Journal articles on the topic 'Pixar animation studios'

Existing scholarship finds that early industrialized animation studios sought to emphasize the unpredictable liveliness of creativity at their studios, while also demonstrating their ability to control and manage production through industrial management techniques that promoted regulation and efficiency. This article examines how this dynamic between unpredictability and control has been negotiated by digital animation studios since the early 1980s, with a focus on the way Pixar Animation Studios represents its management theory through popular books, business journal articles, DVD extras, and behind-the-scenes promotional material. This article highlights how computational principles for creating and managing unpredictability via nonlinear simulation inform Pixar’s promoted management theory. The principles of simulated unpredictability ground many of Pixar’s key technological advances, especially for animating fluids and materials (water, smoke, fur, and cloth), but they also ground concepts within the field of management science such as industrial dynamics and organizational resilience. This epistemic frame leads Pixar to represent creativity as the unpredictable product of carefully controlled conditions and parameters and this collapse of technology, animation, and management helps to sculpt Pixar’s own corporate image as both an animation studio and technology company. The research in this article offers contributions to the study of both post-Fordism in animation industries and algorithmic control.

In 2011, Pixar Animation Studios released a short film that challenged the contemporary characteristics of digital animation. La Luna (Enrico Casarosa) marks a pivotal shift in Pixar's short film canon by displaying hand-drawn artwork and man-made textures. Widely considered the innovators of computer-generated animation, Pixar is now experimenting with 2D animation techniques and with textures that oppose the clean and polished look of mainstream American animation. This article aims to outline the significant technological developments that have facilitated an organic aesthetic by suggesting that nostalgia dictates a preference for a more traditional look. It will also argue that this process pioneered by Pixar has in turn influenced the most recent short films of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Este livro inventivo ilustra a fascinante narrativa contemplando detalhes sobre como a Pixar nasceu. Escrito por Ed Catmull, co fundador da Pixar Animation Studios e presidente da Pixar Animation e da Disney Animation, este livro permite aos leitores navegarem uma bonita jornada rumo à criatividade, comunicação e gestão.Esta narrativa única contém múltiplos exemplos sobre como a inovação pode ser gerenciada através de diversas metodologias e métricas.Certamente é uma excelente leitura que irá deliciar os entusiastas do entretenimento assim como especialistas em comunicação.

The social influence of Disney discourse is difficult to ignore, as is their repetitive matricide and positioning of the patriarchal and heteronormative family model in their bloc.kbuster animated films. Yet, through its Pixar Animation Studios subsidiary, Disney has pushed progressively at the boundaries, not only in terms of animation artistry but also through the social topics explored. This study builds on previous research of male mothering in Finding Nemo by visiting the subsequent 11 Pixar animated films, with in-depth exploration of their most recent release, Incredibles 2. Ultimately, I argue that Pixar has once again opened space by embracing empowered and collaborative parenting.

- A new digital language of extreme technological refinement, able to tell stories of great emotional impact, has been generated by computer animation. Pixar Animation Studios is a production company that in few years has given a considerable push to 3D animation: they use the new technologies giving always a great importance to story. Their huge success attracted more and more the attention of a world- wide colossus like the Disney, who proposed different deals for coproduction and distribution. After various events, on January 24th, 2006, the Mouse House acquired Pixar, with an operation of 7,4 billions dollars, and offered to Pixar leaders (Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) key roles in Disney company. This union can be defined a convenience wedding: in fact, Disney has incorporated a production company that during the last few years has obtained enormous hits at the box office; Pixar has guaranteed the association to one of the stronger brands and the biggest distribution forces in the world of entertainment. Pixar case history shows that the core element in the economy of the entertainment, what really makes the difference and brings to success, is the creative element: technology and management must be at its service.

The purpose of this research is to describe the main character in the animated film "Turning Red" which will be released by Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures in 2022. This research is descriptive qualitative research. The data in this study is in the form of dialogue with the main character based on a literary psychology approach. Data collection is done by documentation techniques. Triangulation of sources, techniques, and theory is very important to ensure the validity of this research. The results showed: 1) Mei Lee showed all three personality structures, with 7 data of Id, 4 data of Ego, and 1 data of Superego, 2) The Id aspect dominates Mei Lee in living her life to take every action and decide something.Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan karakter utama dalam film animasi “Turning Red” yang dirilis oleh Pixar Animation Studios dan Walt Disney Pictures pada tahun 2022. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif deskriptif. Adapun data dalam penelitian ini berupa dialog pada tokoh utama berdasarkan pendekatan psikologi sastra. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan teknik dokumentasi. Triangulasi sumber, teknik, dan teori sangat penting untuk memastikan validitas penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan: 1) Mei Lee menunjukkan ketiga struktur kepribadian, dengan Id sebanyak 7 data, Ego sebanyak 4 data, dan Superego sebanyak 1 data, 2) Aspek Id mendominasi Mei Lee dalam menjalani kehidupannya untuk melakukan setiap tindakan dan memutuskan sesuatu.

Pixar Animation Studios is currently facing a challenging situation due to the intense competition in the animated film market. As a result, the study's purpose is to investigate how Pixar should develop in the future to get out of this predicament. To solve the research question, this article will discuss Pixar's achievements in animated films as a case study. The first reason for the problem is technological innovation. The suggestion is to develop the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) in animated film production and formats. The second reason for the problem is connected innovation; the suggestion is insisting on original IP and extending the industry chain. The third reason for the problem is not proactively catering to market needs; the suggestion is meeting diversified needs and strengthening international outreach cooperation. The value of this paper is to provide some reference suggestions for the development of animated films and fill the research gap in the future development of Pixar.

Intertextuality focuses on the relationship between different texts, either spoken or written. These connections have been the subject of research for many scholars around the world and initially were discussed mainly from the point of view of literary theory (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006, p. 175). The aim of this paper is to examine intertextual references in the context of translation theory, taking into account the various techniques and strategies employed when translating direct or indirect references in a dubbing format. The author analy-ses dialogues from the DreamWorks production “Shrek”(2001), the Disney films “Zootopia” (2016) and “Wreck-It-Ralph”(2012), as well as the Pixar Animation Studios film “Toy Story 3”(2010) with the aim of identifying intertextual references in the source text and comparing them with their Polish and German translations. The author also considers the sources of intertextuality in animation films and the translator’s role in decontextualizing this genre in the target language, drawing attention to the issue of discourse and the agency of audiovisual translators.

