Pixar Animation Studios is a well-known creator for movies, shows, and short films. They have made films such as Toy Story, The Incredibles, and WALL•E. Pixar animators are the storytellers of legend. Their tale is a long and hard one, with trials and speed bumps. Through the hard times they have faced, Pixar has remained victorious, and has continued at full speed, never slowing down. The company has gone through an amazing transformation and really has become one of the wonders of the digital age.
In the beginning, it was George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, that created this group as a way to add animated sequences to films. In 1979, he hired Ed Catmull “to head Lucasfilm’s Computer Division, a group charged with developing state-of-the-art computer technology for the film industry” (Pixar). Ed Catmull was ideal for Lucas’s group because he experimented with many Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) projects. According to To Infinity and Beyond: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, he was the first to animate a hand opening and closing. This hand was later used in the film Futureworld. Another challenge that the group had to face was the Genesis Effect from Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan. According to Pixar’s website, “The scene, which shows an initially lifeless planet being rapidly transformed by lush vegetation, [was] the first completely computer animated sequence in a feature film” (Pixar). Over the next year, the small Graphics Division created “their first film-resolution image, ‘The Road to Point Reyes’”(Pixar). The image was named after the software that rendered it: REYES (Renders Everything You Ever Saw). Over the course of the year the Computer Division released the first full CG animated short film that was ever produced, The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. During 1983, the Computer Division also created hardware such as the Pixar computer, hence the company’s new name, Pixar. In an interview in the Inc. magazine Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar Animation Studios, was asked, “Pixar originally built computers that processed high-resolution images. How did those origins influence your approach to innovation?” Catmull responded, “Because we started out as a hardware company, I learned about manufacturing. And I was surprised that some principles of creativity came out of that environment, although people didn’t think of it that way” (96). In 1986, Lucas wanted to get rid of the Computer Division and sold the company to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who established “the group as an independent company, ‘Pixar’ ” (Pixar). In this time, Disney and Pixar begin their long collaboration by starting work on CAPS, the Computer Animation Production System. Luxo Jr. was also released during this year and was nominated for an Oscar. In the year 1988, Pixar first releases “its proprietary renderer, RenderMan”(Pixar) and created Tin Toy. One year later, Tin Toy won “an Academy Award for Best Film (Animated)” (Pixar). Also appearing in 1989 was the short film Knick Knack in which a snowman in a snowglobe wants to escape from his home. On Pixar’s website, it states, “It [Knick Knack] is Pixar’s first animation produced in stereoscopic 3D”(Pixar). During this year, Pixar started making CGI commercials for other companies, an example of which is a Tropicana advertisement, titled “Wake Up”(Pixar).
In 1991, Disney and Pixar once again join forces, and begin working “on the project that will become Toy Story”(Pixar). In more detail, “Disney and Pixar signed a contract for three films. However, the contract allowed Disney to decide whether or not to do the second or third films” (Buckley 54). In 1995, the world of animation was rocked. Per pixar.com, “Toy Story, the world’s first computer animated feature film, is released in theaters on November 22. It opens at #1 that weekend” and “went on to become the highest grossing film of the year, making $192 million domestically and $362 million worldwide” (Pixar). Toy Story was one of Pixar’s best successes because the world loved it. At last, Pixar was noticed. In 1996, Toy Story was “recognized with Academy Award® nominations for Best Original Song, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay—the first time an animated film is recognized for screenwriting” (Pixar). According to Newsweek, “Pixar announced an epochal deal with none other than the Walt Disney Co., binding the two companies for 10 years and five films.” Those movies include A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars. Pixar also wanted to release Toy Story 2, but sadly, Disney did not want this as part of their deal. In the year 1998, Pixar released their second film, A Bug’s Life, which revolved around a male bug, who learns to fit in his colony. The film is a contrast to Dreamworks Animation SKG’s film Antz, which has the same topic. The film was better than Antz according to the ratings that each movie got. The next year, Pixar released Toy Story 2, which featured the characters that we have come to know and love from Toy Story. The film addresses the topic of what happens when toys get forgotten and not played with. It was originally going to be a direct-to-video sequel, but instead was made into a theatrical movie. Toy Story 2 was “the first film in history to be entirely created, mastered and exhibited digitally” (Pixar). The film “became the highest-grossing film of the year, earning $245 million domestically and $486 million worldwide…(Price 186).
