Ratatouille

[JV IS TIZ!!! PIXAR]

Have you ever dreamed of traveling to France and eating some of the world’s best cuisine? Well here's your chance!

[ShyViolet]

hehe Smile Funny indeed, Vi Smile And A-113 reference is there of course Wink Thanks.

No prob!

BTW, the lyrics and music were written by Michael Jackson.....this aired around the time he guest starred I think. (fake name: "John Jay Smith" )


They had a reference to it in 1999 or 2000 I think:




All Characters Property of Fox

[JV IS TIZ!!! PIXAR]

Pixar at the RiverRun International Film Festival!

[Jeroen]

Thanks for the news JV!!

[JV IS TIZ!!! PIXAR]

No problem!

[Meg]

Hey, do I spy a little traditional animation in there? I wonder if this will have a 2D opening like Monsters Inc. did.

[Ben]

Gawd, he looks bored to be there!

"Personal to me in a way"... the optimum words being "in a way"...

I think Pixar owe Brad a BIG favor for taking this on...that's the feeling I'm getting here...that he stepped in and helped them out of a tight spot.

I wouldn't be surprised, if Ratatouille makes a certain amount of green, if he is then allowed to direct whatever the heck he wants at The Lamp.


I didn't spot any 2D...apart from someone's hand drawing a sketch at -1:57.

[ShyViolet]

Gawd, he looks bored to be there!

"Personal to me in a way"... the optimum words being "in a way"...

Yeah, when he describes the plot, he's like "Ratatouille is about, um, yeah..." like he can't remember what it's about or something....

(That said, it does look like a "fun" film and I will see it of course....but I didn't find iit didn't to have a strong emotional pull at all when I saw the trailer, not do I now....sorry. But I am willing to be surprised! )

I also hope he gets to direct what he wants the next tiime.....PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Ray Gunn.....in.....2........D.
Please.





They should let him do it that way IMHO, that's the way he intended it years ago. If it actually comes out but in 3d, it's only more proof that Pixar wants 2d for WDFA but it just ain't "good enough" for Pixar......

And here I actually thought it's the "story" that dictates the form or something....


Here's a cool page with Ray Gunn concept art: (It was French but I translated the page ) We've discussed it before I think....

http://66.218.71.231/language/translati ... =yfp-t-501

[ShyViolet]

Also I found what Mike Barrier said on his blog to be interesting: (in his review of Cars)

Shortly before Cars' release, Premiere magazine named Lasseter and Steve Jobs, his boss at Pixar and now a board member at Disney, as the most powerful people in Hollywood. Lasseter was hailed repeatedly, when the Disney deal was announced and in the months afterward, as a new Walt Disney. Lasseter has presided over seven successful animated features, a string that Disney never matched; but Walt was far more ambitious than Lasseter has proved to be. Lasseter, shunning the difficulties of animating human characters, has settled for making children's films filled with toys and bugs and fish and automobiles—each film more technically sophisticated than the last, but each increasingly questionable as a story. The Lasseter who made Cars most resembles the Walt Disney who toward the end of his life made sentimental live-action wallows like Follow Me, Boys! and The Happiest Millionaire.

One Pixar film stands apart from the rest: The Incredibles (2004), directed by Brad Bird and far more Bird's film than Lasseter's. There is in it none of Lasseter's sentimentality; there is instead much greater risk-taking, in the animation of its human characters especially. A trailer for a Bird-directed effort called Ratatouille, the next Pixar features, precedes the theatrical showings of Cars. Ratatouille is, I gather, a project dropped into Bird's lap after other people struggled with it.I found the trailer ominous. The title character is a rat, living in a Parisian restaurant, and the trailer shows him sampling a cheese cart, to the justified horror of diners and server. Rats have almost never been made into cartoon characters; they're filthy, disgusting animals, and people recoil from them for good reason. In the trailer, another rat advises Ratatouille to suppress the "gag reflex" so he can eat any disgusting thing, as the second rat is cheerfully doing. Will audiences have to suppress the "gag reflex" to sit through the film? Perhaps Lasseter should have hired John Kricfalusi to direct it.

