SpoutBlog on spout.com

Under discussion:

The Black Hole  (1979)

Short Circuit  (1986)

Robots  (2005)

Wall-E  (2008)

It’s no secret that I have a soft spot for all things science fiction-related, and when it involves robots of any kind (the odd exception being the actual movie Robots, which I avoided like the plague) then I’m in like Flynn. The more non-human looking the robot, the more I’ll love it. (Which is probably why Disney’s own The Black Hole has some of the coolest movie robots in it. V.I.N.C.E.N.T.? Maximillian? Great stuff. Where’s my Blu-ray, Disney?) One of the movies this past year that actually got me into the theaters more than once was Disney/Pixar’s WALL•E, which comes out on DVD today. They’ve added a ton of special features to the film, especially (of course) if you buy the three-disc special edition, which includes a digital copy of the movie that you can toss on your iPhone, laptop, digital watch, toaster oven, or shaving mirror.

Despite the fact that director Andrew Stanton says WALL•E has “no environmental message” whatsoever, it’s a bit ironic that on the commentary track he starts out by explaining that in the development process they wondered what would happen if so much trash piled up that humans had to leave the earth in order to clean it up. Sounds environmental enough to me. Luckily, the fact that Stanton continues to insist there’s no underlying meaning, and that he never made the connection between WALL•E and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit hasn’t detracted from my enjoyment of the film.

Pixar decided to revisit the WALL•E universe by creating a short film using new animation and some recycled footage. The idea was that it would be a nifty little special feature for the DVD, which it is, but it makes me yearn for a sequel to WALL•E — which is a sign of Disney’s marketing magic at work. The short film is BURN•E, and I got the chance to see a little early and to talk with the director of the short, Angus MacLean. The DVD also includes the short magician vs. rabbit film Presto, and these two shorts alone are worth the price you’ll pay for this robotic wonder. Check out our interview with MacLean below the jump.

Is there any Pixar film that you would have loved to work on, but didn’t get the chance to?

I would have loved t o have worked on the original Toy Story which is the only Pixar feature that I was not involved in. I also wish that I could have worked on some of those Listerine commercials.

I noticed that BURN•E does a fist-pump when he cuts through the door. What gave you the idea to include that?

That is a bit of an inside joke. Brad Bird’s pet peeve is the movie cliche’ where a character does that fist-pump an says “YESSSS!” I think that I put that joke in just to irritate him. I think there is an easter egg on the Rataouille DVD that explains this. So if you watch that before you see BURN•E, the short will be 34% funnier.

So when will we get to see BURN•E in Lego like you did with WALL•E?

I designed a Lego BURN•E as a crew gift as a thank you for the hard work. I ordered the pieces, made custom decals and instructions and hand packaged each of the sets. If there is interest, I will post a picture on Flickr soon.

WALL•E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class. What does BURN•E stand for?

BURN•E stands for: Basic Utility Repair Nano Engineer. I have since heard from some people that it actually be BURN•A because the “E” in WALL•E stands for “Earth-Class” and the “A” would be the appropriate “Axiom-Class”. Now I could argue that maybe BURN•E was a robot on earth that then was installed on the Axiom, but A: I would be lying and B: What is the point? If that is the biggest problem you have with the film, then I have done my job. Now put yourself i my shoes- you have to name this robot. The name BURN•E is funny and breaks the continuity of the film or BURN•A which is more accurate to the feature and is not funny at all. Which would you choose? I thought so. I do love that geeks pick up on this and I am happy to be creating this controversy. I’d probably do the same thing were I not involved.

How much of an animated film is software and how much is the result of an “artist’s” vision and his/her ability to bring that vision to life? What role does software play in the pricess? Is it a mere tool, like, say, video editing software, or does it allow animators to do things they could not do with ink and paper?

WALL•E was mostly created by a computer robot we have here at Pixar called the EntertainmentBot 3000. Nah, the computer is just a big, dumb pencil.

Why’d you decide to give BURN•E of all the characters in WALL•E his own short?

A.M.: I thought he was a fun character to animate. After I had animated the shot with him in the feature I wanted to know what happened to him. I wanted to answer that question with this short.

How hard was it to think of a name that sounded like a robot but was a pun for a human name (Bernie)?

His name internally had been “Repair Bot” When I started the short, I envisioned him as being called WELD•R. About two days later Jim Reardon, the head of WALL•E Story handed me a drawing he had done of the word BURN•E burned into metal. After that there was no going back.

