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[Jorien]

I think POTC, because that first movie was a success. Lots of people would like to see the next one then aswell?

.....although now i'm thinking about it, every pixar movie has been a success aswell, so it could also be that movie.

Ahh, i don't know! We'll just have to wait and see i guess..  :wink:
I think cars will have more kids visiting, and potc will attract more adults, that's the only thing we can predict i think.

[Anthony]

Yeah, the age groups will probably be quite different.  Pirates 2 seems even "darker" than the first one, so it probably won't be much of a younger kids film.  Having said this, Pixar films appeal to a *huge* range of people, and POTC is probably liked by a lot of kids too, so they've both got massive potential audiences.

They've got to definitely both be surefire hits - this is going to be a great year for Disney at the box office!  

[Kinou]

Great french teaser poster:

[Dlrpfan]

love that poster! cant wait 4 the film!!

[Anthony]

I love how this film looks realistic yet "animated" at the same time.  When you watch the trailer(s), it all looks so crisp and real, but then you notice things like the scenery in the background, the amazing skies, etc. and it suddenly becomes a work of art.  Obviously the talking cars make it quite unrealistic too, but I originally expected this film to be quite "cold" and not very good-looking, but it actually looks entirely the opposite now.

Pixar are doing well to show that CG animation doesn't have to mean the end of artistic visuals.  Take notes, DreamWorks...

[Kinou]

Yet another poster, a US one thistime:



Fun! I can't wait! Everyda a new info about the movie!

[Anthony]

It's not as good as the other poster (obviously), but it's still pretty good.

It's interesting to see how Disney *always* have excellent marketing campaigns for Pixar films.  Makes you wonder why they're never that good with their own movies.  Chicken Little wasn't too bad, but towards the end of their traditional animation years (eg. Brother Bear, Home on the Range), they were really poor.  Walt Disney Pictures films are usually pretty bad too, except POTC...

I wonder how much input Pixar have in the marketing?

[Kristof]

Check out these:  

 

They'll be used to promote the movie in different cities in the USA.  I wonder if these will be the same that will feature in the Stars and Motor Cars Parade at Disney-MGM Studios?

Source and larger images at: http://www.mickeynews.com/News/DisplayP ... E_4186Cars

[Kinou]

Hi all
I had the luck to attend at :arrow:  the Grand Première of CARS held in the French Cinémathèque yesterday. There was a first prjection at 4 pm where they played Ratatouille teaser and One Mand Band. Then the movie in all digital projection glory!
Following the movie , John Lasseter came on stage and discuss his career by commenting pictures on screen. Then the audience was able to ask a few questions. I asked him if with the recent Pixar-Disney merge and all the reposibilities he now has, will he bea ble to direct another movie in the near future. You'll see the answer on video here:

http://pixarroom.free.fr/ArticlePremiereCARSParis.htm




you can also see another video of selected moments from the conference and it ends with a great optimistic note about 2D animation with cheer applause from the audience which was composed of mostly animation students.

Also on the same page you can see the red carpet photos of John Lasseter, his father and wife and the producer of the movie, as well as the french cast of the movie.

Enjoy!

[Anthony]

Awesome report Kinoo, great work!

I'm very impressed by his answer too - it was long and in-depth, and he didn't shy away from talking about any of the issues with Disney.  He seems like a really genuine guy, not afraid to say when something isn't good.  I'm almost starting to see why some people idealise him as some kind of Walt-for-the-new-generation.  

And for anyone who hasn't seen it, there's a new trailer here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/cars/trailer2/

I don't actually like it very much, I don't think it's a very "nice" trailer.  It's strangely paced and makes the story seem very unoriginal and obvious, when I'm sure the film is hopefully much better than that.  The voiceover is awful too... lol  It's still my #2 anticipated film of the year though (after POTC2, obviously!).  

[Anthony]

TIME previews Cars
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html
Found on http://www.animated-news.com

...And apparently it's an "instant classic"!!

There are a LOT of SPOILERS in this, seriously!!

