Pixar – Enter The World!!!

Your childhood is where it all starts – the wildest thoughts but still possible, the most colorful worlds, the talking animals and what not. For most of us, the word “animation” is synonymous with “cartoons” and if you’re talking of cartoons, you can’t miss the good ol’ days of your childhood when Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Tweetie, Tom & Jerry and others were your most sought after characters. Their heroisms, dumbness and pranks left you wanting for more of them.

But then comes the time to say goodbyes. Our childhood starts dissolving in our memories. All the bright and colorful worlds go blurry. The talking and laughing animals and birds seem a laughable idea. We’ve grown up. Cartoons become a thing of the past. Thrills, sex, knowledge-power and real life give us a call.

Amidst all this, somewhere faraway a world was in the making. A world of few technicians, animators and creative minds for whom cartoons were not just a reminiscence of their childhood but an untapped world of entertainment with great potential of satisfaction for them as well as the world. These were the people who gave us our favorite animation movie house “Pixar”, which initially worked on producing film sequences with Lucasfilm, was then purchased by Steve Jobs and finally joined Disney Studios to give us some of the best animated movies we’ve ever seen.

Since more than a decade, each year Pixar takes its worldwide fans on a joyful emotional ride into the most stunning animated worlds of characters that are amusing and still equally believable. Like the touch of Midas converted everything into gold, Pixar’s touch to animation and CGI made every object and being beautiful, real and most of all true to life. Let’s Enter the World of Pixar and have a look at some of its works:

(1) Toy Story (1995)

We see the world from our eyes. Pixar saw it through the eyes of toys by bringing them alive in this wonderful film about life in the world of child’s closest love - toys.

The film was about friendship, unity and rivalry in the world of toys of a boy after he brings to his collection a modern spaceman toy who easily takes the top position over other toys in the list of his favorites. The movie was loved not only by “toy-playing” children but even the youngsters and elders for the story and its adorable toy characters Buzz Lightyear, the spaceman, Woody the cowboy and Mr. Potato Head to name a few. Though the movie has already taken us “To infinity and beyond” of fun and entertainment twice, hope the best is yet to come once again this year.

(2) Finding Nemo (2003)

The most commercially successful Pixar film, grossing over $800 million worldwide, Finding Nemo was the tale of a lost baby fish that started at the bottom of the ocean and reached to the hearts of its viewers and stays there till date.

Audience sincerely appreciated the father-son underwater adventure that explored the animated worlds of rich blue ocean with Nemo as it moved through its coral reef home to the school with its most weirdest, often funny talking sea creatures to the dangerous human world in Sydney and back to ocean with the help of its father and others of its species. No wonder, how lost Nemo is, someone somewhere’s always finding him out.

(3) Cars (2006)

What begun as a world of victory and glamour ended on a stunning realisation and redemption of the meaning of friendship, love and family in this world of Pixar’s live automobiles.

We all loved Lightning McQueen’s pride, Doc Hudson’s secret and the unforgettably funny Mater in this Pixar classic that came with a simple message – “Life means more”. Also, the simultaneous story of Route 66 – a once brimming with traffic countryside road finally abandoned for human convenience and development created a beautifully somber emotion in the lives of movie’s characters and for many of us as well. Combined together by Pixar’s unique story-tellers and animators, Cars surely were winners all the way.

(4) Ratatouille (2007)

Set amidst the beautiful city of Paris (now animated and even better), Ratatouille is the story of following your smallest dreams and making it big in life against all odds – a philosophy that was beautifully explained through the characters Remy (a rat dreaming to become a chef), Linguini (from “nobody” to somebody), Anton Ego (the food critic) and Chef Gusteau (“the figment of Remy’s imagination!!”)

Undoubtedly, the show stealer seems to be the hardcore food critic Anton Ego who’s hard as a shell critic character melted down after trying his childhood favorite “Rat.aa.too.ee” and realising that “Anyone can cook!!” As for the audience, they returned back again to relish one of the Pixar’s most palatable dish.

(5) Wall-E (2008)

Wall-E, acronym for Waste Allocated Load Lifter – Earth Class was another Pixar film that earned applause all over the world for its levels of creativity, story-telling and animation.

A serious issue like what the future might hold for us if we continue to live the way we do today was combined with a light-hearted love story of a lonely robot left behind on planet Earth as Waste Allocated Load Lifter – Earth Class, or Wall-E. The most endearing part of the movie truly was Wall-E’s light-hearted love story with EVA and the friendship he shared with the sole being on Earth’s rubble – a tiny cockroach. Director’s vision for putting an emotion as natural and pure as love in a mere manmade machine was truly appreciated. And the message that a tiny two-leaved plant could save the entire human generation’s a message to us all too. Try interpreting yourself or search for Wall-E.

