VividSimon Simply Perfect

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Red's Dream is the third (short) film by Pixar and the second from mastermind John Lasseter (not counting his two unrelated works around 1980. And after parent and child lamp in Luxo Jr., he breezed life this time into an old unicycle the very own Pixar way. It's a rainy night, the shop is closed and nobody's on the street, when Red starts dreaming about what it would be like to be a big star, first being an assistant to a juggling clown at a circus and then taking over and juggling himself before bowing down to the standing ovations from the crowd. Sadly, it was just a dream for the little one, but the dream of Pixar becoming one of the most influential and prestigious animation company's was becoming more and more reality with these 4 minutes.It an animation effort from over 25 years ago that was well ahead of its time and you just had to enjoy their attention to detail, like the "50% off"-sticker referring equally to the number of wheels. Also the way the little unicycle lowers its head after realizing it was just a dream, is a perfect display of how Pixar never fails to convey true emotion, even if it comes from inanimate objects. Pretty good short film and you could already see they'd be up to grand things in the 90s.

Michael_Elliott Red's Dream (1987) *** (out of 4) This early Pixar short works best when you really think at how remarkable the animation was considering the entire CG thing was rather new so in many ways this short is very fresh and original. It tells the story of a red unicycle who is sitting alone in a store on a dark and stormy night. The unicycle then begins to dream what it would be like if someone would actually buy it and let it impress them. Once again, I was really impressed with the visual style of the film as the animation is quite good even though it's still rather young in its making. I thought the entire look of the film was wonderful especially the early shots of the rain, the look of the store and the very final shot. There really aren't any laughs but I guess that's not a bad thing as this movie was clearly meant to tell a brief story that's charming.

TheOtherFool One of the Pixar shorts from the eighties, this one is directed and written by 'Mr. Pixar' (and director of the upcoming 'Cars' (of which the first teaser sucked heavily, but nevermind)) John Lasseter. It tells the story of the dream of a lonely unicycle, who desperately wants to be in the circus entertaining the people. The constant rain and sad jazzy music help to make this a moody one. Nice short animation picture, but hard to judge on it's own. But knowing how shorts like this and Knick Knack would eventually turn into brilliant pictures like Toy Story and Finding Nemo (haven't watched The Incredibles yet), this sure was a good sign of even better things to come.6/10.

Gavno I make my living as the night engineer at the local PBS TV station. I also happen to be a LONG time animation freak.I've loved and collected the cartoons from Disney, the Fleischer Brothers, Warner Brothers and all the rest for a very long time. I felt that the art of the cartoon was a static field and that it would never drift far from it's pen and ink roots.One night at work... after a program that ran a few minutes short of a full hour, PBS used RED'S DREAM as filler material to round out the hour.A whole new world opened up on the screen...When RED came along, computer animation was still in it's infancy. I think Pixar produced the film as a demonstration piece for what their technology is capable of. At that point in time computer animation was still very expensive, probably as expensive as the traditional, one drawing at a time process of making cartoons by hand.Cartooning done the traditional way has become SO expensive that it's caused some major players to either get out of the field, or make major concessions in film quality.The beloved "Termite Terrace", the old Warner Brother's cartooning unit, closed years ago. Likewise, to cut down on the number of drawings required, Fred Flintstone suffers from "Hanna Barberra Palsey"; frequently, Fred's feet and mouth are the ONLY things on the screen that move.To combat the high costs of traditional, full motion cartooning, SOME concessions to modern technology have come to the fore. In some of Ralph Bakshi's work (HEY GOOD LOOKIN' and THE HOBBIT for example) he moved offshore to cut labor costs (Ireland), and used Xerox copying.Disney had ALWAYS been the unquestioned master at giving drawn characters the subtle nuances of personality, and occasionally he did it with inanimate objects like Red. My personal Disney favorite is "Casey Junior", the little locomotive that pulls the circus train in DUMBO. I saw somewhere that Casey's personality was inspired by the cartoonist watching a puppy. I can believe that easily; while trying to get the train moving, Casey does a maneuver that's VERY familiar to anyone who has spent a lot of time around dogs; Casey does a "Play Bow", a canine move used as an invitation to other dogs to come out and play with him. It was little touches like this that convinced me that the cartoonist and animator never had to worry about being automated out of a job by computers.But... then came Red.Red is ASTONISHING. This simple little unicycle achieves the goals that every cartoonist shoots for in his creations. In a very short film he introduces himself, displays a clearly defined personality, communicates to the viewer his wants, needs, and motivations, and he manages to touch that indefinable something deep inside of the viewer that makes you CARE about him. You really IDENTIFY with this simple little character in a four minute film.That's what cartoons are all about, and Red touches every one of the bases.When I saw this little guy, I realized that the traditional pen and ink and drafting board were on their way out, to be replaced by the microprocessor and the graphics tabletThe Shreks, Roger Rabbits, and all of the other modern cartoon characters were inevitable, both because of the economics of animation, and the success of little films like RED'S DREAM.We owe this little unicycle, yearning for stardom, a vote of thanks. He himself may be a dead end, but he opened the door to a whole new generation of cartoons.