Pixar’s Cars 2 Early Review

 I love Pixar. But the one film in the entire Pixar catalog that I don’t love (not to say that I don’t like it, it’s just a few steps below the rest) is Cars. To me, it almost feels like one of the movies Dreamworks Animation had produced at that point of time. And if it weren’t for the heart of the storyline, I probably would’ve enjoyed it a lot less.

The film wasn’t considered a huge box office success, grossing $461,981,604 worldwide — less than Pixar films of previous years like Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo (which in comparison made $867.8 million worldwide). But the merchandising for the film has brought in billions in sales, which is why Disney green lit a sequel and began construction on a huge CarsLand expansion of the Disney California Adventure theme park.

But now someone claims to have screened an early cut of the film, and has posted a review online. What did they think? Find out after the jump.

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Tron Legacy Team Join Forces with Toy Story 3 Team

 

Entertainment Weekly published a great article today about how the Tron Legacy filmmakers sought out the help of some of Pixar's best and brightest for advice on improving the film after they showed them an early cut in March. Then, they actually hired Toy Story 3 writer Michael Arndt and director Brad Bird to write some of the new pages for the reshoots. The screening took place in March, they also showed it to other filmmakers in LA, and then they went in for planned reshoots in June. An absolutely brilliant idea and I think this is going to only help make it a more polished movie all around.

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WALL-E in running for 8 Annie Awards

The International Animated Film Society announced yesterday the nominations for the 36th annual Annie Awards (2008) and unsurprisingly WALL-E and Pixar did very well.

WALL-E is nominated in the following categories:

• Best Animated Feature
• Directing in an Animated Feature Production (Andrew Stanton)
• Animated Effects (Enrique Vila)
• Character Animation in a Feature Production (Victor Navone)
• Production Design in an Animated Feature Production (Ralph Eggleston)
• Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production (Ronnie Del Carmen)
• Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production (Ben Burtt)
• Best Animated Video Game (Heavy Iron Studios/THQ)

When it came to shorts, Presto received one nomination for Best Animated Short Subject, while BURN-E recieved none.

Disney's Bolt recieved five noms, including Best Animated Feature and a voice acting one for Mark Walton for his excellent preformance as Rhino. John Lasseter will also be recieving a Winsor McCay award, which recognisises "career contributions to the art of animation".

The awards will be presented on January 30, 2009 and are considered to be "animation's highest honor".