Pixar Animation Studios: Part 2: Bugs Life

Series Intro: In my purposeful retrospective of WDAS I couldn’t ignore it’s younger sister: PIXAR. This is Part 2 in the retrospective of PIXAR

Official Title: A Bugs Life
Release: November 25, 1998 (Three years after Toy Story)
Running Time: 96 minutes
Estimated Cost: $60 million (double that of Toy Story)
Estimated Revenue: $363.40 million
Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Plot Summary
Flik, inventor ant, has inventions that go awry and cause the oppressive Grass Hopper Army to become angry and force the ants to work double time before the winter comes in. He is forced to go find other bugs to help the ants fight against the grass hoppers. He mistakenly returns with circus bugs.

After several mishaps, the ants successfully defeat the grass hoppers. Flik is celebrated for his inventions and is chosen as a mate for the new ant queen!

Plot Rating: 4 stars out of 5

PIXAR has outdone themselves with this movie. It has the loveable characters that made Toy Story great. It has comedy and laughs (reminding me of Walt’s movies that had a lot of comedy to help relieve the tension of the plot). I had moments of tears and moments of giggle fits. I like that PIXAR has focused on male leads, where WDAS focused on female leads.

Animation Rating: 5 out of 5

OMG, the background art was the most fantastic piece of art I’ve seen yet! It was so life like, but yet the characters truly belonged in the world. The character art was great too, for the leads, but not for the hundreds of ants. Even PIXAR made fun of the fact that all the filler ants looked the same (one of the extras of the BluRay has one character talking to the card board cut out of the same ant).

The Test of Time:

Eric, Flik and I at Disney's Animal Kingdom in WDW

Kind of slid into PIXAR vaults, not to say anything was really wrong with the movie, but just not much has been happening in it.

Final Thoughts
Aside from the Toy Story series, I have not seen any PIXAR movie in theatres. And many not at all. I do have a problem with CG movies (as you might have be able to tell with my WDAS reviews and I highly criticize the CG effects). I truly miss hand drawn animation and hope to see a return to it. However, knowing that PIXAR has dedicated itself to CG animation, I can appreciate the art and characters they have created.

Next Up:
Toy Story 2

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