Pixar Short Films Collection Review

Overall 4.00 of 5 view all 2 reviews

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awlafon
Big Island, VA

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Pixar Short Films Collection pleasantly suprised me but still...

watching with kids, looking for good, clean fun, buying for a preschooler

Pros

Some familiar characters, The shorts are impressive, Many may be new to you, Can be viewed in short segments, Oscar winners

Cons

Might already own them, Must enjoy shorts

MAY

2008

Pixar Short Films Collection- Volume 1

2004

Walt Disney Video

Rated G

My husband has a great track record for choosing excellent DVDs for our children. When he came home with Pixar Short Films Collection, I wasn't pleased. I remembered the Luxo Jr. Pixar short featured on the Toy Story 2 video with the larger desk lamp watching and wanting to play ball like the smaller lamp. While it was clever and cute, I just couldn't swallow a the idea of a whole DVD of shorts.

After watching it, I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The Pixar Short Films Collection has thirteen Pixar shorts that resemble minutes long, high quality animation cartoons. All but two of them were previously included in DVD sets of other films.

1. The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.
2. Red's Dream
3. Luxo Jr. (Toy Story 2)
4. Tin Toy (Toy Story)
5. Knick Knack (Finding Nemo)
6. Geri's Game (A Bug's Life)
7. For the Birds (Monsters Inc.)
8. Mike's New Car (Monsters Inc.)
9. Boundin' ( The Incredibles)
10. Jack-Jack Attack (The Incredibles)
11. One Man Band (Cars)
12. Mater & the Ghostlight (Cars)
13. Lifted (Ratatouille)
There are also some shorts created for Sesame Street.

The kids' favorite was Jack-Jack-Attack, a scene that shows what Jack-Jack was really doing when the babysitter called Elasta Girl "really freakin' out here," in The Incredibles. They also liked the two with Mater from Cars and Sully from Monster's Inc. No doubt they enjoyed these best because they featured characters from movies they already knew and liked.

Gerri's Game with the spectacled chess player won an Oscar for Best Short Film in 1997
For the Birds won the same in 2001. Even though I never knew there was such an Oscar category, I can see why these were winners. For the Birds was my favorite.

If you already own any of these movies listed above, you already have these shorts as a bonus feature. Even though I do own many of them, I must say I rarely check bonus features and often fast forward straight to the movie so I hadn't seen many of these.

What I do find redeeming about this collection is that each short is just a few minutes long. The whole DVD is just 54 minutes. When there is no time for a full feature film and the kids want a little t.v. time and I want no commercials and no groans for stopping a DVD before the end, I can use this and let them know up front how many we're watching. So using this collection this way works for me.

I realize everyone isn't watching with or buying for kids. Many of these are very clever and I can see that they may provide some level of lazy adult entertainment, they ust wouldn't be my pick for adult movie time.

It was a struggle to give this one an average rating because individually the shorts are impressive and I was pleasantly surprised but still...it is a DVD with a collection of shorts. If you are an animation history buff, they do range from 1984 to present.

If you do purchase this or any other Disney Movie, you may want to check out Disney Movie Rewards.

My Viewpoint:

Individual shorts in the Pixar Collect of Shorts are impressive. I recommend this only for "shorts" fans and parents who want to take advantage of "a few minutes of t.v. entertainment" time. Unless, you just LOVE shorts and must see them all, I would check them out on other DVD feature films.