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Pixar Tron Remake?
RAZ was among several folks who wrote in to tell us about a ZDNet article that
talks about Pixar and Tron. No official comment from the studio, but there still are rumors floating about that Pixar may be redoing that classic little piece of disney sci fi. And I just got the DVD of the original ;)
This is correct. Pixar is about creating endearing stories, not re-hashing older films already exist as classics. However. . .
Here's the truth.
Toy Story II will be released in November. Monsters Inc. is the next movie in production( summer of 2001). In pre-production is a series of three films. The original characters will not be the main protagonists, but will be woven into the story. For now, think Lord of the Rings/Star Wars/Blade Runner. This is a HUGE project.
The animators will be training on Monsters Inc. under John Lasseter with new motion capture systems being developed at Pixar. The voices of the actors will be professional actors, but the animation will be done at Pixar's new site currently being built. Steve Jobs is working with Apple (on hardware), NeXt (for software), and within Pixar itself (for Renderman software) to create what will be what they call the "Uber-Renderfarm" (25 times more powerful than what was used on "A Bug's Life"). This will be necessary as all the humans will be computer generated. In fact, Geri's Game was a test to push the human technology further.
I've never been more excited about a project. The pre-production art looks beautiful. The story guys are pumping out some of the most amazingly exciting, heart-warming, and funny stuff I've seen in an epic project like this. And well, we'll just have to wait until 2003 to see the newest exploits of the son of son of Tron!
No way.
Pixar is not a special-effects house. Their specialty is telling good stories with 3-D computer-graphic character animation, but telling good stories comes first. They actually spend more time on the script than they do on production. Toy Story and A Bug's Life spent 3 or 4 years in writing. Not until we could like the movie when shown as 100 minutes of shots of black and white pencil-drawn storyboards, with dialogue read by people around the office, would we go into production.
The problem with Tron is that the story isn't good enough - most people just are not interested in that story and the movie can not be saved by better special effects, not that any move can be saved this way. Nerdy folks like you and me might like it, but not a general audience. So, you might see a lesser studio give it a try, like the folks who did Small Soldiers.
Pixar writes its movies in house. They aren't interested in recycling old garbage. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but they could not be as successful as they are if they operated differently.
Again, I'm not a Pixar spokesperson, just someone who worked there for 12 years.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.