What A Cartoon Movie! - A Bug's Life
Added 2023-07-31 04:00:03 +0000 UTCFor their second feature, Pixar decided to up the stakes by transitioning from the easier-to-render world of plastic things to the wild world of nature. The result is A Bug's Life, a fine film that mostly gets overlooked thanks to its status as one of the more forgettable Pixar films. On this episode of What A Cartoon Movie, join us as we explore the history of A Bug's Life, and listen along afterwards to our syncable commentary track! You'll never look at sweet baby birds the same way again.
Note: Commentary begins at 00:25, when the Pixar logo has fully faded out on the screen.
If you want to skip directly to the commentary, go to 1:30:20 in the podcast.
Comments
First of all, nothing but love for Bob and Henry! But damn as someone who mainly listens to podcasts while working, has little to no free time, and does not pay for Disney Plus; I have to admit this change in format was kind of disappointing. The history segment was amazingly detailed as always, but not having the visuals to watch along during the film breakdown was frustrating as I haven’t seen this movie since I was a very small boy(maybe 20 years ago.) Love to see you guys trying new things, but I am admittedly glad this particular one is only temporary. Once again, love you guys and think you’re one of the absolute best podcasts doin’ it!
NUKLEARRAT
2023-08-14 20:40:12 +0000 UTCI was a huge bug boy when this movie released so it hit all the right notes for me. It was my favorite movie and I even got my mother to help me collect all of the picture books that built out the lore. The N64 game was a huge milestone in my gaming history as well. Every player knows by heart the line “These berries DON’T WORK!” Anyways, thanks for a great podcast episode as always. It was a lot of fun to listen along in my first rewatch in years. I burst out laughing when Bob mentioned that Lassiter said “we learned there was such a thing as male ladybugs!”
Koop
2023-08-08 23:22:09 +0000 UTCMy kids inexplicably went through a phase where they watched this movie almost daily. It's hard to figure out sometimes why a movie clicks with a developing mind, but something here did. I had never watched the film a second time, that I could remember, since it had come out and having to endure it a bunch during that period sort of surprised me as I didn't come out hating it. When they did the same with Cars I went from thinking "It's fine," to "If I hear another god damn word out of that stupid tow truck I'm gonna lose it!" but with A Bug's Life I never found myself irritated. It's a totally cromulent Pixar film, better than pretty much all of the non-Toy Story sequels, but lags behind most of the one-offs. It also doesn't help that the visuals are pretty dated at this point. It is indeed better than Antz though, and that's really all it needed to be.
Joe Hodgson
2023-08-07 18:45:36 +0000 UTCGreat episode as always! Please check out Microcosmos, that poster completely misses the tone and beauty of it. I just saw it again in theaters and it's still technically impressive, entertaining, and only 75 minutes long.
Hazel Honeycutt
2023-08-07 14:27:50 +0000 UTCEvery time you bring up Katzenburg I think of this movie. Mainly because I remember being 7 and seeing the "they come, they eat, they leave" trailer in the movie theater and being pumped to see that new ant movie coming out. Only to be gravely disappointed when I saw Antz instead. Who could have guessed there would be two bug themed movies coming out around the same time?
Matthew Hansen
2023-08-07 13:53:37 +0000 UTCI was always more of an Antz fan. I blame that we got the Antz dvd for free. One of my mom’s coworkers got the wrong bug movie for their kid. I remember something about that kid being horrified probably from Danny Glover’s disembodied head talking then dying. So I got a free movie.
Brian Hortin
2023-08-06 01:39:08 +0000 UTCI always thought the story of A Bug’s Life was very similar to The Three Amigos. I’m not exactly sure which movie is the technically better movie. Probably A Bug’s Life
Alan M.
2023-08-05 14:11:12 +0000 UTC(1) If anyone out there would like to learn more about the late Joe Ranft, I highly recommend John Canemaker's book "Two Guys Named Joe" (which also profiles legendary Disney story artist Joe Grant). In fact, all of Canemaker's animation books are incredibly insightful and worth tracking down. (2) "Microcosmos" is a fantastic documentary (I saw it as a kid after hearing Siskel & Ebert rave about it). It instilled a lifelong love of bugs in me, and now I'm a macro photographer and an amateur entomologist. (3) The type of moth that Madeline Kahn plays in this film has been recently renamed. They're called spongy moths now. (4) To answer your questions about ant sex, here's how it works: during mating season, all the virgin queens and winged male ants emerge and swarm. The much tinier male latches onto the abdomen of the female, who drags him along until fertilization takes place, whereupon she unceremoniously kicks him off. The male dies shortly after, while the female finds a place to establish her nest, rips off her wings, and spends the rest of her life (potentially decades) laying hundreds of thousands of eggs. I've taken several pictures and videos of the mating process and am more than happy to share.
