'The Pixar Story' reviewed

Toon Zone has published a critical review and analysis of the documentary The Pixar Story, which profiles Pixar's history and success in animation. In the article, Toon Zone writer Ed Liu specifically addresses the documentary's faults, which are said to be due to Disney/Pixar's involvement in the film. (Disney is distributing.)

Liu writes: "It's a good documentary, but it doesn't quite escape Pixar's influential pull... Her film falls into what sounds like an unfortunate mimicry of a company line."

My take: The above statement, I think, is a bit tough, but there is some truth to the criticism. The documentary was, in fact, sponsered and endorsed by Disney and Pixar. Leslie Iwerks, the film's director (who has worked with Disney and Pixar before), got total access to Pixar's archives. She also, among other things, got to interview many of the influentials at the company, including those who usually don't sit for on-camera interviews.

Realistically, then, I wouldn't expect much objectivity from the film (which I have yet to see). Nobody's going to get this kind of help from the subject of their movie, and then turn around and give air time to the not-so-nice facts of the subject's history.

Even so, I don't think that a positive documentary profile of a company is nessesarily a huge negative, at least not in this case. I will simply consider The Pixar Story to be Pixar's history as seen by Pixar. Nothing wrong with that. As a viewer familiar with the company, I'll know where certain details were left out, and I won't really care. I'll just be watching for the fun stuff.

Not to say that I wouldn't love to learn some more sordid details! I just don't think that this film would have been the right place to present them. For that, I'm looking forward to reading The Pixar Touch, which will be published next month. I've posted some details on the book here, and I've got some special posts planned for around the time of the book's release. Stay tuned.