A Bug's Life Takes on New Challenges

Three years after Toy Story was released, Pixar presented us with A Bug's Life movie in 1998. One thing you may notice in this movie is that all of the ants have four legs instead of six.

The detail is amazing! The animators studied how light was cast on plants, their translucency and how that light reflected on the ground. You can see this trick often when you feel surrounded by green, or the bluish green light you see during the underground scenes inside the anthill.

Another challenge Pixar had with this feature film was creating all those ants in the colony, making each one individual with their movements and physical features. The results look spectacular.

Lead characters such as Flik and Princess Atta make the ants easier to relate to on a personal level, and so all the ants were given only arms and legs, just as we people have, so they didn't seem too "buggy". Good idea because the ants are likable immediately and not creepy looking like the grasshoppers.

But the Grasshoppers are bad guys, so they should be creepy. The Circus Bugs characters are all different shapes and sizes and are quite colorful.

Get to know all the Bug's Life movie characters on these pages:

• The Ant Characters
• The Circus Bugs Characters
• Grasshopper Characters

The short film Pixar selected to show at the beginning of this movie was Geri's Game, about an old man who plays a game of chess with himself. You will later see Geri as a toy repair man in Toy Story 2.

Bugs VS Antz

In October 1998, Dreamworks Animation Studio produced their first computer animated feature film in direct, aggressive competition with Pixar's A Bug's Life. Antz opened two months earlier than the Pixar film, undermining any sense of fair play.

Pixar had nothing to worry about though. The plot for A Bug's Life had humor that children loved and adults appreciated. It was a visually richer film and had many funny gags that made us all laugh out loud.

A Bug's Life movie pulled in 80% more revenue at the box office than did Antz when all was said and done, proving again that a quality story and visual appeal makes a great film.