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Pixar Finally Offers Animated Shorts on Pixar.com 190

Posted by chrisd from the chess-or-self-hatred dept.
NicerGuy writes "Today I was bored and decided to check out pixar.com. I hadn't been there in a long time, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they have finally made all(?) of their animated shorts available for download. The films, which are in QuickTime format, include my favorites: Geri's Game and Luxo Jr."
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Pixar Finally Offers Animated Shorts on Pixar.com More

Pixar Finally Offers Animated Shorts on Pixar.com

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  • Geri's game is the only reason for a sane person to buy the 'Bug's Life' DVD.
    • Well now theres no excuse for buying it.. :)
    • Who bought it? It came free with one my IMacs!

  • Really neat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BravoXL ( 248870 )
    I remeber seeing most of these in the theater before moives. It still reall impresses me that Luxo was made in 1986. Could you imagine how long that must have taken to render? Anyway it's really neat to be able to see these shorts again.

    • Re:Really neat (Score:5, Informative)

      by Monsieur_F ( 531564 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `xff'> on Friday November 02, 2001 @05:56AM (#2511350) Homepage Journal
      Really nice. Thank you Pixar :)

      Why is everybody saying Pixar=Steve Jobs ?
      Pixar is John Lasseter, that's all.
      He's an artist, and I love all that he has done,
      from the very beginning.

      I think one of the first 3D computer rendered image that Pixar made and got used in a movie was in "Young Sherlock Holmes", but I am not sure about this...

      By the way, if you like short animation movies you can also
      go to Aardman [aardman.com], and enjoy some movies from the makers of Chicken Run !
      • ILM is credited for all the CGI, and also has been mentioned serveral times as the first movie which successfully integrated computer generated graphics with live footage.
        • Yes you are right.

          John Lasseter worked on it, anyway, which confused me.

        • Ahh...and if you look at pixars "history" page under 1984 "John Lasseter leaves his animation job at Disney to join filmmaker George Lucas's special-efffects computer group, which later becomes Pixar". In other words Pixar used to be part of ILM.

          I think the first movie done by what would become Pixar is Star Wars, they did computer readouts of the Death Star.
          • No, the original Star Wars displays were done by Larry Cuba. The Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group, which eventually became Pixar was not formed until 1979 (between Star Wars and Empire)
          • I think the first movie done by what would become Pixar is Star Wars, they did computer readouts of the Death Star.
            As someone else pointed out, Larry Cuba did this. The first movie work done by the Lucasfilm Computer division (later Pixar) was the Genesis demo in Star Trek II. The simulated Death Star display in Return of the Jedi was their second job. (I have first-hand knowledge of both of these.)
      • Pixar is a company that has many, many important people working for it. John Lasseter is a very skilled writer/director, but he'd just be another great writer if it weren't for the amazing scientists at Pixar.

        People like Ed Catmull, Pat Hanrahan, Tom Duff, Loren Carpenter, Bill Reeves, Andy Witkin, Micheal Kass, David Baraff, Larry Gritz (and the rest) are what truly enable Pixar to make such visually compelling stories. Without Pixar providing a conducive atmosphere for their contributions to computer graphics from an academic pov, we'd be worse off.

        There are amazing computer scientists at Pixar, and amazing people holding down the infrastructure. Can anyone imagine the throughput in their LAN during crunchtime?

        All said and done, all these fancy algorithms and implementations would be useless without compelling stories and art. Pixar has amazing artists, nobody should overlook that.

        Pixar and PDI are stalwarts of the commercial (read entertainment) computer graphics industry, and deservingly so, their contributions (in all forms) cannot be overlooked.

        Kawaldeep

      • Re:Really neat (Score:5, Informative)

        by malducin ( 114457 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @11:03AM (#2511979) Homepage
        Well Pixar got started first as the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group back in 1979. Back in those days Triple I, one of the pioneer companies in commercial CG, did a test for Lucas that had several CG X-Wings flying around. This was for the FX work in Empire Strikes Back. Art Durinski and Gary Demos were among those involved. Unfortunately they couln't come to financial terms and Lucas opted to continue the traditional way but move ILM to Northern California. But Lucas was so impressed that he decided to start his own CG division. The first guy they hired was Ed Catmull but many others soon followed and the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group was born. They worked on maby things, from the Pixar Image Computer, film scanning, the beginnings of RenderMan and shading languages and digital compositing, among many things. They produced the Death Star hologram for Return of the Jedi. One of the last few things they did was the Andre and Wally B. short, that's why you'll see Lucasfilm credits in there.

