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Lasseter is Back

Since it takes four years for PIXAR to make an animated feature film, many people may not have realized that John Lasseter, writer-director of Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life took a year off to travel the country in an RV with his family. He put the life lessons from that road trip into Cars, he tells Elvis Mitchell in the radio show, The Treatment.

He's going to need a lot of perspective, now that's he's the head of Disney animation:

The best revenge is being fired by a company that has to pay $7 billion to get you back.

That, in a nutshell, describes Lasseter's career trajectory with Disney, where he started out as an eager-beaver animator in 1980 before being swatted down and eventually fired by corporate bureaucrats. His initial stint ended with Lasseter trying to explain to tin-eared executives why computer animation could fulfill Walt Disney's dream of fully dimensional animation.

--Philadelphia Daily News

In the Mitchell interview, he confirms (ironically?) that he will be reinstating traditional 2D animation at Disney, where it has been pushed underground on straight-to-video sequels like Brother Bear 2 and Fox and Hound 2. The quality of the 2D animation is fine, he says. Only the stories have been deficient.

About J. Ott

John Ott is a writer, filmmaker and futurist. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.