Those who saw Finding Nemo most likely also caught the teaser trailer for Pixar’s next movie “The Incredibles”.
I, for one, am absolutely pumped to see this movie. First of all, it features Brad Bird as writer/ director. Bird, as you may know, also directed The Iron Giant, which has to be about my most favorite movie. The story telling possibilities of Bird & Pixar had me excited before seeing the trailer, but after seeing this short but wonderful teaser, I’m absolutely psyched.
As a bonus, the folks at Pixar have finally made an appealing looking human. This has always been Pixar’s Achilles’ heel, IMHO. They seemed to be able to make appealing fish, bugs, toys, monsters and desk lamps. But humans? Always looked a little off to me. The character in the trailer is obviously exagerated in cartoonish proportions, but he still looks great.
I think this may be due partially to Bird’s IG team and Pixar’s existing staff locking horns. I read that Bird is pushing Pixar’s staff in ways they’re not especially comfortable with. This could push them to make a huge leap from Nemo… or it could be disasterous too, I suppose. My money’s on the former
Either way, I’ll be there in 17 months on November 4th 2004 to see this movie.
I about near died laughing at it. The part where he slaps his hand on the desk while struggling with his back to the camera is EXACTLY what my father used to do when he was discouraged.
Boy with this and City of Heroes coming out on MMORPG, 2004 is gonna be the year of the Superhero.
I can’t wait to get to playing to hear the inevitable “Anyone want to team up with me to help me get my belt cinched?”
I like superhero comedies. Larger-than-life characters make for bigger targets.
But during the linked trailer, I had to wonder why they used “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” for the soundtrack. Couldn’t they get Disney to pony up for some heroic music?
I gotta disagree. I thought the music choice was inspired. The juxtaposition of this lumbering hulk trying to fasten a belt against the super-suave 007 music cracked me up even more.
Also keep in mind that adding the soundtrack is one of the last steps in making a movie, and is seldom done by the time they’re making the trailer. So whoever is putting the trailer together (usually not the people who are making the movie) grab whatever music they feel is appropriate. Hence the use of “Carmina Burana” in almost every action movie trailer in the last fifteen years.
The trailer was great, movie looks to be amazing. But…
WHY THE HELL IS THIS MOVIE BEING PROMOTED SO EARLY??
I have to assume the producers don’t have 6 & 8 year-old boys. Who, by the way, having SEEN the trailer, will be asking “how many more days until The Incredibles is out?” for the next 500+ days. Give me strength.
All of Pixar’s movies have always had humans as tertiary characters. With the exception of Geri’s Game, which had a fantastically well realised human, and of course Boo in Monsters Inc.
The thing is, once they’ve established a style for their primary characters and environment, they then have to match their humans with that style. The humans in Toy Story are really quite generic, and there were none in Bug’s Life. Toy Story 2 had to follow the lead in the first one, and Monsters Inc only had very young kids, which didn’t stray much from the style established in Toy Story.
It’s hard to break away from something like that when they’re still establishing a style of their own.
Brad Bird obviously is going in a totally separate direction, and can establish his own storytelling universe. But John Lasseter’s next one, Cars, will likely go back to the established style for his human characters (if there are any, and I imagine there will be).
I don’t think they’re bad designs, they’re just a bit stylistically mundane.
I’ll agree that in Geri’s Game the old man was well done, as was Al from TS2. However, I think these characters were eaiser to do because they were unattractive characters. It’s long been said that it’s easier to do caricatures of ugly people. There’s more to exagerate on someone with a big head, long nose, fat gut, etc. When you have to draw/ render an attractive person, it gets harder. You exagerate features and it often stops looking like that person/ looking attractive. To echo Guano’s point, I think maybe this is where Pixar’s been hitting the wall, so to speak. Trying to make attractive yet distinctive lead characters.
Hopefully, Brad Bird will push them out of this self imposed rut. All the characters from the Iron Giant were distinctive and appealing. Let’s see if he can corral the Pixar folks into creating the same sort of chemistry in 3D.
Has anyone heard any info about Cars? I heard it may have something to do with Route 66.