        But Catmull was always interested in doing animated movies while Lucas was interested in photorealistic effects. So he let Catmull look around and later in 1986 Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs (of course way before he went back to Apple). While Jobs might be the owner, if you want to equate Pixar with someone that would be Catmull (though there are many talented folks there). They also had an agreement that ILM would get first access to any new technology Pixar developed. And the rest as they say is history.
        • They worked on maby things, from the Pixar Image Computer, film scanning, the beginnings of RenderMan and shading languages and digital compositing, among many things. They produced the Death Star hologram for Return of the Jedi. One of the last few things they did was the Andre and Wally B. short, that's why you'll see Lucasfilm credits in there.

          Although many folks are not aware of it, most of this was done in custom hardware. They needed framebuffers and the like that were unavailable commercially at that time. They also had an interal Computer-Aided Engineering department that rolled their own design automation system.

          How do I know this? They were at the 1984 design Automation Conference, trying to sell their design automation system as a sifeline. We were competitors who had a suite down the hall from them. They came to see our demo and we went to see theirs. I got a nice T-shirt from them and next year, they weren't back. It's OK, we weren't either, having been acquired by HP.

          It was still a nice T-shirt though. I wore it for many years...

  • Shorts? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02, 2001 @05:45AM (#2511332)
    The first time I read this I thought to myself "Why would I wanna see someone's animated undergarments?"

    If it hadn't been for the Luxo Jr. mention, I would have not been enlightened for quite some time.
  • anyone know if there is anything out there to play quicktime on linux? I kind of want to see those shorts.

    • Believe it or not, QuickTime runs alright with recent builds of WINE [winehq.org]. Buggy interface, but then, I never found the interface that great to start with. :)
  • This is great, When I first saw "Luxo Jr" it just blew me away. It was one of the things that got me into computers, although I was dissapointed I couldn't create thes films on my BBC home PC.

  • Ooh, so confusing (Score:5, Funny)

    by at-b ( 31918 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @05:48AM (#2511339) Homepage
    I just dunno. My value system is mightily screwed up here, guys.

    Pixar == Disney distribution == Disney == bad.

    but

    Pixar == nifty films == good!

    but

    Pixar == Steve Jobs == Apple == bad!

    but

    Apple == iPod == lame?

    (this is where it gets confusing)

    Pixar (also) == Linux == geeky == GOOD!

    but

    Linux == Pixar films == more money to MPAA == BAD!

    but

    Linux == less money to Bill Gates == GOOD!

    but

    Pixar == Apple == Sorenson Codec == BAD!

    but

    Sorenson Codec == Good Quality at Reasonable Size == GOOD!

    but

    Pixar == Apple != Linux == BAD!

    but

    Apple == OSX == BSD == GOOD!

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaargh!

    Thinking in more than one direction is really confusing. Someone post something about MS embracing and extending something, even if it's just an elastic band. Please? I need my world to be set right again.

    Maybe a frogurt?

    Alex
    • I think we need to start using fuzzy logic...

      • perhaps we do (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I think we need to start using fuzzy logic...

        I can say with 76% certainty that the answer to this suggestion is "maybe".

    • Re:Ooh, so confusing (Score:5, Funny)

      by SLOGEN ( 165834 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @07:41AM (#2511452) Homepage

      Since already the 2 statements:

      1. Pixar == nifty films == good!
      2. Pixar == Steve Jobs == Apple == bad!

      Prove that (since == is transetive):

      • good == bad

      And it's a generally accepted axiom that:

      • good != bad

      When we apply the usual axiom of negation:

      • A == B !(A != B)

      We get:

      • !(good == bad)

      We can now invoke the usual definition of && to prove:

      • (bad == good) && !(bad == good) -> false

      Establishing that your proof-system is not sound and thus you should expect it to be confusing, since it can prove any statement what-so-ever.

      I suspect, that if you remove the "transetive" property from your definition of "==" your system may become sound, but unfortunatly not as funny.