Contemporary computer-animated films by the major American animation studios Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks are often described as evoking (extremely) emotional responses from their ever-growing audiences. Following Murray Smith’s assertion that characters are central to comprehending audiences’ engagement with narratives in Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (1995), this article points to a specific style of characterization as a possible reason for the overwhelming emotional response to and great success of these films, exemplified in contemporary examples including Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, 2015), Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014) and How to Train Your Dragon (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, 2010). Drawing on a variety of scholarly work including Stephen Prince’s ‘perceptual realism’, Scott McCloud’s model of ‘amplification through simplification’ and Masahiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley theory, this article will argue how a shared style of character design – defined as a paradoxical combination of lifelikeness and abstraction – plays a significant role in the empathetic potential of these films. This will result in the proposition of a new and reverse phenomenon to Mori’s Uncanny Valley, dubbed the Pixar Peak, where, as opposed to a steep drop, audiences reach a climactic height in empathy levels when presented with this specific type of characterization.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis makna persahabatan dalam film animasi Luca yang merupakan film hasil kolaborasi antara Pixar Animation Studios dan Walt Disney Studios. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan analisis pendekatan semiotika Ferdinand de Saussure. Teknik analisis data dalam penelitian ini menggunakan langkah-langkah: 1) Menonton dan memperhatikan detail dari keseluruhan film Luca yang berdurasi 95 menit; 2) Pengambilan serta pemotongan adegan atau scene yang berupa dialog ataupun tindakan yang berhubungan dengan objek yang akan penulis teliti; 3) Menjelaskan secara deskriptif hasil dari pengambilan scene baik dialog ataupun tindakan yang menggambarkan makna persahabatan; 4) Memasukkan potongan scene-scene yang sesuai dengan objek yang akan diteliti yaitu makna persahabatan ke dalam analisis semiotika Ferdinand de Saussure yang berupa penanda (signifier) dan petanda (signified). Berdasarkan hasil analisis yang didapat dari film Luca, terdapat makna persahabatan baik dari tindakan ataupun dialog antar tokoh dalam film animasi Luca.

Resumo: Uma das mais poderosas formadoras do imaginário coletivo contemporâneo é a indústria cultural e, como produto privilegiado em termos de acesso a ele, há as animações voltadas principalmente para o público infantil produzidas por grandes estúdios de cinema, como a Pixar / Disney. Como contos de fada modernos, suas histórias remetem a belas mensagens morais, como a amizade, a solidariedade, a persistência, o respeito e outros valores edificantes, mas veiculados por mensagens políticas de força pedagógica essencialmente conservadoras ou reacionárias. Decodificar essas mensagens políticas num caso exemplar, o filme Os Incríveis, é o objetivo deste artigo. Isso será feito apresentando um resumo da trama, algumas características contextuais que formam a mensagem política e sua relação com o discurso dos direitos humanos, para ao fim postular as mensagens presumidas pela leitura moralista e pelas leituras contextual e política. La pedagogía conservadora del cine de animación: Los Increíbles (Pixar, 2004) Resumen: Uno de los moldeadores más poderosos del imaginario colectivo contemporáneo es la industria cultural y, como producto privilegiado en cuanto al acceso a ella, existen animaciones dirigidas principalmente a niños producidas por grandes estudios cinematográficos, como Pixar / Disney. Como los cuentos de hadas modernos, sus historias remiten a hermosos mensajes morales, como la amistad, la solidaridad, la perseverancia, el respeto y otros valores edificantes, pero transmitidos por mensajes políticos de fuerza pedagógica esencialmente conservadora o reaccionaria. Decodificar estos mensajes políticos en un caso ejemplar, la película Los Increíbles, es el propósito de este artículo. Esto se hará presentando un resumen de la trama, algunas características contextuales que configuran el mensaje político y su relación con el discurso de los derechos humanos, para finalmente postular los mensajes asumidos por la lectura moralista y por las lecturas contextual y política. Palabras clave: Crítica cultural. Derechos humanos. Cine de animación. Conservadurismo. Pixar. The Conservative Pedagogy of Animation Film: The Incredibles (Pixar, 2004) Abstract: One of the most powerful shapers of the contemporary collective imagination is the cultural industry and, as a privileged product in terms of access to it, there are animations aimed mainly at children produced by large movie studios, such as Pixar / Disney. Like modern fairy tales, their stories refer to beautiful moral messages, such as friendship, solidarity, persistence, respect and other edifying values, but conveyed by political messages of essentially conservative or reactionary pedagogical strength. Decoding these political messages in an exemplary case, the movie The Incredibles, is the purpose of this article. This will be done by presenting a summary of the plot, some contextual characteristics that form the political message and its relationship with the human rights discourse, in order to finally postulate the messages assumed by the moralistic reading and by the contextual and political readings. Keywords: Cultural criticismo. Human rights. Animated film. Conservatism. Pixar.

The deals in the dynamic media and entertainment industries have been paid great attention to in recent years. One of the most valuable things that companies competed for was customers attention. Hence deals were made to provide unparalleled technologies or content. The case studies adopted in this study are objective and specific. Focusing on the analysis of two representative acquisition deals in the media and entertainment industries, this article gives a comprehensive introduction to Walt Disney Company, Pixar Animation Studios, Microsoft Corporation and Activision Blizzard, lists essential contract terms and summarizes the changes. To conclude, in the process of merger or acquisition, technologies and entertainment content are key elements in companies consideration. Through exchanging and sharing resources, parties involved in the deals could achieve a win-win relationship. Nevertheless, there are also many problems that need to be solved, including the interference of the third party, cultural conflict and changing market requirements.

The establishment of The Walt Disney Company can be traced back to the year 1923, when two brothers, Walt and Roy O. Disney, founded a small animation studio that has further developed into a global media organization through strategic innovation, diversification, and expansion. The paper analyses the business development of Disney by looking into its historical background, diversification policies, globalization, digital transformation, and its social and environmental responsibilities. Through the acquisition of big studios like Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm as well as the launch of Disney+ streaming service Disney has furthered the diversity of the entertainment offering as well as kept up with the needs of the digital age. The international theme parks and media networks owned by the company show their global influence and ability to adapt the local context through portraying different cultures. Disney`s way of dealing with the sustainability and social responsibility is a solid proof of its environmental protection and community contributing. The COVID-19 pandemic, among other challenges, did not obstruct Disney’s goal-oriented orientation and resourcefulness in achieving the desired outcomes. Thus, this study underlines the everlasting impact of Disney and its innovative approach for further development in a very dynamical sector of the entertainment industry.

As the most commercially successful animated film, Cars trilogy, produced by Pixar Animation Studios, are opted to be analysed due to its impact on formulating perception of gender and race. Considering that intolerance and gender-based injustice still happens within our society, any discussion about gender and race portrayal, particularly through films, becomes urgent. The study aims at investigating how gender and race are portrayed in Cars trilogy. Gender portrayal is analysed through Beauvoir’s concept of immanence and transcendence and Finklea’s themes about masculinities. The portrayal of race is investigated using McLaren’s critical multiculturalism. The study uses the descriptive analytical interpretative method. The data analyzed are the characters, dialogue, and plot. The result shows that men and women are portrayed as equal but the stereotypes are still visible. Men are portrayed not only brave but also confident. Males’ romantic interest is manifested in heterosexual desire and male bosses are driven by profit. Women can be successful in racing if she dares to intervene the bureaucracy or is given opportunity by men. Different accent of English is seen as less capable and white characters are not always portrayed unproblematic.

