Inside Out

Yeah, but that's the point. The writers didn't feel the need to have Joy pop up in Riley's dreams or something and be like, "I'm your Joy, and I need your help! Together, we can save your mind!" or something. That's not an uncommon direction for anthropomorphic stories to go. The two worlds remained separate.

Pixar does tend to be pretty good about that. The toys in Toy Story rarely broke their Masquerade either, and when they did, it was to traumatize an antagonist. By the end of Toy Story 3, Andy made it the entire trilogy without ever finding out his toys are alive.

...which is really for the best.

So, did Lava remind anyone else of those Volvic commercials?

Lava would've been so much better if it ended 30 seconds earlier. That ending felt a bit tacky and tacked on. Loved the rest of it though.

I feel like a dumb SJW for writing this, but I really couldn't stand the fact that the female volcano looked so humanoid in comparison to the male volcano. She didn't even look like a volcano, to be honest.

Maybe I'm just being oversensitive...

No, I noticed that, too. Really, just due to corniness alone, Lava was the worst Pixar short I've seen in a long time. Nice animation, though.

I had troubles with the song. Nearly all of Pixar's shorts have thrived on Show Don't Tell. And it's fine that they decided to break that trend - there's no reason to do the same thing for twenty-five years - but this swung too far in the other direction. There was no beauty in the song; it was just straight narration without even the vaguest subtext.

The ending would have been a lot cuter, IMO, had it ended with her sinking underwater as well.

I think they were going for making the male volcano resemble Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, whose voice resembled the narrator/volcano's, but it's still sorta jarring in comparison to the female one. Maybe she was supposed to resemble his wife Marlene?

edited 3rd Jul '15 12:44:16 PM by Tuckerscreator

I wonder what were the chances one of the reasons they made the short was to practice animating fluids for the upcoming Finding Dory movie.

That seems likely, actually.

I agree that the short wasn't as good as some of Pixar's previous ones: Pixar excels in telling short stories without words ("Night and Day" is my favourite), and the narration made "Lava" feel a lot weaker, especially since the story itself wasn't particularly creative.

Yeah I thought about Iz during the short, but just because of the music, not because the volcano reminded me of him.

I feel like the last "great" short was Presto. Lifted and For the Birds complete the holy trinity. Reaching that level of quality is exceedingly difficult, but I still hope one day Pixar will make it again.

Now to be fair, the entire movie had a premise that would have made an epic Pixar short.

Pixar also had a short that was driven by a musical narration: "Boundin".

Lava reminded me a lot of Boundin:' an entirely musical, very heavily narrated vignette on an extremely small, barely changing set with very few characters, and a touch of Tastes Like Diabetes in its message.

But while Boundin' made the most of what little it had, giving a lot of character in the little moments and expressions and making a lot of use out of the set no matter how tiny it was, Lava feels kind of repetitive and doesn't really do much with what it creates. It's all very "standard sequences of events." Also, while Boundin' narrates everything too, I think it accomplished that better - there was the sense of a storyteller relating an old yarn, if that makes any sense.

'd.

edited 3rd Jul '15 9:01:09 PM by KnownUnknown

My trinity of Pixar shorts is Boundin', Partly Cloudy and Partysaurus Rex.

What, no love for "Geri's Game" and "The Blue Umbrella?" Those were my favorites.

I also found "Lava" underwhelming. That time-lapse shot was pretty impressive, though.

My three favorite shorts are Presto, Geri's Game and One Man Band. Although I enjoyed the Ratatouille short more than Ratatouille itself. I think it ranks fourth amongst the shorts for me.

Oh no he's real!

Sadness cosplay also in its comments.

edited 4th Jul '15 8:30:01 PM by Tuckerscreator

I actually liked Lava.

Though Presto remains my favorite Pixar short to date.

I liked Lava a lot.

I also liked the movie, it reminded me of Monsters Inc. which may be my favorite Pixar offering. I like that it had the opportunity for several cop-outs and didn't use them; in particular, I'm glad the Andersons stayed in San Francisco; I thought they were going to move back for a bit which would be stupid.

I enjoyed this movie - The short made me cringe, however.

I hope they don't make a sequel of this, TBH.

I agree. Up is still my favorite, but I never want a sequel to that either.

There should definitely be a sequel to WAlly though.

I don't think this movie needs a sequel, but I am curious to see how Riley's emotions are going to develop in the future. Pixar already has a trilogy about growing up, so I doubt they are going to make it. I still would like shorts, though

Now, on the subject of existing shorts... I liked Lava, the animation was gorgeous and its plot and song were nice event if the story was quite obvious and weak. I'd also say very original. I probably should look the original song up, since I watched it dubbed.

Googling "Pixar shorts" tells me there are shorts I have not seen, like "The Blue Umbrella" and "La Luna". Probably other non-theatrical shorts as well. As a kid I liked "Geri's Game" and "One Man Band". I never really understood "Boundin'", so I didn't like it very much. More recently, "Partly Cloud" and "Day and Night" were nice. I also liked "Jack-Jack's Attack" as a kid, and "Your Friend the Rat" is one I've watched multiple times (I wish it were real, haha). Oh, and I like the Toy Story shorts and specials. This week I realized, thanks to one of the shorts, a toy support group is a great idea. Lotso and Stinky Pete clearly needed one.

My fave shorts were "The Blue Umbrella", "La Luna" and "Paperman" (in no particular order)

edited 5th Jul '15 12:45:56 PM by SmartGirl333

Paperman, La Luna, and Day and Night were really enjoyable.