Brave—First thoughts.

I realize my thoughts on the movie won’t sway many people to watch or abstain from Brave. I do think it’s a good idea to document my initial reaction to it for later when I go more in depth later.

I've decided not to let a Rotten Tomatoes score influence my thoughts on a movie. According to the site, Brave has a slightly better score than Cars. If we take that too literally, it means Merida’s archery pleases as big a crowd as Mater’s dad-gumming does.  Yeah, that doesn’t make a fair comparison. I found Brave more subtle, more confident, and more focused.

The biggest problem I found was the misleading title. Much of the movie addressed less bravery and more communication. From Merida struggling to communicate with her parents to the clans trying to communicate civilly between each other, to that one Scottish boy whose accent is so thick no one knows what he says. The word Brave as a story title is perhaps a little too vague, since just about any conflict you can name needs at least a little courage to solve.

I wouldn't suggest a name change for the movie, but perhaps address why Merida's actions are so ground-breaking. The mother could be protective of her daughter, as we saw her reluctance to let Merida learn to use a bow. That and her husband lost his leg to a bear. And the mother tries so hard to set Merida’s fate in stone we could explore tradition as a type of comfort zone. It worked pretty well in A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo. Oh, well. That was really the main problem I felt the movie had. The rest of it made me really happy to be there.

The characters are colorful. The most fascinating one for me at the moment is the father. For one thing, he exists. Second, he’s the one with a peg leg, yet he's not as protective as her mother until danger seems imminent, then he's a father in battle. The mother, in turn, has her reasons for her expectations, and seeing how she learns to communicate with her daughter is a testament to Pixar’s way of conveying meaning to the audience. From the faces of Merida's suitors you can tell they aren’t 100% enthused about the whole thing. And here’s something cool to think on: There’s no real villain, only good people who do bad things. Even the witch in the movie is reluctant to cast any type of curse for fear of the consequences. The conflict comes from characters being themselves.

Pixar still has a way with visuals, too. There’s pretentious symbolism and metaphor to satisfy the English majors. Consider Merida’s hair, and how hard it is for some people to let their hair down in the film. Bears turn out to be a sign of fear, and something the characters must overcome. And as each confronts her personal bear according to her character, so we must….never mind. Symbolism aside, we’re in Scotland! It’s fun! There are bagpipes and waterfalls! There’s so much life in the film and it really helps the audience take themselves to that world.

Bottom line: Brave got the job done. It could have made the whole bravery thing more clear, but there was a story, things got worse, then they got better, and I enjoyed my time in Scotland.

Toy Story 2—The Search for Woody (Part 2)

Thank you for your patience, gentle readers. I’ve returned to blogging, as I always will. Today I’ll talk about Toy Story 2’s characters. This one is more plot-driven than character driven, but that doesn’t mean the characters don’t grow during the movie’s course.

We can see that some of the characters have grown since the first movie. Mr Potato Head, for one, is domesticated now, shaving his mustache and all. Then there are some new faces.

I’ll start with Al of the Toy Barn. You can tell he’s a serious collector by his car and the vintage merchandise in his house. I’m amused that he’s a threat to the toys because he loves toys so much. He’s the Sid Philips of Toy Story 2. Sid provided extra urgency to the story by threatening to ruin Andy’s lost toys. Al not only creates the main conflict by kidnapping Woody, he also serves as the ticking clock by prepping the toys for a flight to Japan. He is an example of how creative Pixar can be. His store is mentioned in the first movie as a throwaway line. Now he’s an actual character with hopes and desires. He isn’t malicious. He just wants to see his passion bear fruit. Who hasn’t wondered if their favorite hobby could become a business? We do need to fault him as a villain, because he deliberately conned Al’s mom out of guarding Andy’s “old family toy.” Even that, however, softens a little because of how nervous and clumsy he is. He’s no danger to the real world, only to the toy world.

One of the striking things about Woody’s story arch is that he spends about a third of the movie with a broken arm. And that’s just the beginning of the movie—sometimes it’s torn clean off. Try imagining Batman spending that much of a movie in a cast. It’s pretty bold storytelling. I’m sure it also reminded Woody of the toys trapped in Sid’s house, mutilated and mismatched with the wrong parts. When Stinky Pete tells him about the Space Race putting Western toys out of business and when Jesse reveals her owner outgrew her, Woody has to call his own purpose into question. This is different from losing a delusion, like Buzz did. This is a matter of becoming unneeded or unwanted.

Woody is priceless to Andy. Possibly to Andy’s mom, as well, since she calls Woody “an old family toy.” If you consider how worried Woody was about being replaced in the first movie, it adds meaning to his fear of missing cowboy camp. He knows and accepts that he’s not the coolest toy in the galaxy but he likes to know that Andy still cherishes him. So how does it affect Woody to know he’s “valuable property?” quite a few ways. It goes to his head, for starters:

Jesse: Introducing the high-ridin’est cowboy around… 

Woody: You forgot rootin’ tootin’est! 

