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DAY 311

Nobody at Disney or Pixar expected Toy Story to be not just a hit, but a critically acclaimed hit, so there was a lot of tension for what Pixar's 2nd movie would be. That ended up being A Bug's Life, released in 1998, not only 3 years after Toy Story, but also, coincidentally enough, the same year as Dreamworks Animation's first animated movie: Antz. There's been endless debate about who came up with the "animated CG movie about bugs" first, but I feel that Dreamworks stole the idea. Not because of some Disney-bias, but knowing Jeffery Katzenberg's history with Disney, Antz did feel a bit like a "take that" to the former empire he was friends with. Glad the got the controversy over with quickly; back to the point! The story of A Bug's Life is about a colony of ants who are part of an offering with grasshoppers, who are really doing this to keep the ants in line. One optimistic inventor ant named Flik decides that enough is enough and ventures out to find warrior bugs. He mistakes circus bugs for warriors but they inevitabally plot a way to make them actually appear as warriors and invent a plan that actually will rid them of the grasshoppers and bring the ants' independence back. As you've probably read (and know for those who've seen the movie), the story's very simple and standard, particularly with the liar revealed and misunderstanding tropes being the driving forces, but they aren't nearly as blatant or cliched as they'd be with other movies after this. You sense a casual passage of time as the season changes and also gives the movie a lot of build-up, there's a small commentary on oppression and dictatorship (which please God, don't let that happen starting tomorrow), the jokes range from subtle lines to visual gags, it can get a bit darker than I remember (just a smidge darker than how dark Pixar normally goes) and there's lots of nice montages (from the circus acts, building the bird, the climax, etc). The animation is good. All the close-up enlarged perspective shots look spectacular (probably the highlight), the designs for all the different insects are cute, lots of different textures, the use of regular normal objects reconceptualized into a bug's everyday life is clever (especially with an inventor as the lead we get a lot of inventions) and there's a really great use of shading and lighting. The characters are like the story: cliched but easy to look past. Flik is the ambitious wide-eyed inventor who's the outcast from his kind, Princess Atta's a stressed out ruler-to-be, Hopper I feel is an underrated Pixar villain with how cunning, manipulative and dictator-ish he is, Dot is the cute kid who has the most faith in the main hero, the ants don't get that much arches aside from one trait, same said for the grasshoppers only they can get creepy, lots of the background bugs serve mostly as jokes and each of the circus bugs are great. Heimlich's bottomless urge to eat, Francis' gender confusion, Gypsy and Manny's small romance, Rosie's ditzy sarcasm, Dim's big dumb child-like innocence, Slim's struggles with being a prop, Tuck and Roll's unintelligable foreign-ness (I think you could blame these guys for starting the Minions schtick), even PT's shameless money-grubbing gets a few laughs. All the characters do have arches that are overcome at the end and they all work together as teams really well. This would also be the first movie to have the extremely short-lived Pixar bloopers, which are really hilarious, add onto another layer of "these are actually real characters and not just animated" we thrive on and is just a funny concept. It's still a shame they didn't continue doing these after 3 tries (even though movies like Nemo and Up I'll admit would feel out of place with them attached). Bringing it all together, it's far from Pixar's greatest and it's nowhere near as their worst either. It does have a few issues but even then, I'm not really annoyed with how they're portrayed. Like I said from the start, this was only Pixar's second movie and more likely than not, were still figuring out their identity (as were we). It's able to crawl itself into the "OK" territory of Pixar's quality.

DAY 313

Comment & enjoy!

Description
DAY 311

Nobody at Disney or Pixar expected Toy Story to be not just a hit, but a critically acclaimed hit, so there was a lot of tension for what Pixar's 2nd movie would be. That ended up being A Bug's Life, released in 1998, not only 3 years after Toy Story, but also, coincidentally enough, the same year as Dreamworks Animation's first animated movie: Antz. There's been endless debate about who came up with the "animated CG movie about bugs" first, but I feel that Dreamworks stole the idea. Not because of some Disney-bias, but knowing Jeffery Katzenberg's history with Disney, Antz did feel a bit like a "take that" to the former empire he was friends with. Glad the got the controversy over with quickly; back to the point! The story of A Bug's Life is about a colony of ants who are part of an offering with grasshoppers, who are really doing this to keep the ants in line. One optimistic inventor ant named Flik decides that enough is enough and ventures out to find warrior bugs. He mistakes circus bugs for warriors but they inevitabally plot a way to make them actually appear as warriors and invent a plan that actually will rid them of the grasshoppers and bring the ants' independence back. As you've probably read (and know for those who've seen the movie), the story's very simple and standard, particularly with the liar revealed and misunderstanding tropes being the driving forces, but they aren't nearly as blatant or cliched as they'd be with other movies after this. You sense a casual passage of time as the season changes and also gives the movie a lot of build-up, there's a small commentary on oppression and dictatorship (which please God, don't let that happen starting tomorrow), the jokes range from subtle lines to visual gags, it can get a bit darker than I remember (just a smidge darker than how dark Pixar normally goes) and there's lots of nice montages (from the circus acts, building the bird, the climax, etc). The animation is good. All the close-up enlarged perspective shots look spectacular (probably the highlight), the designs for all the different insects are cute, lots of different textures, the use of regular normal objects reconceptualized into a bug's everyday life is clever (especially with an inventor as the lead we get a lot of inventions) and there's a really great use of shading and lighting. The characters are like the story: cliched but easy to look past. Flik is the ambitious wide-eyed inventor who's the outcast from his kind, Princess Atta's a stressed out ruler-to-be, Hopper I feel is an underrated Pixar villain with how cunning, manipulative and dictator-ish he is, Dot is the cute kid who has the most faith in the main hero, the ants don't get that much arches aside from one trait, same said for the grasshoppers only they can get creepy, lots of the background bugs serve mostly as jokes and each of the circus bugs are great. Heimlich's bottomless urge to eat, Francis' gender confusion, Gypsy and Manny's small romance, Rosie's ditzy sarcasm, Dim's big dumb child-like innocence, Slim's struggles with being a prop, Tuck and Roll's unintelligable foreign-ness (I think you could blame these guys for starting the Minions schtick), even PT's shameless money-grubbing gets a few laughs. All the characters do have arches that are overcome at the end and they all work together as teams really well. This would also be the first movie to have the extremely short-lived Pixar bloopers, which are really hilarious, add onto another layer of "these are actually real characters and not just animated" we thrive on and is just a funny concept. It's still a shame they didn't continue doing these after 3 tries (even though movies like Nemo and Up I'll admit would feel out of place with them attached). Bringing it all together, it's far from Pixar's greatest and it's nowhere near as their worst either. It does have a few issues but even then, I'm not really annoyed with how they're portrayed. Like I said from the start, this was only Pixar's second movie and more likely than not, were still figuring out their identity (as were we). It's able to crawl itself into the "OK" territory of Pixar's quality.

DAY 313

Comment & enjoy!