Odds & Ends

I like this a lot. As many others have noted - as early as the appearance of the first concept art - this whole project has a strong Miyazaki vibe. Again, Pixar seem willing to nudge their material in a slightly more whimsical direction: perhaps they did, in fact, learn something from their excursion into formulaic mediocrity with Cars.

For an intriguing comparison, compare it to the much more conventional looking Bolt, from the Disney side of the merged Disney / Pixar hybrid:

Bolt was started before the merger of the two studios; there was some gorgeous early art and test footage released when the film was known as American Dog, before the original director Chris Sanders was booted from the project (read Cartoon Brew's report about that here; and some of the concept art can be seen here). Now it looks much less interesting, and in fact much of the character design - particualrly Bolt himself - is downright ugly. Who knows what to make of this (or the similar removal of Glen Keane off the helm of Rapunzel Unbraided); certainly some seem to have had trouble reconciling such apparently hard-headed corporate behaviour with John Lasseter's carefully cultivated nice guy image.

I can buy the idea that scrapping everything and starting over might become necessary, even if they need to fire the director. But the Bolt trailer makes it look very much of a piece with every other animals-on-an-adventure animated film we've seen in the last few years. Meanwhile, the Pixar films seem to be gaining some licence to do some slightly different things. Perhaps the head honchos at Disney / Pixar see Disney as being the kids label and want to differentiate Pixar as the more boutique / adult / risk-taking brand?

Of course, that's a lot more speculation than two brief trailers can sensibly stand. We'll have to wait and see.