Q: Is it harder to do an animated film with little dialogue? Does it put more pressure on the animation to do the talking? Because of this, was WALL•E harder character to create than some of your others?

It’s not harder to animate, but it is way more work in the story board process.

At what point during the development of WALL•E did you start planning the story of BURN•E? Did they construct any plot points in the feature to facilitate the short, or vice versa?

I came up with and started boarding the short approximately 5 months before WALL•E was completed. However, no plot points were changed in the feature to make the short work. There were things that were changed in that one shot in WALL•E that featured BURN•E after it had been finished. The light spire that he welds was not originally in the shot.

How did you go about choosing scenes from WALL•E that BURN•E could impact? Did you have to scrap any ideas that just wouldn’t fit with the existing story?

I came up with as many places in the movie as I could think of to cut back to. We cut whatever wasn’t funny or slowed the pace down. Oddly enough the scene from the feature that sparked the original idea for BURN•E was cut from the feature. The scene is too complicated to explain. Maybe that’s why it never made it.

Having been the directing animator on WALL•E, what did that involve?

The Directing Animator’s job is to help the other animators keep their animation on model so that the acting and movement are consistent for each of the characters over the entire film. They work to be both a surrogate voice of the Director when he/she is available, and also offer acting and performance suggestions. Directing Animators also help to define the motion and character of the main characters in the film. The Directing Animator reports directly to the Supervising Animators. On WALL•E (as well as The Incredibles) I worked under the Supervision Animators Alan Barillaro and Steven Hunter. They interface more with the production staff about the direction and management of the WALL•E animation department. They also serve as both a surrogate voice of the Director and also offer acting and performance suggestions as well. Time permitting, Supervising Animators will also help to define the motion and character of the main characters in the film.

How did you get selected to direct BURN•E? Now that you’ve done it, what would you do differently?

I think it was opportunity met with preparation. Andrew liked the idea of the DVD short being about BURN•E. He encouraged me to storyboard the film. After the story was approved, Andrew asked if I would be interested.

What do you think was the hardest thing to get right in the short?

There was a lot of difficult shots to pull off in this film. From a technical perspective, the shot with WALL•E touching Saturn’s rings that transitions into the pebble meteor was the hardest to pull off. The Effects Supervisor, Bill Watral did a fabulous job stitching the shot from the film and a bunch of new elements that were on a literally planetary scale. On the performance side, the shot where SUPPLY•R drops the light on the ground was the trickiest to get right. There was something in the boards that was really funny that was extremely difficult to capture.

BURN•E has a very “Pixar” feel to it as an animated short. What is it about repetitive failure (Lifted, One Man Band, and now BURN•E) that is so funny?

Humor usually comes about when result doesn’t match the expectation. If everything in an characters’ life goes well it’s hard to relate to and probably not as funny.

Where do you actually start on design with so many different kinds of robots?

In the WALL•E universe most of the robots are designed and built around the idea of function first, character second. With the character of WALL•E we figured out his motion as a trash compactor first. After that had been firmly established we then worked on how to define his character based on the limitations of him being a trash compactor

Are there any easter eggs we should watch out for?

There are a few small nods here and there to various sci-fi properties. I won’t go through all of them, but I will mention that there is a graphic on the elevator inside the Axiom that reads “ELV 426″ indicating that this is elevator number four hundred and twenty-six. This is of course (pushing my glasses up on my nose) a reference to LV-426 the planet that is the setting of the movie Alien and Aliens.

How hard was it to get the right type of emotion out of a robot?

It is always our goal as animators to make our work clearly communicate the thought process of the characters to the audience. It was particularly challenging for us on BURN•E as well as WALL•E because of the limited nature of the designs and the lack of dialogue. Both characters limited designs are are appealing, but more work must be done in the story process to communicate his intentions. WIth BURN•E and with WALL•E, if the audience can’t tell what the character is thinking or what is going on, then they lose interest very quickly.

Disney / Pixar’s WALL•E Special Edition includes a ton of special features, like the excellent The Pixar Story documentary, directed by Leslie Iwerks (it’s been on cable a lot recently), the two mentioned short films, deleted scenes, and a lot more stuff. If you pick up the Blu-ray edition (highly recommended) you’ll get arcade games, fly-throughs of the set, a geek track by some of the crazy kids at Pixar, and a kitchen sink.