Jesse: The high ridin’est rootin’ tootin’est hero of all time, Sheriff Woody! 

Woody: (Swagger)

It also brought out his courage. Throughout most of Toy Story Woody panicked and shivered his way out of trouble. In Toy Story 2 he rescues Wheezy the squeaker toy from a yard sale, but it’s not too daring a rescue. He’s still at the house, and he’s safely hidden from sight. He’s a little clumsy, too. Thanks to Woody’s Roundup he saw himself performing daring rescues. In the final race to catch up to Jesse on the plane he rides in true heroic fashion, complete with catchphrase, “Ride like the wind, Bullseye! Hey, howdy-hey!” Woody, Buzz, and Bullseye don’t sneak. They don’t make sure the coast is clear. They just ride. A lady’s in trouble and only they can save her.

Buzz also demonstrates what a proud heritage can do. I almost looked over Buzz’s comment in Toy Story about his Academy training going to waste. His memories of the Academy may have been fiction, but his skill and courage are real. Those memories are still a part of him. He still conducts himself in a formal and dignified way. There’s even a kind of language barrier when he slips into Ranger talk, like the scene where he calls a license plate a vehicle I.D. tag. He probably does that quite often, because the other toys mistake the fresh-out-the-box Buzz for him.

Buzz also still carries a strong sense of loyalty to his friends and his ideals. It’s kind of annoying how the other toys complain about the journey to Al’s Toy Barn, but their whining shines a more complete light on Buzz’s courage that way. He really is Woody’s only hope for rescue. And that’s what makes the scene so poignant when Buzz finally confronts Woody in Al’s apartment. His voice almost falters when he says he believed in Woody’s vision of being a toy. To travel as far, and to solve a mystery as great as Buzz did, and then to hear your best friend reject all the values and dreams he gave you in the first place? Once again Buzz has to decide what he believes. When the other toys ask about Woody, all he can say is:

Buzz: He’s not coming. 

Rex: But Andy will be home soon. 

Buzz: Then we’d better be there waiting for him.

Getting the other toys to keep going was one thing. Buzz’s hero strayed from the cause, leaving Buzz to keep going on his own. Buzz tends to confront disbelief quite a bit. First the Space Ranger learns he’s made of plastic; now he learns that the friend he tried so hard to rescue didn’t want to be saved. That whole journey on foot, across a busy street, getting lost in a toy shop and catching up with a younger, more delusional version of himself and Woody rewards him by saying “Well, you wasted your time.” That would deflate the Space Ranger in me with no problem. But Buzz won’t give up a good cause.

Living in the toy world has also brought out Buzz’s vulnerability as well. He has a soft spot for the ladies. He blushes, hems and haws when Bo gives him a kiss “for Woody, when you find him.” Then, of course, there’s his classic pickup line for Jesse:

Buzz: Uh, m-ma’am, I, uh, um…cough…well, I just wanted to say you’re a…bright young woman with a…beautiful yarn full of hair—a hair full of yarn. It’s, uh, phew...whoa, uh…(cough)…I…must go.

I’ve learned that Buzz and Woody grow together the way real friends do. I’m a composer, and I recently started giving my photographer friend advice on how to write a song. He in turn has noticed some clever tricks I’ve picked up with my little digital camera. Woody was always a domesticated toy, growing into his role as a hero. Buzz began as the bravest most adventurous toy in Andy’s room, and now has begun to adapt to civilian life, becoming interested in love and other things that Woody has known for a long time already.

As for the lady in distress, it took me a while to like Jesse the Cowgirl. A bit too much rootin’ and tootin’ for my taste. Jesse isn’t always so over the top, though. She was most freakishly energetic when she was happy, like when she discovered Woody:

Jesse: YEE-HAH! IT’S YOU! IT’S YOU! Itsyouitsyouitsyou! IT’S REALLY YOU!

When it looked like she’d go back to storage, she panicked. Overall, she’s a pretty bitter and heartbroken character. One of her most touching scenes is at the airport when Woody finds her curled up in a ball, eyes closed. She looks like she lost everything and she’ll never be happy again. It’s a very sweet contrast to all the yelping and yodeling.

Jesse is most famous for explaining why toys like playtime so much; just like real people, they all walk and talk, but fulfilling their purpose makes them alive: 

Jesse: Let me guess. Andy’s a real special kid. And to him, you’re his buddy, his best friend. And when Andy plays with you, it’s like even though you’re not moving, you feel like you’re alive, because that’s how he sees you. 

Woody: How did you know that? 

Jesse: Because Emily was just the same. 

She is mighty when her time finally comes. Woody loses his grip when they sneak out the plane through the landing gear. Jesse manages to hold on to the column with one arm and clasp Woody’s hand with the other. With Woody’s help she swings to safety onto Bullseye’s back.

