John Lasseter and Pixar

John Alan Lasseter isn’t a household name, but his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame indicates he’s a heavyweight with the movie guys. The rest of us would have benefited from the joy (and some tears) wrought by his mad CGI (directoral) skillz. He started as an animator at The Walt Disney Company but they fired his ass for being innovative. Lucasfilm embraced him, though it had to be sold off to Steve Jobs later to pay for George Lucas’ divorce. Lucasfilm then became known as Pixar. Disney realised the errors of their ways and bought Pixar. To avoid history repeating itself, Lasseter negotiated to have a direct line of reporting to the Disney President and CEO, bypassing the stooges.

We also get to thank him for dubbing Hayao Miyazaki’s animation films into English.

The loveliness of Pixar films, i think, lies their beautifully textured and realistically rendered animations, and how sad reality tempers fantasy (or is it fantasy that tempers sad reality?), and the cool Easter eggs in each movie (not limited to cameos of the Pizza Planet truck!).

1986: Luxo Jr – why they have a hopping lamp

1987: Red’s Dream

1988: Tin Toy

1989: Knick Knack

1995: Toy Story

1997: Geri’s Game

1998: A Bug’s Life

1999: Toy Story 2

2000: For The Birds

2001: Monsters, Inc.

2003: Finding Nemo

2003: Boundin’

2004: The Incredibles

2005: Jack Jack Attack

2005: One Man Band

2006: Cars

2006: Lifted

2007: Ratatouille

2008: WALL-E

2008: Presto

2009: Up

2009: Partly Cloudy

2010: Toy Story 2

2010: Day & Night

2011: Cars 2

2011: La Luna