Under discussion:

Night Moves  (1975)

• If I wasn’t going to be in Denver until the following morning, there’s no way I’d miss the Museum of the Moving Image’s event on Saturday night at the Times Center in Manhattan, wherein Jerry Lewis will be interviewed on stage by his long-time friend, Peter Bogdanovich. The event will include clips from Lewis’ films, which Chris Fujiwara considered in a piece posted on the Museum’s Moving Image Source yesterday.
• On Thursday, MoMA will begin their screening series dedicated to the titles nominated for the Not Coming to a Theater Near You award at the 2008 Gothams. Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues kicks the series off; Wellness, Afterschool, The New Year Parade and Meadowlark will screen through Monday.
• Anthology Film Archives’ tribute to the films of Arthur Penn continues through Sunday. Tonight they’re screening Night Moves, which was recently the subject of one of Kevin B. Lee’s Shooting Down Pictures essays.

Under discussion:

Dr. No  (1963)

For Your Eyes Only  (1981)

From Russia With Love  (1963)

Live and Let Die  (1973)

Thunderball  (1965)

Die Another Day  (2002)

Quantum of Solace  (2008)

Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale might eschew gadgets in lieu of a hard punch to the nose, but it’s hard to argue that the best Bond gadget in recent years isn’t the invention of the Blu-ray DVD. Now the classic Bond films have started appearing in the format with upgraded images, sound, and a slew of special features. Casino Royale was previously released on DVD as one of Sony’s first “must have” discs to show off your Blu-ray player (which was probably a Sony PlayStation3), but now they’re visiting a smattering of different Bonds in this first release.

As I’ve learned in my adult life, there are sometimes those moments that you realize you’re probably unhealthily obsessed with something. For me, that moment came when I was seriously considering purchasing a $2,999 framed collage featuring signatures of all the actors who had played James Bond in the “official” movies, along with various playing cards, casino chips, photos and what not. I ultimately had to pass on it, and my wallet was grateful after the fact.

Thankfully there are much more affordable ways to feed this obsession, some of which can be documented in the series of Bondcasts that I used to host with Athena Stamos at Cinematical. One of those ways has been collecting the James Bond movies on DVD. There have been not one, nor two, but now three different collections of Bond issued on DVD, and while I really miss the menu screens from the first set, (”Please activate your remote control to activate the Goldfinger Special Edition DVD” — complete with an extremely Bondian gadgetlike interface), you can’t argue that Blu-ray is definitely giving the previous James Bond films a shot in the arm.

These versions of the Blu-ray dicsc are basically upgraded ports of The Ultimate James Bond Collections that came out in 2006 to capitalize on the introduction of Daniel Craig’s Bond. I skipped on these versions, since I’d already purchased the James Bond Collection DVDs a few years prior to that. They’ve included all of the same extras (many of which didn’t appear in the versions I have), and upgraded some of the standard definition features to HD. Basically, Bond has never looked or sounded as good in your home or even in the theaters. Which is especially impressive considering that Dr. No is 46 years old.

Dr. No

While I wish Goldfinger would have been included as the first Connery film in this initial release, it only makes sense to start at the beginning with the first Bond film. The first Bond DVD sets didn’t include Dr. No, so you had to wait a few months to get your full contingent of Connery’s Bond. Still, you can’t beat that scene of Ursula Andress coming out of the water in her bikini, and it looks even better in high-def. Some of the highlights include:

• Audio commentary with director Terence Young: this is fun to listen to, but would have loved to see Connery participate! Throw him some cash or something, people.
• Archival TV spots and trailers: We’ve come a long way, and I really miss these old-school trailers.
• The Guns of James Bond featurette: This is like porno for Bond fans. Seriously.

From Russia With Love

You can’t beat Robert Shaw as one of the best James Bond baddies, and he looks imposing and scary as the blond and muscular Russian agent Red Grant who actually “kills” Sean Connery’s Bond in the opening sequence. Plus you get the archetype for Austin Powers’ Frau Farbissina in Rosa Klebb, who trains and oversees Grant. This is Connery’s favorite Bond film, and while I’d argue with him that Goldfinger trumps it, it’s still a great movie. Highlights on this disc are:

• Another commentary from Terence Young and friends: sadly it doesn’t shed new light on the famous jump cut in the film.
• A featurette about Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler: Who knew Chandler was such a big Bond fan?