The aim of this study is to investigate the Mexican cultural components displayed in Pixar Animation Studios’ film Coco. This study examines how cultural practices and maintenances are issued and debated in Mexico, which is known for having the most cultural diversity in America. The study is based on Kennedy and Manohar’s cultural components theory. The qualitative method was used in this study, with note taking used to collect valid data. According to the findings, the film Coco contains seven types of Mexican cultural components: language, religion or belief, norms, cultural values, social collectives, statuses and roles, and cultural integrations. They are all practiced as part of ‘Day of the Dead’ as we known as the Mexican tradition and a part of family traditions. This film’s depiction of multiculturalism has successfully preserved Mexican cultural identity while providing creative and innovative support. Mexican multicultural concepts offer a more comprehensive and useful perspective on today’s world. This study defines how cultural maintenance can support the specific and unique identity of a specific culture. Exploration of arts, culture and heritage, for example, through movies is a potential activity to deal with our senses after a pandemic’s crisis

Brave (2012) is an animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney pictures. Set in the fictional medieval times of Scotland, the story follows the journey of Merida, a rebellious young girl who strives to dismantle oppressive social norms and conventional attitudes upheld by her mother. The way in which the film presents powerful feminist ideologies is discussed by providing insight into the importance of solidarity between women, repressive gender stereotypes and the cyclical nature of oppression within the patriarchal social structure. The concept of gender and its complexities are explored within this study to identify dominant patriarchal ideologies that are marginalizing and discriminatory towards women. The trajectory of Merida which is representative of the struggles of women within the patriarchal social structure is analysed while focusing on the mother-daughter relationship. This research aims to present the oppressiveness of socially constructed gender identities through the challenges faced by Merida in her fight for freedom and self-expression. The feminist elements of the film are discussed based on the dichotomy of the ‘angel’ and the ‘monster’ highlighted by the theorists Gilbert and Gubar in Mad Woman in the Attic (1979). Furthermore, the theories of bell hooks, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray are used to support the central argument.

Film Inside Out merupakan film animasi yang dirilis pada tahun 2015, disutradarai oleh Pete Docter dan diproduksi oleh Pixar Animation Studios. Poster Film yang memberikan gambaran tentang situasi perjalanan emosi dalam diri seorang anak perempuan bernama Riley yang pindah ke kota baru. Dalam poster terdapat beberapa karakter emosi seperti Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, dan Disgust. Poster di desain unik dan semenarik mungkin untuk mendapat perhatian para penonton. Setiap karakter memiliki penampilan unik dan warna mencolok, mencerminkan sifat dan emosi yang mereka tampilkan. Poster ini juga menampilkan latar belakang yang beragam, dengan berbagai pemandangan yang mencerminkan petualangan emosi dalam cerita film, Perubahan warna, tekstur pada latar belakang merupakan perubahan suasana hati dan konflik yang terjadi di dalam film. Memaknai sebuah tanda semiotika dalam poster film inside out maka penulis melakukan penelitian pada poster film inside out dengan menggunakan teori Charles Sanders Pierce, tanda dalam semiotika akan selalu berkaitan dengan logika, Pierce membagi tanda atas tiga hal, yakni ikon, indeks, dan simbol. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menganalisis perjalanan emosi yang ada pada film tersebut. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah menganalisis tanda dalam teori semiotika Charles Sanders Peirce dalam Poster Film Inside Out. Metode penelitian yang digunakan yaitu pendekatan kualitatif yang bersifat deskriptif. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan keadaan emosional seseorang lewat karakter yang ada di dalam Film Inside Out.

O processo de traduzir não envolve apenas palavras e expressões, mas também aspectos culturais dos texto-fonte e meta, lembrando que os Estudos da Tradução se fundam na proposta da tradução como processo histórico-social-cultural. Além disso, tendo em vista que os sentidos de um produto audiovisual são produzidos por meio da “leitura” não apenas do texto oral (falado), mas também das imagens e sons (músicas, cores, montagem, cortes etc.), cabe aos Estudos da Tradução refletirem sobre o modo como todo um conjunto de componentes é relacionado na obra fonte e como se dão essas relações na obra meta. O filme Divertida Mente, produzido em 2015 pela Pixar Animation Studios, é objeto interessante para a abordagem das relações culturais que podem ser estabelecidas por meio da proposta de circulação de obras audiovisuais para além de seu contexto de produção. Em nossa pesquisa, observamos que, por ter como temática os sentimentos das personagens, em especial os personificados Alegria, Tristeza, Medo, Raiva e Nojinho, Divertida Mente apresenta em suas traduções para outros contextos adaptações culturais não apenas nas legendas ou dublagens, mas no próprio corpo do objeto audiovisual. Por meio do cotejo entre texto-fonte (o filme em inglês) e meta (o filme traduzido), é possível ver alterações com o objetivo de que os “novos” públicos possam compreender as emoções que estão sendo retratadas e que sejam produzidos neles sentimentos semelhantes, possibilitando uma identificação. Tomando como base propostas dos Estudos da Tradução, mais especificamente o conceito de adaptação (BAKER, 2005) e o de reescrita (LEVEFERE, [1992] 2007), o presente artigo busca discutir algumas das adaptações culturais do referido filme, de modo a refletir sobre o processo de tradução de textos fílmicos em que há o recurso de adaptações culturais para gerar uma maior aproximação e compreensão entre o texto e o público.

In this article, we examine period fashions in character costumes in the two Pixar/Disney computer-animated films, The Incredibles and Incredibles 2. These films have a strong mid-century modern design influence interwoven into the films’ narratives and aesthetic designs. The films have previously raised interest in fashion studies, due to their superhero concept. However, an analysis of the characters’ everyday dress is also valuable for understanding the influence of fashion and pop culture references on contemporary animated film costuming and how those elements embed within the technological development of digital characters’ clothing. We employ historical and visual analysis to highlight the integration of design elements of period-appropriate fashions into character costumes. Additionally, we examine the relationship between animation software development and the films’ design aesthetics to inspect how technological advancements support the behaviour of cloth, narrative progression and characters’ personal emotional arcs by reviewing industry articles as well as animator and designer interviews from the making of the films. This is a unique case study that explores the influences and inspiration of period-specific fashion in constructing costumes for computer-animated films, which are ostensibly set in an environment also inspired by the period and specific cultural zeitgeist.