It’s a wonder that Jesse can trust anyone at all, considering the influence of Stinky Pete the prospector. I admire how symbolic his box is. You don’t see him for who he really is until he steps outside it. Before that, he seems very old, wise, gentle, and protective.

Stinky Pete (to Woody): Oh, it’s just a popped seam. Easily repaired. You should consider yourself lucky…Jesse, you know he wouldn’t last an hour on the streets in his condition. It’s a dangerous world out there for a toy.

He’s also a bit of an outsider, too. Having watched so many toys come and go behind his plastic cage, the only role he’s ever had as a toy is for people to walk by, look at him, and move on. When Woody invites the Round-Up gang to join him at Andy’s house Pete can’t even comprehend what it means to play with children. I guess it doesn’t occur to him that anyone would actually play with a prospector doll. The toy museum is a more glorious version of the life he knows: many people walking by, looking at him, and moving on. Only this time, people will admire him for never having been played with. As a collector, I give Pixar a high-five for pointing out the “mint condition” paradox.

Once Stinky Pete opens his box and reveals his character, we can look back and see his villainy manifest in such subtle ways. Discouraging Woody to venture outside the building. Relying on Jesse’s sad life to appeal to Woody’s softer side. Rolling his eyes at his half-brained antics on TV—it’s no wonder no one wanted to play with Stinky Pete dolls. The prospector manipulated everyone, exploiting Jesse’s feelings of abandonment and Woody’s sense of family.

When approached, Stinky Pete’s more jealous of any toy that got sold than of space toys in general:

Stinky Pete: I’ll tell you what’s not fair: spending a lifetime on a dime-store shelf watching every other toy be sold. Well, finally my waiting has paid off, and no hand-me-down cowboy doll is gonna mess it up for me now!

In the time he spent in his box, the prospector must have learned that to be loved is to be handled, is to be used up. Maybe he developed some weird philosophy that he had somehow been preserved for a safer, more sanitized destiny than the others. Since he never knew the joy that Woody and Jesse have known, he never saw how feeling alive made playtime worth the wear and tear, as evidenced by his oddly prophetic rant towards the end:

Stinky Pete: Idiots! Children destroy toys! You’ll all be ruined! Forgotten! Spending eternity rotting in some landfill!

His words still echo through Toy Story 3.

The most surprising discovery I made was the connection between Woody and Rex. Yep. You’ll have to hear me out on this one. They have a similar conflict. Rex begins the movie trying to complete a Buzz Lightyear video game. He’s pretty good at it, making it all the way to the final fight with Zurg. Sadly, though, he can’t defeat Zurg because tyrannosaurs have scrawny arms unsuitable for gaming.

You can see how devoted he is to the game on the way to Al’s Toy Barn. Everyone is exhausted and Rex says that he’s “losing health units.” Then he gets sidetracked with a gamer’s cheat manual and starts to form his own opinions about the game, that maybe the game makers are trying to enslave the players. His backbone starts to form more fully when they meet up with the new, improved Buzz (Now with a belt!). New Buzz’s delusion makes the environment seem like a full-size replica of the game. The moment of truth comes when the toy Zurg defeats New Buzz. Now Rex is the one to encourage Buzz to believe in himself, knocking Zurg off the elevator just as Zurg is about to finish New Buzz off.

He never makes it to the end of the game, but his actual experience made up for it.

Rex: I don’t need to play. I’ve lived it!

 The same is true for Woody. He never gets to see if his TV character completes the jump across the canyon, since the show died in the middle of a cliffhanger. But he and Jesse perform their own death-defying leap off a plane taking off.

Woody: Just pretend it’s the final scene from Woody’s Roundup! 

Jesse: But it was cancelled! We never found out if you made it! 

Woody: Then let’s find out together!

 They created their own ending to their legend. I think this is an unappreciated message in the film, overshadowed by the “serious issues about fame and mortality.” Stories give us courage and inspiration, be they histories or fables. Buzz’s fake Academy still shapes who he is. Woody is a bit more poised and determined from here on. Even Rex keeps up with the rest of the toys in his bumbling way. What stories and people inspire you?

And, as a footnote, for those who wonder, I haven’t seen Brave yet. I started a tradition of seeing the newest Pixar movie on the 4^th of July each year. Next week I’ll check Brave out, and give a few of my thoughts about it. End of part 2.

Toy Story 2—The Search for Woody (Part 1)

"Somewhere in that pad of stuffing is a toy who taught me that life’s only worth living if you’re being loved by a kid. And I traveled all this way to rescue that toy because I believed him."

It’s beginning to be a trend the way I approach the next Pixar film with trepidation. I wasn’t sure at first what I could say about A Bug’s Life but it quickly grew on me. As I began watching Toy Story 2, I had similar reluctance. This time, rather than wondering “What could I find of value to talk about with A Bug’s Life,” I’ve asked myself “What could I say about Toy Story 2 that hasn’t been said?” The good news is that as I watched the movie I began to find quite a bit there that no one else seems to have addressed.

