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.

A Bug’s Life: That Other Movie about Ants (Part 1)

Yes, it’s been almost a year since I wrote about Toy Story, but that’s because I’m not a professional writer, and I started to feel overwhelmed about the project. I would have taken the blog down if I didn’t want to complete the project anymore, but I’ve chosen to take a different approach from now on. Piece by piece we’ll go, and I won’t waste time giving a synopsis. At least not with A Bug’s Life. Everything I want to address really touches on the story, So if you haven’t seen a movie and don’t want to piece it together, movies are made for watching, anyway. We’ll start with an overall look at each movie, and then follow up later with looks at their more specific aspects.

“You’re wrong, Hopper. Ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers. I've seen these ants do great things. And year after year they somehow manage to pick enough food for themselves and you. So who’s the weaker species? Ants don’t serve grasshoppers. It’s you who need us!”

As I began watching A Bug’s Life I realized a few things. This movie is probably the least-talked about movie Pixar released, perhaps next to Ratatouille. I may have seen the movie twice before I began this blog, and I still have difficulty keeping every character’s name straight. When I brought the movie up with my friends, some of us confused it with Antz, that infamous rival and flagship CGI movie produced by Dreamworks Animation. For those reasons I approached A Bug’s Life with less of a bias than any other Pixar movie. Coming off a Toy Story high, it has been easy to find fault with A Bug’s Life, but it has also been easy to find Pixar’s warm, understated style throughout the film.

“A Bug’s Life” has a similar ring as a title as “Toy Story,” but this is clearly not the same movie. For one thing, we see no people, ever. You couldn’t make a long film about toys without explaining where the people are, but insects can go their whole lives unaffected by humans. People don’t serve the story at all, so it serves no purpose to see them. In fact, the only evidence that people exist lies in the background of the Big City, and we see just enough garbage and houses to see how humans affect the City bugs. Pixar extends the no-humans joke by featuring other insects manning the cameras during the outtakes.

You may have heard its story borrows from other sources. The Seven Samurai, or The Three Amigos. There’s even a hint of An American Tail—seeing them construct a robot bird I couldn’t help but think of the robot mouse the immigrant mice made. (“Wewease za secwet weapon!”) That’s perhaps one reason A Bug’s Life isn’t as popular as other Pixar works. On the other hand, the unoriginal story lets us focus on the other qualities Pixar puts into their films.

So why else would A Bug’s Life not work? No action figure potential. No, really! Watch Toy Story, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, and think of how fun it would be to recreate the movies with toys like the cartoons. With A Bug’s Life, There wouldn’t be a reason to buy more than one ant. A bucket o’ soldiers would be just as effective since they all look alike. Movies are always more fun if you wish you could take the characters home with you.

Randy Newman’s soundtrack for this movie is much tighter and less distracting than Toy Story. Unfortunately, the song “Time of Your Life” at the end credits just doesn’t work. A whole movie of sweeping, adventuresome soundtrack and we close with a rip-off of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

It’s the time of your life so live it well.

It’s the time of your life so live it well.

You may only go ‘round this one time

As far as I can tell.

It’s the time of your life so live it well.

Great. Thanks for that. Like I said, though, the soundtrack itself is mighty nice. He uses definite themes for different stages in the movie and manipulates them to reflect the mood of the scenes. If he had set words to the opening melody of the movie it could have rivaled “Seize the Day” from Newsies.

The movie definitely “feels” like Pixar. Very vibrant colors in the environment, even in the rocks and sand. The opening shot is very majestic and panoramic, compared to the sharp polygons in Andy’s little room in Toy Story. The landscape is far more detailed as well. The ants work with smiles on their faces when we first see them and it warms us up to them. The humor is high-brow, and we can see how most of the jokes make sense in the ant world. (I’ll take it on faith that “BYOB” actually means something to ants.)

My favorite aspect of the film is the characters. I’ll go into more detail later, but the heroes and villains all have more than one side to their personalities. Flik is a nerd and an outcast but he loves his colony. Hopper may be one of the meanest mustache-twirling foes in Pixar history, but he still begrudgingly obeys his mother’s wishes. Even Dot the junior princess plays out as live bait but still manages to offer wisdom without getting cutsie.

The last thing I want to bring up for now is the light and subtle way A Bug’s Life presents its themes and motifs. Referring to the Old and the New, metamorphosis plays a role throughout the movie. Heimlich laments that he is but a caterpillar. Dot’s wings haven’t developed yet, either. Princess Atta nervously trains to take over as Queen. The first image we see in the film is that of a falling leaf, because autumn is giving way to the rainy season. These motifs all reflect Flik’s metamorphosis from timid inventor to a leader in a revolt against tyranny. When he finally gives the line I quoted above, he shows amazing determination.

I’m grateful that the movie never stops to give any speeches about change. Flik tries to give an object lesson about seeds taking time to grow, but it doesn’t become a moment where the movie stops so kids can hear the Moral of the Story.

Flik: Pretend that that’s a seed.

Dot: It’s a rock.

Flik: Oh, I know it’s a rock. I know, but let’s just pretend for a minute it’s a seed, alright? We’ll just use our imaginations…

Dot: This rock will be a tree?

Flik: Seed to tree, you’ve got to work with me here…

Dot: But it’s a rock.

Flik: I know it’s a rock! Don’t you think I know a rock when I see one? I spend a lot of time around rocks!

Now that we’ve looked at the movie as a whole, we’ll look at the characters, music, and visuals and how they contribute to the movie. End of part 1.

Interlude: Pixar and Dreamworks, a love story.