Esse artigo tem por objetivo perceber como uma produção específica de um fã (no caso, as teorias desenvolvidas por Jon Negroni, principalmente a Teoria da Pixar e a Teoria da Mãe do Andy) repercutiu dentro do fandom da produtora. Para tanto, utilizamos como base conceitos de Andrejevic, Castells, Anderson, Hills, Booth e, principalmente, Jenkins. Como esse assunto foi amplamente divulgado na internet nacional, utilizamos a análise de comentários de quatro vídeos do YouTube Brasil para ter uma medida da reação dos fãs à essa produção de Negroni

Movie “Coco”. Color grading is one of the important factors in the cinematography of a film. The atmosphere in a film can be formed with different coloring for each scene so that it can build the right atmosphere. This research was conducted to identify the color scheme in color grading as a mood builder in Pixar’s animated film “Coco”, using a qualitative approach, and descriptive method. Data collection comes from various visual sources and library references. From this research, it is concluded that the color scheme in color grading in Pixar’s animated film “Coco” successfully builds the audience’s mood by using different color schemes for each scene. The color schemes that are often used in the animated film are derivatives of orange, blue, and purple. The results of research journals on color grading as a mood builder in Pixar’s animated film “Coco” are expected to be one of the reference sources or references, especially textual studies on color grading. This research journal is also expected to contribute as a reference development study in multimedia, using an approach regarding color schemes as mood builders in a film. Keywords: color grading, color scheme, mood, animation, Coco

Throughout the last decade, neo-liberalism has increasingly been the subject of academic inquiries, probed for its infiltrating influences in media and cultural products. Approaching the animation industry, this article takes a critical take at Inside Out (2015), a feature Disney‐Pixar production, to reveal the way it is embedded in the discursive network of neo-liberalism, exhibiting neo-liberal niceties and legitimating its notional structures. Inside Out renders a subjectivity of self-responsibility and self-enterprise when surveyed vis-à-vis its hypothetical grounds in positive psychology and neuroscience. The result is a subject who has to be happy but her happiness is ontologized as a matter of emotional dynamics inside her mind. It is concluded that, through its representation of mind that comes at the cost of reason and free will, Inside Out marks the neo-liberal, affective turn in the conglomerate.

In the last decades, ethnolinguistic Otherness has assumed an increasingly prominent position in many audiovisual products focusing on non-mainstream cultures otherwise quite voiceless in audiovisual media and giving voice to multilingual discourse practices where code-switching stands out as a key conversational strategy in expressing linguacultural diverse identities. This ties issues of on-screen multilingualism to the field of audiovisual translation and raises new challenges as far as the screen representation/translation of linguacultural specificities is concerned. All this is interestingly to be observed in animated films; indeed, since the early 1990s, such important animation production companies as Walt Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks began to produce ethnically diverse films offering deep sociolinguistic insights into non-dominant countries and populations whose richness is conveyed on the screen by dialogues interspersed with their native languages, acting as vital symbols of their ethnocultural identity. Starting from these observations, this paper aims at looking contrastively and diachronically at how L3s, i.e., languages different from both the language of the original film and the language of the film’s dubbed version, used in instances of turn-specific, intersentential and intra-sentential code-switching, have been dealt with in the original version and in the Italian dubbed version of thirty American multilingual animated films, released between 1991 and 2022. The main objectives of this study are: to verify to what extent the original ethnolinguistic Otherness is either retained for the Italian audience or manipulated in dubbing; to observe whether and how the screen translation studies’ approach in conveying linguistic diversity in animation has possibly changed over the last thirty years; and to point out what can be achieved by audiovisual translation in terms of intercultural/interlingual transmission when autochthonous linguacultures are represented in animated films.

Since the merger of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, Disney has been lauded for creating more progressive content that includes representations of main characters from diverse backgrounds. However, progressive representations of disability (both physical and mental disability) have been slow to emerge in most mediums. The objective of this research is to examine whether portrayals of illness and disability in recent animated feature films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar Animation Studios depict progressive (or multicultural) narratives of disability versus traditional narratives of disability. We analyzed 20 of the most recent (i.e., 2008-2018) animated films from both studios with 9 films from Walt Disney Animation and 11 films from Pixar Animation Studios. Using thematic content analysis, a combination of pre-identified and emergent disability- and illness-related themes are described. Overwhelmingly, disability portrayals were traditional, with disability used to elicit pity or humor from the viewer and to indicate that characters were evil or old. Out of the 20 films, few progressive portrayals of disability were observed. Although Disney has been lauded for being more inclusive in their representations of characters, disability representations continue to perpetuate and reaffirm the stigmatization of disability.

There seems to be little argument that creativity is crucial to the success of any organization. Interestingly, despite years of academic research on the subject, there appears to be also little agreement as to what creativity really is or what the ideal process should be to develop creativity in organizations. Written based on Pixar’s experience, Creativity, Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces Stand in the Way of True Inspiration offers not only a concrete example of creativity but also provides an insight into what constitutes creativity and a creative organization. In this book, author Ed Catmull and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios generously shares and reveals his personal experience not only in dealing with the creative process but also in building and sustaining one of the most successful organization in the world of animation.

From hand drawn sketch to CGI, this journal gives the historical analysis of evolution of animation and graphics in this modern world. Beginning with an exploration of early forms of animation, such as flip books and hand-drawn cell animation, the paper examines key technological advancements that revolutionized the industry, including the development of computer- generated imagery (CGI), 3D animation, and motion capture techniques. Through a historical lens, this study highlights the contributions of pioneers such as Walt Disney, Pixar Animation Studios, and Industrial Light & Magic, whose innovations have shaped the trajectory of animation and graphics over the past century. Furthermore, the article explores the societal and cultural impact of animated media, from its role in entertainment and storytelling to its applications in education, advertising, and virtual reality. By analysing the evolutionary path of animation and graphics, thispaper provides valuable insightsinto the past, present, and future of this dynamic and influential art form.

A partir de “Da Imperfeição” de Greimas (2002), o texto discorre sobre as fraturas e escapatórias em “Ratatouille”, produção da Pixar Animation Studios em parceria com a Walt Disney Pictures, lançada em 2007. A análise se concentra nas escapatórias provocadas pela personagem Remy e na fratura ocorrida na cotidianidade de outra personagem, Anton Ego. Pretende contribuir com a educação, na medida em que convida professores a provocarem escapatórias e vivenciarem fraturas em sala de aula.

Monsters Inc., an animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios in 2001, received significant recognition worldwide. The film was nominated in 2002 for the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards by the Box Office Films. Two dubbed versions of the film were later released with Arabic translations using Egyptian Vernacular, a spoken dialect, and Modern Standard Arabic, used primarily in formal, written communications.This study examines humor in translation and irony as humor which represents a common technique in “Pixar plotting”. The research investigates the strategies, types, and categories of irony as humor within the translations and the success of those translations at accurately transmitting the humorous meaning. Towards exploring the problems of translating irony across languages and cultures, this research examines the shifts in translations between the two Arabic language versions using an interdisciplinary theoretical approach encompassing humor studies, audiovisual translation studies, and descriptive translation studies. Furthermore, the research adopts Muecke’s (1978) classification of irony markers to categorize and identify the strategies used in translating irony as humor. The study finds that the two different versions of Arabic utilize similar strategies at times and divergent ones at others, such as explication, substitution, omission or addition, in translating irony as humor with each succeeding/failing at varied levels of meaning transmission. The research suggests translators’ creativity, or lack thereof, and the language variant used are primarily responsible for the success or failure of transmitting irony as humor for dubbing into Arabic.