 John Lasseter grew up in Southern California, where driving is people's passion and second career, and a car their church and fortress. So if you ask Lasseter about car love, you get an impromptu prose poem. "Car love," he says, "is the sound of a throaty V-8 rumbling and revving, the acceleration throwing you back in the seat--especially when you get on a beautiful, winding road and the light's dappling through the trees. For me, it's a combination of enjoying the beauty of cars, classic or cool modern ones, and also the actual driving: getting out on the open road, whether it's a family road trip or driving by myself on a nice windy road and enjoying the ride."

Lasseter, 49, is also the Dale Earnhardt of computer animators, the first name in a mammothly successful form of popular art he pretty much created, beginning with his short Luxo Jr. in 1986. From the start, he's been the soul of Pixar Animation: he directed its first three hits (Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2) and executive-produced its next three (Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles). Early this year, when Disney bought Pixar--basically paying about $7 billion for Lasseter's brain--he became boss of the grand old animation studio as well as the most revered modern one. His job: get both groups to make great movies.

They couldn't have a model that's smarter, snazzier or more moving, kinetically and emotionally, than Lasseter's Cars, which opens June 9. "I love having inanimate objects come to life," he says, ever the boy who can't stop tinkering and dreaming. All the characters are cars, but they're engagingly human. The lands they inhabit are richly detailed (thanks to years of research by Lasseter, co-director Joe Ranft and their team) and worlds apart: the NASCAR circuit, where autos and egos collide at 180 m.p.h., and a 1950s-ish town, keeping a sense of community far from the superhighway rat race.

Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen (as in speed and Steve), the hottest rookie on the circuit, and doesn't he know it! He's got drive, heaven knows, but no perspective. Who needs friends, or a pit crew? He's a one-man show! Ka-chow! Lightning's main rivals in the movie's opening race are "the King" (racing legend Richard Petty), who's going for one last win before he retires, and a dirty-driving mug named Chick (Michael Keaton), who's so rotten that one of his sponsor decals reads htB, for Hostile Takeover Bank.

An unexpected detour lands Lightning in Radiator Springs, a southwestern hamlet off Route 66 that lost its bustle and prosperity when the Interstate went up ages ago. The town's pulse--does it even have one?--doesn't suit Lightning, who's itching to get to L.A. for the biggest race of his young career. But he's stuck in nowheresville, obliged to repave a road he had torn up on his way through.

Up to now, Cars has been motoring at a Mach pace, as gags and characters flash by. Once in Radiator Springs, the film moseys to the tempo of a town time forgot. Even the songs slow down (yes, this is also a musical), from John Mayer's vigorous take on Route 66 to James Taylor warbling Randy Newman's gorgeously plaintive Our Town.

Not that Cars ever idles, for the townsfolk constitute a sweet if improbable rainbow coalition of vintage vehicles. They support the trio that will retool Lightning's egotism into community spirit: gruff Doc Hudson; lovely, sensible Sally; and--the movie's breakout car-actor--an endearingly yokelish tow truck named Mater.

It's Mater who teaches Lightning the truth of any Lasseter film: friendship is family. "To Lightning," he says, "Mater represents pure friendship. Like a dog: 'I'll be by your side forever.'" (Mater was the inspiration of Ranft, whose story-tweaking genius infused every Pixar movie. Tragically, he died last August, when the car he was in missed a turn on that beautiful winding road, California's Pacific Coast Highway.)

Lasseter is an old hand at humanizing machines. Cars does it in large part with the detailing of "facial" features. Most car 'toons anthropomorphize their characters by having the headlights serve as the eyes. Lasseter, following a charming Disney short, the 1952 Susie, the Little Blue Coupe, made the windshield the eyes. Cars also has fun turning hood ornaments into mustaches, grilles into mouths. More important, it evokes shifts of mood by the subtle shift of body weight, the low growl of an engine.

All this speaks to the unmatchable narrative and graphic ingenuity Pixar brings to its projects. "In computer animation," says Lasseter, "every detail has to be thought out, designed, modeled, shaded, placed and lit. The more you add, the more computer memory you need. We brought computer memories to their knees with this one."

A brief stay in Radiator Springs brings Lightning to his senses: to the recognition that the old have tricks to teach the young, that winning means more than coming in first and that speed can't top taking your time to savor the scenery--that, as Lasseter says, "the journey in life is the reward."

