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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Not bad, just not a great deal here., 17 March 2002 Author: Robert Reynolds (minniemato@hotmail.com) from Tucson AZ
This is a short from Pixar, their first, I believe. It looks it, too. The animation is good, but there's not much here to speak of and it looks more like test footage than a full, coherent cartoon-a dry run, if you will. They did much better work with later efforts. Not bad, but nothing special here either. Worth seeing.
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Amazing in its proper context, 12 February 2008 Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
I gotta admit that if you watch this film today and don't understand the context for it, then you will most likely not be particularly impressed. It's such a very simple animated short and one that seems amazingly ordinary--something you could easily make today given the right rendering software and a home computer. However, think back to 1984. People rarely had home computers and those who did had systems that had major compatibility issues--with not much more power than a modern calculator (less in some cases). There were no hard drives--those that did exist were minuscule. Macintosh computers were yet to come and IBM compatible computers used primitive versions of DOS and many were using Commodore and other simple computers. And, most importantly, most games were either text only or had very, very rudimentary graphics. In this context, ANDRE AND WALLY B is absolutely amazing and breathtaking. The Pixar folks were not yet a big company but just a few individuals doing work on huge computers and they had to design all the software themselves!! And, in spite of all this, the graphics were lovely and the story of a cute bee quite watchable--even though it was really more an experimental film than anything else. Oddly, while this film is not terribly exciting today, I still prefer it to a couple of the later Pixar films (such as RED'S DREAM). A great start.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Before Pixar..., 16 August 2008 Author: eric_xoloitzcuintle from Mexico City
From 1984, this short film was the first work that John Lasseter, Eben Ostby and Bill Reeves made as a team but it was made when they still were part of Lucasfilm. Basically is just the beginning of all so everything is quite limited. With only one and half minute this short film can't be more than just the very important and fantastic beginning of something. Is great to hear the commentary of the Blu-ray and now is fun to hear the fact that Lasseter and pals could only made geometric designs with their program. Still the could create two nice characters that are the protagonist of a "one joke" story and with that they could not only show a project that was new in matters of technology but at the same time they could put to it soul, they made that their colleagues didn't care about the fact that when the short was showed, in a very known event by them, was not even finished. It was something new, something different.This is the kind of stuff that if -TODAY- you are going to show to your girlfriend, for example, and she doesn't really know about it you really have to explain her everything behind it, make sure that she will not judge it just for how the animation looks or how funny was the story, make sure that she appreciate everything behind because and after all it is just a must-see important piece of work and for me it was absolutely great to finally watch it.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: The first step in Pixar's history, 15 April 2005 Author: emasterslake from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This is the first and earliest Pixar short. It's also the oldest CGI short I know so far. It's only about 2 minutes long and the theme is similar to a Chuck Jones or Looney Tunes short. Only has 2 characters one who is Andre a Greenish Runner and Wally B. a Bee with 4 feet.The animation is not bad for a CGI short from 1984. And this is made way before Pixar became well known. The 2 main and only characters are somewhat cartoony but very memorable. It's only 2 minutes long, but it's worth watching. You're able to see it at Pixar's official web page.After you see I bet you just wish they made more shorts about Andre and Wally B.Every Animation studio has it's own start and this is Pixar's start to fame and glory.i give this one 7/10. Very good for a 2 minute short.
3 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Not the bee's knees of 3D animation..., 4 June 2004 Author: soymilk from East Anglia, UK
'Andre and Wally B' isn't strictly a true Pixar film (since it was produced mainly at Lucasfilms), but John Lassester was amongst the creative team behind it, and it can still be found on their official Pixar site. A very early venture in making short animated films from CGI, this definitely doesn't rank up there as one of their coolest, perhaps because the limitations are all too obvious. The 3D animation isn't really all that great – the characters look basic and chunky, like they were taken straight from some sort of video game – while the storyline (if you can call it that) is too firmly-welded in the style of classic Walt Disney shorts. This may be done in computer animation, but otherwise it's just the same cartoony mayhem you've seen countless times before, involving a strange character named Andre (you know, I'm not really sure what kind of animal he's meant to be), being chased by a malicious bee. To be fair, I do actually enjoy a lot of the older Walt Disney cartoons, but the traditional 2D animation there had a greater fluidity that the more primitive CGI in this short film, which feels far too awkward and bulky to pull the same style off successfully.I'm guessing they didn't really have the capacity back then to put together a CGI film with a great deal happening in, so all things considered this isn't bad. It just can't compare to the sort of thing Pixar since went onto achieve, having adopted their own unique style and approach to this medium – their studio's first short, 'Luxo Jr' was an absolute classic.Grade: C
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