The title of this study is Positive Politeness Strategies Used by Characters in an Animation Movie entitled “Finding Dory”. This study is aimed at finding out the types of positive politeness strategies used to extend and respond by the characters to express the utterance in movie script and also what factors that influence the usage of positive politeness strategies in the “Finding Dory” movie. The analysis of this study is concerned with the utterance of positive politeness strategies of the characters. The data of this study were collected through conducting direct observation of the movie script “Finding Dory” produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton (2016). The collected data then were identified, classified, and analyzed qualitatively. The data derived from the script of the “Finding Dory” movie were collected and then, analyzed the polite expressions of characters used while doing conversation. After that, the selected data were analyzed based on the theory of politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson. Based on the result of the analysis, it was found that when extending and responding the utterance that contains positive politeness strategies, the characters used intensify interest to H (3), in-group identity markers (4), presuppose/raise/assert common ground (7), assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants (9), offer, promise (10), be optimistic (11), including both S and H in the activity (12), give (or ask for) reasons (sub-strategy 13), assume or assert reciprocity (14). The most prominent factor that influences the characters to extend and respond the positive politeness strategies is the circumstances: sociological variables.

At a small suburban dinner party, the hostess asks a guest if he would like some more. Bunging on a silly accent, he grunts, "no, look. I couldn't eat another thing, I'm absolutely stuffed." Everyone at the table smiles. The host, who has no ear for accents, says, "oh, go on monsieur, wouldn't you like an after-dinner mint?" Smiles widen. "No. Bugger off," says the first guest. "O go on sir, it's only wafer-thin." "No, no," cry the other guests. "You're supposed to say, 'just one?'" "Sorry," says the host, much abashed. The first guest, however, picks up his cue and says, "oh alright, just one." Then he puts up his hand. "No really," he says, in his normal voice. "Unless you want me to explode." This causes the remaining guests to fall about laughing. "What," wonders the American at the table, aloud, "was that?!" Was it play? Certainly, it bears most of the elements prescribed by Huizinga as characteristic of play. It occurred spontaneously, according to pre-arranged rules which the participants all knew (except the American, but exclusivity too is a characteristic of play). It had a beginning and a clear end. It was not productive but rather was performed for its own sake. That is, it did not perform any work, such as helping to close the meal or providing information, but merely made the players happy. It was accompanied by the requisite feeling of joy and there was an element of tension (getting the script right). Further, the event incorporated two of the social practices which Huizinga identified as amongst the most playful -- performance and ritual. But there are two elements that Huizinga identified as being characteristic of play which do not quite fit the above scenario. Interestingly, they are the two characteristics about which Huizinga is most adamant. The first is the stricture regarding place. Huizinga argues that all play occurs in a specific, often dedicated, playspace. The dining room table, however, is hardly a defined play-space; indeed many mothers would argue it was precisely not a play-space. Perhaps it was a play-space in that the child in the back bedroom was not "playing", while everyone in the dining room was "included". The second question regards Huizinga's assertion that play happens in a "time apart". The performance described above, however, happened during dinner -- again, a time which many would regard as designated "not play-time". Perhaps the little ritual might be regarded as "time apart" -- a diversionary loop in linear time, if you like -- in that it did not progress the course of the meal. Huizinga, of course, wrote as a social philosopher. His work goes on to categorize the play element in cultural activities such as politics, art, music, games, and so on. If it is not limited to sport or the make-believe activities of children, what is play? How is it (if this is not entirely the wrong word) practised? If, for example, we went back to the dinner party, would the people there be able to identify what they had just done as play? Nor do my recollections of work, either as a secretary or later as a postgrad, bear out the complete separate-ness of play which Huizinga proposed. Rather, while the diversionary element is retained, for adults at least, play seems to be largely embedded in the stream of work, often occuring in a workspace, during worktime. Play for adults is a quick game of solitaire while answering a phone enquiry, netsurfing while the photocopier runs, or a bitchy (but fortunately silent) IRC chat with another worker, even in the same office. It is far more like de Certeau's notion of la perruque, though necessarily less productive. Kirsty Leishman's article about working in a convenience store bears out my initial feeling that most people's experience of play -- in their day-to-day lives at least, rather than on holidays (another can of worms entirely) -- consists of playful acts or moments, rather than Huizinga's "acts apart". Play, however, is consistently discursively constructed as the opposite of work. As such, it has a place in our thinking about creativity, but there remains a degree of suspicion with which we regard creative work, and even creative work-places. For example, Pixar, the company who (with Disney) created the computer-animated features Toy Story (1995) and A Bug's Life (1998), is described thus: "at Pixar, Steve Jobs' animation house in nearby Richmond, the mood is quirky and relentlessly upbeat ... . On a typical workday, employees' kids and pets roam the halls. 'Work hard and play hard, and in between time you're flying down the hall on a scooter,' says Pixar's head recruiter, Rachel Hannah." A number of significant elements appear to emerge from this description. The first is the description of Pixar as an animation "house", relating it back to the domestic, the realm of the private, the realm of play (as opposed to the public realm of work). This is underlined by the association with children (who are free to play) and pets (more domesticity -- and of course, what you do with your pet, usually, is to play with it). Working at Pixar (especially compared to work in university admin, or a convenience store) can hardly amount to work at all. It's too much fun. Clearly, in mobilising this kind of discourse, Pixar seeks to enhance its reputation for creativity. In that particular industry, such a discourse has two functions. One is to enhance the "fun" and child-appropriate-ness of the films in a marketing arena. The other, however, disguises the very real, very mundane and very tedious work that actually goes into computer animation (not to mention Disney's well-known corporate bastardry), which, objectively, is far more like factory production than we would like to think. The technology of these productions is always discussed; the work of production is never mentioned. For example, another review of Toy Story claims that rendering the film took "800,000 computer hours", but makes no mention of how many people worked for how long to operate those computers. Thus, descriptions of animation workplaces as playgrounds feed into the "magic" discourses which are traditionally associated with animation. One's first instinct is to disbelieve the above type of description of a workplace as mere "publicity", as a lie constructed to perpetuate the conditions of production. As Smoodin points out, the technological and creative discourses around animation embody one of the "paradoxes of capitalist mythology: industry becomes a wonderland and work turns into fun, while at the same time workers disappear" (96). Academic use of the notion of play picks up on this suspicion, and propagates the discursive division between work and play. Our good leftist assessments of power structures would suggest that there is no room for play in the workplace. There is even less room, presumably, for fun. Fun is a notion fairly effectively erased from academic discourse, as Rutsky has pointed out. Rather, academic use of "play" to describe the structure and nature of texts such as IRC chat, or animated films, turns play into a kind of legitimated "not-work". Unfortunately, it becomes not-fun as well. The problem is that the above descriptions of "work" in an animation studio may be more or less accurate. Certainly, there is a lot of tedious work in animation, but the animation houses I have visited (including Disney Studios in Sydney) are playful places. They do involve loud music, people who dress funny, visiting dogs and an abundance of what can only be described as toys. (Admittedly, some of these 'toys' are very big, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are produced by Silicon Graphics.) Similarly, my work as an academic pretty well fits Huizinga's definition of play, with the exception, again, of a separateness in time and space (I am, after all, writing at home on a console still Tetris-warm). And, while the kind of play performed by secretaries and convenience-store clerks in their workplaces might be a fairly desultory kind of play, with a somewhat subdued sense of "fun", it is play nonetheless. It seems that the divide between work and play is perhaps less clear in our lived experiences than it is in our writings. The fuzziness of the divide -- and the determination to maintain its existence, if only academically -- is something deserving of further attention. References De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. 1949. Trans. George Steiner. London: Paladin, 1970. Johnson, Brian D. "Toy Story." Rev. of Toy Story, dir. John Lasseter. Maclean's 11 Dec. 1995: 74. "Mr Creosote Sketch". Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Dir. Terry Jones. Perf. John Cleese, Terry Jones. Celandine Films, 1983. Rutsky, R. L., and Justin Wyatt. "Serious Pleasures: Cinematic Pleasure and the Notion of Fun." Cinema Journal 30.1 (1990): 3-19. Smoodin, E. Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era. Oxford: Roundhouse, 1993. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Rebecca Farley. "How Do You Play?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.5 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/how.php>. Chicago style: Rebecca Farley, "How Do You Play?," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 5 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/how.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Rebecca Farley. (1998) How do you play? M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(5). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/how.php> ([your date of access]).