Maybe Bird will surprise me—The Incredibles was much better than I expected it to be—but with Ratatouille he is working with far more suspect material. Of one thing we can be sure: if before Ratatouille's release next year some Disney shill like Time's Richard Corliss starts hailing Bird as the new Walt Disney, we should save our money, stay home, and watch Dumbo again on DVD.

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I really think that if he does make Ray Gunn it HAS to be 2d or it's not worth seeing at all....IMHO. Something admittedly dark like this simply cannot have the same impact in 3d...at least the way 3d has been done up until now. Maybe down the road people will find new ways of doing darker 3d films, more serious/epic films (Bird achieved that to a degree in The Incredibles) but IMHO, Ray Gunn SHOULDN'T be anything but 2d. Period.
Can you imagine if The Iron Giant had been 3d? And I loved The Incredibles but sometimes it really feels like it was intended to be traditionally animated....and let's be really honest here....would Incredibles have been stronger in 2d? I think it would....and before you decide....think about it....hard. J/K


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Also, one more thing about Ratatouille:

I know the posters and trailer have the pronunciation down but I still REALLY think this should have been called something else. Not that there is anything wrong with the title, but many Americans (and domestic BO is quite important as well) will just look at the title quickly in the movie listings and not have the faintest idea what it's about...average people don't keep up with movie news at all. Of course the hype of Disney marketing will help with that, but still.

Rats! might have been a cute title....maybe corny, but it gets the point across quickly.

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Reading something to see how to say it is already too much work for many average people out there.... J/K I still think Rats! is more of an attention-getter....just me though.

[droosan]

See, I'm the opposite; I love the title Ratatouille .. precisely because it's a clever 'pun' that simultaneously conjures up the vision of french cuisine and, well, 'rats'. IOW, not just the protagonist, but the setting and his obsession.

I'm not a big fan of plain one-word titles (such as the title Cars) .. mostly because, IMO, they lack imagination or excitement. Though, (thankfully, in Cars' case) a 'dull' title needn't imply a dull film.

[Meg]

Something admittedly dark like this simply cannot have the same impact in 3d

Wrong.

Just because big name film studios are scared of making 3D films about anything other than wise-cracking forest animals doesn't mean the medium can't achieve more.


Discrimination...against...CGI...makes...me...ANGRY!

[ShyViolet]

Wrong.

Just because big name film studios are scared of making 3D films about anything other than wise-cracking forest animals doesn't mean the medium can't achieve more.


Discrimination...against...CGI...makes...me...ANGRY! Mad

Sorry Meg!


I also agree that more can be done with CGI, but....some films (like say, The Frog Princess) are just more suited to 2d....yeah of course it's the story, not the format, BUT, "let the story choose which format" is also important....some types of stories are just better suited to traditional, at least I think so.

Story IS everything......but it doesn't mean it's completely separated from the medium. One is affected by the other and vice versa. A story is a powerful thing and thus it's important to have the right technique.... story is king but it doesn't exist in a vacuum either.

That's why I don't feel any studio should be "locked into" one kind of film.


(I think great things can be done with CGI but I still wouldn't want to see Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid or The Prince of Egypt, or their like, in CGI, no matter how good the films are....)

At least in our day and age...maybe in 50 years, after Rapunzel, who knows, things will be different.

That's my theory, anyway.

[ShyViolet]

See, I'm the opposite; I love the title Ratatouille .. precisely because it's a clever 'pun' that simultaneously conjures up the vision of french cuisine and, well, 'rats'. IOW, not just the protagonist, but the setting and his obsession. Cool

I agree that Ratatouille is a unique and interesting title, and is fitting especially when you know the story....but say you're just some average person, and you don't know anything about the protagonist being a cuisine-loving rat living in Paris, you're going to be mystified as to just what this film is about....(How about Waiter, there's a Rat in my soup! Only kidding!!! )

That said, being that I do know the story, I think it's a good title....I'm just looking at it through a marketing POV is all.

[Meg]

From a marketing POV, it looks like they're playing up the fact that people don't really know what it is...I'm not *too* worried about how this will do B.O. wise, as long as the "Rats in a kitchen? EW!" thing doesn't keep people away, which I'm not expecting will.

[Ben]

Ratatouille is a great title, for all the reasons droo pointed out.

My main worry is that they're not letting it stand out on it's own and do have this silly "rat-a-too-ee" thing going on.

Surely a strange title would invite someone to find out what it was?