Rats!

I know I’m a bit behind on this, but here’s something I thoroughly enjoyed…

This 9 minute sneak peek of Pixar’s upcoming Ratatouille was a lot of fun to watch. Good story telling, good filmmaking in this little clip. I’m surprised that Disney felt the need to put out 10% of their film online free before release. Somebody in marketing must be really nervous about this thing flopping. I dunno, for all the people who say that a rat in a restaurant is gross and offputting, I think it’s a great premise that kids will automatically take a shine to. Only grown ups think rats are gross. And when you make your rat look like a Jim Henson inspired muppet you just can’t help but think he looks cute.
The acting didn’t feel rotoscopy - which is a pleasure to see. I thought the animators did a marvelous job making Remy feel like a rat while still maintaining his unique character and personality. I think the secondary human characters had great design, but the primary ones kinda suffered from the “Alice In Wonderland” disease of toning down the design to make them more generic and “accessible”. As usual the details are handled well and - again as usual- Pixar does a very good job of putting the details in the proper visual heirarchy. So far this sneak peek has me keen to go see the film. I think this has a lot of promise to be a nice come back for Pixar after the soporific Cars.

Now, for marketing that does the absolute opposite…

What the…?