Cars 2 - Pixar's first flop?

[Juddog]

Trailers are not movies.

Example: I thought The Happening looked like an interesting intersting and good movie from the trailer.

So what you thought would happen, didn't happen, when you went to see what happened in the Happening?

 

[actuarial]

This thread has made me realize how much quality Pixar has created.

My original plan with my kids (first one due in 8 weeks) was to buy all the old Disney movies as they're being released once they're old enough to get it. Movies like Snow White, Aladdin, Lion King, Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast etc (obviously choices would depend on gender).

Now I'm wondering if that plan would mean I never even get to Pixar movies before they're out of kid movie age, which would be a shame due to their quality. I may be buying two movies a month!

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

:hmm: But why does Cars sell more merch? I'm just curious as to why, I'm not questioning it as I definitely see more Cars related stuff myself... but why that one in particular? I mean sure, it's about Cars which kids like but kids also like pretending to be monsters and robots are always cool. You can put anything on a t-shirt, and they make toys about everything. I mean the incredibles are about friggin superheroes, though that was a more 'adult' feeling movie as well.

Doesn't make any sense. I also see a ton of Nemo stuff which is even stranger. At least kids have always liked playing with cars and trucks... usually they aren't big on fish. :\

Kids... how do they work?

All young boys like trains and cars. It's a simple fact. Taht's why it is so successful.

 

[Krynj]

No way. Pixar is a QUALITY studio and they make QUALITY movies. They don't put something out if they aren't satisfied with it. They maintain a high standard. If we can't count on Pixar to make quality movies, who can we count on? Due to their flawless reputation, they know how important it is to keep the quality up. Cars wasn't my favorite, but, it wasn't bad. It definitely had its moments. I'm a huge Pixar nut, so, I'll be seeing it opening day regardless.

Side note: I'm also wearing a Wall-E t-shirt right now.

 

[Homerboy]

Pixar movies have 2 audiences to cater to: the kids and the adults. Every movie they have done caters to both PERFECTLY and therefor was a runaway success. Cars 2 though, from the trailers etc, seems to be just catering to the kids, and only appealing to the kids. They will love it undoubtedly. They other half though, I'm not too sure about.

 

[gorcorps]

Ratatouille was not their first flop. Pixar has yet to have any of their animated movies flop.

And I personally liked Ratatouille more than Wall-e. I've loved all Pixar movies but obviously some more than others. I just didn't like wall-e as much as everybody else I guess.

 

[BoomerD]

I didn't care much for "Cars." IMO, it was one of Pixar's worst movies...but my grandkids loved it.

Sorry Krynj, every studio releases movies that aren't great...even Disney/Pixar. (but Pixar seems to release fewer...and they don't suck as bad as many)

 

[zinfamous]

Nope. Pixar always re-renders for BD releases. Also, the 35mm film is way higher than 720p. Pixar knows it'd be a shame to leave out any bit of detail.

The reason is: Catalog releases are staggered. I'm still waiting for Aladdin.

I know that, but this is an animated, digital production. Shouldn't there be no film involved in the process?

This was, I thought, the main problem--the source material being "trapped" at a maximum (shitty) resolution. Unlike with film, which still destroys anything you can do digitally, computer-rendered animated fare has a maximum res determined by your initial rendering, no?

Like what happened with one of the D Gilmour concerts, or maybe it was a Floyd concert, or something. Reported to be filmed digitally (miniDV, lol), it is incapable of HD rendering. it can only be upconverted, which, as we know, is garbage in comparison.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

I would think they are going to deliver the goods on Cars 2. Practically every boy I know from 2 years old to 12 loves this move and buys all the toys, slippers, backpacks, etc. that goes with it. I would think this movie is one that everyone is looking forward to and I doubt Pixar will let it fail. Plus I think WALL-E was the first flop

This is exactly why Pixar is doing another Cars. The amount of money that the first film made on merchandise was absolutely insane. I think it made over 600 million within the first 2 weeks of release.

 

[TheNinja]

This is exactly why Pixar is doing another Cars. The amount of money that the first film made on merchandise was absolutely insane. I think it made over 600 million within the first 2 weeks of release.

Ya, and it's weird that they STILL sell new Cars items and toys. That movie came out in 2006. To still be creating and selling merchandise from it is insane.

 

[CZroe]

I know that, but this is an animated, digital production. Shouldn't there be no film involved in the process?

This was, I thought, the main problem--the source material being "trapped" at a maximum (shitty) resolution. Unlike with film, which still destroys anything you can do digitally, computer-rendered animated fare has a maximum res determined by your initial rendering, no?

Like what happened with one of the D Gilmour concerts, or maybe it was a Floyd concert, or something. Reported to be filmed digitally (miniDV, lol), it is incapable of HD rendering. it can only be upconverted, which, as we know, is garbage in comparison.