Hey, everybody. I know how long it's been since I wrote. I haven't given up on the dream. I apparently had more free time in the summer than I realized. Please accept my apology. I noticed earlier this week a friend of mine began following the blog. And here's how awesome Phil is: now I know he's expecting material, I'm going to write a bonus blog just to tide him over until I finally conclude my research for A Bug's Life.

My buddy Adam sent me a cartoon depicting Buzz Lightyear and Woody badmouthing Dreamworks movies between takes of Toy Story 3. They name many successful Pixar movies next to many movies Dreamworks came out with. To me, the cartoon shows two things quite well: How formulaic Dreamworks movies can be, and how snooty Pixar die-hards can be. I've noticed how often positive Pixar reviews tend to dog on Dreamworks, so I vowed to steer away from that here. The truth remains, however, that my opinion of one affects my opinion of the other. So I'd like to elaborate more why I admire Pixar movies so much, especially in light of what Dreamworks offers.

It was inevitable. Dreamworks' first cartoon was Antz, and almost dared us to compare it to A Bug's Life. The two approaches fascinate me. Antz really sets the mold for Shrek and other movies to come. A Bug's Life, meanwhile, seems almost to deliberately avoid the same story as Antz. But since the two movies came out only about 2 months apart it's brilliant how different they are because they had to have been worked on pretty much at the same time. Nowadays A Bug's Life is largely forgotten, sandwiched between two Toy Story movies. It's like the movie we watched while we waited for more Toy Story.

So how are Pixar and Dreamworks different? Several ways:

Style

Pixar loves doing research and incorporating what they learn into their stories. Ants sometimes corral aphids like cattle, so why wouldn't the queen have an aphid for a pet? The father in Finding Nemo is a homebody like all clown fish. And the cooks in Ratatouille walk and act like real artisans in a restaurant. The movie makes a big deal that Remy is not supposed to walk on his hind legs. It isn't the way of the rat.

Dreamworks likes research, too, but they tend to translate what they've learned into human terms. The ants in Antz burrow, but they use pickaxes. In Shark Tale, fish walk upright on their fins, with smaller fins where ears would be. Quadrupeds in Madagascar grab things with their paws. Yes, it's just a cartoon, but giving animals human qualities feels like pigeon-holing the characters into a man-made story, rather than letting the story come organically out of the characters themselves.

Story
Let's give a rundown of Pixar stories:
An old toy envies a new toy's popularity.
An ant helps overthrow oppression and creates a new way of life for his colony.
An old toy chooses between immortality and loyalty to friends and family.
A monster overturns a widely held myth, and uncovers a scandal in an energy plant.
A father searches for a kidnapped son, hoping to patch up the relationship.
A superhero comes out of hiding to deal with a misgiving made earlier in his career.
A racing champion breathes new life into a dusty, sleepy town.
A cook chooses between doing what he wants and honoring his family.
A robot redeems the human race from self-made exile.
An old man travels to South America to fulfill his life's greatest regret.
Old toys look for new purpose when their owner out-grows them.

Now for Dreamworks. These are their own movies, not the ones developed in conjunction with other companies:
An ant has trouble fitting in.
An ogre is bitter because he doesn't fit in.
A fish doesn't fit in.
A zebra wants to escape a zoo because he doesn't fit in.
An ogre doesn't fit in with his in-laws.
An ogre doesn't fit in as a king.
A bee doesn't fit in.
A panda doesn't fit in.
A lion doesn't fit in when he reunites with his family.
A young lady survives a radiation accident, but no longer fits in.
A viking's son doesn't fit in.
An ogre doesn't fit in as a father.
An alien doesn't fit in.

Yes, there's more to a Dreamworks story than that, but take away the action and this list describes the same main conflict each hero has. Not only that, but Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon were based on books, and Pixar's list are all stories from scratch. Pixar is reportedly working on adaptations, but after showing what original ideas they can create it's clear they know how to make stories work.

I'd like to give credit where due, and I admit Dreamworks has improved their content. I liked Monsters vs Aliens, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train your Dragon. The latter two, in fact, seemed to tone down their pop-culture references considerably, and I could relate more to the characters. I joke sometimes that Dreamworks is starting to think more like Pixar.

Star Power
Woody Allen and Sharon Stone were big names years before Antz came out. Every Dreamworks movie since then advertised all-star casts to go along with their movies, so much that for the fourth Shrek movie a reporter made a big deal that the voice of Rumplestilskin was by a writer, not a famous actor. I could almost hear Pixar writers rolling their eyes because their team had been doing that kind of thing for years.

Tom Hanks was famous but not a big deal, and Tim Allen was kind of popular as a TV comedian. They became more in demand after Toy Story's release. Actors are hired for their ability to vanish into their characters. I don't watch Finding Nemo thinking, "Ellen DeGeneres is funny!" I think, "Dori's funny!" Early in the creative process, the writers or animators at Pixar record demos of what the characters should sound like. Often (Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, Incredibles, WALL-E) the demo sounds so good that the no-name records the final voice. In my opinion that helps the audience immerse into the story more fully.

Infrastructure
Dreamworks churns out the movies, but as I mentioned briefly, not all of them are 100% Dreamworks. Some are in conjunction with other studios, which explains how they can quickly release so many films in succession. Ultimately, comparing Dreamworks to Pixar is apples to oranges. Dreamworks is not solely animation after all, but a movie distribution group. They're more like Disney as a whole, and we know that not everything Disney produces has lasting value. This realization came to me recently, so I can finally cut them slack, and I can be at peace with my views of Pixar and Dreamworks.

Pixar, meanwhle, continues their steady pace of one movie per year. And their fans keep waiting, wondering what they'll pull out of their hats next.