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A Bug's Life is a computer animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the United States on November 14, 1998, and in the United Kingdom on 5 February 1999. It's also the second Disney/Pixar feature film. It tells the tale of an oddball individualist ant who hires what he thinks are "warrior bugs" (actually circus performers) to fight off greedy grasshoppers. The film was directed by John Lasseter. The story of A Bug's Life is a parody of Aesop's fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper. It is similar to the comedy ¡Three Amigos!, which is about out-of-work actors defending a town while thinking they're merely giving a performance, and it gives an obvious nod to Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (as well as its Hollywood remake, The Magnificent Seven), which is about Japanese villagers hiring a rag-tag group of swordsmen to fight off rampaging bandits. Reviews for A Bug's Life were overwhelmingly positive at the time of the film's release, and it has remained popular since, although it is worth noting that A Bug's Life and Cars are the only two films from Pixar not to place on IMDB's list of the top 250 films.
Plot synopsis Flik is an oddball, an individualist and would-be inventor in a colony of ants that is oppressed by a gang of marauding grasshoppers, who arrive once a season demanding food from the ants. While working with an invention to pick fruit more efficiently, Flik accidentally destroys the offering that the ants were putting together to appease the grasshoppers. Given a temporary reprieve by the grasshoppers, the ants agree to Flik's plan to recruit "warrior bugs" to fight off the grasshoppers—Flik actually believes the plan, while the other ants see it as effectively exiling Flik. Flik finds his way to the "city" (Garbage under a trailer), where he mistakes a group of circus bugs, whose act collapses into chaos, for the warrior bugs he's seeking. The bugs, meanwhile, mistake Flik for an agent who wants to book their act, and agree to desert the act and travel with him back to Ant Island. Flik eventually realizes his mistake and develops a new plan. He advocates building a fake bird to scare away Hopper, the leader of the grasshoppers who's deeply afraid of bug-eating birds. The ants unite behind Flik's plan until the circus' ringmaster, P.T. Flea, arrives to retrieve the circus bugs, blowing Flik's cover. The ants try desperately to pull together enough food for a new offering to the grasshopper, but it can't possibly be enough. Dot, a tiny royal ant who idolizes Flik, overhears Hopper's plan to kill the queen after the offering and gets her friends to put Flik's bird plan back into action. It all nearly works of course, but when a confused P.T. inadvertently incinerates the bird, Hopper knows he has been tricked. He's about to kill Flik when Flik declares, in response to Hopper's claims of racial superiority, "Ants don't serve grasshoppers! It's you who need us. We're a lot stronger than you say we are...and you know it, don't you?" Hopper knows it. It's then the ants realize, by outnumbering the grasshoppers 100-to-1, they need not be oppressed by grasshoppers ever again. They chase the grasshoppers out, but not before Hopper attempts his final vengeance on Flik. Thanks to some quick thinking by Flik, Hopper ends up being eaten by a real bird that also inhabits Ant Island. Flik is welcomed back to the colony, and all the circus bugs join him in a celebration before departing Ant Island. Box office A Bug's Life made approximately $162 million dollars in its U.S. theatrical run, easily covering its estimated production costs of $45 million. The film also earned £28,824,239 in its United Kingdom theatrical run. Video release The DVD of the film is the first wholly-digital transfer of a feature film to a digital playback medium. No analog processes came between the creation of the computer images and their representation on the DVD. As well, the pan and scan or 'full screen' version of the video (on the DVD as well as VHS releases) has been reframed; rather than sacrifice image in some parts of the film, the frame has been extended or objects moved to fit the narrower aspect ratio. Pixar continued this process on its later video releases. Also, the different characters (Flik, Dot, Francis, etc.) were on one (by themselves) cover of the video cover, considered a collectible in many cases. A laserdisc version was also released in Japan by Pioneer, one of the last. The widescreen version of the film has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Trivia Relation to Toy Story It is widely believed that the bugs in this film live in the same universe as the toys in the Toy Story films. The following examples could be seen to show this: See also: Trivia on Toy Story 2 Other appearances Voice cast Attached short film Main article: Geri's Game Theatrical and video releases of this film include Geri's Game, a Pixar short made in 1997, a year before this film was released. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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