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Its a good one to start with.WALL-Efits right in alongside the other classics in Criterions lineup.
(Stanton himself likens it to slow cinema.)
We talked about all these things and more.
I actually made the first overture.
I had been out in the field for the last seven years making a lot of TV.
It was like going to film summer camp every four or five months with another group of people.
AndWALL-Ejust kept coming up.
So it felt like it had found its target audience: other filmmakers!
So God bless Alan Bergman, president of Walt Disney Studios, who championed it.
I felt like they must have.
But nope.My brain always does the same thing.
Cause Im an early adopter from the late 80s as well.
You know what it is?
Criterion was just so ahead of the curve on releasing things on laser disc.
So I think thats where the memory comes from.
So, the recall is insane, and it gives you the illusion that it was not long ago.
But then, going back into the actual archives, I realized Ihadforgotten so much.
And it was sobering to realize just how long ago it was.
It made me think about how much I am forgetting in life overall.
WatchingWALL-Etoday, the visual storytelling still jumps out as quite novel for this punch in of movie.
The hardest part is trying to get everybody to see this new color that you see.
I knew nobody really wanted to make it.
But I also knew nobody could say no to me becauseNemowas just so big.
So if I said I wanted to be left alone, I got left alone.
And I like to think I never used that card in any sort of abusive or bully-ish way.
So its a lot of positive input, and you want that.
But also, wed been so successful at that point that we could afford the hiccup.
If we called it wrong economically or critically, wed survive it.
So it was still about humanity coming home, but it was a little bit more removed.
Then we got a bunch of research about actual long-term residency in space.
This was in 2006.
They were literally having debates at the time about long-distance travel to Mars.
Sci-fi is always about whats going to go wrong and how are we going survive it.
We were leaning into a truth about ourselves that we didnt want to know at the time.
Thats the one thing I know to do in any story, because thats where the drama is.
The iPhone came about halfway through our production.
And we got iPhones before anybody else, except for people that were working at Apple.
This is a flying jet-pack car in my hand.
Sowhy does it feel so familiar?I realized it reminded me of when I used to smoke.
I realized right away,Oh, this is going to be so addictive.
Youre still heavily involved with Pixar.
A lot of them have finally come up, and youre starting to see their films.
Theres a different cultural sensibility.
Its kind of like the luxury of being a teacher in a university.
I dont even know if its a problem, but its a weird situation to be in.
But theMuppet Babieswas made by fans of theMuppet Show.
And you want to avoid regurgitation and xeroxing.
Now I feel like its being reclaimed.
And Ill say, You dont have to whisper anymore.
Its not as much of a stigma.
At the time, I went to a level of depression that you would expect somebody to go.
But no thats the movie I wanted to make.
It was a smaller group, but it existed nonetheless.
Other than that, Im very happy that its kind of unsullied.
But what struck me about the film was that it was sounlikethose other movies.
The film had a sense of goofiness and visual humor that probably turned off some people.
Its a product of us and a product of the garage band we were.
Then we found other people who liked those same tastes.
Ive certainly indulged in that even more since.
Would you like to do another live-action feature?I am right now.
Its calledIn the Blink of an Eye.
Im about to location-scout next week and we start shooting at the beginning of next year.
Animation was the medium that I took to very easily because I could draw and you could control it.
You could start making a movie without anybody else around; you could just start drawing.
And so there was a certain level of intuitive joy.
I was always a frustrated actor, too.
And there are other stories that I want to tell that just arent meant to be in animation.
I never did go to the Church of Animation.
I went to the Church of Movies.
