I’ve heard it been repeated that “Antz was the first computer animated film to show water.” I’ve also heard it repeated that “because of programming limitations at the time, Toy Story contains no visible liquids, fiery explosions, or long hair.” To address the other factors first, there’s Andy’s mom, who has long hair in a ponytail, and for explosions, look no further than the rocket strapped to Buzz’s back. But what about liquids/water?
Well, this one’s a stretch, but in the opening scenes, Molly is drooling on Mr. Potato Head. Hey, saliva’s still a liquid. But as for water, I find it hard to believe that people missed the long section of the movie where it was storming outside. Yes, rain is water. But the surefire evidence is in the scenes of the morning after, Water is clearly seen dripping down the window.
Now, this seems like a trivial point to bring up, but I’ve heard it repeated many times, when the evidence is clearly right in front of them. Just goes to show how Pixar was (and is) ahead of their time.
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s really interesting to read the original Art and Making of Toy Story book and read about the process of making the first CG movie and all the painstaking attention to detail and effects and animation even with the limitations they had at the time. I hadn’t ever thought about this really, but yeah! Toy Story really made a lot of amazing firsts!
Pixar shorts always pushed the limits of the available technology, and I’ll believe that they did have water. But I think the intention of the original “trivia facts” was feature films. But the fact that Pixar was already utilizing these techniques eight years before is still impressive.
I guess it all comes in how you define it. Is it a body of water or water in any form or amount? If its anything, then yeah Toy Story was the first feature to show water. And Knick Knack had water in smaller amounts.
