I was fortunate enough to attend John Lasseter’s presentation this morning at the D23 convention. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it in, as they easily filled up the 4,000 seat arena and had to turn some people away.Here’s the highlights:
Toy Story 2 3D- They kicked it off by showing the opening scene of the film. The 3D was very impressive (and I thought the 3D was much more in your face than Up). John said that when they started working on the project (of turning the films into 3D), he was really surprised at how 3 Dimensional the movies already were. He also talked about how he’s always been a huge 3D fan (even had his wedding photos taken in 3D!).
Toy Story 3 – John told the story about how the creative team (himself, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich) of the original films spent the weekend at a cabin and created the story for TS3. He also said they watched the first two films (and realized how really great they were)..
John reiterated the recent casting of Timothy Dalton as Mr. Pricklepants (and even showed some test animation with Dalton’s voice). The character looks like a plush porcupine with a little green hat. Very funny stuff…
He also confirmed Bonnie Hunt, Jeff Garlin and Whoopi Goldberg as part of the voice cast. He would not divulge what toys they are playing. He was very pleased to inform us that the same actor (John Morris) who voiced Andy in the first two films, will be voicing Andy in TS3 as well.
Cars 2 – John covered the same plot details that were previously shared in Venice. He mentioned Mater’s “Hitchcockian” plot, Lighting McQueen’s races in five countries (Tokyo, Germany, Italy, Paris and England). Concept art was shown, but no footage was viewed.
Toy Story 3 Theatrical Trailer! – The first trailer comprised of all footage from the film was shown. It was extremely impressive. We see Andy’s Mom talking to Andy about what to do with these old toys (as he’s off to college) and we see some great flashback footage of Andy playing with all his toys (between TS2 and TS3 as Jessie and Bullseye are amongst the toys shown). We then cut to the toys being played with (very roughly) by some preschoolers at a daycare. After the chaos, we see Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head trying to put themselves back together. Buzz is broken too (during an attempted escape from the daycare by the Toy Gang). They attempt to reset him (with a paperclip) and he springs back to life…..dancing around and speaking Spanish! Some really great laughs here. I did not spot any new characters amongst the footage. I thought the trailer looked spectacular and I cannot wait to see the film. It looks like there will be plenty of laughs and heart…
We were also shown two of the new Mater shorts (Unidentified Flying Mater and Heavy Metal Mater). John is very pleased to still be directing these and promised more…
No mention of The Bear and the Bow or Newt.
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