Stompgal_87
I first heard of this short in my 'Pixarpedia' book that gives me information on Pixar's feature-length films from 'Toy Story' to 'Up' plus its shorts. It is shorter than I thought it would be but I guess this is forgivable due to it being an early work of CGI. I liked the brief electronic version of 'Largo Al Factotum' from 'The Barber of Seville' at the beginning as well as the subsequent scored while the forest was beautifully rendered and impressive for 1984. Andre and Wally B were modelled around basic shapes and subtly coloured, which is as forgivable as its running time. The story is very straightforward if rushed but I liked the idea of Andre being stung off screen despite my fear of bees and wasps as well as Andre throwing his hat at Wally B to get his own back on him.Overall this is a worthy first effort of a Pixar short albeit debates surrounding its production companies (Lucasfilm or Pixar). 8/10.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
This is the very first Pixar short. The story is very basic in this one and certainly not the highlight. A strange creature named Andre wakes up in a forest and sees a bee. He'd rather not get stung, so he tries to distract the bee by pointing at something the bee should definitely pay his attention to. Wally, the bee, does and André quickly runs away, not without grinning to the audience though, feeling pretty safe. Maybe that was what cost him valuable seconds as the bee quickly realizes it got tricked and goes on the hunt for André who has created a little gap. And catches him quickly. Poor André.However, the animation was done well, especially of the forest and all the plants therein surrounding the two characters and the music choice was a good one that elevates this short film at least to mediocrity. It's a long way ahead for Lasseter and co. to his best work, but you have to start somewhere.
voxhumana
This is an extraordinary and historic film, however viewers should not assess this film by the standards of current animation, but rather in its (truly ground-breaking) historical context. This film is the CG animation equivalent of the first flight of the Wright Brothers (which lasted only 12 seconds). Much like that famous first flight in 1903, this 1984 film paved the way for all that has followed. It is not the first CG animation ever made, but it is the first to feature a plot, characterization and expression, motion blur, and deformations (eg stretching, squashing). When it was demonstrated at the 1984 SIGGRAPH there was a crowd response bordering on hysteria, as nothing even close to this had ever been done before.So watch this film with appropriate awe and reverence, for it is the birthing of an entire new art form which we completely take for granted now.
soymilk
'Andre and Wally B' isn't strictly a true Pixar film (since it was produced mainly at Lucasfilms), but John Lassester was amongst the creative team behind it, and it can still be found on their official Pixar site. A very early venture in making short animated films from CGI, this definitely doesn't rank up there as one of their coolest, perhaps because the limitations are all too obvious. The 3D animation isn't really all that great the characters look basic and chunky, like they were taken straight from some sort of video game while the storyline (if you can call it that) is too firmly-welded in the style of classic Walt Disney shorts. This may be done in computer animation, but otherwise it's just the same cartoony mayhem you've seen countless times before, involving a strange character named Andre (you know, I'm not really sure what kind of animal he's meant to be), being chased by a malicious bee. To be fair, I do actually enjoy a lot of the older Walt Disney cartoons, but the traditional 2D animation there had a greater fluidity that the more primitive CGI in this short film, which feels far too awkward and bulky to pull the same style off successfully.I'm guessing they didn't really have the capacity back then to put together a CGI film with a great deal happening in, so all things considered this isn't bad. It just can't compare to the sort of thing Pixar since went onto achieve, having adopted their own unique style and approach to this medium their studio's first short, 'Luxo Jr' was an absolute classic.Grade: C
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