The IncrediblesHow Pixar's animated films became the best literature around.

Remarks from the Fray:

According to Mr. Siegel, since Pixar's movies tell stories with wit and intelligence, they must be novels. Just like that, he flattens the difference between two separate art forms, without a shred of understanding as to what makes them unique. That one form uses words to tell a story and one form uses pictures are not minor differences. Plenty of movies have actually been based on novels, and yet are works of art independent of their source material. The Godfather was a potboiler of a book yet a masterpiece of a film, whereas the work of many a Nobel Prize-winning novelist translates poorly to the screen, because the beauty of their language is lost.

Likewise, Siegel's grasp of film history is weak. Siegel gives short shrift to Disney's feature length cartoons, the best of which, from old-time classics like "Pinocchio" to modern classics like "Beauty and the Beast", are the equal to Pixar in story-telling and character development. Nor was Pixar the first animation studio to bring an adult, satirical perspective to cartoons, as fans of the old Warner Bros. shorts would be quick to point out, to say nothing of the phenomenon that is the Simpsons. And while Siegel asserts that Pixar began life as a producer of commercials (not unheard of for a cartoon studio, by the way---Friz Freling did commercials for Hawaiian Punch, and Tex Avery did them for Raid roach spray), he neglects to mention that Pixar was making short films from the very beginning, before they had any distribution deal with Disney. Award-winning shorts like "Luxo Jr." and "Knick Knack" demonstrated Pixar's ability to invest computer-generated images with warmth and personality. This was the significance of their achievement, not some co-opting of the novel.

--Utek1

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(12/29)

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