Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Stacy Keach | ... | Narrator (voice) | |
John Lasseter | ... | Self | |
Brad Bird | ... | Self | |
John Musker | ... | Self | |
Ron Clements | ... | Self | |
Ollie Johnston | ... | Self | |
Frank Thomas | ... | Self | |
Randy Cartwright | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
Ron Miller | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
Glen Keane | ... | Self | |
Don Hahn | ... | Self | |
Alvy Ray Smith | ... | Self | |
Ed Catmull | ... | Self | |
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Alexander Schure | ... | Self |
George Lucas | ... | Self |
A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
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.