The Contested Idea From Different Sources
During the summer of 1994, Pixar's story department began turning their thoughts to their next film. The storyline for A Bug's Life originated from a lunchtime conversation between John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft, the studio's head story team; other films such as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and WALL-E were also conceived at this lunch. Lasseter and his story team had already been drawn to the idea of insects serving as characters. Like toys, insects were within the reach of computer animation back then, due to their relatively simple surfaces. Stanton and Ranft wondered whether they could find a starting point in Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper. Walt Disney had produced his own version with a cheerier ending decades earlier in the 1934 short film The Grasshopper & the Ants. In addition, Walt Disney Feature Animation had considered producing a film in the late-1980s entitled Army Ants, that centred around a pacifist ant living in a militaristic colony, but this never fully materialised.
As Stanton and Ranft discussed the adaptation, they rattled off scenarios and storylines springing from their premise. Lasseter liked the idea and offered some suggestions. The concept simmered until early 1995, when the story team began work on the second film in earnest. During an early test screening for Toy Story in San Rafael in June 1995, they pitched the film to Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Eisner thought the idea was fine and they submitted a treatment to Disney in early July under the title Bugs. Disney approved the treatment and gave notice on July 7 that it was exercising the option of a second film under the original 1991 agreement between Disney and Pixar. Lasseter assigned the co-director job to Stanton; both worked well together and had similar sensibilities. Lasseter had realized that working on a computer-animated feature as a sole director was dangerous while the production of Toy Story was in process. In addition, Lasseter believed that it would relieve stress and that the role would groom Stanton for having his own position as a lead director.
Production on A Bug's Life began shortly after the release of Toy Story in 1995. The ants in the film were redesigned to be more appealing, and Pixar's animation unit employed technical innovations in computer animation. Randy Newman composed the music for the film. During production, a controversial public feud erupted between Steve Jobs and Lasseter of Pixar and DreamWorks co-founder Katzenberg due to the parallel production of his similar film Antz, which was released the month prior.
THE PLOT
A colony of ants, led by the elderly Queen and her daughter Princess Atta, lives in the middle of a seasonally dry creekbed on a small hill known as "Ant Island". Every summer, they are forced to give food to a gang of grasshoppers, led by Hopper.
One day, Flik, a courageous but clumsy inventor ant, inadvertently destroys the food offering with his grain harvester. Hopper discovers this, and demands twice as much food as compensation. When Flik earnestly suggests the ants enlist the help of bigger bugs to fight the grasshoppers, Atta sees it as a way to get rid of Flik and sends him off...
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The voice cast was littered with television sitcom stars of the time: Flik was voiced by Dave Foley (from NewsRadio), Princess Atta, by Julia Louis-Dreyfus (from Seinfeld), Molt, by Richard Kind (from Spin City), Slim, by David Hyde Pierce (from Frasier) and Dim, by Brad Garrett (from Everybody Loves Raymond). Joe Ranft, member of Pixar's story team, played Heimlich the caterpillar at the suggestion of Lasseter's wife, Nancy, who had heard him playing the character on a scratch vocal track.
For Hopper, Lasseter's top choice was Robert De Niro, who repeatedly turned the part down, as did a succession of other actors. Kevin Spacey met John Lasseter at the 1995 Academy Awards and Lasseter asked Spacey if he would be interested in doing the voice of Hopper. Spacey was delighted and signed on immediately.
This was also the final film appearance of actor Roddy McDowall, who played Mr. Soil, dying shortly before the film's theatrical release.
A Bug's Life premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 14, 1998, and was released in the United States on November 25. It received positive reviews for its animation, story, humor, and voice acting. It became a commercial success, having grossed $363 million at the box office.
MY VERDICT
This was the first time I ever took anyone to see a film. At the age of eight I saw it a second time with my aunt after telling her repeatedly that she should see it. And we both liked it. Now that I'm older however I can see a few of its shortcomings; it's not consistently funny and it's full of cliches. But, having said that, I will always defend this movie to my dying day when comparing it to DreamWorks' Antz. Purely because this one wasn't browbeaten into existence by a petty tool still bitter about his comeuppance for treating Robin Williams like DIRT.
Is A Bug's Life A Pixar Classic? This one will be remembered more as the bridge between Toy Storys than on it's own, but it's still a good enough.
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