Matt Patches: The movie seems to take cues from a ton
of classic action films, escape films.
Where did you go for inspiration?
Lee Unkrich: Our influences come from every which
way, but specifically in the middle of the film when we're at the daycare, the
daycare turns out to be not such a great place, we had ideas about making it a
prison escape. It was fun because we saw a lot of corollaries between daycares
and prisons. You don't have to look very long before you see how similar they
are. Daycares are kind of prisons for toddlers. You have exercise yards in the
back surrounded by walls, security cameras everywhere. We committed to that idea and then we did a
ton of research, we saw a ton of movies.
Shawshank Redemption, The Great Escape, Cool Hand Luke.
There are pretty overt references to Cool Hand Luke in the movie.
Matt Patches: Pixar's known for their collaborative
nature when developing new projects, but was there still a particular challenge
you felt stepping in to the director's chair?
Lee Unkrich: The biggest challenge was to not screw
it up. I didn't want to go down in
history as the guy who screwed up the Toy Story series. That was the overriding fear. I knew that even though I was the one out
front with the crushing responsibility on my shoulders, I was still at Pixar,
surrounded by my friends and colleagues, who I've been working with for a long
time, and I knew they'd be there to help me make the movie great. And they were. We all regularly get together for each project and watch each
others films, and give feedback. If a
film isn't working, we'll say that, it's all very honest. We all check our egos at the door, and when
we have these meetings it's all in the interest of making the movies better.
Matt Patches: It's a good goal.
Lee Unkrich: It is, and it's unique to Pixar. I don't think there are many studios that
have that setup, a band of filmmakers critiquing each other's work while
they're being made.
Matt Patches: Thus, the slow summer.
