My favorite type of animation is stop-motion. Animation as a whole is a laborious process; however, stop-motion takes it one painstaking step further. Then, as if to pile on even more, stop-motion animators often seem to revel in adding details that a casual observer probably won’t even notice or care about. And Pixar takes the same approach to each of its movies. It’s been said that they purposefully introduce minor imperfections into their films because it draws your attention to the human element. There’s also the research trip that precedes the production of every Pixar film. For instance, Brave had them venturing to Scotland.
Probably the best example, however, is the number of Easter Eggs there are to be found in any given film. Everyone knows about the Pizza Planet truck and how characters from upcoming projects are foreshadowed. Except, as this list over on BuzzFeed illustrates, there’s tons more you’d miss if you weren’t told to look out for it. Would I have caught that the garbage man in Toy Story 3 was Sid all grown up if I hadn’t had it pointed out dozens of times before seeing the movie? Admittedly, I’m not sure I would have.
My favorites are the details I know were personal touches. For example, Lee Unkrich, who would go on to direct Toy Story 3, let his love for The Shining, shall I say, shine through by deciding that the carpeting in Sid’s house in Toy Story would share a pattern with the carpeting inside the Overlook Hotel. The Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear commercial was also particularly convincing. So much so that, for the longest time, I believed it had been a real toy that predated Toy Story 3 itself. I wasn’t alone in thinking that either.
No matter what you think of the movies themselves, you can’t call them lazy.
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