      Logic is not easy, but it's good clean fun

      • Sorry, but transitivity is not the problem. His definition of the equality operator (==) is not symmetric, e.g. "Pixar == Linux" is not the same as "Linux == Pixar". This, of course, will lead to a contradiction.

    • indeed!
      This is why little companies should STAY little companies, or be broken out into little companies if they were originally part of a big company.

      The whole movie industry stinks - but their products, occassionally, don't.

      Pixar=Disney=Cant give them money.

      BUT - the last 5 seconds of the monsters inc trailer is the funniest thing I've seen in YEARS - no... wait... EVER!

      Whats a guy to do?? I dunno - Im going to have to either wait for it to be on free to air TV or sneak into the movies for the first time since I was 13.

    • Pixar == Disney distribution == Disney == bad.
      This is temporary. Check the company's long range plans. They are in a distribution agreement with Disney for only so long, and only so many films [lubbockonline.com]. What else could they do to get their first few films out? As soon as the Disney deal is up, they can go independent, hook up with DreamWorks (doubtful), or whatever. I just hope they don't re-up with the big D. I'd like to see them have enough capital and expertise to manage the entire process on their own.

    • Re:Ooh, so confusing (Score:2, Informative)

      by Eccles ( 932 )
      Apple == iPod == lame?

      Remember that iPod retails for *exactly* the same cost as Toshiba sells the hard drive it contains. That is not lame. The only bad thing is no digital still camera I know of has a firewire output, or you could use it as a 5 gig storage thingie for a digicam, with it easily fitting in your pocket.
    • I think this could be used as a knowledge base fo inference purposes and we could use it for future /. submissions to see if they are worthy. Instant denial!

      Perhaps we could have a /. nueural net to test submissions first.

    • Seems like you need to develop a value system not based on simplistic rules.
    • Sorenson Codec == Good Quality at Reasonable Size == GOOD!

      However, under windows at least, the new sorenson codec has been "jumpy" for me, maybe "pulse-y" would be a better adjective; The sound is good, but the video comes in surges.

      Everyone should be using MPEG4 anyway. It obviously rocks.

  • I doubt Pixar will turn a profit this year... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shaheen ( 313 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @05:54AM (#2511347) Homepage
    Because their bandwidth bill is going to sky rocket today.
  • When I saw that title, I was thougth it was about clothing with screens on it.
  • all of a sudden, wget -c -nH -nd http://www.pixar.com/theater/shorts/*/quicktime/*_ 320.mov comes to a grinding halt.

  • Better on dvd (Score:2, Informative)

    by zudo ( 307075 )
    Whilst this is undoubtedly cool to see the ultimate way to wath the shorts is of course on dvd. Where do I get them you ask? Well we all know Geri's game is on a bugs life but over here in Britain at least there are quite a few shorts on the toy story 1 and 2 box set. Not sure if this was a collectors edition or what but it comes with a third disc with all sorts of lovely goodies on it. Can't remember eactly which shorts are there but Tin Toy certainly is and I think Luxo is too
    • Tin Toy is on Disc 1 and Luxo is on Disc 2. The supplemental disc doesn't have any shorts, but it does explain all the hidden jokes.

      My box is silver. The Ultimate Toy Box. I'm sure that makes me cooler than someone.

    • They could, if they really wanted to tax their servers, make greater-than-DVD resolution versions of the shorts available online. 1024x768 or even higher wouldn't be out of the question.

      Of course, their server seems to be approaching meltdown even with those medium sized clips.

      • You know, I would really LOVE to see someone do this. Even if it's only a short clip as a technology demonstration. I have these Monsters Inc. shots at 1536x922 resolution and they look just fantastic. Please, someone with access to high resolution film material, give us something to fill a 21" monitor at 1600x1200 resolution with unscaled video. I bet that seeing this ONCE would really make people want new tech...