My feelings about Toy Story 2 have evolved since I first watched it. I quickly got caught up in it, and still enjoy it to this day. But it bore me after a while. Sequels have a way of overshadowing the earlier movie, as if newer is always better. Therefore, Toy Story 2 got overplayed with my friends. The more I tired of the movie, the more I looked for excuses to like the movie less, and I found a few. Eventually I came to like it okay again. Toy Story 3 helped a little. That one went out of its way to connect all the stories into one. Both sequels contain stories and concepts that Pixar had no room for in the first movie, and they did a pretty decent job of creating opportunities for those moments. Since Toy Story is now a trilogy I can take the second installment as the middle chapter in a longer saga, for good and bad.

Woody has a back-story now. Buzz was the cool toy with a mission, a nemesis, a popular TV show, the works. Thanks to Toy Story 2 we know that Woody used to be the coolest toy anybody owned. He had records, games, yo-yos, novelty items, and a TV show of his own with plenty of adoring kids tuning in. I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t remember all of this until he met Jesse. The real answer, of course, is that Pixar probably didn’t know Woody’s history when they first wrote Toy Story. It’s pure speculation, but not everyone had a TV in the late 50’s when Howdy Doody—I mean, Woody’s Round-up—was on the air. I guess it’s possible that when he was bought he never saw the show. Less likely, but possible. Regardless, Woody grows as a character as he comes to understand his heritage, as a toy and as a cowboy.

The world of Toy Story expanded as well. We explore Al’s Toy Barn. We meet Zurg, Buzz’s Darth Vadar. We even learn where “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” comes from. Apparently Randy Newman is older than he looks. The toys don’t just move between neighborhoods, they trek through stores and run around a huge luggage conveyor in an airport. Each scene holds a lot more detail and texture than before, too. Andy’s dog Buster looks much more lifelike than Sid’s dog Scud. And where Woody was jealous of the new Space Ranger the last go-around, now we see that Western Toys nation-wide had to deal with the same dilemma.

My dissatisfaction for Toy Story 2 for a while came from how uneven the story seemed. There was this movie where Woody learns about his legacy and deals with his fear of abandonment—this is what Toy Story 2 is famous for. Then there’s the Buzz Lightyear journey to Al’s Toy Barn. This story didn’t seem to carry much weight or meaning. There are jokes about what it’s like to be a toy, a bit of sleuth work, and that’s about it. Buzz didn’t really have a personal conflict like Woody's. He was just honoring the friendship they share.

I think everything I dislike about the movie boils down to one problem: Sequel-itis. Lots of sequels assume you know who everyone is so there’s no need to explain why anything is funny/meaningful. And that may be why Buzz’s search doesn’t click with me. We see Buzz calming Woody down before Cowboy Camp and making frequent “Woody needs me” speeches on his journey, but Woody seems mostly annoyed with Buzz:

Buzz: Woody, you haven’t found your hat yet, have you?
Woody: NO! And Andy’s leaving for cowboy camp any minute, and I can’t find it anywhere!
Buzz: Don’t worry, Woody. In just a few hours you’ll be sitting around a campfire with Andy, making delicious, hot schmoes!
Woody: (blank stare) They’re called s’mores, Buzz.
Buzz: Right, right, of course.

If I were to guess, I believe the rescue mission was added after developing Woody’s story. This movie was originally planned direct-to-video, which was the style at the time for cartoon sequels. Pixar felt so confident in Woody’s tale as it developed that they decided to extend the film’s running time and reanimate it for the big screen. That may be why the humor in this movie doesn’t advance the story quite like the first one did. Much of it comes from the supporting cast, who don’t really develop like they did before. Potato Head and Slinky Dog already resolved their character arcs previously, so they really stick with Buzz just to make jokes or references to other movies:

Buzz: Is everyone present and accounted for?
Potato Head: Not quite everyone.
Buzz: Who’s behind?
Slinky: Mine.

Hamm comes along, too, but his character hasn’t changed or added anything yet. It’s as though the writers wanted to see old favorites again, not having anything important for them to do.

Not only that, the movie assumes that we already know what good friends Woody and Buzz are. We don’t really see how much they care about each other until they confront each other in Al’s apartment. Toy Story 3 demonstrates their friendship by showing them co-hosting a staff meeting. Maybe they could have played hide-and-seek together with Buster, so we could see them interact more at first. It would make Woody’s kidnapping more poignant. The story works well watched back to back with the original, but as a stand-alone movie it feels like we started in the middle of something.

Despite those problems, I’ve seen Toy Story 2 enough times now to appreciate it more. Not because of familiarity, but because the substance I looked for was a little hidden. Taken as a whole, Buzz’s journey does add weight to the scene where Woody’s friends find him in Al’s apartment. We learn more about things that Buzz longs for, and how strong his faith is when others around him shrink away.

