Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
UK certification U | UK RRP £13.99 | Runtime 52 minutes | Directed by John Lasseter & others
As we all sit patiently twiddling our thumbs awaiting the release of the oh-man-it-looks-SOOO-good WALL-E, here's a chance to see how the geniuses at Pixar began their animation careers — and yes, the word 'shorts' in the title is a dead giveaway, because short films are where it all began.
How Pixar started and grew to the computer animation powerhouse it is today is covered pretty thoroughly in the bonus documentary The Pixar Shorts: A Short History, which I'll deal with in the Extras below. So let's get onto the shorts themselves — 13 of them, ranging from The Adventures of Andre & Wally B in 1984 through to 2007's Lifted, which screened before Pixar's previous big-screen masterpiece, Ratatouille. Throw in the short that got Pixar its now-familiar lamp logo (Luxo Jr) and three Oscar winners (Tin Toy, Geri's Game and For The Birds) and you've got a collection of work that any animation house would be proud of. But wait, there's more. Who can forget the delightful snowglobe-trapped snowman in Knick Knack? Or the Monsters Inc stars, Mike and Sulley, in Mike's New Car? Or the sad litte unicycle in Red's Dream?
And with all the shorts there are three crucial ingredients that had been absent from computer animation until then: emotion, character and storytelling. A lot of other companies had been focussing on the technology; Pixar was interested in that too, but was more interested in how that technology could be used to make films that would have as much impact on an audience as a live-action film. And the Pixar folks succeeded, in spades. This DVD is a unique historical document, and the shorts — each of which has an optional filmmakers' commentary can easily be enjoyed over and over again.
EXTRAS **** Would you believe that Pixar began as a computer hardware company? Yup, and its main product was the Pixar Image Computer. But in the background was a team of people working on software development — in particular, software for image rendering. Enter animator John Lasseter to work with the team and the rest, as they say, is history. This 22-minute documentary features all the main players involved in the rise of Pixar, from being a division of Lucasfilm through to its purchase by Apple's Steve Jobs and its eventual acquisition by Disney. Also included in the extras are four shorts that the company made for Sesame Street, all starring Luxo Jr. Awwww.