The 2000s brought new light on the topic of CGI animated films. Pixar released movie after movie, each outshining the last. During this time, Pixar moved “to its new building in Emeryville, California” (Pixar). This began a new period of Pixar’s enlightenment. In 2001, Monsters Inc. was released. This film had a huge challenge for the company; Sulley, from the film, Monsters Inc. had more than “...2,310,413 computer-animated hairs...” (Buckley 81). Along with the problems with Sulley’s hairs, Monsters Inc. also gave Pixar two lawsuits. Both of the lawsuits were because of the ideas, and one was because of Mike Wazowski’s character design. But all the trouble was worth it because Monsters Inc. won many awards; one such award was an Academy Award for “Best Music, Original Song Randy Newman, For the song ‘If I Didn't Have You’"(IMDB). In 2003, Pixar released Finding Nemo. It won “Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film (2003): AA-Best Animated Feature Film” (TCM). The movie featured a bigger challenge than Sulley’s hair; it featured an entire ocean full of water. Because of the effects that they made, Pixar had advanced from the days of Toy Story. In 2004, Pixar released its first PG film The Incredibles. The Incredibles, like Finding Nemo, featured something that the animation studio had not done before, which was making a film with humans as its main characters. According to IMDB, The Incredibles won sixty seven awards. The film was loved by many people: super-hero nerds and little kids alike. The next film would follow the steps of Toy Story and become a franchise. That film was Cars, which produced merchandise to go along with the film. The company released toy cars that children, young children especially, could play with. During this time, Steve Jobs is back at Apple and sold Pixar to the animation giant, The Walt Disney Company. According to To Pixar And Beyond, “Steve had enough on his hands at Apple”(Levy, Prologue). Because of this, Steve Jobs went to Disney once again, and sold the company to them. Per CNN Money, “Walt Disney has announced that it is buying Pixar, the animated studio led by Apple head Steve Jobs, in a deal worth $7.4 billion.” Pixar had merged with Disney, and now has the company’s full control over it. When the deal closed, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, both Pixar “co-founders” had gotten jobs at Disney and now were able to have influence inside of both of the companies.
After the two companies merged, Pixar had their second go with director Brad Bird. Bird directed Ratatouille, which featured talking rats with a passion to cook. The film was released in 2007 and was nominated for many awards. During this time, the studio started producing Cars Toons, which is a series of short films starring the characters from the Cars films. In 2008, Pixar released the film WALL•E. The critics loved how Pixar addressed a dark topic but made children aware of the problem of our overflowing trash supplies. The film made use of live action, even if it was in a very small portion. The film had been discussed since the release of Toy Story. The year after WALL•E, Pixar decided to pull the world's heart strings and release UP, a movie about an old man who follows his late wife’s dream to live at the top of Paridise Falls. The movie featured over 10,000 balloons, that carry Carl’s house to the area in South America. This seems like a big challenge. They had to render every one of those 10,000 balloons. This just shows how much time and effort that the employees work on these films. Fifteen years after the release of Toy Story, Pixar produced the third chapter to this saga. Toy Story 3 won countless awards, such as Best Animated Feature Film. In 2011, Pixar released Cars 2, which featured Tow-Mater, as the main star, saving the World Cup race from a herd of bad-guy, James Bond style villains. The film was Pixar’s lowest rated film. According to Rotten Tomatoes, “Cars 2 is as visually appealing as any other Pixar production, but all that dazzle can't disguise the rusty storytelling under the hood.” The next year, Pixar produced the first film with a female lead, Brave. Brave featured aspects from scottish lore and fiction and showed the stubbornness of a princess. In the year 2013, the company released the prequel to Monsters, Inc. titled Monsters University, which showed us what happened in the college years of James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski. The year ended with Pixar’s first animated television special, Toy Story of Terror, which was broadcast on ABC, a company also owned by Disney. The television special was The following year was bland, as there was no film that came out for the company, however that doesn’t mean that they would not produce another animated television special. Toy Story that Time Forgot, just like its predecessor, was made for TV and has the nice, original story like the original movies did.