And thankfully, Toy Story 2 is not a rehash. The first movie dealt with jealousy, identity, and purpose. The second focuses on life’s fragility, loneliness, and being true to heritage. I’m pretty excited to share some of the ways Toy Story 2 presents these themes. We’ll go into them as we discuss the characters, including some themes in surprising places. I still roll my eyes at the Star Wars tribute, but I applaud Pixar for the obstacles they threw in the toys’ path. It shows how resilient and loyal the toys are, even if they sometimes need little reminders of that fact. End of Part 1.

A Bug’s Life: That Other Movie about Ants (Part 4)

Looks like we've come to the last of the blogs for A Bug's Life. I've certainly enjoyed this look at  everything Pixar did for this movie. I'm glad to know this under-appreciated story has aged well.

Music

Randy Newman composed several distinct themes for A Bug’s life. I counted 6: The Ant Theme, the “Relax” Theme, Flik’s theme, the “Army” Theme, The City Theme, and The Circus Theme. Each has its own character and purpose in commenting on the movie. I was lucky to find a DVD that included the option of listening to the soundtrack without dialogue or sound effects. It’s fascinating to see which themes appear at particular moments. The whole thing plays out like a classical symphony, with subjects and developments.

Except for the Ant Party music. It breaks the flow like a poorly-timed ringtone. The winds and percussion remind me of the tribal music the Ewoks played at the end of the un-tampered Return of the Jedi movie. The ants play it, of course, at celebrations when the “Warrior Bugs” arrive and when the fake bird is completed. It might be the liveliest part of the soundtrack, and that’s good and bad together. I’m fascinated by the Copeland vs. Gershwin approach that Newman used on the whole score, but the Ant Party Music sounds very natural. The ants could very well have written it themselves and created the instruments seen. It’s also a bit too catchy for only a couple helpings. I think it was just too far beyond Newman’s comfort zone to make the whole movie sound like that, or at least a mix of orchestra and tribal music. I’ll have time in later blogs to talk about it, but the other composers with Pixar would incorporate different musical styles a bit more thoroughly into the scores. Having pointed out his Road Not Taken, I will say that within Randy Newman’s musical language he does heighten emotion and compliment the film’s story quite nicely.

The Ant Theme (beginning at 4:19) plays during the opening title cards and over our first shot of the ants picking grain and berries. Inspired by Aaron Copeland, it is bright, majestic, and smells like a ripe harvest. Perhaps it’s a little overplayed, but every time it plays it comments appropriately on the movie. We also hear it while the ants build the fake bird, and it reminds us of an Amish barn-raising. Then there are hints of it when Flik arrives at the huge river bed. We only hear fragments at first because Flik is a little stumped. The theme comes in full and majestic when Flik sails through the air on a dandelion seed, shouting “For the Colony, and for oppressed ants everywhere!”

One reason the Ant Theme feels overplayed is that Newman also derives a few subthemes out of the Ant Theme. Here’s the original:

Now, here’s the “Relax” theme:

This one plays when The Queen tries to get Princess Atta to calm down about running the offering. It comes back when Flik tries to tell Dot it’s okay to be small.

Then there’s the “Army” Theme:

It comes along in the second half when two young ants come in the Circus Bugs’ room to get autographs of their warrior heroes. From then on, they pose as true warriors, and we hear less of the “Circus” Theme until P.T. Flea comes in to shatter the illusion.

The audience can look at these themes a couple ways. Either Newman ran out of ideas, or he thought like an opera composer. I do think he could have switched up the notes a little more for variety, but I give him props for creating such a large yet coherent work.

The City Music and the Ant Theme complement each other, like George Gershwin’s music does to Copeland. These composers were born two years apart, and both created a distinct American sound, but from different backgrounds. While Copeland was classically trained, Gershwin made his living writing pop songs. The City Music distills the essence of Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin’s first “serious” work. In the movie we get a taste of it the first time we see Flik using a mechanical harvester. It comes in as such a shocking contrast to the heroic Ant Theme that came before that we know Flik is out of place. When Flik arrives at the Bug City, there’s a sense of awe, but also a feeling that Flik feels at home, despite never having been there before. In the film’s epilogue we hear the City music again because the colony now uses Flik’s harvester, but it doesn’t play for Flik because he knows he belongs with the colony.

We hear the melody of “Time of Your Life” in the movie as Flik’s theme. It works to describe Flik because it’s clumsy and goofy. Sadly, the lyrics don’t add much to it, and make the song sound pointless. Saying “You may only go around one time, as far as I can tell” sounds too insecure for the tune, and the backup singers make it worse by adding “He could be wrong about that.” The verses basically describe the movie without adding any insights to it:

Was a bug, little bug, hardly there. How he felt, what he dreamed, who would care?

