As A Bug’s Life arrives on Blu-ray in the UK, Simon takes a moment to celebrate one Pixar feature it ushered in with it: the blooper reel…
After the success of the original Toy Story, both in terms of the sheer amount of money it made, and the critical response it notched up, it’s fair to say that all eyes were on Pixar, to see just what the hardly-fledgling animation studio would come up with for its second full-length feature. The answer was, of course, A Bug’s Life, a charmingly overlooked tale, with more than a little subtext to it.
I’m something of a fan of A Bug’s Life, and it’s arguably the forgotten Pixar film. Yet even those who strangely seem to have shoved the film out of their head tend to remember what I’m going to briefly talk about here. We’re going to look at the bloopers.
I distinctly remember searching out a screening of A Bug’s Life with the bloopers attached, as word of mouth about them spread. And as much as I like the film itself, and I really do, I do distinctly recall walking out of the cinema, grinning from ear to ear at the genius of what Pixar had just run over the end credits. It’s yet another addition to the list of reasons as to why Pixar is quite the firm that it is. And when you sit down and consider the work involved in doing what it did, it’s quite incredible.
After all, when some bright spark at Pixar first came up with the idea of spoof bloopers, it was at a point where the firm was in a very different place to now. Pixar, at this point in time, could announce it was going to release a 90 minute film about a pot of jam, and the world would explode with glee. Off the back of the original Toy Story, the pressure really was on, with DreamWorks adding to it by shifting the release of Antz forward to before that of A Bug’s Life. And yet Pixar still dedicated time to the end credits bloopers. That’s some gamble, and one that richly paid off for my money.
Just take a look at them to see why...