In 2015, Pixar produced two films. In the summer, they released Inside Out, which told the story of the voices inside of your head. During Thanksgiving, the company released The Good Dinosaur, which told the story of if the dinosaurs did not go extinct. The Good Dinosaur was a step below other Pixar films, but it featured state of the art rendering for the flooding water that Arlo, the main dinosaur, gets lost in. In the year 2016, thirteen years after the release of the original Finding Nemo, Pixar released Finding Dory, which continues the story of the family of fish. In 2017, Pixar produced the sequel Cars 3. The movie features Lightning McQueen once again as the main character trying to race against the rookie cars which have new technology. On November 22, 2017 Pixar released Coco, which is the second Pixar film directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was first released in Mexico, as it is about mexican culture. The film currently is Mexico’s highest grossing animated original film, which is good for Pixar’s reputation. Pixar will also produce a VR game, where you can tour the land of the dead as seen in Coco; This is something that Pixar, as a whole, has never done before. It is completely new. According to Engadget, “ Coco VR will let players explore the vibrant Land of the Dead seen in the film…” Next year, Pixar will release the film The Incredibles 2, the long awaited sequel to The Incredibles. The unfinished trailer was released at D23 expo. Also at D23, Disney and Pixar both announced that in the theme park, Disney’s California Adventure, Paradise Pier, a celebrated area in the park, will go under a major transformation. In 2018, the area will be changed into Pixar Pier, and will feature rides from various Pixar films such as Inside Out, The Incredibles, and Toy Story. According to Disney Parks Blog, “ This new, permanent land in the area that is now Paradise Pier will introduce four new neighborhoods representing beloved Disney·Pixar stories.” In 2019, Pixar plans to release Toy Story 4, which will be a stand-alone sequel when compared to the past three films. All that is known about the film is that it involves Woody trying to find Bo-Peep, who was not present in Toy Story 3. Though the future of Pixar shows two more sequels, Pixar plans only to produce original stories until at least 2020. After these films, Pixar will be making their plate fresh and new.
Pixar is a company that has grown, changed and matured throughout the three decades that it has existed. They have shown us that after time and effort, we can prevail and survive. Pixar has a success story. They have changed from a company that was struggling to earn money, to a common household movie producer. Pixar is not just a company, but is a series of movies, that will forever be in our hearts.
Works Cited
“Our Story.” Pixar Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, www.pixar.com/our-story-1#our-story.
"The Source of Pixar's Magic? Straight Talk." Inc, vol. 36, no. 3, Apr. 2014, pp. 96-98. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=95295726&site=ehost-live.
Corliss, Richard. "Can Pixar Still Go Up?." Time, vol. 181, no. 24, 24 June 2013, p. 56. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=88213983&site=ehost-live.
Levy, Steven and Katie Hafner. "Pixar's Magic Kingdom." Newsweek, vol. 129, no. 11, 17 Mar. 1997, p. 72. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9703116557&site=ehost-live.
“Awards.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0198781/awards.
“Awards for Finding Nemo.” Turner Classic Movies, www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/446316/Finding-Nemo/awards.html.
Buckley, A. M. Pixar: the Company and Its Founders. ABDO Publishing Company, 2011.