    • Re:Better on dvd (Score:4, Informative)

      by malducin ( 114457 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @11:24AM (#2512083) Homepage
      Well there is also a VHS tape called Tiny Toy Stories that has all the classic Pixar Shorts from Luxo Jr. to Tin Toy. It's a bit hard to find but worth. Also from time to time Pixar have given tapes of their shorts (well at least Geri's Game, a months before it was attached to A Bugs Life) at SIGGRAPH. They are not the only ones, Blue Sky Studios also distributed Bunny on DVD at SIGGRAPH, very cool.
      • Also from time to time Pixar have given tapes of their shorts (well at least Geri's Game, a months before it was attached to A Bugs Life) at SIGGRAPH

        Just to add to this, Pixar also gave out the Geri's Game VHS tape to their shareholders.

  • Crossover plays Quicktime in Linux. Its good. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @06:07AM (#2511363)
    Codeweavers Crossover allows you to view Apple Quicktime. Shockwave, Ipix, and other Win32 based browser plugins under Linux.

    it uses Wine, buts in a much more limited and controllable environment, meaning its a lot more stable. It supports any browser which support the Netscape plugin API (Galeon, Mozilla, etc) but bugs in Konq nspluginapi implementation means that Konq and Quicktime is a no goer (currently anyway).

    Its twenty US bucks and the cash goes towards the salaries of the fellows who work on the free, main Wine project. it can be clunky at times 9when running Quicktime as a standalone app) but generally its OK. Galeon, OTOH, works with it a treat. I've viewed every single trailer at apple.com with it (to the point of being kicked off my ISP for bandwidth overuse :D ).

    Version 1.01 is coming out this week, BTW, which apprently fixes a lot of the bugs of earlier versions.

    its a good product and worth the small price. The money also goes to a good cause that contributes to the community.

    No, I don't work for them :D
    • Don't go qoute me on this, but doesn't Konqi in KDE play just about everything since it can use just about any plug-ins you can come up with?

      Hmm, two solutions here:

      1. Kill of Proprietary formats so anyone can code plug ins
      2. Generic plug-in format with open API specs.

      I propose 1 && 2 ;)
  • I remember going to see A Bug's Life in th theater with my young cousins. I was fully prepared to enjoy an entertaining and pretty, if not brain-exercising, movie. Imagine my surprise when I was treated to one of the best bloody little animations I've ever seen. When Geri moves around to the other side and moves the first black piece, his triumphant laugh is priceless. It's the most wonderfully twisted surreal piece that ever graced a Disney movie. Sure, the animation looks a little dated now, but it's still brilliant. Anyway, I'm ranting...

  • Luxo Jr. and John Lasseter (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kraft ( 253059 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @06:08AM (#2511365) Homepage
    In case you don't know, the director of Luxo Jr. is John Lasseter [imdb.com] - the guy who directed the Toy Stories.

    Anyway, Luxo Jr. is a classic in computer animation. The most amazing part, is that it is made in 1986. This little movie really pushed the mental limit for people as to what computers could produce. Sure, Lasseter wasn't the only one experimenting at the time, but IMO this particular animation made computer animation respectable as it even got nominated for an Oscar under the category Animated Short Film in 87. Well, it's fun no matter what - check it out.

    • Yeah, Luxo Jr was a classic. It's amazing to see how far hardware has come; Luxo was rendered in realtime by a GeForce 3 card in a Macworld demo. I'd link up the demo but according to this [gamespy.com] interview it is not being released :(

    • Monsters Inc. will be interesting to see as it is Pixar's first non-John Lasseter directed film but rather a John Lasseter protege.
      • Yeah, but Pete Docter has been with Pixar for quite some time. Also Geri's Game and For the Birds were not directed by Lasseter, but Jan Pinkava and Ralph Eggleston respectively. I'm sure they'll do fine.

        Pixar had an extended preview at SIGGRAPH 2001 of Monsters Inc. both at the Electronic Theatre and also in the FX R&D course.
    • I remember seeing in a theater back in the late 80s a Luxo Jr. short that included, as the "punch line," Luxo Jr. rolling a bowling ball that pushed Luxo Sr. off the "stage" as he looked up in disbelief. Anybody know what I'm talking about, or am I just imagining things? Were there any Luxo Jr. sequels to the one that's on pixar.com?