The relevance of the research topic is determined, on the one hand, by the active development and spread of the cartoon genre in the world and the need for high-quality Ukrainian translation of English-language animation products, on the other hand, by the need for the correct interpretation of unique linguistic units that are currently actively used in cartoons, which contributes to the quality of the translation of such products. The aim of the research is to determine the linguistic features and ways of translating occasionalisms used in English-language cartoons of the Pixar studio into Ukrainian. In the course of the research, both general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison, contrasting) and the methodological apparatus of linguistics (methods of contextual, semantic, component, structural analysis), comparative linguistics (comparative method) and translation studies (transformational analysis) were applied. The conducted research demonstrates that occasionalisms are authorial, individual stylistic neologisms created to give imagery to an artistic text. In Pixar Studio cartoons, occasionalisms serve as a means of naming locations, groups of characters and individual characters, as well as phenomena that do not exist in the real world but exist in the world of Pixar. The main strategies for creating occasionalisms in Pixar cartoons are metamorphology (language games, puns) and paramorphology (onomastic formations, echo words, back-formation). Translational analysis allows to conclude that, when rendering occasionalisms in Pixar cartoons in the Ukrainian translation, it is possible to involve different levels of translation transformations, and the need to take into account the structure and semantics of the occasional word, as well as both plot and visual contexts of its use, which indicate to the translator the need to choose one or another way of translation.

Abstrak. Film merupakan salah satumedia saluran penyampaian pesan, apakah itu pesan verbal atau nonverbal. Film juga dianggap sebagai media komunikasi yang ampuh terhadapmassa yang menjadi sasarannya, karena sifatnya yang audio visual, yaitugambar dan suara yang hidup sehinggamembuat penonton seakan-akan dapatmenembus ruang dan waktu yang dapatmenceritakan kehidupan dan bahkandapat mempengaruhi audiens. Pesanmoral yang disampaikan melalui media komunikasi salah satunya adalahmelalui media film yang bersifatkomprehensif bagi masyarakat. Namun, kebanyakan dari masyarakatkurang memperhatikan adanya pesanmoral yang terdapat pada sebuah film sehingga masyarakat terkadang tidakpaham dan kurang mengambil pesanmoral yang ingin disampaikan darisebuah film. Film Inside Out adalahfilm animasi yang diproduksi oleh studio PIXAR ANIMATION pada tahun2015. Metode penelitian inimenggunakan metode penelitiankualitatif dengan pendekatanparadigma post-positivistik dan menggunakan analisis semiotikapendekatan Charless Sanders Pierce. Hasil yang ditemukan mengenai pesanmoral pada film yaitu adanyakecerdasan emosional agar stabil di segala situasi, dan tidak berbuatmelenceng dari moral dan norma, bersikap optimis dan pantangmenyerah, pentingnya kejujuran, sertabersabar untuk menahan amarah karenaamarah adalah sifat yang banyakmerugikan orang lain. Abstract. Film is one of the media channels for delivering messages, whether it is verbal or nonverbal messages. Film is also considered as a powerful medium of communication to the target masses, because of its audio-visual nature, namely images and sounds that come to life so as to make the audience seem to be able to penetrate space and time, which can tell life stories and can even influence the audience. One of the moral messages conveyed through communication media is through film which is comprehensive for the community. However, most of the public pay less attention to the moral message contained in a film so that people sometimes do not understand and do not take the moral message to be conveyed from a film. Inside Out is an animated film produced by PIXAR ANIMATION studio in 2015. This research method uses a qualitative research method with a post-positivistic paradigm approach and uses a semiotic analysis of the Charless Sanders Pierce approach. The results found regarding the moral message in the film are the presence of emotional intelligence to be stable in all situations, and not to deviate from morals and norms, to be optimistic and unyielding, the importance of honesty, and to be patient to hold back anger because anger is a trait that harms others a lot.

Here we introduce a new python package, img2fmri, to predict group-level fMRI responses to individual images. This prediction model uses an artificial deep neural network (DNN), as DNNs have been successful at predicting cortical responses in the human visual cortex when trained on real world visual categorization tasks. To validate our model, we predict fMRI responses to images our model has not previously seen from a new dataset. We then show how our frame-by-frame prediction model can be extended to a continuous visual stimulus by predicting an fMRI response to Pixar Animation Studio’s short film Partly Cloudy. In analyzing the timepoint-timepoint similarity of our predicted fMRI response around human-annotated event boundaries in the movie, we find that our model outperforms the baseline model in describing the dynamics of the real fMRI response around these event boundaries, particularly in the timepoints just before and at an event. These analyses suggest that in visual areas of the brain, at least some of the temporal dynamics we see in the brain’s processing of continuous, naturalistic stimuli can be explained by dynamics in the stimulus itself, since they can be predicted from our frame-by-frame model. All code, analyses, tutorials, and installation instructions can be found at https://github.com/dpmlab/img2fmri.