At least in Toy Story Newman wrote from the point of view of Woody and Buzz, making more poetic comments like “I will go sailing no more” or catchy one-liners like “You’ve got a friend in me.” This makes me want to take a closer look at his songs to see if I was too lenient on him.

Theme
Well, this has been very fun for me. There were plenty of parallels I could draw with this movie and real-life situations. Developing talents, emotional abuse, being true to yourself. I found videos on YouTube that explained A Bug's Life as an allegory for economics (the 99% and all that.) That's a hard thing to accomplish if you're writing a story. That's what makes the movie so impressive to me. The story is accessible because it reminds us of real experiences in our lives.

Speaking of the old and the new, breaking from tradition comes to mind. Flik saw that life could be better and set out to make it so. It was practically his duty because no one else had the vision. The workers accepted their lot in life, and the elders viewed Flik's vision as distraction from daily tasks. Yes, it's cheesy to say you can make a difference. I'll repeat that Flik wanted to help, not just express his individuality. That's the key. People who are quirky just to be unique do nothing but beg for attention. Flik's nature was to help others--unsuccessfully at first, but he got better.

In Toy Story, Woody couldn’t stop life from changing. A Bug’s Life gives an example of change that someone had to seek. Atta would have eventually taken over the colony, Dot’s wings would have grown in, and Heimlich would have turned into a butterfly. That was all inevitable. But life would have continued pretty much uninterrupted if Flik hadn’t set out to make a difference, not just wait for it. Grasshoppers would have gone on bullying the ants, Queen Atta might not have been quite ready for her crown, and so on. If Flik hadn’t kept trying he wouldn’t have been ready to seize the opportunities that came his way. Then Atta, Dot, and the rest might not have realized how rewarding it is to rise up to their challenges. In that light, I feel that The Moral of Our Story is that change will come if we’re ready for it or not, so we might as well shape our lives to our liking before the world shapes them for us. We never know in what ways or to what extend we'll find success.

Gee, if only Randy Newman had gotten that to rhyme.

A Bug’s Life: That Other Movie about Ants (Part 3)

Interesting and likeable characters make Pixar stories worth watching, so let’s look at them:

The Elder Ants work together as one entity that knows more than you whippersnappers. The ones with actual roles in the colony—the Queen, Thorny the line supervisor and Mr. Soil the disaster specialist are assertive and confident. Dr. Flora apparently works in Ant Services, whatever that is. She and Cornelius have nothing to do in the film, but they both have seats on the Ant Council. Cornelius interests me more than he deserves to. I had to confirm his name by reading the cast list using process of elimination. He has literally no role other than acting old and peevish. It’s as if he just hangs around the leaders as a friend—you know, like the kind of people that like to hang around leadership to feel important. He has less function to the colony than Flik, yet he has more clout than Flik, chiefly because of his age. That really says something about what defines status in the ant colony.

The elder ants coddle the Queen’s daughter, Atta, while she watches them make most of the decisions. Princess Atta goes from helpless to helpful in the course of the movie. She doesn’t see how effective or useful Flik’s inventions are at first. As his inventions and plans begin to work, though, she becomes impressed and inspired to lead the colony without elderly advice. At the movie’s high point Atta pursues Hopper in flight when he abducts Flik. Flik and Atta do start to like each other during the movie, but their attraction thankfully doesn’t become the focus on the film. Instead it’s one of those cases where romance happens naturally as the characters go about their lives. Their chemistry is more believable that way.

The ants harvest grain for a gang of grasshopper bandits led by Hopper. He’s quite a villain.  He talks down to the ants, warning them of “insects out there who will take advantage of you.” Manipulation! He’s the one taking advantage of them. Not to mention he’s a liar. The city ants barely notice Flik when he ventures there, despite his conspicuous look. Hopper also explains that ants naturally serve grasshoppers, but none of the other grasshoppers really care whether the ants provide grain or not. They rough up the ants because they’re following Hopper’s lead.

Hopper doesn’t have much respect for his fellow grasshoppers, either. Some grasshoppers dare ask him why they bother harassing the ants when they already have plenty of food for themselves. Hopper responds by burying them in a huge pile of grain. We never see them climb out from under it. He’s not allowed to hurt his brother, Molt, thanks to his mother’s dying wish, and so when Molt riles him up he punches some random henchman instead. Does it weaken Hopper’s character that he’s true to his mother? Maybe, but without that quirk he’s 100% mean, and a little out of place for the mood of the movie.

I might as well discuss Hopper’s brother, Molt. He’s completely harmless, offsetting his brother’s nastiness and revealing that not all grasshoppers think they’re bosses of everything. He has a short attention span, and doesn’t seem to understand how serious some situations are. As Hopper tries to instill fear on the ants, Molt reminds everyone about birds and the one that almost ate Hopper. On the surface it looks like Molt is a pointless character, but by the end of the movie he joins the circus bugs as a roadie:

Molt: (sings) The circus! The circus! I love the circus!

