Tron 3 is Happening

VanCity Buzz first reported that a sequel to the 2010 Disney film Tron Legacy would be shooting in Vancouver this upcoming fall. According to the Canadian website, Garrett Hedlund will return as Sam Flynn; and Badass Digest dug a little deeper and revealed that the director of Tron Legacy Joseph Kosinski would also be back.

Brad Lewis Moving

It was announced today that Brad Lewis, the co-director of Cars 2, is leaving Pixar and joining Tradition Studios, the recently opened animation department of Digital Domain.

Digital Domain, partly owned by Transformers director, Michael Bay, is a visual effects company that recently handled effects on Disney's Tron: Legacy. The company set up an animation subsidiary in Florida back in 2009 and is currently awaiting the completion of a 115,00 square-foot campus, scheduled to open in December.

The producer of Pixar's 2007 Academy Award winning feature, Ratatouille, has been at Pixar for ten years now, after spending over eleven years at PDI and DreamWorks Animation, where he produced Antz.

Lewis, who is set to be a director at Tradition Studios, said to The Hollywood Reporter:

“I am excited to join a company with Digital Domain's talent and expertise and to have an opportunity to be a part of its team in creating family-friendly stories and adventures.”

Lewis will surely be missed at Pixar and will be a huge asset to Digital Domain.

Christmas Thoughts

I hope everyone out there had a great, happy and caring Christmastime, and that you all got what you wanted for Christmas.
I just thought I'd share some thoughts on some animation related presents that I received:

I was given DreamWorks smash hit from earlier in the year, How to Train Your Dragon (above), on DVD, this was actually the first time I had seen this film. As such, I had heard and taken in all of the hype, I was expecting a good film, however I wasn't expecting anything spectacular. Sufficed to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find a genuinely, brilliant and touching gem of a film that can more than stack up to and hold its own against Toy Story 3. I loved all of the characters and the animation was beautiful, furthermore I found the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless genuinely moving, something lacking from a lot of animated films nowadays. This is going to make my choice for the A113Animation Awards all the more difficult.

I also received The Art of Toy Story 3 book (above), whilst I have loved all of Pixar's films, I have never got round to buying one of these books, so I was very happy to receive it. The book is extremely interesting and detailed, with beautiful concept art, sketches and developmental drawings. However, the reason I love the book so much, is that it isn't just The Art of Toy Story 3, it details the legacy and genesis of the entire Toy Story franchise, covering Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and gives a great insight into the progress since 1995.

I was overjoyed to receive these presents, I hope you all got great presents and had a wonderful time - feel free to comment below and let me know what you got for Christmas -, on a side note, here are a few pictures I wanted to show you all.

Above is the Christmas Card from Pixar Animation Studios this year, featured on Pixar animator Austin Madison's (who recently sat down, alongside Chris Chua, for an interview with Derrick Clements of the Pixar Podcast) blog. The card, that shows Finn McMissile, Tow Mater and Holley Shiftwell, from the upcoming Cars 2, was entitled Missile, Tow and Holley. Clever.

Finally, this picture was featured as fan art on HeyUGuys and shows Buzz Lightyear in the grid, a la Tron: Legacy. Once again, clever.

Tron: Progress

Having just been to see Tron: Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 cult classic, Tron, I wanted to show just how much computer animation has progressed in 28 years. Whilst not technically an animated film, Tron was a film (as is Tron: Legacy) that relies heavily on animation for its magic, also it is the film that put computer animation on the map - also Pixar and Disney CCO, John Lasseter, categorically stated that "without Tron, there would be no Pixar".
I thought Tron: Legacy was (in the same vein as the original) absolutely enthralling and fantastic, nonetheless Tron: Legacy is leaps and bounds better than Tron in terms of animation. Below you can see examples of the animation in both, I think it's fairly self explanatory, but the left pictures are from the original 1982 Tron, the right hand side pictures are from this year's Tron: Legacy.

The difference is both staggering and unbelievable at the same time, whilst I loved both films, Legacy just felt that bit better, however both were at the forefront of the craft, pushing bounds, Tron was in 1982 and Tron: Legacy is now, in 2010.