Levy, Lawrence. To Pixar and beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History. Mariner Books, 2017.
Monica, Paul R. La. “Disney Buys Pixar.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 25 Jan. 2006, money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/.
Paik, Karen, and Leslie Iwerks. To Infinity and beyond!: the Story of Pixar Animation Studios. Virgin, 2007.
Price, David Andrew. The Pixar Touch: the Making of a Company. Vintage Books, 2009.
“Pixar Pier to Bring New Incredicoaster and More to Disney California Adventure Park Summer 2018.” Disney Parks Blog, disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2017/11/pixar-pier-to-bring-new-incredicoaster-and-more-to-disney-california-adventure-park-summer-2018/.
Lasseter, John, et al. “Cars 2.” Cars 2 (2011) - Rotten Tomatoes, Rotten Tomatoes, 7 Nov. 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cars_2/.
IMDb. "The Incredibles-Awards." IMDb, IMDb, www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/awards?ref_=tt_awd.
Lumb, David. “Pixar's 'Coco VR' lets you explore the land of the dead.” Engadget, 12 Oct. 2017, www.engadget.com/2017/10/11/pixars-coco-vr-lets-you-explore-the-land-of-the-dead/
Other Sources Used:
“Pixar Has No Sequels Scheduled After The Incredibles II in 2019, Plus More Movie News.”Rotten Tomatoes Movie and TV News Pixar Has No Sequels Scheduled After The Incredibles II in 2019 Plus More Movie News Comments, editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/pixar-has-no-sequels-scheduled-after-the-incredibles-ii-in-2019-plus-more-movie-news/.
Bird, Brad. “The Incredibles 2.” The Incredibles 2 (2018) - Rotten Tomatoes, 14 June 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_incredibles_2.
WRITER, Liam Maguren LEAD. “Why ‘Finding Nemo’ Is the Greatest Pixar Film Ever.” Flicks, Flicks.co.nz, 23 June 2016, www.flicks.co.nz/blog/news/why-finding-nemo-is-the-greatest-pixar-film-ever/.
Heidi. “‘Toy Story 4’ Timeline: What We REALLY Know So Far.” Toy Story Fangirl, 4 Nov. 2015, toystoryfangirl.com/2015/09/14/toy-story-4-timeline-what-we-really-know-so-far/.
“Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales Presented by Disney World of Cars.” Disney Cars, Walt Disney Company, 27 Oct. 2008, cars.disney.com/maters-tall-tales.
Gerson, Daniel, et al. “Monsters University.” Monsters University (2013) - Rotten Tomatoes, 4 Nov. 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters_university/.
Aldrich, Matthew, and Adrian Molina. “Coco.” Coco (2017) - Rotten Tomatoes, 7 Nov. 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coco_2017/.
“Change of Subject: The Physics of `Up' -- How Many Balloons Would It Really Take to Lift a House?” Chicago Tribune, blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2009/06/the-physics-of-up-how-many-balloons-would-it-really-take-to-lift-a-house.html.
Amid Amidi | 11/06/2017 1:45 am | 34. “Mexico Is Going Loco For 'Coco;' Film Is On A Record-Breaking Pace.” Cartoon Brew, 6 Nov. 2017, www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office-report/mexico-going-loco-coco-154461.html.
Unkrich, Lee, et al. “Toy Story 3.” Rotten Tomatoes, Rotten Tomatoes, 22 June 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/toy_story_3/.
“Toy Story 3 Awards.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/awards.
Reardon, Jim, and Andrew Stanton. “WALL-E.” Rotten Tomatoes, Rotten Tomatoes, 22 Aug. 2017, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e.
