The all-powerful Disney corporation has dominated screen animation since it launched “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in 1937 and it never really had any significant rivals. But the world turns and technology turns even faster and in 1979, Pixar was the new kid on the animation block doing smart, inventive things with computer graphics and designs for TV commercials. It was so innovative that 1986, Steve Jobs one of the co-founders of Apple, bought Pixar and that’s where the Great Animation Race began.

Disney had been cruising along for decades, relying on its legacy of family fare and magical stories. Pixar had no such legacy or traditions to follow. They worked, quite literally, out of the box. It was not legacy that drove them; it was innovation - on every level – from how the image looked, to how it was created. A key figure here was John Lasseter, a techno-wizard and a visionary. Not only did the new animation technology, save vast amounts of time, it created a completely new visual aesthetic for animated film.

Tom Hanks voices Woody

The younger audience, who play computer games in arcades or at home, loved and understood those cyber-environments because they are inter-active and immersive.  Lasseter created that look and feel, along with the energy of video games to make his feature movies feel similarly exciting and engaging. It was a major innovation in animated film technique, and after he had proved his point with his highly successful ads, Lasseter was ready to do a full-length movie, but his idea came at the worst possible time.

 Pixar had run into cash trouble in their computer divisions. People were simply not buying the Pixar computers, but that part of the business was failing and it was dragging the whole company down with it. Steve Jobs was ready to sell Pixar to Disney, but in 1991, they struck a deal. Disney agreed to let Lasseter and his Pixar team to make three computer-animated feature films which Disney would distribute.  It was a tough bail-out deal, worth $26 million and Steve Jobs decided to wait and see how the movies did before he sold Pixar off.

Tim Allen as Buzz

The first Pixar movie was “Toy Story” and its $26-million price tag brought home $350- million worldwide. That changed everything. Pixar, the company that was in relegation became the jewel in the crown – and it simply got better. All seven Pixar films released since the inauguration of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001 have been nominated for the award with “Monsters Inc.”. Five have won it: “Finding Nemo”, “The Incredibles”, “Ratatouille”, “WALL-E”, and “Up”. All those films made it to the top 50 list of the highest-grossing films of all time.

In 2006 Disney finally bought Pixar for $7.4-billion, with a guarantee that the writers, directors and animators would have complete creative freedom to work on their projects. When Disney bailed out Pixar for $26-million fifteen years in 1991, they never dreamed that, in terms of animated feature films, Pixar would outstrip them, and it all began with “Toy Story”.

The point is that the Pixar writers and illustrators stay up to the minute in terms of public taste and also visual style. Their themes come straight out of the “Insight and Opinion” column. What was “Wall-E” about? Waste and pollution, but also the insatiable greed of the human race. What was “Up” about? A lonely old man and a fat Asian boy, who have both been ignored because they no longer fit the commercially viable consumer demographics, and they are left alone to make their own destiny – which they do.

Gary Unkrich directs "Toy Story 3"

These films feature strong topical agendas and the medium is so fresh and innovative because the pace and the aesthetic of the current video games are carefully woven into the films as we saw in “The Incredible”. In contrast, last December, Disney went traditional with “The Princess and the Frog”; back to the fairy-tales; back to hand-drawn animation; back, in short to its glory days in the 1950s, but not many people cared. The film was not a flop, but it was certainly not a hit. In comparison Pixar currently owns the “now” look of animation, and they understand their own evolution.

Lee Unkrich was given the job of directing “Toy Story 3” and he told journalists at Comicon, that it felt like finally winning a lottery. “I have been with Pixar for the last 15 years. I worked as an editor alongside John Lasseter in a strongly collaborative team. Over the years we all helped to define the concepts. We completed each other’s work and sometime even completed each other’s sentences” said Unkrich.

Lotso, the new toy on the block

After working on the two previous “Toy Story” films as an editor and says “I have been living with these characters for 15 years. I knew them inside out. I did not have to create a story. The toys kind of showed me the way,” he said. “Of course, we have to create a fresh, interesting look and new characters. We can’t just crank out a clone and put it out there” said Unkrich “because the audience is too smart to be fooled by that and that means it has to be better every time. We don’t repeat, we extend and expand, we actually had a new story for ‘Toy Story 3’ eight years ago but because of the Disney situation we could not move forward with it. We kept going back to the character developers who have worked on the other movies and we hammered out the best ideas and story-lines” said Unkrich.

When asked if a sequel is just a lazy way of cashing in on a previous success, Unkrich says the exact opposite is true. “We see sequels as a compliment to our work. It means the audiences love the characters we create. They want to see more of them and when they do, it is like visiting old friends”, he said.  “It’s not just about seeing a movie, it’s a relationship, and that’s a major boost for any new movie in a series. There’s an eager audience who want to see what they have known and loved for 15 years”, he says.

“The Pixar people continuously amaze me. They come up with something that actually looks as though it takes place in this happy – and real! – world. Every storyline is not just plausible; it’s oddly authentic. The characters have a great human dimension about them. I don’t know how they do it, but they constantly astound me and they keep expanding,” he says.

The interesting new expansion in the third film is a new character. You will recall that in the second movie Barbie joined the team and it seems to be a logical step to bring Ken into the third movie – Ken and Barbie – together at last – but are they? How will Ken respond to Buzz and Woody? Ken is used to being the ‘guy most likely to succeed’ but how will he take to the competition, in a situation that is quite different from what they have been used to” he said. Michael Keaton plays Ken, and he’s just one of the fresh ideas in “Toy Story 3”.

An even better idea is that this is the first “Toy Story” in 3D, so get ready to see Buzz Lightyear zoom off the screen and stare you in the face, or see Woody’ trusty lasso zip past your ear? And what about Barbie? Can the 3D make her look even sexier? Pixar have never failed to take the 3D to a new level, as they did in “Up” so this should rock the playroom

Some notes on the history of 3D

The 3D technique is not as new as we think. 3D film images have been around since 1890, but at the time there was simply not the technology or the need to show such images. Hollywood revived the idea in the 1950s when many innovations were created, like wide-screen, stereophonic sound, but even then the 3D process seemed crude. It was only when something was thrown directly into the camera lens that the effect seemed to work, and those cheap, cardboard red-and-green glasses distorted almost as much as they showed.

Once again 3D was left on the back-burner until the Imax process made some clever changes to the lenses and Disney followed suit, not in their feature movies, but in their specially designed 3D cinemas in their theme parks. This rise of computer graphics and digital effects was what 3D had been waiting for since 1890, and there is no question that James Cameron’s “Avatar” in 3D is the finest film in this technology that we have yet seen, but 3D has also been used in very different films, like the animation hits “Coraline” and Pixar’s “Up”.

There remain some issues about 3D. It’s costly both in production terms and in terms of equipping cinemas. There are not enough cinemas to accommodate the fans and that leads to a costly backlog. We’ve also seen that 3D does not suit every movie. “Clash of the Titans” was reshot in 3D and in truth, it did nothing for the film. Jerry Bruckheimer decided not to go with 3D on “Prince of Persia” because it added too much to his already high budget. “The Last Airbender” is currently switching from flat to 3D but it will add 9-million dollars to the budget, so it’s a costly risk.

So this is the third time that 3D has been touted as “the next best movie thing” and we have yet to see how long the fad lasts and how fast the technology can improve. It’s an evolving story that is only just getting started.