That shows further that grasshoppers didn’t play villains in the movie just because they’re grasshoppers. Lots of groups get upset when movies portray them unfavorably, so it’s nice to know Pixar doesn’t condone bugism. It’s also interesting that Molt brings up the one thing Hopper fears, and Flik uses that info to affect the second half of the film.

It wouldn’t be fair for me to gloss over Thumper, the rabid grasshopper. I’m at a loss as to his story. The grasshoppers keep him on a leash because he acts like a wild animal, but why? Parental issues? Do Grasshoppers catch rabies? Is he mentally disabled and lash out at things out of frustration? I guess grasshoppers don’t have anything they could use in real life like aphids or anything like that. Kind of a shame.

Everyone in A Bug’s Life is affected by Flik. He stands out from the colony, and it’s his own fault. All he wants is to make a difference. It’s a credit to the writers that he never tries to explain why making a difference is important. It would have turned the movie into a “life lesson,” and would have insulted the audience’s intelligence. Plus, Flik wants to make a helpful difference, not just to validate his individuality. He’s proud to be an ant, and his inventions are attempts to improve the ant way of life. Nothing works at first, though. Thorny and Hopper both order him to get “back in line" at different points. Flik seems so helpless when others push him around. That’s why it’s so powerful when he stands up to Hopper at the end. The grasshoppers kicked him around leaving him badly beaten, but he stands back up, and with little strength, gasping for air, he calls Hopper’s bluff:

Flik: We’re a lot stronger than you say we are. And you know it, don’t you?

He found his strength by seeing how hard his colony works and how willingly they step up to their challenges. The colony in turn draws strength from him when they hear his words of praise for them. He has the same effect on the Circus Bugs. This connection takes up the span of the movie, so we hardly notice it as it happens.

We meet Atta before her younger sister, but I tend to think of Dot as the second most important protagonist in the movie. She and Flik share their frustrations about being kicked around well before Princess Atta reveals her insecurities. The movie also spends as much time developing her story as they do with Flik’s. Dot also articulates best how we’re supposed to feel about Flik:

Dot: (giggles) You’re weird, but I like you.

When she gets into trouble the circus bugs scramble to her rescue under Flik’s direction. (Since she’s played by Hayden Panettiere I’ll go ahead and say it: Save Dot, save the world.) But she got into trouble because she was concerned enough about Flik to follow him secretly. Then there’s my favorite visual moment in the entire film: Flik is riding away with the circus in exile from the colony. No one can console him. This is where Dot changes from helpless to helpful. She tries to encourage him to return to save the queen, but he refuses. Then Dot picks up a rock from the ground. The look on her face is amazingly precise. It says “I don’t know how this would work, but he tried to cheer me up with it, so it’s the best idea I have.” She sets the rock next to Flik:

Dot: Pretend that’s a seed, okay?

That does the trick. With Flik back to his senses she leads the Blueberry Scouts as they help bring Hopper down. One of the smallest characters plays one of the biggest roles in the Revolution.

The Circus Bugs have followed their dreams and have nothing to show for it—so they get along naturally with Flik. They are literally much more colorful than the ants, have much more personality, and play more essential roles than the Elder Ants. Francis the manly ladybug helps sell their act to the ant colony, and sees Dot falling from a dandelion soon enough to catch her. Manny the Shakespearean mantis uses his transformation act to whisk the Queen away to safety. Slim the underworked stick bug, fakes out the grasshoppers with fake wounds from the fake bird. Heimlich the obese caterpillar, probably the least useful, gets used as bait to lure the real bird away from Dot and Francis. Gypsy the glamorous moth distracts the bird so the rest can escape, and helps Manny in the transformation act. Rosie the kind black widow spins a net to airlift Dot and Francis, and ties the joints together on the fake bird. The Queen stows away inside Din the bulky beetle, a strong workhorse. Tuck and Roll the immigrant pill bugs are obnoxious but their bickering keeps the grasshoppers interested enough in the circus to let them stay, enabling the Queen’s rescue.

Lastly, we have P.T. Flea (It’s John Ratzenberger!) the circus ringleader. He fires everyone because their demands and quirks cause the show to fall apart.

From there his character helps move the story along because he has no clue what’s going on in any scene he appears in. While the Ants celebrate the fake bird’s completion he bursts in looking for his old circus team, exposing the “warrior bugs” as phonies. The scandal leaves Flik to ride off with the circus. When P.T. first sees the fake bird scaring the grasshoppers he sees the fake wounds on the circus bugs and sets the fake bird on fire, thinking he’s protecting his cast. It’s kind of curious that the first time he played “Flaming Death” it was to save the circus show and the second time it makes everything fall apart.


...Well, that takes care of the characters. Next time we'll wrap up with talk about the soundtrack, and then some final thoughts about what the movie seems to be saying overall. End of part 3.

