A Video Essay Guide to Pixar

From Toy Story to Inside Out and The Incredibles, here are five video essays on Pixar you should watch.

So, after my last video essay guide, the haters came out:

Challenge for our elder followers: see if you can guess the age of the writer behind this article: https://t.co/PjCWhGOnjG

— One Perfect Shot (@OnePerfectShot) July 7, 2018

But, I had a trick up my sleeve:

Not to brag, but I’m on my way to the bar right now so why don’t you add that as a hint to your funny little tweet @OnePerfectShot https://t.co/O9ndZuWs8X

— will digravio (@willdigravio) July 8, 2018

Look who won the fav war. *Insert checkmate GIF here*

Because I’m getting shots fired at me for treating “children’s” moving images with the kind of intellectual depth they deserve, I figured I would double down. If you’re reading this website, or live on this planet, I don’t need to explain to you why Pixar is worthy of its own video essay guide. In fact, I am probably doing Pixar and its body of work a disservice by lumping them all into one guide.

All I will say is: Here are five video essays about Pixar you should watch.

Pixar’s Tribute to Cinema

Here’s the golden rule of good children’s programming: If adults like it, it’s good. Now, of course, there are exceptions, but there’s a reason the great children’s movies transcend age; our love for most great children’s films can and must be attributed to more than nostalgia.

In this great video essay, Jorge Luengo Ruiz explores the tributes Pixar films pay to the history of cinema and illustrates another golden rule: the subtle, sometimes not, allusions attract the attention of the adult viewer, and keep them charmed and watching.

A Pair of Inside Out Essays

Because Anger is my spirit animal, I figured I would include two Inside Out video essays, they’re also really good. The first is from Lessons from the Screenplay. It deals with the screenwriters’ own emotional journeys while writing the film and discusses how the best writers are those that are in tune with their own emotions and are willing to explore them on paper and on screen.

Similarly, this next essay uses Inside Out as a way to examine the relationship between reason and emotion. It explores how society often places these two in conflict. Using an old Disney film as an example, the video essay explains how Inside Out is Pixar’s attempt to combat that false dichotomy.

The Ultimate Antagonist

Quick, what’s the first word you think of when I say “antagonist?” Probably “bad,” right?

Well, as you probably know, antagonist and villain are not synonymous. This video essay, made by my Middlebury classmate Ian Scura, does a great job outlining the different kinds of antagonists, inside and outside of Pixar. Get it?

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