15 Times Pixar Did Their Research And It Shows

We always watched Pixar movies for the relatable characters and the heartfelt stories supported by their smooth animations in each frame. What if I told you that not only did those frames capture our hearts, it also captured realistic details that we would have never expected from our animated movies.

These details showcase just how much extra effort and research goes into Pixar’s work for us, the audience. Sometimes subtle and right under our noses and other times being right in front of us the entire time. Let’s find out about these details of our cherished movies one by one.

1. Ratatouille(2007): When our main character, Linguini is chopping leeks for the soup pushed him into the spotlight of the restaurant, You can catch the green smears on the chopping board and the bite marks on his hand that Remi left him when they were still figuring out their approach on how they will operate together.

 

2. Wall-E(2008): It is explained in the movie that as generations went by, humans grew to become obese due to the robots making their life way too easy for them. The captain of the Axiom had to wear the uniform passed down from the previous captains, however, since he was too obese to fit in the uniform, he wore it around his neck by only being able to attach the collar button.

3. A Bug’s Life(1997): When the grasshopper leader, Hopper barges into the territory of the ants in search of food, The Ant Princess, Atta speaks up, causing Hopper to aim his focus onto her. He moves his antennas around her face and says “You Don’t Smell Like The Queen” as insects mainly depend on their antennae for picking up on their senses such as feeling, hearing, and wouldn’t you know, even smelling.

4. Cars(2006): One of the details that can easily be missed by anyone who isn’t a car enthusiast is that McQueen shakes a lot more than Mater while they were being chased on the field earlier in the movie. This is due to the fact that race cars have a firm suspension compared to the average cars that have a softer suspension.

5. The Incredibles(2004): To make the superfamily movie more grounded, Director Brad Bird pushed the limits of the voice actor for Dash, Spencer Fox. He made Spencer run rounds around the studio until he genuinely felt tired so as to make the speedster sound realistic whenever he did had to catch a breath.

6. Finding Nemo(2003): It is a fact that male sharks do not stay with the female after reproducing, therefore, the baby sharks never get to meet their father. Pixar picked up on this and very subtly inserted it into the conversation of the sharks when Bruce mentions he never saw his father.

7. Ratatouille(2007): The studio made one of their crew members, Kesten Migdal, replicate the scene of Linguini in his wet chef clothes in real life by making him wear a chef uniform and have him take a dive in a pool, just to get a reference of how to animate the wet uniform on the person in a realistic manner.

8. Toy Story 4(2019): Pixar introduced AI spiders into their animations to get webs wherever the scene may need it, all webs are made by the spiders and managed to cut the animators some slack by not having them to create all of the individual cobwebs by hand. AI spiders seem to be good at web development as we couldn’t make out the difference.

9. Cars 2(2011): Pixar artists gave Agent Finn McMissile a camera HUD with simple graphics, even when the tech was a lot more advanced at that point in time. This is due to the agent belonging to the 1960s era, making his version of the HUD seem advanced for someone of his age.

10. Toy Story 3(2010): Pixar decided to take marketing to a whole new level by making the dolls actually fit into the Barbie toyline. Ken is based on the 1988 Animal Lovin’ Ken toy, while Barbie is based on the 1983 Great Shape Barbie toy.

11. Wall-E(2008): During the montage of when Wall-E takes care of EVA when she shuts down, he gets struck by lightning. The lightning brings a shock right through him, but it also charges his battery to the max as well.

12. Cars(2006): During the race at the beginning of the movie, the tires of all the cars would degrade and Pixar decided to show the wear and tear of these tires by animating the bits of rubber that would come off the tires.

13. Inside Out(2015): Riley dons her maroon and gold uniform during her hockey tryout. This is because these are the same colors for the University Of Minnesota Golden Gophers, Minnesota. The place she had just shifted out of with her parents.

14. Toy Story 2(1999): When Al is about to hang up with the Japanese Toy Museum buying woody. He attempts at saying “You’re welcome” in Japanese instead he ends up saying “Don’t touch my mustache” in English as this is him mispronouncing. “どういたしまして” (Dōitashimashite).

15. Soul (2020): The first soul assigned is number 108,210,121,415. Pixar decided to take some real numbers from our world into this movie, only it wasn’t any number, it was the estimation of the number of humans that have lived on Earth by the time this movie released.

These are just a few of the minor details that make Pixar films to be appreciated a lot more after you’ve watched them for the first time. There’s always the extra step that they don’t hesitate to take for the sake of the film.

Source: BoredPanda

Tell us about which detail was your favorite and why in the comments below: