During the memorial segment at the Oscars this past Sunday, I saw a lot of people initially scratch their head as to why Steve Jobs was included. They had forgotten that not only was Apple the developer of the Final Cut software that is used throughout the industry, he was also an important figure in the founding of PIXAR.
Next Friday, John Carter, the first live-action film from PIXAR director Andrew Stanton, will open in theaters. And when it does, it will bare a title card where the director dedicates the movie to Jobs stating “Dedicated to the Memory of Steve Jobs, an Inspiration to Us All.”
When asked about the dedication during a recent round of press for the film, Stanton gave a heartfelt answer about his wanting to pay tribute to a colleague and friend.
We just happened to be, sadly, the first production up that was Disney that wanted to give [a dedication]. And I personally wanted to. I talked to John [Lassater] about it because I didn’t want to steal any thunder from Pixar’s dedication because that’s really the real family member for Steve. But it felt right just cause I didn’t want too much time to pass without giving him some sort of permanent acknowledgement. And I talked to his wife.
It was kind of eerie because on the set I would get asked all the time, from all these people, ‘What Pixar was like?’ And it was fascinating to talk to all these movie people that knew all the films, but some of them didn’t even know Pixar was in San Francisco. It was funny. They knew of us, they knew of these movies and knew there was something different but they didn’t get it to the point [where they knew] where we were and stuff. And it would be such a long explanation to them about, trying to tell them why it ran differently and why the movie came out the way they did, that I ended up just simplifying my answer down to ‘Steve. Steve’s why.’
And I did really realize how much, because I was now living it. I was now pregnant with the dysfunction of Hollywood to make this movie and how this all works, the good and the bad, and it was amazing to see how much he had firewalled us from. Like we knew he had, but he had truly firewalled us and protected us from all the bad influences of the outside world and we had just been raised in this little eden in San Francisco and had no clue how bad it could be. And so I really have to give so much more credit to him than I ever was, even though I always was, of how much he was a major factor for Pixar.
Via SlashFilm.
