The Ingenious Ideas of Pixar

In 1974, a computer lab was established in the New York Institute of Technology by a man named Alexander Schure. Eventually, a group came together who worked in the lab under Shure's direction, with the dream of creating the worlds first computer animated film. Some of these members left to join a new group, The Graphic Group, under the Lucasfilms brand. Some time later, the group decided they wanted to create an independent company. While selling something called the "Pixar Image Computer" to create funds, the group focused on creating their first computer animated film. The group came to find even more funding by the late Steve Jobs, who put a fortune into the company. Flash forward to 1995, Pixar had finally released its first film Toy Story. From here on out Pixar revolutionized the animated film world with each and every release. To this day, Pixar films are some of the most highly recognized and positively anticipated animated films of the decade. With Finding Dory on the horizon, today I'm going to talk about some of the most ingenious creations this studio has put out in the world.

The Toy Story Series

In the world of Pixar, this series is somewhat of a legendary tale. The original 1995 film was a massive success and holds phenomenal reviews from people around the world. The series gives life to the toys that we all played with when we were young. It shows the world from their perspective and is considered one of the most ingenious ideas of its time. Lead voice actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen cemented themselves as these characters delivering outstanding performances. The film even went on to earn itself an Academy Award. For a companies first product, this was a home run. In 1999, Pixar returned to the world releasing Toy Story 2. The film grossed nearly half a billion dollars in its run, and showed the true value of the series beyond a one hit wonder. At this point, people began to cherish the characters of the film as a household name. It took 11 years before Pixar decided to release Toy Story 3, ending the trilogy on a strong emotional note. The film talks about what will happen to the toys once Andy, their owner, finally goes off to college. The film features a moment that is sure to make anyone who cares about the characters drop tears. The Toy Story series can nearly be identified as the perfect trilogy, with very little mistakes to its name. Some time later, a great idea must have crossed the minds of the Pixar team as they have now announced Toy Story 4 to be released in 2018. The film will tell of a love story between the characters Woody and Bo Peep. You'll be able to return to the heartwarming world of Toy Story on June 15th, 2018.

Toy Story	Toy Story 2	Toy Story 3
$361,958,736	$485,015,179	$1,063,171,911

Toy Story Series Worldwide Box Office Gross

Finding Nemo & Finding Dory

In 2003, Pixar released another film to critical acclaim, called Finding Nemo. The film tells the story of a clownfish searching the entire ocean for his son with the help of a fish named Dory, a blue tang with short-term memory loss. The movie went on to gross nearly $1 billion in its release. It is considered one of Pixars strongest properties aside from their Toy Story series. In 2016, a sequel by the name of Finding Dory will be released and tell the story of Dory from the first film and her search for her own family. The film took ten years after the first to be announced, and has its returning cast from the first film to help move the project along swimmingly. Ellen DeGeneres, who voices Dory, is extremely fond of the role and has been excited to help this film come to fruition. You can find plenty of lost fish in the sea this year with Finding Dory on June 17th, 2016.

The difficult part of compiling a list of great Pixar films is that every single Pixar film is a great film. Aside from the films mentioned above, the studio released A Bug's Life in its earlier years as its second film. While the film doesn't rank as high as the other series, it holds its own as a strong title. Pixar would also develop legendary properties such as Monsters, Inc and Monsters University. The films tell the story of the monsters in your closet from their perspective. With another strong voice cast of actors such as John Goodman and Billy Crystal, the Monsters series is one of the most well regarded Pixar series alongside the Finding Nemo and Toy Story series. The list could go on and on, and chances are, you have seen one of the films and hear of nearly all of them. Pixars slate of films continue to grow under their acquisition by Disney. Yet, the heart and soul of Pixar still remains behind each new title. The company prides themselves on not only worthy sequels, but consistent original films. This year marks the first in which the company released two brand new original films. The first film, Inside Out, is an ever-growing property that has already latched onto the population. The other film they have released, The Good Dinosaur, is making waves as of lately. While not as popular as Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur seems to be well received. If you haven't seen any of these films, you have to pick a few and spend a lazy Sunday feeding your inner child. Pixar knows the formula for success, and we are excited to see what the future brings for this captivating company!

"Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults." - John Lasseter                          "'Toy Story' we found, sorta by accident, because we didn't know what we were doing, the idea of being replaced by somebody. Everybody has that fear, or encounters this jealousy at some point." - Pete Docter                          "Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one." - Brad Bird                          "I remember as a kid having a balloon and accidentally letting the string go and watching it just float off and into the sky until it disappeared. And there's something about that, even, that feels very much like what life is, you know, that it's fleeting, and it's temporal." - Pete Docter (Referencing Up)                          "At Pixar, we do a million versions of the movie, and every one of them goes through their awkward teenage phase where it's terrible and doesn't make sense, and we just keep working on it." - Dan Scanlon                          "'Monsters,' everybody has the thought of monsters in your closet as a kid, and more importantly, the idea of becoming a parent. We're always kind of looking for those emotional nuggets. They're always at the heart of the story." - Pete Docter (Referencing Monsters, Inc.)

I will leave you off with other Pixar films not mentioned in this article that deserve recognition...

• Cars (2006), Cars 2 (2011) & Cars 3 (2017)
• The Incredibles (2004) & The Incredibles 2 (2019)
• WALL-E (2008)
• Up (2009)
• Ratatouille (2007)
• Brave (2012)
• Coco (2017) ~ Pixar's next original film