What are you talking about? Lucas cannot possibly regard Pixar as his company (other than the fact that he started it) - he sold it to Steve Jobs early on - in February of 1986, over 28 years ago and just nine years after the first Star Wars movie was released. It was sold by Jobs to Disney in 2006, making Jobs the largest shareholder of Disney. Those shares are now held by Jobs' estate.
And Disney will be hands off on Lucasfilm for exactly as long as it makes money in line with their expectations.
I'm talking about the BusinessWeek article everyone here should have read by now...yes, Lucas still calls Pixar "my company", and yes, Lucas was impressed by Disney leaving Pixar and Marvel alone, which helped make the sale easier for him.
To no-one in particular: Lucas IS the daddy of what became Pixar. As always with Lucas, it took a lot of creative and technically minded people (like Ed Catmull) to turn his dream into reality, but it did indeed spring forth from his loins before it got sold off and then flourished to become the CG powerhouse that it is today.
To no-one in particular: Lucas IS the daddy of what became Pixar. As always with Lucas, it took a lot of creative and technically minded people (like Ed Catmull) to turn his dream into reality, but it did indeed spring forth from his loins before it got sold off and then flourished to become the CG powerhouse that it is today.
You see no image (jedi hand wipe). Damn, you still see it, don't you? Some images just can't be erased.
With Pixar, why shouldn't Lucas consider it his company? He founded it. People really need to get off the Lucas hating wagon. You may not like what he did but it was his choice to make. You pay to get a copy of his vision, not for him put out what you want. Does it suck? Hell yes but that's how it works.
That article had severe Apple Reality Distortion Field and the usual Jobs rewrite of history, like inventing the GUI or mouse or portable MP3 player.
From the Pixar Wiki: In 1982, the team began working on film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic on special effects.[6] After years of research, and key milestones in films such as the Genesis Effect in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the Stained Glass Knight in Young Sherlock Holmes,[6] the group, which numbered 40 individuals back then,[1] was spun out as a corporation in February 1986 with investment by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer.[1] Jobs paid $5 million to George Lucas for technology rights and put them and $5 million cash as capital into the company.[1] A factor contributing to Lucas' sale was an increase in cash flow difficulties following his 1983 divorce, which coincided with the sudden dropoff in revenues from Star Wars licenses following the release of Return of the Jedi. The newly independent company was headed by Dr. Edwin Catmull as President and Dr. Alvy Ray Smith as Executive Vice President. They were joined on the Board of Directors by Steve Jobs who was Chairman.[1] Initially, Pixar was a high-end computer hardware company whose core product was the Pixar Image Computer, a system primarily sold to government agencies and the medical community. One of the buyers of Pixar Image Computers was Walt Disney Studios, which was using it as part of their secretive CAPS project, using the machine and custom software written by Pixar to migrate the laborious ink and paint part of the 2-D animation process to a more automated method. The Image Computer never sold well.[8] In a bid to drive sales of the system, Pixar employee John Lasseter—who had long been creating short demonstration animations, such as Luxo Jr., to show off the device's capabilities—premiered his creations at SIGGRAPH, the computer graphics industry's largest convention, to great fanfare.[8] Inadequate sales of Pixar's computers threatened to put the company out of business as financial losses grew. Jobs invested more and more money in exchange for an increasing portion of the company, reducing the fraction of ownership by the management and employees until after several years he owned essentially all the company for a total investment of $50 million. Lasseter's animation department began producing computer-animated commercials for outside companies. Early successes included campaigns for Tropicana, Listerine, and Life Savers.[9] In April 1990 Pixar sold its hardware division, including all proprietary hardware technology and imaging software, to Vicom Systems, and transferred 18 of Pixar's approximately 100 employees. The same year Pixar moved from San Rafael to Richmond, California.[10] During this period, Pixar continued its successful relationship with Walt Disney Feature Animation, a studio whose corporate parent would ultimately become its most important partner. In 1991, after a tough start of the year when about 30 employees in the company's computer department were dismissed (including the company's president, Chuck Kolstad),[11] which reduced the total number of employees to just 42, essentially its original number,[12] Pixar made a $26 million deal with Disney to produce three computer-animated feature films, the first of which was Toy Story. At that point, the software programmers, who were doing RenderMan and CAPS, and Lasseter’s animation department, who made television commercials, some 3-D Stings for Nickelodeon, and a few shorts for Sesame Street, was all that was left of Pixar.[13] Despite the total income of these products, the company was still losing money, and Jobs, still chairman of the board and now the full owner, often considered selling it. Even as late as 1994, Jobs contemplated selling Pixar to other companies, among them Microsoft. Only after learning from New York critics that Toy Story was probably going to be a success and confirming that Disney would distribute it for the 1995 Christmas season did he decide to give Pixar another chance.[14] He also began then for the first time to take an active direct leadership role in the company, making himself its CEO. The film went on to gross more than $361 million worldwide.[15] Later that year, Pixar held its initial public offering on November 29, 1995, and the company's stock was priced at US$22 per share
Other articles and The Pixar Animation Story (documentary) back all this up. Jobs got lucky.
Wow..this thread morphed into a Pixar/Apple thread now. I thought we were talking about all things Star Wars. Well to get this back on track, I do know that ILM graphic artists used some Apple computers to create lots and lots of cgi stuff n junk for the Star Wars films.....
We have really stooped to the level of comparing GL to SJ now?
You sound like a typical Apple/Steve Jobs hater. Bottom line is that Steve Jobs' business decisions lead to the massive success of Pixar.
you don't have to be a steve jobs HATER to realize he was a brilliant man at capitalizing on something but had a horrific personality and tried to re-write history as any "conqueror" does
you don't have to be a steve jobs HATER to realize he was a brilliant man at capitalizing on something but had a horrific personality and tried to re-write history as any "conqueror" does
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I thought we were talking about all things Star Wars. Well to get this back on track, I do know that ILM graphic artists used some Apple computers to create lots and lots of cgi stuff n junk for the Star Wars films.....
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