In the beginning, it was George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, that created this group as a way to add animated sequences to films. In 1979, he hired Ed Catmull “to head Lucasfilm’s Computer Division, a group charged with developing state-of-the-art computer technology for the film industry” (Pixar). Ed Catmull was ideal for Lucas’s group because he experimented with many Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) projects. According to To Infinity and Beyond: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios, he was the first to animate a hand opening and closing. This hand was later used in the film Futureworld. Another challenge that the group had to face was the Genesis Effect from Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan. According to Pixar’s website, “The scene, which shows an initially lifeless planet being rapidly transformed by lush vegetation, [was] the first completely computer animated sequence in a feature film” (Pixar). Over the next year, the small Graphics Division created “their first film-resolution image, ‘The Road to Point Reyes’”(Pixar). The image was named after the software that rendered it: REYES (Renders Everything You Ever Saw). Over the course of the year the Computer Division released the first full CG animated short film that was ever produced, The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. During 1983, the Computer Division also created hardware such as the Pixar computer, hence the company’s new name, Pixar. In an interview in the Inc. magazine Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar Animation Studios, was asked, “Pixar originally built computers that processed high-resolution images. How did those origins influence your approach to innovation?” Catmull responded, “Because we started out as a hardware company, I learned about manufacturing. And I was surprised that some principles of creativity came out of that environment, although people didn’t think of it that way” (96). In 1986, Lucas wanted to get rid of the Computer Division and sold the company to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who established “the group as an independent company, ‘Pixar’ ” (Pixar). In this time, Disney and Pixar begin their long collaboration by starting work on CAPS, the Computer Animation Production System. Luxo Jr. was also released during this year and was nominated for an Oscar. In the year 1988, Pixar first releases “its proprietary renderer, RenderMan”(Pixar) and created Tin Toy. One year later, Tin Toy won “an Academy Award for Best Film (Animated)” (Pixar). Also appearing in 1989 was the short film Knick Knack in which a snowman in a snowglobe wants to escape from his home. On Pixar’s website, it states, “It [Knick Knack] is Pixar’s first animation produced in stereoscopic 3D”(Pixar). During this year, Pixar started making CGI commercials for other companies, an example of which is a Tropicana advertisement, titled “Wake Up”(Pixar).
In 1991, Disney and Pixar once again join forces, and begin working “on the project that will become Toy Story”(Pixar). In more detail, “Disney and Pixar signed a contract for three films. However, the contract allowed Disney to decide whether or not to do the second or third films” (Buckley 54). In 1995, the world of animation was rocked. Per pixar.com, “Toy Story, the world’s first computer animated feature film, is released in theaters on November 22. It opens at #1 that weekend” and “went on to become the highest grossing film of the year, making $192 million domestically and $362 million worldwide” (Pixar). Toy Story was one of Pixar’s best successes because the world loved it. At last, Pixar was noticed. In 1996, Toy Story was “recognized with Academy Award® nominations for Best Original Song, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay—the first time an animated film is recognized for screenwriting” (Pixar). According to Newsweek, “Pixar announced an epochal deal with none other than the Walt Disney Co., binding the two companies for 10 years and five films.” Those movies include A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars. Pixar also wanted to release Toy Story 2, but sadly, Disney did not want this as part of their deal. In the year 1998, Pixar released their second film, A Bug’s Life, which revolved around a male bug, who learns to fit in his colony. The film is a contrast to Dreamworks Animation SKG’s film Antz, which has the same topic. The film was better than Antz according to the ratings that each movie got. The next year, Pixar released Toy Story 2, which featured the characters that we have come to know and love from Toy Story. The film addresses the topic of what happens when toys get forgotten and not played with. It was originally going to be a direct-to-video sequel, but instead was made into a theatrical movie. Toy Story 2 was “the first film in history to be entirely created, mastered and exhibited digitally” (Pixar). The film “became the highest-grossing film of the year, earning $245 million domestically and $486 million worldwide…(Price 186).
