The Pixar Story

As Toy Story 2 is re-released in a gorgeous 3D treatment, Seb Patrick takes a look at the filmography of a revolutionary animation studio. Part one: Toy Story to Finding Nemo.

Toy Story (1995)
When John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter - a band of 3D rendering animators making short films and adverts in their spare time - decided to make a 30-minute Christmas special out of a short film of Lasseter's called Tin Toy, nobody could have predicted that the face of animation (and indeed of cinema itself) was about to change forever. Five years later, with titles like Did So, Did Not and I'm With Stupid considered and rejected, and Tin Toy's character Tinny replaced by a certain space ranger named Buzz Lightyear, an entire genre of cinema was created - not just that of digital animation, but one in which supposed kids' films were actually as sharp, witty, moving and entertaining for adults as any "grown-up" cinema.
Worldwide gross: $362m. Major awards: Academy Award nominations for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score, Best Original Song & Best Original Screenplay. Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical & Best Original Song.


A Bug's Life (1998)
In one of those strange coincidences that seem to hit the film world every so often (remember Deep Impact and Armageddon? Red Planet and Mission to Mars?), Andrew Stanton's "The Ant and the Grasshopper"-inspired tale initially seemed to suffer from comparison to the same year's Woody Allen-starring and similarly-themed Antz, Dreamworks' first CG animated film. But despite seeming like a slightly more "kiddie"-orientated film than both Toy Story and Antz, A Bug's Life is a surprisingly strong little story with nods to the likes of Seven Samurai. The team's dedication to innovation and attention to detail continued unabated, too, with tricks like a "bug cam" POV developed during pre-production. Needless to say, Pixar had the last laugh, with the film eventually grossing over twice as much as its competitor.
Worldwide gross: $364m. Major awards: Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score. Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score.


Toy Story 2 (1999)
By the late ‘90s, Disney had set up a fairly successful market of straight-to-video sequels to a number of their major films, beginning with 1994's Aladdin: The Return of Jafar. Slated to join that lineup of sometimes-half-decent but ultimately modest features was a 60-minute sequel to Toy Story. Thankfully, Disney execs saw Pixar's work-in-progress and realised it was far too good to be restricted to a video release aimed only at kids. Not that everybody was happy, mind - a dispute between Pixar and Disney over just whether the film counted as part of contractual obligations or not culminated in the 2004 announcement of their parting of the ways, but was resolved two years later with Disney's buyout of the animators.
Worldwide gross: $485m. Major awards: Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical.


Monsters, Inc. (2001)
After Lasseter's Toy Story and Stanton's A Bug's Life, Pete Docter was the next of the Pixar gang to make his directorial debut, with an idea that came out of a brainstorming session in the mid ‘90s. A highly complex production, Monsters, Inc. was the first time that the team had had to create an entirely original world - that in which the monsters spend their everyday non-working lives - rather than replicating something "real". Once again, attention to detail was paramount, with backstories created not only for the assorted monsters, but the buildings of Monstropolis themselves. The resulting film was thus something unique and unexpected in both its concept and its style. It also scored Randy Newman his first Oscar - after fourteen previous nominations.
Worldwide gross: $525m. Major awards: Academy Award for Best Original Song. Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing. Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation. BAFTA Children's Award for Best Feature Film.


Finding Nemo (2003)
Although Pixar had long-since established themselves as titans of the animated genre, nobody was quite prepared for the runaway success of Stanton's next film. Inspired by a trip to an aquarium, with ideas fleshed out by various memories of Stanton's (including the setting of an aquarium in his childhood dentist's surgery), Finding Nemo's themes of parental issues and dedicated friendship struck a resounding chord with audiences to the tune of a staggering $865m worldwide box-office haul while also becoming one of the biggest-selling DVDs of all time. It also bagged the studio the first of four Best Animated Feature Oscars.

Worldwide gross: $865m. Major awards: Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay and Best Sound Editing. Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy. BAFTA nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Part Two: The Incredibles to Up

Click here to read our review of Toy Story 2 3D, in cinemas 22 January