This set of Pixar offerings looks like a creative studio becoming
more cautious and a little stale. Among the
most cautious and stale are Mater’s tall tale of being a pilot, Air Mater, and
his adventure in Time Travel Mater. From
the Cars franchise, neither of these two shorts is interesting or
original but instead rely on what are now stock characters doing little unexpected. Likewise, Hawaiian Vacation
and Small Fry have the familiar Toy Story characters acting the same way they do in
the three feature-length films and in the other shorts. There’s not much new or clever here either but rather a remix of elements that fans of the movies already know.
Presto is pretty much a Warner take-off, though it’s so fast
and visually witty that it scores a few laughs as a rabbit tries to get a
carrot from his magician master. The
funniest film in this collection is the Wall-E spin, Burn-E.
Like Presto, Burn-E isn’t surprisingly original, but it mines the same
silent comedy practices as Wall-E, and the laughs can bring tears.
Most of the other offerings here come from previous Pixar
work, too. There’s an overlong animated “documentary,”
Your Friend the Rat, that is hosted by Remy and Emile from Ratatouille, but it lacks the
snap and clever engagement of the feature. The two Up spin-offs also lack
sparkle . Dug’s Special Mission has the
good natured Golden Retriever creating Roadrunner-like situations for his
aggressive pack-mates, and George & A.J. has retirees resorting to
fantastic attempts to avoid the nursing home.
This film has a clever premise, but the animators don’t get much beyond
silly in their conception. Overall, this entire group of nine short films in the collection imply a stagnation in Pixar's work on animated shorts, a reliance on tried-and-true characters and situations with little of the excitement of innovation that Pixar has brought to the genre in the past.
In fact, only three of the shorts in this collection represent
original efforts in new directions, and only two of those have much engaging
originality. In Partly Cloudy, a dark
cloud creates the bad babies of the world that a bedraggled stork has to
deliver, while bright clouds create the good babies for the happy storks. This film doesn’t develop anything
unexpected. On the other hand, Day and
Night has two transparent characters whose outlines reveal scenes during,
respectively, day and night. Not only is
this concept highly original, but the film even develops a story involving the
two. This is a fascinating short film
that is simultaneously self-reflexive and traditionally narrative. It’s one of the most imaginative shorts in
either of the two Pixar collections.