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Introduction The Disney brand has become synonymous with magic through its numerous depictions of spells, curses, prophecies, and pixie dust. Thus, it is ironic that in 2023, the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Studio’s founding (“Disney History”), the final film released during Walt Disney’s life, The Sword in the Stone (celebrating its 60th anniversary) remains stuck in obscurity (Aronstein 129) despite being steeped in magic and wizardry. The Sword in the Stone is regarded as “one of the most obscure [films] in the Disney animated canon” (Booker 38). Although it performed moderately well during its debut in 1963, its 1983 re-release and home video sales failed to renew public interest. To date, The Sword in the Stone has no games, comic series, or even Disneyland merchandise (Aronstein 129). The film is hardly a technical marvel; its sketchy animation style and blue-slate backgrounds create a dingy, unfinished look (Beck 272), while its simplistic storyline and anachronistic humour have been criticised for being ill-matched with its Arthurian subject matter (Gossedge 115). Despite these flaws, The Sword in the Stone offers the studio’s most fully rendered representation of Disney magic as benevolent forces sourced in learning and discipline that enable good-hearted protagonists to prepare for future leadership roles. By approaching the film as a didactic text separate from its Arthurian origins, I will demonstrate how The Sword in the Stone defines magic, not by nebulous spells or hexes, but by its facilitation of societal advancement and transformative powers via the educated mind. Young Arthur’s Humble Beginnings Based loosely on T.H. White’s 1938 novel of the same name (Valle 224), The Sword in the Stone takes place in medieval Europe, with most of its action occurring in a rotting castle and surrounding wolf-infested forests. In this threatening world, magic takes many forms, from powerful acts of “sorcery” to comical displays of “Latin business”. The first allusion to magic occurs during the film’s opening song, which establishes its setting (“when England was young”) and primary conflict (“the good king had died, and no one could decide who was rightful heir”). Without a ruler, England will be destroyed by civil war unless miraculous forces intervene on its behalf. This ‘miracle’ is the eponymous sword in the stone that the rightful ruler of England will free. The sword is destined for King Arthur, but as he is only an orphaned child living in obscurity at the film’s beginning, no one manages to retrieve the sword in his stead, and so the ‘miracle’ seemingly fails. The film’s off-screen narrator describes this leaderless period as “a dark age … where the strong preyed upon the weak”. As a force that trumps brute strength, magic is prized by those who can wield it, particularly the wizard Merlin. Magic is regarded with suspicion by the majority who cannot practice it (Valle 234), though they still recognise its legitimacy. Even Arthur’s practical stepfather, Sir Ector, begs Merlin not to practice any “black magic” on his family after Merlin creates an indoor “wizard blizzard” to prove his seriousness in tutoring Arthur. Merlin is a far cry from the mysterious soothsayer of Arthurian legend. He has been Disneyfied into a caricature of the famed wizard, appearing more like an eccentric academic than an all-seeing mystic (Beck 272). Susan Aronstein describes him as “the reification of Disney’s post-World War II rebranding of itself as a leader in education in the wake of a postwar shift in American child rearing” (130)—a playful pedagogue who makes learning fun for Arthur and audiences. After meeting Arthur in the woods near his home, Merlin becomes determined to rectify the boy’s educational deficiencies. It is not yet clear whether Merlin knows who Arthur is or will become; Merlin merely repeats to his owl companion, Archimedes, that the boy needs an education—specifically, a modern education. In addition to presenting Arthur with evidence of his travels to the future, such as helicopter models, Merlin rattles off a litany of subjects common to twentieth-century American curricula (English, science, mathematics) but hardly the sort of fare pages of Arthur’s status would study in fifth-century England. Because Arthur’s royal lineage is unknown to him, he aspires to be a squire for his soon-to-be-knighted stepbrother and so must learn the rules of jousting and horsemanship when not otherwise preoccupied with page duties. These include scrubbing pots and pans, cleaning floors, and fetching anything his stepfather requests. While Arthur is not resistant to Merlin’s attempts to teach him, he struggles to balance Merlin’s demands on his time with Sir Ector’s (Pinsky 85). Young Arthur’s gangly stature conveys how stretched the boy is between his indentured servitude to Ector and Merlin’s insistence upon his liberation through education. Arthur is constantly in motion, scurrying from one task to the next to please all parties involved and often failing to do so. Each time Merlin’s instruction causes the boy to miss Sir Ector’s call, Arthur is punished with additional duties (Holcomb et al.). Merlin’s Instructive Magic Merlin uses magic to bridge the gap between Arthur’s responsibilities to his present and his future. The word “magic” is spoken fifteen times in the film, six by Merlin himself. The wizard first utters the word after packing his entire house (furniture and all) into a carpet bag. Arthur is impressed, but Merlin warns him that magic is no panacea: “don’t you get any foolish ideas that magic will solve all your problems”. Even Merlin struggles to convince Sir Ector to let him tutor Arthur and to prevent predatory animals from killing the boy during their adventures together. Magic has limits. It cannot penetrate the minds of humans nor quell the instincts of wild animals. Its impact seems restricted to the physical world. Merlin primarily uses magic for physical transformation; his lessons centre on changing Arthur into different animals to enable the future king to experience life from others’ perspectives. Merlin turns Arthur into a fish, a squirrel, and a bird, with each animal’s situation representing increasingly complex problems that Arthur must overcome. Each lesson also corresponds with one or more levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: (1) safety and survival, (2) love and belonging, and (3) self-esteem and self-actualisation (Lester 15). As a perch swimming around the castle moat, Arthur learns to use his intellect to evade a toothy pike that nearly eats him alive. As a squirrel, Arthur observes the heartbreak of unrequited love, foreshadowing his complicated love triangle with Guinevere and Lancelot (Grellner 125). In avian form, Arthur experiences a much-needed boost in his self-worth after Sir Ector strips him of his squire-in-training status. In flight, Arthur seems most in his element. After struggling with the logistics of swimming as a fish and navigating trees as a squirrel, Arthur soars over the countryside, even showing off his acrobatics to Archimedes flying alongside him. Although Arthur relishes these experiences, he does not seem to grasp their broader implications. He describes his first magical lesson as “so much fun” (despite having nearly died) and pauses only momentarily at the end of his second lesson to reflect on the emotional damage he causes a heartbroken female squirrel who falls madly in love with him. Still, Arthur faces mortal danger with each lesson, so one could argue that by transforming the young boy into different animals, Merlin is honing Arthur’s problem-solving skills (Holcomb et al.). Madam Mim’s Destructive Magic When Arthur is turned into a bird, his third lesson takes an unexpected turn. After narrowly escaping a hawk, Arthur flies into the forest and falls down the chimney of a rival magician named Mad Madam Mim. After introducing herself, Mim insists to Arthur that she has far more magic “in one little finger” than Merlin possesses in his entire repertoire. She displays her powers by killing plants, changing sizes, and making herself monstrous or lovely according to her whims. Mim’s demonstrations suggest a breezy familiarity with magic that Merlin lacks. Whereas Merlin sometimes forgets the “Latin business” needed to invoke spells, Mim effortlessly