Pixar Perfect: Growing Up with Movies Made with CGI

Pixar, the CGI giant of the 21st century, recently released a film that has gone unprecedented in animated cinema.

I can write this sentence for virtually any film Pixar has created -- and I claim this even though I have not seen four of its major movies (Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars and The Incredibles).

What has created their success? The ecstasy that they produce for the silver screen (and, with time, for the boob tube) results from a wonderful fusion of story and visuals. Looking back at the Pixar movies I've seen, they all come from a strong plot (though not necessarily a believable one) and intense, colorful and detailed scenes that accompany it.

The first Pixar flick I ever watched was Toy Story. Released in 1995, this was the first full-length animated film brought to life with computers. I was eight years old when I first saw this movie, and I remember being ridiculously giddy when I left the theater. Clutching my empty box of Buncha Crunch, I had left an adventure with a slick cowboy, a cool space ranger and a goofy green dinosaur.

I remember my mother loved it too, so much that we would hop from McDonald's to McDonald's collecting every single toy that came with Happy Meals. For a couple of years, we had the toys sealed in their bags and even collected doubles. But we couldn't resist after a while, and in a bout of childlike excitement (as seen usually on Christmas Day), we opened every single toy. (For the record, they're all gone now, but I'd like to think they came to life and simply disappeared.)

So imagine our excitement four years later when Disney and Pixar released a sequel to Toy Story, simply called Toy Story 2. My mother was skeptical; she could not imagine how the story could have been better than the first lovable movie. But after one night at the movies, we could not get enough of the "valuable antique" story line and I loved the fact that Kelsey Grammer did a voice for one of the characters of "Woody's Roundup Gang."

I don't know how many times I've seen either movie. I know I own these films on DVD -- and they're both from the Collector's Edition set. I love everything that these movies had: the music, the voices, the humor . . . everything. Pixar, to me, was perfect.

Don't get me wrong: Dreamworks has put out good films too; come on, who hasn't seen Shrek? But Pixar films, to me, are more touching than those of Dreamworks. I guess that's because a little bit of essence of Disney is sprinkled in.

The two Pixar films I have seen most recently are Ratatouille (2007) and Wall-E (2008). I fell in love with Ratatouille when it first came out. At the time, I was actually starting to get into cooking and after seeing that movie it did solidify my love for all things culinary. I'm a Food Network junkie, personally, so watching Ratatouille was an absolute pleasure. I was delighted to see stained, worn copper-bottom pans and mis en place throughout the movie.

Again, the story grabbed me and, as corny as it sounds, tugged my heartstrings. Yes, you have to suspend belief for a good chunk of it. How often do you see talking rats that cook four-star cuisine in France in the news? But that is the magic of animation -- Pixar takes the unbelievable and makes it absolutely real through their characters. But sometimes the setting speaks greater volumes than the humor. I know that, after I got Ratatouille on DVD, I had to go back a couple of minutes because I missed a few lines; I was busy staring at the Parisian city skyline, or becoming overtaken by digital waves in a sewer.

And just when I thought that no, they couldn't possibly do better than Ratatouille, they couldn't possibly encapsulate so much more detail - I saw Wall-E and was left absolutely speechless. I could not believe how thorough the backdrops were, despite such barren and dilapidated surroundings. The scuffmarks on the film's star robot amazed me and after half an hour I was literally taken to the stars, dancing through galaxies.

What has Pixar done? Pixar has set the standard for what true animation should aspire to be. Their films are the pièce de résistance of the animated world; the epitome of the human imagination. The only thing I am afraid of is if -- or when, for we don't know -- they will slowly start to slip. Dreamworks has already done this with Shrek 3, and a fourth movie is slated for release in 2010. Similarly, Pixar will release Toy Story 3 the same year.

I will be happy as long as I feel like a kid again when I see another one of their films. I feel like a kid every time I pop in Ratatouille into my DVD player, and I returned to that happy place when I saw Wall-E. If animation could be perfected, Pixar is on its way to making it happen . . . that is, if they haven't done so already.