As the new hydra-head of animation, Lasseter may have an uphill journey: not just keeping Pixar on track (Brad Bird's Ratatouille, about a gourmet rodent in Paris, is next, probably followed by Toy Story 3), but also in steering the Mousemobile back to speed. In 1994, when The Lion King capped a series of animation hits, Disney's bright future seemed as sure a bet as Pixar's does now. Then Toy Story came out, and computer animation took over. Before buying Pixar, a desperate Disney had scuttled its traditional animation unit. Lasseter may restore that. "Of all studios that should be doing 2-D animation, it should be Disney," he says. "We haven't said anything publicly, but I can guarantee you that we're thinking about it. Because I believe in it."

Reconciling Pixar's postmodern culture with the Disney tradition seems tough. But if high-tech Lightning McQueen could find his destiny in retro Radiator Springs, why can't Lasseter find a way to turn yesterday into tomorrow at Disney? He's surely shown opposites can attract in his wonderful new film. Existing both in turbo-charged today and the gentler '50s, straddling the realms of Pixar styling and old Disney heart, this new-model Cars is an instant classic.

[Anthony]

Pixar's Cars stalls with reviewers
Wednesday June 7, 2006
 
After a honeymoon period lasting nearly 20 years Pixar Animation Studios appear to have hit a rocky patch with Cars, their latest cartoon spectacular. Tipped as one of the year's biggest hits, the film opens in the US this Friday and in the UK on July 28. But early reviews are not encouraging.

Directed by John Lasseter, Cars tells the story of a rookie sports car (voiced by Owen Wilson) who becomes stranded in the homespun township of Radiator Springs, off Route 66. Expectations for the film are high following the success of The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, but critics appear to agree that Cars is not in that class.

"With Cars, Pixar's enviable run of creative triumphs comes to a skidding stop," said Variety. The film, it added is "a dusty near-two-hour ride" and "the action keeps running out of gas." For good measure, the magazine went on to argue, "Lasseter discovers that there are only so many car puns he and five other credited writers can exhaust."

The Village Voice agreed that the film has a "turgid pace, with all the traction of a boxcar going uphill in molasses." The film was "a disappointment, following the grown-up comic-book that was The Incredibles."

Many reviewers also felt that Cars' plot was too indebted to the 1991 Michael J Fox comedy Doc Hollywood, in which a hotshot Los Angeles doctor learns a new set of values when he is stranded in an average American town. "It just rips off Doc Hollywood, almost note for note," said Christy Lemire of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Hollywood Reporter was kinder to the film. "It might not be up there in The Incredibles/Finding Nemo/Toy Story stratosphere," it admitted. "But the charming Cars is nevertheless a thoroughly pleasing way to mark Pixar Animation Studios' 20th anniversary.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0 ... 00,00.html

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Going against this news story is a rather "OK" Rotten Tomatoes rating of 81%.  Considering the scores other Pixar films have received, though, it's not too good for Cars.  It's still not "bad" though, I don't think, they've just set themselves such a high benchmark that they've beaten with every film.  They had to slightly miss the mark at some point...  Infact, I don't think it'll be Pixar's worst film.  There's a bug's life, remember?

Toy Story - 100%
A Bug's Life - 91%
Toy Story 2 - 100% (this score for a sequel is incredible!)
Monsters, Inc. - 95%
Finding Nemo - 98%
The Incredibles - 97%

Cars - 81%

There are only 21 reviews for Cars listed so far, though, so we could see that score rise up a bit again soon...

[experiment627]

Well, considering that the two films with the best rating are my least favourite PIXAR movies, I'll wait and see...

However, one concern of mine: I probably care more about my fridge than about my car...  :wink:

[experiment627]

Ouch!

From the Associated Press: "The makers of "Doc Hollywood" called. They want their movie back."

Gee, let's wait for Monday - and all the talk about how Disney overpaid for Pixar if it shouldn't become a blockbuster within a week...

[Kristof]

I was very fortunate to see the Flemish version of Cars today!  The story and animation are really good, it's actually one of the few Pixar movies I can appreciate  :wink: .