The 2000s brought new light on the topic of CGI animated films. Pixar released movie after movie, each outshining the last. During this time, Pixar moved “to its new building in Emeryville, California” (Pixar). This began a new period of Pixar’s enlightenment. In 2001, Monsters Inc. was released. This film had a huge challenge for the company; Sulley, from the film, Monsters Inc. had more than “...2,310,413 computer-animated hairs...” (Buckley 81). Along with the problems with Sulley’s hairs, Monsters Inc. also gave Pixar two lawsuits. Both of the lawsuits were because of the ideas, and one was because of Mike Wazowski’s character design. But all the trouble was worth it because Monsters Inc. won many awards; one such award was an Academy Award for “Best Music, Original Song Randy Newman, For the song ‘If I Didn't Have You’"(IMDB). In 2003, Pixar released Finding Nemo. It won “Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film (2003): AA-Best Animated Feature Film” (TCM). The movie featured a bigger challenge than Sulley’s hair; it featured an entire ocean full of water. Because of the effects that they made, Pixar had advanced from the days of Toy Story. In 2004, Pixar released its first PG film The Incredibles. The Incredibles, like Finding Nemo, featured something that the animation studio had not done before, which was making a film with humans as its main characters. According to IMDB, The Incredibles won sixty seven awards. The film was loved by many people: super-hero nerds and little kids alike. The next film would follow the steps of Toy Story and become a franchise. That film was Cars, which produced merchandise to go along with the film. The company released toy cars that children, young children especially, could play with. During this time, Steve Jobs is back at Apple and sold Pixar to the animation giant, The Walt Disney Company. According to To Pixar And Beyond, “Steve had enough on his hands at Apple”(Levy, Prologue). Because of this, Steve Jobs went to Disney once again, and sold the company to them. Per CNN Money, “Walt Disney has announced that it is buying Pixar, the animated studio led by Apple head Steve Jobs, in a deal worth $7.4 billion.” Pixar had merged with Disney, and now has the company’s full control over it. When the deal closed, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, both Pixar “co-founders” had gotten jobs at Disney and now were able to have influence inside of both of the companies.
After the two companies merged, Pixar had their second go with director Brad Bird. Bird directed Ratatouille, which featured talking rats with a passion to cook. The film was released in 2007 and was nominated for many awards. During this time, the studio started producing Cars Toons, which is a series of short films starring the characters from the Cars films. In 2008, Pixar released the film WALL•E. The critics loved how Pixar addressed a dark topic but made children aware of the problem of our overflowing trash supplies. The film made use of live action, even if it was in a very small portion. The film had been discussed since the release of Toy Story. The year after WALL•E, Pixar decided to pull the world's heart strings and release UP, a movie about an old man who follows his late wife’s dream to live at the top of Paridise Falls. The movie featured over 10,000 balloons, that carry Carl’s house to the area in South America. This seems like a big challenge. They had to render every one of those 10,000 balloons. This just shows how much time and effort that the employees work on these films. Fifteen years after the release of Toy Story, Pixar produced the third chapter to this saga. Toy Story 3 won countless awards, such as Best Animated Feature Film. In 2011, Pixar released Cars 2, which featured Tow-Mater, as the main star, saving the World Cup race from a herd of bad-guy, James Bond style villains. The film was Pixar’s lowest rated film. According to Rotten Tomatoes, “Cars 2 is as visually appealing as any other Pixar production, but all that dazzle can't disguise the rusty storytelling under the hood.” The next year, Pixar produced the first film with a female lead, Brave. Brave featured aspects from scottish lore and fiction and showed the stubbornness of a princess. In the year 2013, the company released the prequel to Monsters, Inc. titled Monsters University, which showed us what happened in the college years of James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski. The year ended with Pixar’s first animated television special, Toy Story of Terror, which was broadcast on ABC, a company also owned by Disney. The television special was The following year was bland, as there was no film that came out for the company, however that doesn’t mean that they would not produce another animated television special. Toy Story that Time Forgot, just like its predecessor, was made for TV and has the nice, original story like the original movies did.
