Most obviously, it’s a western, pitting a group of peaceful farmers against a ruthless and violent gang of racketeers, set to a soaring score that recalls Aaron Copland.
#A BUGS LIFE MOVIE#
So A Bug’s Life drew inspiration from classic movie conventions to knit together a compelling narrative. But you need more than just a message to make a good film. And even though it’s a children’s film, A Bug’s Life understands that the conflict between individuality and community is one of life’s greatest dilemmas, and synthesizes a harmony between the two ideas: the community is strongest when individuals use their diverse gifts to pursue the common good. The colony, led by Princess Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), is unified from the start-something the grasshoppers’ villainous leader Hopper (Kevin Spacey) knows is their greatest strength.
#A BUGS LIFE FOR FREE#
So Flik sets out to make amends by finding mercenaries to fight the grasshoppers, ultimately mistaking a circus troupe for the warrior bugs he seeks.Īs much as Flik is an argument for free thinking and individuality, everything he does is with the welfare of his community in mind. Some of his inventions-most of them, we’re led to believe-don’t work, so when one causes an accident that leads to the loss of a harvest, the colony reaches the end of its patience. Flik, the ant hero, is constantly inventing new contraptions to make life easier for his colony, which lives under threat from a swarm of grasshoppers who demand a share of the food the ants harvest each season. And A Bug’s Life is as didactic of a film as you’ll find. After all, it’s not the breakthrough hit that makes a one-hit wonder, it’s the follow-up.Īrt made for children, more than any other audience, tends to have a message. Now more than two decades later, people still ask whether A Bug’s Life is the one with brown ants and Woody Allen, or the one with blue ants and Dave Foley.īut that history puts this insect-based children’s western in a unique position in the Disney-Pixar canon: the position to re-emerge as a cult classic.Īs much as A Bug’s Life was overshadowed by the movies released afterward, it offered proof of concept for the Pixar model post- Toy Story. How ‘Bao’ and ‘Turning Red’ Director Domee Shi Is Telling New Types of Stories at PixarĪntz ultimately beat A Bug’s Life to theaters in the fall of 1998, with The Prince of Egypt (and its all-time banger soundtrack) following in December. Throughout 1998, Jobs, Lasseter, and Katzenberg hurled barbs at each other in the press and maneuvered the release dates of Antz, A Bug’s Life, and The Prince of Egypt around the calendar like battleships on the high seas, hoping to combine commercial advantage with maximum pettiness. A Bug’s Life director John Lasseter claimed Katzenberg stole the idea from Disney, and he and Pixar founder Steve Jobs very publicly lost their fucking minds. When former Disney bigwig Jeffrey Katzenberg left the company to co-found DreamWorks in 1994, he announced that one of the studio’s first films would be about an ant who doesn’t fit in with his colony-a project that ultimately became Antz. Speaking of which, the most enduring cultural legacy of A Bug’s Life might be the thermonuclear feud between Disney and DreamWorks that accompanied the film’s release. It inspired no sequels and predated the Best Animated Feature Oscar, robbing us of a showdown for the ages with The Prince of Egypt. Even the Cars movies sold a lot of toys.īut A Bug’s Life, released in 1998, generated the lowest box office gross of any film in Pixar’s first 20 years of existence.
Then came Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Up-almost everything Pixar touched carried totemic cultural impact.
#A BUGS LIFE SERIES#
In 1995, Toy Story redefined the genre, picked up an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay, and launched one of the most successful and widely acclaimed film series ever. The studio that brought computer animation to the mainstream spent 15 years on an all-time heater.
Yes, indeed, A Bug’s Life: that long-forgotten relic of the early days of Pixar. To infinity … and beyond!Ī misunderstood stranger protecting helpless innocents from a villainous, lawless aggressor is the hallmark of so many great Hollywood films: Shane. Check back throughout the week to vote for your favorite characters and read a selection of stories that spotlight some of Pixar’s finest moments. At the heart of the occasion is the Best Pixar Character Bracket, a cutthroat tournament to determine the most iconic figure of them all. Ahead of the release of Lightyear, The Ringer is hosting Pixar Week -a celebration of the toys, rats, clown fish, and more that helped define one of the greatest studios of the 21st century.
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