Unkrich says you don't take the 3-D hits watching Blu-ray, which delivers a brighter picture and more saturated colors. All images © Disney/Pixar.

 

With Toy Story 3 becoming the first billion-dollar animated grosser, and lots of Oscar buzz and going Blu this week from Walt Disney Home Ent., we caught up again with director Lee Unkrich to talk TS3 and Pixar. 

Bill Desowitz: So, what are your impressions of Toy Story 3 on Blu-ray?

Lee Unkrich: It really looks good in my home and I'm very happy with it. In fact, I know the mix for the movie so well that when I was watching it at home, I realized that my system needed to be tweaked a bit because it wasn't sounding quite right. But once I had it tweaked, it sounds every bit as good as when we were at Skywalker mixing it.

BD: If anything, it's brighter and richer looking than the 3-D theatrical experience.

LU: Of course, there are three hits you take: it's dimmer, the colors aren't quite as saturated and, to my eye, it gets a little strobier. Yeah, I think the Blu-ray is the perfect way to see the film, perfectly, pristinely, the way we made it.

BD: Are you working on a 3-D version for Blu-ray?

LU: We don't have anything to announce about that now, and, honestly, I don't even know. I think a lot of the industry is taking a wait and see approach to that. I don't know of any [plans] in the works.

BD: Anything stand out in particular for you on Blu-ray?

LU: Something as simple as Lotso. I made the movie and I'm still amazed at how great he looks. I don't know how my team did what they did, but often times when he's onscreen, I stop paying attention to the movie and I find my eye just wandering, looking at the texture of the fluff and the fur on him.

The director can't help taking his eyes off Lotso.

 LU: I've seen it a lot, of course, and will continue to, and I'm not sick of it yet. I especially like watching it with audiences. One of the things that people may be surprise to hear, especially after how huge the success was on this movie, is that I continue to run into adults who haven't seen the movie yet. I still meet people who haven't seen any Pixar movie, for a lot of different reasons. I tell them they're really missing out. So we're hoping a lot more people see it now on [Blu-ray and DVD]. Of course, there's been a lot of talk in the press about people crying in the movie and why. I have my own thoughts about it [it's a pining for childhood, the loss of innocence], but it's great because all we set out to do was to make a movie that was worthy of sitting alongside the first two.

BD: It's become a national treasure and it provided a great sense of closure.

LU: Yeah, it's interesting how a lot of people are affected in different ways, at different points in their lives, and I'm happy it's seen as being as universally appealing as it is. It's a hard thing to do.

BD: Once again there are lots of fun bonus features. Now that you have your own crew and you're comfortable going under the hood, what were some of the highlights here?

LU: The one piece I love quite a bit is the Western opening. I honestly have hundreds of really talented people helping me make this movie both artistically and technically, and they never really get any recognition. But I wanted to put faces to that. They had done a nice little piece about the WALL•E opening where they broke down a single shot and I always thought that piece was cool, so we just extended that idea out did and I'm really happy with how it came out: we've been getting some good feedback about it. And beyond that, the Studio Stories are always fun. We've all had these stories that have always just been told anecdotally to people we know or our friends, and I love that they've continued to do it in that form, storyboarded on the [discs].