Pixar ALWAYS goes back to the digital source. That's what he meant by "re-rendered."

1080p Pixar films are truly 1080p.

 

[Arkaign]

I know that, but this is an animated, digital production. Shouldn't there be no film involved in the process?

This was, I thought, the main problem--the source material being "trapped" at a maximum (shitty) resolution. Unlike with film, which still destroys anything you can do digitally, computer-rendered animated fare has a maximum res determined by your initial rendering, no?

Like what happened with one of the D Gilmour concerts, or maybe it was a Floyd concert, or something. Reported to be filmed digitally (miniDV, lol), it is incapable of HD rendering. it can only be upconverted, which, as we know, is garbage in comparison.

Pixar keeps all of their past stuff in 3d format, to put it simply. If they wanted to, and the tech was available tomorrow, they could release a 3840x2160 version of any of their films in short order without missing any details. At most they might go back in and replace some textures or art into a higher-resolution before rendering it out and making a final print for distribution.

 

[shadow9d9]

How can you be a fan of a movie that was so obviously a complete ripoff of Doc Hollywood?

 

[Mo0o]

Cars 1 was already the weakest of the Pixar collection

 

[dainthomas]

We've been picking up blurays of Bambi, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland etc. as they come out, and it's amazing how much better those are than the garbage that comes out today.

 

[zerocool84]

We've been picking up blurays of Bambi, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland etc. as they come out, and it's amazing how much better those are than the garbage that comes out today.

Pshh I know, Toy Story 3 was terrible. Nothing good ever comes out these days.

 

[zinfamous]

Pixar ALWAYS goes back to the digital source. That's what he meant by "re-rendered."

1080p Pixar films are truly 1080p.

Pixar keeps all of their past stuff in 3d format, to put it simply. If they wanted to, and the tech was available tomorrow, they could release a 3840x2160 version of any of their films in short order without missing any details. At most they might go back in and replace some textures or art into a higher-resolution before rendering it out and making a final print for distribution.

Ah, OK, I just didn't know that the quality of the source was higher than what I expected. I remember this discussion going on in the early days of BD over at AVS, that the problem with Toy Story and Nemo was that the source material was simply too low in res to meet BD specifications.

But again--isn't the digital source set at a maximum resolution? My understanding that they simply didn't have the type of resolution capability that came out later. So, the problem with a digital source is that you are trapped, so "re-rendering" does nothing, right? Essentially, you can't make a jpg any better than what it is when you first receive it. A VHS source copied onto a a DVD still looks as shitty as a VHS source, etc...

what do you mean by "3D format?" that sounds like a made-up term, to me. :hmm:

 

[darkewaffle]

Sucks. Clearly consolized :awe:

 

[Arkaign]

Ah, OK, I just didn't know that the quality of the source was higher than what I expected. I remember this discussion going on in the early days of BD over at AVS, that the problem with Toy Story and Nemo was that the source material was simply too low in res to meet BD specifications.

But again--isn't the digital source set at a maximum resolution? My understanding that they simply didn't have the type of resolution capability that came out later. So, the problem with a digital source is that you are trapped, so "re-rendering" does nothing, right? Essentially, you can't make a jpg any better than what it is when you first receive it. A VHS source copied onto a a DVD still looks as shitty as a VHS source, etc...

what do you mean by "3D format?" that sounds like a made-up term, to me. :hmm:

"3d format" is just a brief way of describing that Pixar keeps storage of the source material for their films in ways that aren't dependent upon resolution as you think of it in 2d terms. Just as you can go install Quake3 and run a mod that lets you enable 2560x1600 resolution and see it in that detail, Pixar can render any of their material in any resolution desired, the limitations will be in the textures and art that is on the models, and potentially the detail in the models themselves.

It's like CAD, a diagram of something isn't stored in pixels, but in geometric descriptions. In the simplest terms, if you have a computer model of a perfect circle, it will continually look sharper to infinity the higher the resolution you're able to render the result as. A 50000x50000 resolution image of a perfect geometric circle will look much sharper than a 500x500 resolution image of the same perfect geometric circle, even though the underlying data is identical previous to being rendered, assuming that viewing size and distance remains identical (let's use a 20" screen viewed at 12" away as an example).

I'd have to go through the forums you speak of to speak with greater detail, but I imagine what they were referring to as 'source material' was the post-production 'final print' sent for initial distribution to theatres and to later to make the home video versions from. To get higher quality than that, or ideal quality for BD or other digital releases, they would have to fire up the rendering farm and pop out a native 1080p version from the original models and animation routines.