Thunderball

While this movie was famously (or infamously) remade as Never Say Never Again, complete with Connery playing James Bond all over again in what’s considered an “unofficial” Bond movie, the original is much, much better. Probably my fourth favorite Bond film (behind Goldfinger, From Russian With Love, and You Only Live Twice, if you’re keeping track), this is the one that includes Connery in the famous jetpack scene. That sure looks like it would have been a clunky gadget to carry around and travel with. Highlights:

• Commentary from editor Peter Hunt and co-writer John Hopkins: director Terence Young probably needed a break from doing commentaries, and Hunt is fun to listen to.
• Selling Bonds original 1965 TV commercials:
• A Child’s Guide To Blowing Up A Motor Car 1965 Ford promotional film: One of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. A father takes his son to watch a car getting blown up as a birthday present. Wacky! “Oh, you see those photos of ladies? Those are James Bond’s, er… chums.” Truly bizarre stuff.
• The Incredible World of James Bond, the original 1965 NBC special: Wow. This thing is worth the cost of the disc alone. It’s a primer to the film world of Bond, and covers all the films up to Thunderball and includes a lot of behind the scenes footage.

Live and Let Die

This movie was a bit of mixed bag for Bond fans because it introduced Roger Moore as James Bond, since Connery decided to retire himself for the role. Moore brought his own brand of comedy to the role with his “wink, wink” line delivery and didn’t want to imitate Connery… which I would argue brought a fair amount of cheese to the role. According to the special features, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz thought it would be daring to include black villains in the film since the Black Panther movement was fairly active when the movie was made in 1973! The movie also doesn’t feature Q, since actor Desmond Llewelyn was away filming a tv series called Follyfoot, much to his dismay. Notable highlights:

• Commentary from Roger Moore: Finally they nab a Bond actor for a commentary, and it’s worth listening to. As much as I’m not a huge fan of Moore as Bond, this was fun.
• Bond 1973: The Lost Documentary: This was made while the movie was being filmed, and hasn’t been seen since. It’s a bit too slick, but has some interesting behind the scenes footage in it.

For Your Eyes Only

Moore’s fifth movie as James Bond is probably my favorite, despite the cheesy way in which he disposes of Bond ultra-villain Blofeld in the opening pre-credit sequence. You’ve got Melina Havelock as a terrific Bond girl, an underwater sequence that was shot in a dry soundstage that was made to look like it was in the ocean, and followed up the godawful Moonraker. Initially Moore wasn’t slated to return for this role, and screen tests were performed with several different actors, including Ian Ogilvy who had replaced Roger Moore as Simon Templar in the tv series The Return of The Saint. Highlights:

• Commentary from Roger Moore: Moore returns in another commentary track that entertains while making me wish Connery would do one of these. Even if he only did it for one movie it would be worth the price of the disc, and please let it be for Goldfinger.
• Bond in Greece featurette: Yep, there’s James Bond. And he’s in Greece. Beautiful footage and some behind the scenes stuff. Greece should incoporate this into some sort of “Visit Greece!” promotional video.

Die Another Day

This movie was the 20th in the series, and Brosnan’s last, and it was also meant to mark the 40th anniversay of James Bond. As a result, the movie is laden with a ton of homages to Bond films past, from previous gadgets he’d used to a recreation of the final fight scene with Bond and Goldfinger from Goldfinger. It just falls flat in my opinion, and it may have helped underscore the need for a new Bond and a new direction. Even Roger Moore doesn’t like this one. In an article he wrote for the Times he said, “When asked later what I thought of the film, I merely said “interesting”. In truth I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!” The only real highlight is:

• Commentary from Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike: This is actually a decent listen, and almost makes the film more enjoyable. Although why they didn’t include Halle Berry (her Jinx character was almost spun off into a film series) is beyond me.

Oddly enough, this movie was released on DVD in 2002 as a double-disc special edition, and the second disc included a ton of features that didn’t make it into this release. The most notable extra that didn’t make it in was the excellent feature-length documentary Inside Die Another Day, produced by Charles de Lauzirika, who has worked on documentaries about films ranging from Blade Runner to Top Gun. It’s a real oversight not to include this in the Blu-ray release.

If you’re a James Bond aficiando, you’ll definitely want to pick this set up. The movies are in two slipcases of three films each, and you can get both sets for about a hundred bucks at Amazon. While I miss the slightly dorky screens and voiceover narration from the menus of the initial Bond DVD releases, these movies have really never looked better.