The Pixar Story

The documentary presents Pixar not as a success story but as a small team that followed a technical claim nobody believed for a long time. It runs in order from the computer division at Lucasfilm to Steve Jobs buying it, from staying alive on commercial work to Toy Story. Leslie Iwerks puts the camera in front of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs, with early experiments and abandoned work in the archive material. Its best section shows how traditional animation narrowed in the same years and how Disney ended up buying its own future from outside. The director's father Don Iwerks and grandfather Ub Iwerks come from inside animation history themselves. Who it is for: anyone curious about animation history and studio stories. Who it is not for: viewers wanting a critical eye, since the documentary stands close to the studio.