Jul 17 2009The 'Where the Wild Things Are' of 1983
Back in 1983, long before Spike Jonze showed us that giant monsters look best as practical effects in sun-drenched forests, Disney owned the rights to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and were apparently considering making it an animated film. John Lasseter, then Disney emloyee and later founder of Pixar, did some tests to see if it would be feasible to use hand-drawn character animation over 3D backgrounds.
Studio heads decided the technique was "too expensive" and "what they do on Futurama," and Lasseter was fired shortly after. But now, thanks to internet, we can see one of those early tests:
Good thing we figured out computers are worthless to animation so early on. It would have been a shame to waste any more time with that.
Reader Comments
1. fuzzy Tingle Times - July 17, 2009 3:00 PM
hmm
2. Joe - July 17, 2009 3:04 PM
Well, I'm glad they didn't, because it looked like a massive fail. (although a good technical test; you can see why Disney and Pixar animation don't mix.)
Funny, this rejection was probably the best thing that ever happened to Lassetter, as he went onto greater success.
3. Dracula Jones - July 17, 2009 3:33 PM
Wait. 1983. Futurama?
4. Pat - July 17, 2009 3:35 PM
I don't think it looks too bad, especially not for 1983! If anyone has seen the Pixar Short Films collection, it's amazing what Lasseter and crew managed to do with what is equivalent now to the computing power found in a run-of-the-mill cell phone.
5. Apkar - July 17, 2009 3:58 PM
@ 3
Haha! I was thinking the same thing.
6. Gary - July 17, 2009 4:10 PM
The Futurama reference was a joke. This site has them every once in a while.
7. Tom Duffy - July 17, 2009 4:31 PM
@ 6 Yeah, but usually the jokes aren't within quotation marks.
8. Dracula Jones - July 17, 2009 4:53 PM
@6 The jokes usually make sense. I mean they did do CG animation on the Planet Express ship and scenes with a lot of camera movement, but the backgrounds weren't 3D.
9. Sergeant Poop - July 17, 2009 5:44 PM
@8...actually, if you've watched Futurama you would've noticed that the backgrounds are 3D.
10. ALTuna - July 18, 2009 6:53 AM
'John Lasseter, then Disney employee and later founder of Pixar'.
I think Jobs, Catmull & Smith may have a problem with that statement. Oh, and the other 30+ founding employees. Sheesh! you wear a loud shirt to work and everyone thinks you run the company. Nice guy though.
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12. Forlourned - July 21, 2009 10:07 PM
Disney may of axed him, but that didn't stop them from trying again. Because in '86 they came out with a animated movie called 'the Great Mouse Detective' that had an whole action scene with CG in it.
13. Jangofeet - October 20, 2009 2:56 PM
I think something is a little off here with the dates. John lasseter was fired in 1983 but Futurama would not be created for another 16 years. So there is no way that being too similar to Futurama was sited as a reason for not pursuing the project. Also that's not what they do on Futurama. Although Futurama frequently uses CGI in it's object and environment animation it is a totally different process than what was used in the early days of computer animation.