 

[CZroe]

Ah, OK, I just didn't know that the quality of the source was higher than what I expected. I remember this discussion going on in the early days of BD over at AVS, that the problem with Toy Story and Nemo was that the source material was simply too low in res to meet BD specifications.

But again--isn't the digital source set at a maximum resolution? My understanding that they simply didn't have the type of resolution capability that came out later. So, the problem with a digital source is that you are trapped, so "re-rendering" does nothing, right? Essentially, you can't make a jpg any better than what it is when you first receive it. A VHS source copied onto a a DVD still looks as shitty as a VHS source, etc...

what do you mean by "3D format?" that sounds like a made-up term, to me. :hmm:

Do you have even the foggiest of notions of polygons, resolution, and 3D rendering?

Seemingly, not. If I render a spinning box, that's six sides, 12 triangles. The output resolution is only how many squares/pixels I use to represent the details of that box. The box itself is an infinite "resolution" because all the elements are vectors (relative directions in space). Resolution is completely disconnected from the object being rendered. For example, I can zoom in and out on it at a fixed resolution, like 640x480, and it will obviously use fewer or more pixels within that area to render. I can render it at 320x240, 640x480, 1024x768, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, or eleventy-billion by eleventy-billion. The difference is that more pixels takes more time and processing power.

Pixar did not only record a fixed resolution video output in digital format, they saved the models, objects, scenery, and animation data to completely re-render on a modern machine. When they made the 4:3 version of "A Bug's Life," they moved characters around in the scene to fit in the frame and re-rendered. When they re-released "Knick-Knack" with "Finding Nemo," a short that was made before their association with family-friendly Disney, they changed the model for the Barbie-doll knock-off to get rid of the pointy breasts.

What you are saying is like playing a video game and recording it and then saying that you are stuck with the result of the first play through. No you aren't. You can play again and do something different. You could continue developing it and make a special or GOTY edition. Devs don't just throw away the source code and resource data when the first version is compiled. You could upgrade your graphics hardware or port it to a more powerful machine. Similarly, Pixar still has the source material the film was made from and not simply the static final output.

 

[Brigandier]

Pixar? Flop? Does not compute. All their movies are better than nearly everything that comes out with it.

I have never watched a Pixar movie and been disappointed. Actually, I'm a bit of a Pixar fanboy, they make good movies that are not crude and can entertain adults, who else does this?

Go Pixar!

 

[Arkaign]

^^ Thanks CZ, that's a more elegant way of putting it than I could muster.

This stuff is really cool to me, I have a fundamental understanding but not a deep knowledge of the finer details.

A couple cool links :

http://www.slashfilm.com/new-high-resolution-wall-e-photos-released/

^^ A perfect example of how the actual models are able to be rendered at incredibly high resolution.

and

http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/toy-story-re-releases-being-re-rendered.html

^^ Toy Story being re-rendered using the same models and movement routines for the models and such, but with better tech and much greater detail in output possible (along with easy porting to 3d displays).

 

[Train]

what do you mean by "3D format?" that sounds like a made-up term, to me. :hmm:

lolwut

 

[Arkaign]

!!!

http://popculturezoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/upnew.jpg

Cool 4K image from 'Up'. Really shows that even 1080p is pretty limited compared to the potential. It'll probably be a few years yet before we even have ~4000x3000 displays in the median consumer market though. Right now even 2560x1600 is ludicriously expensive.

 

[zinfamous]

Do you have even the foggiest of notions of polygons, resolution, and 3D rendering?

Seemingly, not. If I render a spinning box, that's six sides, 12 triangles. The output resolution is only how many squares/pixels I use to represent that box. The box itself is an infinite "resolution" because all the elements are vectors (relative directions in space). Resolution is completely disconnected from the object being rendered. For example, I can zoom in and out on it at a fixed resolution, like 640x480, and it will obviously use fewer or more pixels within that area to render. I can render it at 320x240, 640x480, 1024x768, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, or eleventy-billion by eleventy-billion. The difference is that more pixels takes more time and processing power.

Pixar did not only record a fixed resolution video output in digital format, they saved the models, objects, scenery, and animation data to completely re-render on a modern machine. When they made the 4:3 version of "A Bug's Life," they moved characters around in the scene to fit in the frame and re-rendered. When they re-released "Knick-Knack" with "Finding Nemo," a short that was made before their association with family-friendly Disney, they changed the model for the Barbie-doll knock-off to get rid of the pointy breasts.

What you are saying is like playing a video game and recording it and then saying that you are stuck with the result of the first play through. No you aren't. You can play again and do something different. You could continue developing it and make a special or GOTY edition. Devs don't just throw away the source code and resource data when the first version is compiled. You could upgrade your graphics hardware or port it to a more powerful machine. Similarly, Pixar still has the source material the film was made from and not simply the static final output.

excellent dick post.

thanks for the info, though