Four-legged Ants?

[kidtastrophe]

Does anyone have any insight on why Pixar decided to give the ants only four legs?

[Pixfan]

I noticed that "flaw" too. I think Pixar felt the extra arms just "got in the way". especially since the characters walked upright.

[Fairly Odd New Yorker]

I think because not only was it easy, but it made them seem more human and you can relate to them more. Like in Antz, I remember they gave them one pair of arms and two pairs of legs, and that just looked odd. Makes 'em look sort of alien-like. I mean, I know ants are supposed to have six legs.

Somehow I never knew they made that 'mistake' until my brother had gotten a toy of one of the characters from Antz.

[lizardgirl]

Yep, I agree with what the others said- having four legs instead of six makes the ants look more human, and animating that extra pair of limbs for so many characters would add a whole load of problems and use up a lot of time that it must've just ended up seeming unnecessary.

[A113]

Does anyone have any insight on why Pixar decided to give the ants only four legs?

I know. My sister and I were wondering the same thiing. And all of the grasshoppers have six legs.

My best guess is that Pixar wanted them to appear as human as possible, along with being as ant as possible. Since the audience knows humans, they anthropomorphisized the ants, and made them with only four legs and they walked on two.

[martini833]

Ya, I'm sure it was because of the challenges of animating the ant crowds and making them believable.

[The Star Swordsman]

Does anyone have any insight on why Pixar decided to give the ants only four legs?

Well, I agree with A113 to make them more human like, making the audience able to connect with them. And welcome to Pixar Planet by the way.

[kidtastrophe]

Yeah, I knew they had left the extra set of legs out on purpose, I'd just never heard it addressed.
And thanks for the welcome!

[The Star Swordsman]

You're welcome man!

[Sparky]

Although another "I agree" post is unnecessary, um...I agree. And also about the grasshoppers being more bug-like and having six limbs, to make them less human. You can see some early designs of Hopper where he has only four limbs, so its likely that the ants' final desings were settled on before they were quite sure how they wanted to portray the grasshoppers.

[azzstar]

They gave 2 hands and 2 legs to the bugs, because they wanted to make them more human like. Which would be more appealing to the audience, in which the audience would appect to watch. If look at Antz the ants had 2 hands and 4 legs. Which was more bug-like and also may be why the movie flopped. If we look a new bug film such as Bee movie. The bees were given 2 hands and 2 legs, just like A bug's life. So the bees were more human like rather than looking like a bug.

[K9Girl]

I have trouble getting used to the whole six leg thing. Sometimes i think that slim has only four legs and the things he's carrying are floating

[Robert]

I never knew how many legs an ant was suppose to have, so this is news to me.

[A113]

Robert: LOL I used to wonder the exact same thing. K9Girl pointed out the four-legged thing, and I actually had to look it up on the Internet whether they had four legs or six! Boy, was I dumb. xD

Welcome to Pixar Planet, Robert!

[Rac_Rules]

i think its mainly because the extra legs would need movements, they cant just be all limp, and that would take a lot more time and money. the simplest of things can cost thousands of dollars.