territory of 2-D animations in general, and his happenstance with Steve Jobs. Some immersive footage and reports are featured in the film all along, transporting the viewer back to the days covered. Further, the viewer will also become familiar with both the early technological challenges and later psychological roadblocks that appeared from a small company that became, in essence, an overnight success (thanks to films like Toy Story). The company's challenges with Disney were also described, and the recreation of the Pixar's leadership and offerings, featuring films from a number of talented and creative director, are also covered. The Pixar Story, therefore, brings inthe contextual and personal factors that have made Pixar the company it then was in 2007, and the company it has now become. This is a must-see for the curious mind on Pixar and for those interested in the computer graphics and animation revolution that Pixar helped launch.

Wow...what a great and thorough film. This is the story of Pixar Studio--from its earliest days to the present (which was 2007 at the time). It offers so much more than you might expect from such a film--wonderful access to the folks who built the studio who you might think were too busy or too important to participate--but they did. So, in addition to seeing lots of great films being made, you get to meet folks like John Lasseter and Steve Jobs and see them as people--very excited and creative people, but still people. Amazing access, however, isn't all. You also get a great sense of excitement and fun--and it's practically impossible to watch this film without feeling this and feeling inspired--and the music sure helps with this as well. For fans of CGI...heck, for ANYONE, this is a must-see film and you learn a lot and have a great time learning. See this film.

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!