(6) Up (2009)

When we all thought how much Pixar could excel its own works, it presented us with Up. The film combined Carl Fredickson’s emotional tribute to his wife with Russell’s attempts to bag the Ellie Badge, all in the background of an adventurous trip to South America’s Paradise Falls by a most unbelievable route – blowing Up the house with thousands of balloons. And like always, during the journey, we met some more “Pixar”ed characters like Charles Muntz, Kevin the bird, and a dog talking through its collar – that made the trip as memorable a Pixar film as it can be.

The film’s already won two very deserving Golden Globes – for the animated film and for original background score by Michael Giacchino. We all hope it goes Up somewhere at the top of the list.

As is evident, apart from stunning animation and creativity which have been the foremost strengths of any Pixar film, what has given it a strong fan following is the style in which it creates emotional situations by touching the core sentiments of its lead characters - sometimes by taking you to the most unthinkable worlds and creating a story out of it that stays with you long after and at other times, by simply creating a theme piece that speaks more for the characters than the characters themselves.

No wonder, Pixar lives upto its motto – “We believe in impossible.”

Meet Thakar

meet.thakar@yahoo.com

FORESHADOW PICTURES

Why World Needs Movies?

Movies are one of the most beautiful ways man has ever made to share his imaginations with the rest of the world. For almost all of us, movies are a reflection of our dreams, nightmares, hopes and fears.

A man’s thought takes him as far as he can take it. So, for some of us, our thoughts and imaginations just take the feeble shape of exciting ideas but for others they shape up as world-famous Oscars or Golden Globes. And that’s where cinema shows and its proves its beauty.

All of us have a story to tell, dreams to share and visualize – a world far away from ours where anything is possible and everything can be true. And so we all love movies because they are made up of all our hidden hopes, fun, disappointments, fears, angers and resulting crimes and many more emotions that we are made up of. While watching a movie, you’re in front of a screen but there’s another you on the screen, going very much through what you always thought or dreamt might happen to you – be it seeing the end of the world, or brutally ending your hardest enemies or embarking on a journey who’s actual adventures you’ll never know till you’re a part of them.

And that’s not all. As the story on screen moves ahead, which by now is already yours, you gradually would have found answers to a dozen questions inside you that you’ve never thought of asking anyone but have been searching answers for all the same. They come like a beautiful revelation, one who’s results can help you achieve the best in life, often that which you have never fathomed.

But that’s just a class of viewers. The major one and a rather more compelling group is yet to be talked about.

Hollywood – The name that defines the movies people watch itself gives an array of reasons or genres as we all call them and that brings its viewers from across the world to cinemas for their regular dose of entertainment.

A genre is a class of art having characteristic form. When it comes to Hollywood, it gives a dazzling list of genres to choose from, no matter whether the viewer is a worshipper of crime, a romantic soul or an highly imaginative lover of the real world. Right from wars and crime to dramas and romance to sci-fi thrillers and even fantasy and animation, Hollywood finely serves all its viewers with the most choicest gourmet each year and makes them look forward to more fantastic stuff in form of sequels, novel-based movies and major comebacks, the most recent being by James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino alongwith highly awaited Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

For the hardcore movie lovers, the mere first ever 30 second teaser of their favorite director’s newest flick is enough to bring them to cinemas while the rest follow as the hype builds up over a period of time.

Next follow those who love a very recently developed and endearing genre of movies – animation. A highly colorful and comic world which was earlier assumed exclusively for children now has a very strong fan following thanks to highly imaginative directors and technicians from Pixar and Dreamworks who gave us unforgettable and immensely real characters like Nemo, Wall-E, Lightning Mcqueen and the noodle-slurping Panda.

Often, bookworms have looked forward to seeing the imagination of their authors on big screen and measure how well did they picturise it inside their own minds. Yes, those are the novels and graphic novels based movies we are talking about. The earlier classics include movies like Gone With The Wind, To Kill A Mockingbird, etc. that were pure drama. However, the chain continued, rather improved in the last decade with movies like Jurassic Park, Harry Potter Series, The Da Vinci Code, The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, etc., all of which were based on bestseller books and concentrated not only on drama but even the special effects and sets as were required by the original book’s storyline. These films have been equally successful in creating a strong fan following like any other genre mainly because they brought the reader’s bare ideas and imaginations to stark realities and pushed the reader (now a viewer) to have a better image of what he so far comprehended merely in his mind. And thus, we have enjoyed the experience of facing T-Rex, The Dark Lord and King Xerxes.

Also, there are the age-old but equally entertaining genres of sci-fi thrillers, romantic comedies, horrors, war and crime. Stunned viewers have admired, sobbed, talked about and returned back to see those awesome effects and gargantuan size of cinema in these genres which are still one of the best that Hollywood can and continues to provide.

To sum it all up, movies are more than form of entertainment. They’re a realisation of our wildest thoughts and wackiest imaginations and therefore a part of our self.

or to put in Joker’s words, “You complete me..!”

Meet Thakar
meet.thakar@yahoo.com
FORESHADOW PICTURES