transitions from one transformation to another without any spell use. The source of her power soon becomes apparent. “Black sorcery is my dish of tea”, she croons to Arthur. Compared to Merlin’s Latin-based magic, Mim’s “black sorcery” is easier to master and well-suited to her undisciplined lifestyle. Mim’s cottage is filthy and in disrepair, yet she is playing solitaire (and cheating) when Arthur stumbles into her fireplace. This anachronism (since playing cards would not be introduced to Europeans until the fourteenth century; DeBold) characterises, through visual shorthand, Mim’s idle hands as the Devil’s workshop; she also possesses a modern dartboard that she throws Arthur against. Unlike Merlin’s domicile, Mim’s cottage contains no books, scientific instruments, or other props of study, indicating that there is no deeper understanding behind her magic. As Latin is the root language of science and law, it seems fitting that Latin is not part of Mim’s repertoire. She simply points a finger at an unfortunate subject, and it bends to her will—or dies. Efficient though Mim’s magic may be, its power is fleeting. Mim briefly changes herself into a beautiful young woman. But she concedes that her magic is “only skin deep” and turns herself back into “an ugly old creep”. Evidently, her magic’s potency does not last long, nor is it capable of improving her situation, as she continues living in her broken-down cottage as a bored, friendless hermit. Her black magic may be easy to master but cannot impart meaningful change. And so, while Merlin can use his magic to improve Arthur’s life, Mim’s magic can only serve the status quo described at the film’s beginning: the strong preying upon the weak. Although Mim lives outside the feudal social hierarchy, she uses her magic to terrorise any unfortunate creatures who wander into her clutches, including Arthur. When Arthur (still in bird form) states that he prefers the benevolence and usefulness of Merlin’s magic, an infuriated Mim transforms herself into a hungry cat and chases Arthur around the cottage until Merlin arrives to save the boy. Merlin then challenges Mim to a wizard’s duel, during which he and Mim attack each other in animal forms ranging from foxes and caterpillars to tigers, goats, and elephants. Each time Mim transforms, she does so seamlessly, requiring no momentary pause to recall a spell, unlike Merlin, who stumbles across the Latin phrases necessary to change himself into something faster or bigger. But after Merlin transforms into a walrus and squashes a clucking chicken Mim, the momentum shifts in his favour. Her magic becomes tinged with rage that causes her to make mistakes, including biting herself as a snake and ramming herself into a tree in rhinoceros form. Merlin’s disciplined playing style is nearly errorless. Although he becomes frightened when Mim transforms into a fire-breathing dragon, Merlin continues to play sensibly and courageously. His final winning move is to transform himself into a measle-like germ that incapacitates Mim with violent sneezing and cold flashes (Perciaccante and Coralli 1171). Arthur is astonished by the brilliant manoeuvring of his mentor, who manages to win the duel fairly “by dint of his knowledge and study” (Pinsky 86). After stating the lesson’s summative point for Merlin—“knowledge and wisdom is the real power”—Arthur vows to redouble his efforts to complete his education. Education: The Film’s Real Magic The lesson for viewers is simple enough: an education has a magical impact on one’s life. Put more succinctly, education is magic. Merlin defeats Mim because of his greater knowledge and cleverer use of spells. Arthur will overcome his low social status and ascend to the throne by becoming literate and sharpening his intellect. But as with Merlin’s acquisition of magical knowledge through intense study, Arthur’s royal ascension must be earned. He must learn the literal ABCs of language acquisition to gain others’ shared knowledge, as illustrated by a scene in which Archimedes painstakingly teaches Arthur how to write the alphabet in preparation for reading an enormous stack of books. Merlin cannot magically impart such knowledge to the future king; Arthur must learn it through sustained effort. He also must learn to make informed decisions rather than respond to panic or anger as Mim does during her duel with Merlin. Herein lies the distinction between Mim’s and Merlin’s magic: transformative impact. Mim’s black magic has locked her into her chosen fate. By using her powers to amuse herself or cause others harm, Mim perpetuates her outcast status as the stereotypical witch to be feared (Valle 234). While her cottage contains anachronistic elements such as playing cards (suggesting that she, like Merlin, has time-travelled), it contains no evidence of the modern advances that Merlin shares with Arthur, like aeroplane models, nor anything that might improve their feudal society. Merlin’s magic, by contrast, facilitates immediate changes to Arthur’s world and offers the promise of technological advancements in the centuries to come. To reduce the boy’s workload, for instance, Merlin magically conjures up a factory-style assembly line of brushes, tubs, and mops to wash dishes and scrub kitchen floors. Merlin also shares his knowledge of humankind’s future achievements with Arthur to advance his education, providing him with models, maps, globes, and hundreds of books. To become a proper king, Arthur must learn how to use such information to others’ advantage, not just his own. As Caroline Buts and Jose Luis Buendia Sierra observe of magic’s paradox, “using the wand without knowing properly the rules may sometimes lead to catastrophic situations” (509). This point is reaffirmed in the film’s final sequence, which takes place in London on New Year’s Day at a jousting tournament, the winner of which will be crowned king of England. Arthur, now a squire to his recently knighted stepbrother, forgets to bring his stepbrother’s sword to the tournament grounds. He attempts to replace the missing weapon with the sword in the stone when he spots the aging relic in a nearby churchyard. As Arthur pulls out the sword, angelic choral music swells, signalling that the rightful ruler of England has fulfilled the prophecy. After some scepticism from the assembled masses, Sir Ector and the other knights and spectators bow to the befuddled twelve-year-old. The film’s final scene shows a panic-stricken Arthur conceding that he does not know how to rule England and crying out for Merlin. When the wizard blows in from his most recent trip to the twentieth century, he confirms that he has known all along who Arthur is and assures the boy that he will become a great king. Arthur seems ready to put in the work, recognising that his knowledge and wisdom will improve the lives of England’s inhabitants. Conclusion Magic is thus portrayed as an intervening force that either facilitates or stymies societal progress. Good magic ensures that intelligent, educated individuals such as Arthur become great leaders, while those who would attain positions of power through brute force are thwarted from doing so. At the film’s conclusion, Arthur has not been fully transformed into a great leader because his education is far from finished; he has only learned enough to realise that he knows too little to rule effectively. Yet, from the Socratic perspective, such self-awareness is the germination for attaining true wisdom (Tarrant 263). Arthur also already knows that he will not be able to learn how to rule well through trickery or shortcuts, even with a powerful magician by his side. But the film’s closing scene reiterates this point with Merlin promising Arthur that he will succeed. “Why, they might even make a motion picture about you!” he exclaims in a clever fourth-wall joke (Gellner 120). The Sword in the Stone’s mere existence proves that Arthur will acquire the knowledge and wisdom necessary to become a truly great monarch. The fledgling pupil will live long and rule well, not because of pixie dust or magic spells, but because of his willingness to learn and to be transformed by his education into a wise and fair ruler. References Aronstein, Susan. “‘Higitus Figitus!’ Of Merlin and Disney Magic.” It’s the Disney Version! Popular Cinema and Literary Classics. Eds. Douglas Brode and Shea T. Brode. 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