  • Anyone else think this is funny? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dimator ( 71399 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @06:14AM (#2511367) Homepage Journal
    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/20011101/en/_quot_ shrek_quot_stalks_quot_monsters_inc_quot__1.html [yahoo.com]

    Disney/Pixar most definitely do not like DreamWorks, and vice versa. Ever notice how Farquad [kingnet.com.tw] (the villain in Shrek) looks amazingly like Micheal Eisner [usc.edu], and that saying "farquad" fast enough sounds a lot like "fuck wad"? These guys dislike each other on a personal level.

  • For the Birds (Score:5, Informative)

    by EvilSinus ( 412333 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @06:37AM (#2511392)
    Unfortunately they haven't relased For the Birds on the net yet. I saw it for the first time back in SIGGRAPH2000 in New Orleans, and everybody loved it. It's just incredibly funny, and so well done.

    If I'm not mistaking, the reason it's not up for download yet is because Pixar want to have it nominated for an academy award, for the best animated short. And the academy's rules state a nominee is not allowed to be broadcast on the net or on television, except during animation festivals like SIGGRAPH etc. (Or something to that effect). It was shown at Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Animation Festival however.

    It should be submitted to the academy this year. Last year however, a fairly reliable source said a paperwork error made the short miss the submission deadline. If that hadn't been the case I'm sure it'd be up for download aswell.

  • Mirrors Please... (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by augustz ( 18082 )
    I beg of someone, please mirror this stuff. I beg of many people...
  • I can remember being stunned by that when I first saw it back in the 80s. It really demonstrated to me the potential of 3d graphics.

    We've come a long way since then !

  • A while ago I tried to find a Sorenson decoder that I could actually run on my computer. From what I could discover, Sorenson is completely proprietary: Windows yup, MacOS yup, rest of the world forget it.

    Does anybody know any better?

  • No one else can have my movie clips! (Score:3, Funny)

    by BELG ( 4429 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @07:43AM (#2511457)
    "I hadn't been there in a long time, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they have finally made all(?) of their animated shorts available for download."

    Uhm, yeah. You found them, decided no one else could have them, so you submit it to Slashdot knowing that it's the best way of ensuring that their servers will die and that they will remove them again? :)

    Hosting a movie clip of any size and having it posted on Slashdot must be like the ultimate punishment.
  • Luxo, jr and Geri's Game?
    Great shorts, especially Geri's Game.
    Saw that when I took the kids to A Bug's Life.
    Made the bugs bearable.

    I may have to break down and shell out for the Crossover Plugin so that I can play these.
    Or -- hmmm. Maybe I can steal the spouse's NT Thinkpad...
    She doesn't really need it, right?
  • I'd like to download the quicktime movies with Mozilla. I don't have a quicktime plugin but I do not want to play them with Mozilla. Just download them so I can play them with whatever I want. Is that possible?

    Greetings

  • Less than Spectacular Transfers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @08:11AM (#2511479) Homepage Journal

    I'm in the middle of pulling down Knick-Knack (Bobby McFerrin rocks), and the quality of the transfer to QuickTime is definitely not what I would expect from Pixar. It appears that they did a very simple and very quick film-to-video transfer. The registration is poor (the frame jumps vertically), and the brightness of the imagery varies.

    But most importantly, I think, is that frames have been dropped. In my opinion, this is nearly fatal to Knick-Knack. Knick-Knack has comic timing down to the frame level, nearly as fine as anything done by Tex Avery. By dropping frames -- believe it or not -- part of the joke is lost. Some jokes are three frames long. In particular, I feel the jackhammer scene and cutting torch scene are almost ruined. It's not simply what he's doing that's funny, but how they show him doing it. Every frame is critical to showing that, and I'm surprised and disappointed that they released even a free version in this condition.

    If they do the same thing to For the Birds, it will be ruined, too. They're too wonderful to be seen only in this manner. If you get the opportunity, you owe it to yourself to see them at full frame rate.

    Schwab

  • Quicktime. Great.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday November 02, 2001 @09:03AM (#2511537) Homepage Journal
    The question I have is, are these Quicktime using a codec that non-Mac, non-Windows folks can view?

    Also, the big argument about Quicktime is "Higher quality, lower bitrate". Does this hold true against MPEG4? DiVX ;)?

    If Pixar is USING Linux internally, why don't they support it more EXTERNALLY?

    And the last question: how does Pixar convert from whatever format they use internally to QuickTime? Are any of these conversion tools available for Linux?
    • Higher quality? Give me a break...