brian bonelli
2023-08-04 20:52:16 +0000 UTCLoved the commentary as a nice change. I was 6 when this movie came out. Saw it in the cinema with my Nana and we also saw Antz! I always thought of Antz as the more grown up movie with the grizzly war/death, sexy, and drunken scenes. But from our 2023 eyes Bugs life with its death/reference’s to suicide etc, feels also dark and gritty. It truly was a different time. I also had the ps1 game which I loved so much but couldn’t get past the 3rd level. On an unrelated note, you guys seemed to seriously underestimate the complexity of “Minionese” I used to think it was gibberish with the odd English/Spanish word thrown in, but one day got curious and I found out the guy who invented the language went all out, he loved the Indonesian language so there’s lots of that mixed in with, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and of course French/Spanish/Italian/English. It is also apparently a tonal language according to Pierre Coffin (the creator). I don’t know if the guy is really passionate about his job or full of it. Another (I think cool) thing about this is that as seen in the “Minions” they are older than humanity itself so it stands to reason that all human language is derived from minionese in that ‘verse. I’m not insane I promise I just got bored one day when my kids were watching minions.
YancySr
2023-08-02 08:24:44 +0000 UTCThey said multiple times that this is temporary.
YancySr
2023-08-02 07:52:36 +0000 UTCThis might be one of my least fave Pixar movies during their prime. I think I've only seen it once. My fave scene is the one in toy story 2 where buzz brushes them off in the blooper reel though
Frank Grimes
2023-08-01 20:43:39 +0000 UTCHi folks, as we mentioned in the podcast itself, the commentary format is a temporary one for July and August. We truncated our schedule a bit to account for two complicated moves, but even with this lesser workload, we were still recording until the last possible day we could. We still feel this format is totally worthwhile and did just as much prep as we normally do for a movie podcast. Thanks, and enjoy! - Bob
Talking Simpsons
2023-08-01 05:00:57 +0000 UTCAssuming the new format is because of their moves and honestly hoping it's not permanently. There are enough watch a longs out there. I really like the deep dives. Bring them back when you can
Aaron John Corcoran
2023-08-01 03:46:31 +0000 UTCI feel a little sad about the new format because I enjoy listening at work for 6 hours but I’m brave and will face this challenge with gusto.
Saya Clarke
2023-07-31 23:34:08 +0000 UTCI was 6 when Bugs Life came out and I remember it being the first movie I was hyped for. So I was an opening night viewer but I remember playing the video game (the first I finished) and even reading the book. Honestly I remember watching this through the PS1 clips from the game as a kid more than watching the vhs or dvd when they came out.
Andrew The Champion of Flavortown Pittman
2023-07-31 19:09:01 +0000 UTCI do admittedly prefer the full-length version as an office drone who needs time to eat up, BUT the commentary is fun too! and i'm glad it gave you both less squeeze during a tight month. I watched this movie religiously as a kid so I could still see it all in my head just listening to the audio without even watching along. As an only child, going to refute the 'Bug's Life toys wouldn't have been as good as Toy Story toys' because Christmas 98 was awash in Bug's Life merch and they had some cool stuff I was all over. I had a Hopper statuette that had a security sensor where if anyone walked past the little motion detector, Kevin Spacey would yell at you to get out. That one was a lesser favorite of my mother. Also a dart board where you threw little mosquitos at a picture of Hopper. Some figurines, a sleeping bag that looked like the rolled up leaf bundle, I was on top of the world! As an adult, the movie is a little too farty than the later Pixar movies would be (though that's mostly the bloopers) but I still really enjoy the voice cast and yes, even the 'we outnumber them' stuff registers differently as a millennial who was just told there's nothing that can be done on student loan forgiveness.
Blake R.
2023-07-31 14:34:30 +0000 UTCThe commentary format is nice
Bryce Lavender
2023-07-31 11:14:28 +0000 UTCThere’s a miniature version of Bug’s Land that Ant Man carries around on Avengers Campus Also I appreciate how cute the bugs look in this movie after having watched Joe’s Apartment recently
Tricia
2023-07-31 07:23:30 +0000 UTC