Err, when was this? I must’ve missed it. Diablo II was passable. Starcraft was awful. The only videogame that’s been able to do realistic human characters in cutscenes is Square with the Final Fantasy series. So there.
And I’ve got problems with the “this is easier to do because they’re unattractive” theory. Pixar humans are heavily stylized, because they’re cartoons. They’re not trying to go for hyper-realism.
And I wish people wouldn’t reduce the movies to being “Brad Bird” or “John Lasseter.” There are tons of people who work on these things. No doubt the two are a huge force behind their movies, but they don’t do everything, and it’s a disservice to give one guy all the credit.
I remember reading in one of the articles about Pixar a few weeks ago(tying in to Finding Nemo, don’cha know), someone reported that Pixar already has the skill to do near-photorealistic humans, but deliberately avoids doing so – it seems they deliberately prefer a more cartoonish style to increase the visual appeal.
I don’t find this hard to believe at all; just by looking at Geri (“Geri’s Game”) and Al (Toy Story 2), and imagining a slight increae in detail and quality, and I can easily see Pixar doing realistic humans without breaking a sweat.
That’s Pixar’s new gimmick, it seems – release of Pixar Movie N includes an early teaser for Pixar Movie N+1.
Oh, and Pixar Movie N includes a cameo from Pixar Movie N+1, along with possible cameos from earlier works. Marlin (the father clownfish in Finding Nemo) had a cameo in Monsters Inc., and supposedly Finding Nemo has something from The Incredibles hidden in it…
Let’s look at the combined output of Brad Bird and Pixar, that I’m aware of:
Brad Bird The Iron Giant Quite possibly my favorite movie ever
Worked as a consultant early on for The Simpsons, quite possibly my favorite TV show ever
Pixar Monster’s Inc, 1&2 Both winning, hilarious movies A Bug’s Life The weakest Pixar so far, but still funny and fun Finding Nemo and Monster’s Inc Also both laugh-out-loud funny, exciting, and touching, without being sappy
That’s one heck of a track record. If The Incredibles is anything less than stellar it will be a massive surprise. And if nothing else, the fact that it isn’t being released until November '04 means that there will be something to look forward to in the first holiday season that doesn’t have a Lord of the Rings movie…
Cool, you know any more examples of the N+1’s? I knew they always had cameos of N-X (where x=any previous movie) but never noticed on second viewing of older movies that there were future clues. Then again, I almost never pick up on the N-X cameos either unless it’s the star ball that got squished by Luxor Jr.
I really dug the part where the belt lay on the floor and he sat totally still, staring at it as if he were about to give up. That tiny little short related human frustration so very well. The whole theater cracked up. Good stuff. Can’t wait. Anyone hear any more about the plot? Just fill in the blanks if you know:
Retired superhero must _________ before_________ happens to ________, and along the way learns the meaning of ________.
Finding Nemo has a shot of a Buzz Lightyear doll (my memory is that it’s on the floor by a toychest, so it’s probably in the dentist’s waiiting room). I don’t recall the Luxor ball, but I’m sure it was there. And I didn’t see any Bug’s Life or Monsters, Inc. references, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
I don’t think anyone thinks these guys are actually making these movies by their lonesome. There are hundreds of people who work on these things. From character design & voicework to backgrounds and the thankless job of animating the countless frames of film (in a digital sense, of course).
However, the director still has the final say on everything (except when the producer starts throwing his/her/their weight around). This is more apparant on some movies more than others, of course. To give an example, a Woody Allen movie looks/ sounds like a Woody Allen movie and likewise a M. Night Shyamalan movie bears the mark of M. Night Shyamalan.
Since Bird has only done one feature so far, it’s hard to say for sure if there will be any similarities between The Incredibles and Iron Giant. Time will tell, I guess.
I believe there’s a stuffed clownfish in Boo’s room, yes. But I’ll have to rewatch the movie to confirm.
I’d also like to note that the teaser for The Incredibles is now on the Apple movie trailers page, in a nice high-quality MP4 .mov file. This version is savable for folks with Quicktime Pro, if you want to enjoy it again and again.