A Bug’s Life: That Other Movie about Ants (Part 2)

So A Bug’s Life is about an ant from a village seeking help against a gang of bully insects, and mistakes some bad actors for true warriors. It reeks of The Three Amigos and a few others. What makes this movie stand out from them? Pixar makes it real and compelling.

Visuals and Storytelling 

Except for Thumper, and the fact that the ants have only four limbs, just about everything in A Bug’s Life makes sense. The ants follow a specific line when they travel to and from their hole. City furniture is made up of bits of garbage. Anything technological in the film comes from the insects creating what they need from what they have. Even the mushrooms used as lamps come from a phosphorescent type of mushroom in the wild. Because of those details the movie seems like it could have been filmed with real insects. Pixar plays with this idea to the point where the movie screens outtakes involving the characters making mistakes on camera. When live-action movies do that it shatters the movie’s illusion, but in a cartoon it adds to the illusion because it comes across as evidence that this world exists off-camera.

The groundbreaking visual technique in this movie is crowd movement. This was the first movie that employed hundreds of extras, all acting like individuals. They focus their eyes on different things, react at different moments, and show more individuality in their actions. If you want to see a beautifully crafted mob scene, check out the rainstorm at the climax of the film. Watch as the entire colony scrambles in all directions at once. Or watch the beginning where all the ants huddle in the anthill, fidgeting as they wait for the grasshoppers.

Speaking of the grasshoppers, how amazing is their entrance? I’ll tell you: An alarm sounds and everyone makes a final sprint to drop their grain off at the offering pile before “they” arrive.  Everyone makes it into the anthill before something approaches the Offering Stone with a menacing hum that farmers know too well. Inside, the ants gasp to hear someone above them yell “Where’s the food?” Flik tries to explain that he ruined the offering, but there is no time; the ceiling comes crashing in. First an ugly foot, then several ugly feet, then scores of grasshoppers dive-bomb into the anthill, starting a panic. I tip my hat to the screenwriters for never actually using the word “grasshopper” up till now. We knew the ants were gathering an “offering,” but nobody said what for. For one thing, they already knew what for, and explaining just for the audience’s sake that ants gather grain every year for grasshoppers to feed would have sounded too unrealistic, and would have slowed the story’s pacing down. Not only that, it helps build suspense, the same way the toys in Toy Story couldn’t see the present Andy was so excited to get, then we could only see the box’s silhouette, then the box itself, until Woody climbed up Andy’s bed to see the ankles, legs, torso, and finally the face of Buzz Lightyear.

One of the clever story-telling devices in A Bug’s Life is the use of leaves. After the bird flies across the sky we see a leaf land on water. That immediately gives us the time of year because leaves are falling. The leaves remind the ants how much time they have to work before rainy season, and before the grasshoppers come to claim their ransom. When the colony begins constructing the bird, however, leaves have a different purpose. The ants use the color leaves as plumage for the bird. We even see them air surfing on the leaves that fall. It’s like time is now on the ants’ side.

The bird itself is impressive as well. The real bird, I mean. It's the very first thing we see after Pixar's logo. There are many movies about small characters where big things move more slowly than usual. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a good example. In a pivotal scene the father is eating Cheerios, and scoops the spoonfuls into his mouth quickly and chews at the same speed anyone would. Then when one of the shrunken kids falls into the bowl, the dad slowly scoops him up, and veeeerrrrrryyyyy ssslllloooooowwwwlllly opens his mouth. It isn’t slow motion; everyone else moves at normal speed. I guess it was supposed to create suspense, or something, but it gave the dog plenty of time to come barking and nibbling the father’s ankle so the father can notice the kid swimming in his milk. The opposite of suspense.

In A Bug’s Life, the Bird is huge and cold-looking, but moves and twitches as fast as a real bird his (her?) size. That makes it an even scarier monster to the bugs—who have little hope of dodging its pecking. I honestly jumped the first couple times I saw Hopper’s demise when the bird bowed at an instant and plucked him up into her beak without any warning. And the bird has no idea of the horror she inflicts on the bugs. Hopper was right; it’s one of those “circle of life” things. She wasn’t trying to make life hard for the insects; she just wanted to feed her young. If it acts a little mechanical, the blooper reel helps justify the animation by showing the “bird machine” break down.

Along the same lines as the falling leaves, the weather in the background helps to comment on the story. The ants frequently mention the rainy season. Toward the end of the movie, a fog has hit the island. The rainy season must be approaching because the air is more humid than before. It creates a very bleak and desperate atmosphere. The grasshoppers use it to make a horrifying entrance as well, fading into view on foot through the fog. Then just as it looks like the fight between ants and grasshoppers is over, raindrops fall like mortar shells. The rainstorm is an excellent moment of chaos, and Pixar's writers set us up for it all along. The movie may have felt less fulfilling if everyone kept mentioning a rainy season that never came.

...You know, this whole thing is even bigger than I thought it would be. We'll have to pick this up again next week with the characters. End of Part 2.