In 2015, Pixar produced two films. In the summer, they released Inside Out, which told the story of the voices inside of your head. During Thanksgiving, the company released The Good Dinosaur, which told the story of if the dinosaurs did not go extinct. The Good Dinosaur was a step below other Pixar films, but it featured state of the art rendering for the flooding water that Arlo, the main dinosaur, gets lost in. In the year 2016, thirteen years after the release of the original Finding Nemo, Pixar released Finding Dory, which continues the story of the family of fish. In 2017, Pixar produced the sequel Cars 3. The movie features Lightning McQueen once again as the main character trying to race against the rookie cars which have new technology. On November 22, 2017 Pixar released Coco, which is the second Pixar film directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was first released in Mexico, as it is about mexican culture. The film currently is Mexico’s highest grossing animated original film, which is good for Pixar’s reputation. Pixar will also produce a VR game, where you can tour the land of the dead as seen in Coco; This is something that Pixar, as a whole, has never done before. It is completely new. According to Engadget, “ Coco VR will let players explore the vibrant Land of the Dead seen in the film…” Next year, Pixar will release the film The Incredibles 2, the long awaited sequel to The Incredibles. The unfinished trailer was released at D23 expo. Also at D23, Disney and Pixar both announced that in the theme park, Disney’s California Adventure, Paradise Pier, a celebrated area in the park, will go under a major transformation. In 2018, the area will be changed into Pixar Pier, and will feature rides from various Pixar films such as Inside Out, The Incredibles, and Toy Story. According to Disney Parks Blog, “ This new, permanent land in the area that is now Paradise Pier will introduce four new neighborhoods representing beloved Disney·Pixar stories.” In 2019, Pixar plans to release Toy Story 4, which will be a stand-alone sequel when compared to the past three films. All that is known about the film is that it involves Woody trying to find Bo-Peep, who was not present in Toy Story 3. Though the future of Pixar shows two more sequels, Pixar plans only to produce original stories until at least 2020. After these films, Pixar will be making their plate fresh and new.
Pixar is a company that has grown, changed and matured throughout the three decades that it has existed. They have shown us that after time and effort, we can prevail and survive. Pixar has a success story. They have changed from a company that was struggling to earn money, to a common household movie producer. Pixar is not just a company, but is a series of movies, that will forever be in our hearts.
Works Cited
“Our Story.” Pixar Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, www.pixar.com/our-story-1#our-story.
"The Source of Pixar's Magic? Straight Talk." Inc, vol. 36, no. 3, Apr. 2014, pp. 96-98. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=95295726&site=ehost-live.
Corliss, Richard. "Can Pixar Still Go Up?." Time, vol. 181, no. 24, 24 June 2013, p. 56. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=88213983&site=ehost-live.
Levy, Steven and Katie Hafner. "Pixar's Magic Kingdom." Newsweek, vol. 129, no. 11, 17 Mar. 1997, p. 72. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.catalog.poudrelibraries.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9703116557&site=ehost-live.
“Awards.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0198781/awards.
“Awards for Finding Nemo.” Turner Classic Movies, www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/446316/Finding-Nemo/awards.html.
Buckley, A. M. Pixar: the Company and Its Founders. ABDO Publishing Company, 2011.
Levy, Lawrence. To Pixar and beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History. Mariner Books, 2017.
Monica, Paul R. La. “Disney Buys Pixar.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 25 Jan. 2006, money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/.
Paik, Karen, and Leslie Iwerks. To Infinity and beyond!: the Story of Pixar Animation Studios. Virgin, 2007.
Price, David Andrew. The Pixar Touch: the Making of a Company. Vintage Books, 2009.
“Pixar Pier to Bring New Incredicoaster and More to Disney California Adventure Park Summer 2018.” Disney Parks Blog, disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2017/11/pixar-pier-to-bring-new-incredicoaster-and-more-to-disney-california-adventure-park-summer-2018/.
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