That may sound mean-spirited. I don’t intend it that way. There’s just something wonderfully uplifting about successful people’s failures. Here’s my latest example.
I had the great good fortune to get a tour of the Pixar campus (thanks Jonathan!!) and a handy synopsis of Pixar’s history, which was all news to me. (Errors and omissions are mine.)
It seems Pixar began as a little nugget of joy inside Lucasfilm. George Lucas didn’t see a future in CG animation (FAILURE #1) and sold the tech to Steve Jobs, who’d recently been fired from Apple (FAILURE #2). Jobs ran the company the way he knew how, which was as a maker of hardware (FAILURE #3). The hardware didn’t sell (FAILURE #4) but Pixar developed a relationship with Disney, who helped fund Toy Story. (COUGH, HUGE SUCCESS.) Disney looked at that success and decided that the reason adults in particular enjoyed Toy Story so much was…3D animation. (FAILURE #5.) They tried to recreate what they perceived as the formula for success in [insert your least favorite CG Disney garbage here, or if you can’t think of anything, I’ll suggest The Polar Express].
Cue gleeful cackling and the rubbing together of palms.
Granted, it’s easy to look back and roll your eyes at all the mistakes. Obviously Pixar movies are great because of the great stories (though as Jonathan pointed out, it helps that they don’t look like crap). I’m no cheerleader for Lucas or Jobs, but I do respect their successes, and I love them for their failures. [Insert some blah blah blah here about success springing from persistence and resilience if you feel you need to point that out.] I think it’s also worth noting that Disney was smart enough to buy Pixar and then pretty much leave them to do their thing the way they know how.
Here’s a photo of some dork with a unicorn!
POSTSCRIPT: I consider it a small personal failure that I didn’t have the nerve to bust Jonathan up with “Hey, can we see the Minions?”
jessica gruner 