      We are not talking about just any source here, we are talking about very high quality rendered animations. It's beyond me how they can release these in anything but the higest possible quality (anything less than DVD quality is a shame).

      Small crappy video might be nifty for modems and not that terribly gr8 sources, but in this case I would argue that the highest possible quality (that everyone can watch) should be the goal. I rather have them put these on their DVDs (which reminds me that I need to buy more of those) than in low quality

  • Really news? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by scott1853 ( 194884 )
    I think last time I checked Pixar.com (probably over a year ago), they had Geri's Game for download.

    <SARCASM>While we're posting articles like this, I was over at CNN [cnn.com] and they have some new information too.</SARCASM>
  • I find it funny the way these Pixar "professionals" tend to go about making their little animated shorts... well I say more power to them but they could never hold a candle to the original, the best, HAMSTER HAVOC [cmdrtaco.net]!!!!!
  • And now Pixar has fallen victim to the Slashdot effect.
  • Man, already?
  • I can't speak for Monsters, Inc. (haven't seen it yet, ovbiously), but the previous 3 Pixar films kick ass. They're all three brilliant and hilarious and they make for really killer DVDs.

    I've heard it said that John Lasseter is the second coming of Walt Disney. Not only do the Pixar movies make for technical achievements, but they also work well as stories and they make you want to watch them for something other than the "neato computer animation factor". Some films get too caught up on the how and forget the story. For example, on the Phantom Menace DVD's, they never mention the story and mythos of Star Wars, they just blathe on about how the made the waterfall sequence or Jar Jar's ears. John Lasseter is the new Walt Disney and his medium is computer animation - this is great news for /.-ers. Also, I graduated from Texas A&M and I know there's a computer graphics (degree) program here that has sent at least a couple of people to Pixar. Does anyone out there know who?

    • Very true except that Monsters Inc. was produced by John Lasseter and directed by one of the previous top pixar animators. A minor detail.

      I really like the Phantom Menace commentary because it has so many different people talking about how they made the movie, not just George Lucas. That is what a commentary should be I think. The only thing that could have been better would be to have some of the actors on it. How cool would be to have the actor who did the voice of Jar Jar justify himself or Natalie Portman talking about what it was like. Moderators please note that this is actually a contexual use of Natalie Portman.
    • Yeah, I'm in that program...it's called the Texas A&M Visualization Program (http://www-viz.tamu.edu [tamu.edu]), and it's a Masters of Science degree. Applicants have to have abilities both in computer science and in traditional art. Most people go into the movie industry as technical directors...shaders, lighters, character setup, etc. We have a bunch of grads who worked on Monsters Inc.
  • I like Pixar...I've followed them very closely since their inception. I do think, however, they should do the following: (1) Make a "LEGO-mation" film named "LEGOLAND", using state-of-the-art 3D computer animation tools. There are endless possibilities...and humour twists which could arise from the nature of how LEGO bricks lock together. LEGO computer software has been a hit...I see no reason why a cool LEGOLAND movie, done through computer animation ("LEGO-mation"), wouldn't also be a hit. (2) A sequel to TRON --Michael
  • Any one knows how to get a copy of these shorts in my hard drive?. Would be nice if I can add them to my multimedia collection.
  • Wouldn't it be a lot nicer if they could have posted VCD-ready mpeg files (or better yet, SVCD-ready mpeg2)?

    Yes, I'll still download the quicktime files and convert them with TMPENC and then burn them to VCD (so I can watch on my DVD player). I'd imagine many other people will do the same.

    I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm glad they released these. I'm just surprised that no one seems to ever release VCD-ready files.

    -S
  • Just saw it. Good animation, but the plot and character development are inferior to Toy Story 1 or 2.

    As with most Pixar work, there's a strong procedural texture look to the thing. All those Pixar people, endlessly writing separate Renderman shader code for each material. I didn't see anything that was clearly a photographed texture in the Monster world. It's not photorealism; it's procedural cartooning.

    This looks like a lower-budget job than the previous films. Fewer scene changes and more background reuse. No big technical innovations. More of a kid's film than previous Pixar output. Don't expect "Shrek".

    Worth seeing, but don't rush to a theater.

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