For many families, going to the movies is as much of a Thanksgiving tradition as parades and pumpkin pie. This week’s Tech Time Warp goes back to Thanksgiving weekend 30 years ago—Pixar’s big break. Toy Story was released in theaters Nov. 22, 1995, opening at No. 1 that weekend and going on to become the highest-grossing film of the year.
The birth of computer-animated storytelling
But Buzz and Woody’s story began in 1979. George Lucas brought Ed Catmull and Alvi Ray Smith together to head the Lucasfilm Computer Division. Lucas sought digital film and sound editing systems, a laser film printer, and new exploration of computer graphics. The Computer Division’s first major work was the first completely computer-animated sequence in a movie, the “Genesis Effect” sequence in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
As Smith recounted for IEEE Spectrum, the goal all along was to create “The Movie”—the first wholly computer-animated feature film. A parallel goal was to find financing, something that became paramount after George Lucas divorced in 1983 and split the Computer Division into units he could sell off. The Computer Graphics Group found its answer in Steve Jobs, who initially did not buy the division but rather had 70 percent ownership, the rest belonging to employees.
A corporate and creative evolution
The Computer Graphics Group became Pixar on Feb. 3, 1986, named after the Pixar Image Computer, a special purpose computer the team had under development. “The Movie” was, of course, Toy Story—and Jobs was able to take the company public on Nov. 28, 1995. The IPO made Jobs a billionaire, and Toy Story was nominated for three Academy Awards including, Best Original Song, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay. Disney bought Pixar in 2006 for more than $7 billion.
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Photo: Marko Aliaksandr / Shutterstock
This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.