The Plot: The canine star of a weekly sci-fi TV
show, convinced that his superpowers are real, embarks on a cross-country
journey to find his "kidnapped" master, with a stray cat and a
hamster in tow.
The Songs: "I Thought I Lost You" (performed
by Miley Cyrus & John Travolta), "Barking At The Moon" (performed
by Jenny Lewis)
A Little History: Originally titled American Dog, written and directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch), about a dog (and TV
personality) named Henry who is stranded in the Nevada desert with a one-eyed cat and a radioactive rabbit as his only companions. Disney/Pixar
chief John Lasseter viewed a rough cut of Sanders' film and gave extensive notes
on how to improve it. Sanders, however, reportedly hated the changes and was
soon booted from the project (he and partner Dean Dublois then relocated to
DreamWorks, to direct How To Train Your
Dragon instead). Chris Williams (story artist for The Emperor's New Groove) and Byron Howard (supervising animator
for Brother Bear) were hired as
replacement directors, and on June 8, 2007, Disney announced Bolt for a target November 21, 2008,
release date. Inspired by the work of cinematographers Gordon Willis (The Godfather) and Vilmos Zsigmond (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind), art director
Paul Felix and lighting director Adolph Lusinsky gave the film a more
painterly, textural quality than is common for CG-animated features. (Lusinsky:
"For example, with computers it's possible to show bricks on a building
going back to infinity; you can count every single brick. In our film, you
might see the first few bricks on a wall really clearly, but once you go back
30 feet, it might become very abstracted to a simpler read. This was a
completely different approach than [we'd] taken before.") Bolt himself is a mix of several different dog breeds; character designer Joe
Moshier was especially taken by the long ears of the American White Shepherd,
and emphasized this trait to make the character more expressive. Mittens the
cat was originally called "Mister Mittens" (because her masters never
bothered to learn her actual gender); the animators adopted an actual hamster
named Doink to study how Rhino the hamster would move in his plexiglass
ball. Actress Chloë Grace Moretz was cast as the voice of Penny until Miley Cyrus expressed interest in the part; Cyrus
also co-wrote the end title duet, "I Thought I Lost You," which she
sings with John Travolta (Bolt). The song was nominated for a Broadcast Film
Critics Association Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, but
lost both times to Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" (from The Wrestler [2008]). During its run in
theaters, Bolt grossed $309.9 million
in worldwide ticket sales. The film was re-titled Volt for its Russian release, since the word "bolt" is
often used as a slang term for the male sex organ in that country.
How It Broke New Ground: NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) technology was developed specifically for the film, to give it a softer, hand-painted look than most CG-animated films. Also the first animated Disney feature (produced in-house) to be conceived and produced in 3D (both Chicken Little and Meet The Robinsons were post-converted to the format). The Blu-Ray for Bolt was released on March 22, 2009, which also included DVD and digital copies of the film. The standard DVD was released separately two days later, marking the first time a Region 1 Blu-Ray disc debuted before its stand- alone DVD counterpart.
How It Broke New Ground: NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) technology was developed specifically for the film, to give it a softer, hand-painted look than most CG-animated films. Also the first animated Disney feature (produced in-house) to be conceived and produced in 3D (both Chicken Little and Meet The Robinsons were post-converted to the format). The Blu-Ray for Bolt was released on March 22, 2009, which also included DVD and digital copies of the film. The standard DVD was released separately two days later, marking the first time a Region 1 Blu-Ray disc debuted before its stand- alone DVD counterpart.
How It Holds Up
Today: A perfectly
pleasant way to pass the time between Pixar films - light, bright, consistently
heartfelt, and refreshingly short on pop-culture jokes and references. You
could argue, of course, that the entire movie is one giant meta- joke, like a
canine Truman Show crossed with Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
plus a bit of Buzz Lightyear to boot. But while parents may suffer
from déjà vu, kids will love its propulsive energy and pinwheeling plot, which
is quick to point out the difference between being "super" and
embracing your inner self. (Cars did
the same thing, too, and with equal cornpone sincerity.) A note on the
animation: producer Clark Spencer says on the DVD bonus features that "if
we've done our job correctly, you're actually looking and following the story
and the characters, and not paying attention to the rest of the world,"
and it's amazing, if you pause any shot on your remote, how you don't really
notice the painterly quality of the backgrounds until you really stop to look
at them. The same goes for Bolt's breathless opening sequence, steeped in the
same dark hues and frenetic action as your average Jerry Bruckheimer flick, and
a sure sign that Disney would do well to invest in action films, should they
ever get the inkling.
Grade: B
__________
Hang on, Disney fans – there's more to come. Need to play catch up? Click on the following for: Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun And Fancy Free, Melody Time, The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady And The Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred And One Dalmatians, The Sword In The Stone, The Jungle Book, The AristoCats, Robin Hood, The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, The Rescuers, The Fox And The Hound, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia/ 2000, Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home On The Range, Chicken Little, and Meet The Robinsons. Please comment!
No comments:
Post a Comment