A Bug's Life

A Bug's Life is a computer animated Film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the United States on November 25, 1998, and in the United Kingdom on April 16, 1999. It's also the second Disney/Pixar feature film. It tells the tale of an oddball individualist ant who hires what he thinks are "warrior bugs" (actually circus performers) to fight off greedy grasshoppers.

The film was directed by John Lasseter and it gives an obvious nod to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (as well as its Hollywood remake. Reviews for A Bug's Life were overwhelmingly positive at the time of the film's release, and it has remained popular since, although it is worth noting that A Bug's Life and Cars are the only two films from Pixar not to place on IMDB's list of the top 250 films.

Plot synopsis
Flik is an oddball, an individualist and would-be inventor in a colony of ants that is oppressed by a gang of Mafia-like grasshoppers, who arrive once a season demanding food from the ants, in return for supposed protection from "bigger bugs." While working with an invention to pick fruit more efficiently, Flik accidentally destroys the offering that the ants were putting together to appease the grasshoppers. Given a temporary reprieve by the grasshoppers, the ants agree to Flik's plan to recruit "warrior bugs" to fight off the grasshoppers&mdash;Flik actually believes the plan, while the other ants see it as a way of effectively exiling Flik.

Flik finds his way to the "city" (Garbage under a trailer), where he mistakes a group of circus performers, whose act collapses into chaos, for the warrior bugs he's seeking. The bugs, meanwhile, mistake Flik for a talent agent who wants to book their act, and agree to desert the act and travel with him back to Ant Island.

Flik eventually realizes his mistake and develops a new plan. He advocates building a fake bird to scare away Hopper, the leader of the grasshoppers, who is deeply afraid of bug-eating birds. The ants unite behind Flik's plan until the circus' ringmaster, P.T. Flea, arrives to retrieve his performers, blowing Flik's cover.

The ants try desperately to pull together enough food for a new offering to the grasshopper crew, but it can't possibly be enough. Dot, a tiny royal ant who idolizes Flik, overhears Hopper's plan to kill the queen after the offering and gets her friends to put Flik's bird plan back into action. It all nearly works, but when a confused P.T. inadvertently incinerates the bird, Hopper knows he has been tricked. He's about to kill Flik when Flik declares, in response to Hopper's claims of racial superiority, "Ants don't serve grasshoppers! It's you who need us. We're a lot stronger than you say we are...and you know it, don't you?" Hopper knows it. It's then the ants realize, because they outnumber the grasshoppers 100-to-1, they need not be oppressed by grasshoppers ever again. They chase the grasshoppers out, but not before Hopper attempts his final vengeance on Flik. Thanks to some quick thinking by Flik, Hopper ends up being eaten by a real bird that also inhabits Ant Island. Flik is welcomed back to the colony, and all the circus bugs join him in a celebration before departing Ant Island.

Box office
A Bug's Life made approximately $162 million in its U.S. theatrical run, easily covering its estimated production costs of $45 million. The film also earned £28,824,239 in its United Kingdom theatrical run.

Video release
The DVD of the film is the first wholly-digital transfer of a feature film to a digital playback medium. No analog processes came between the creation of the computer images and their representation on the DVD.

As well, the pan and scan or 'full screen' version of the video (on the DVD as well as VHS releases) has been reframed and restaged; rather than sacrifice image in some parts of the film, the frame has been extended or objects moved to fit the narrower aspect ratio. Pixar continued this process on its later video releases. Also, the different characters (Flik, Slim, Hopper, etc.) were on one (by themselves) cover of the video cover, considered a collectible in many cases.

The widescreen version of the film has an aspect ratio of 16.9:1.

Trivia

 * The film's title is a play on the Charlie Chaplin's 1928 silent film A Dog's Life.
 * The names on the boxes that make up the City are all the names of the writers' kids. A few examples are: JuJu's Litter, Hannah's Bananas, and PJ Pop.
 * The restaurant at Bug City is a can of "Low Fat Lard".
 * The cookies from the box that Flea's circus travels in contain 92 grams of protein per serving.
 * Actor Roddy McDowell's last film.
 * The otherwise-unintelligible pillbugs, Tuck & Roll, shout "Reuben Kincaid!" while building the bird. It's barely understandable, but shows up in the captions. Reuben Kincaid was a character in The Partridge Family, which suggests that the bird they are building is a partridge. However according to a book the real bird was a sparrow.
 * The circus "train" is made of boxes of animal crackers called Casey Jr. This is also the name of the circus train in the movie The Great Muppet Caper.
 * Atta is the Latin name for a genus of leaf-eating ants.
 * The boxes in P.T. Flea's circus train have the name "J. Grant" on them. Joe Grant wrote Dumbo.
 * This was the 1st computer generated feature film to be presented in a scope ratio of 2:35.1
 * Dave Foley, who ultimately voiced Flik, originally tried out for the character of Slim, played by David Hyde Pierce.
 * The Queen is seen carrying a pet aphid named Aphie at the start of the movie and during several scenes. This is probably a reference to the corgis of the English Royal family, as well as the fact that some ant species "keep" aphids.
 * The "tunnel in a tunnel" joke was made in reference to Steve Jobs' (CEO of Pixar and Apple) plan for Apple's "store in a store".
 * During the fake bird attack, Manny the praying mantis, voiced by Jonathan Harris, cries out "Oh, the pain!", a phrase often uttered by Alaskey's character Dr. Zachary Smith in the TV show "Lost in Space".
 * The two mosquitoes trapped in the light of the bug-zapper are voices by the directors: Andrew Stanton says "Harry, no, don't look at the light!" and John Lasseter says "I can't help it... it's so beautiful!".
 * When Heimlich turns into a butterfly, his color merely changes and he grows tiny wings. In reality Heimlich would look more like Gypsy,
 * When Heimlich is seen again in The Muppet Show, he is back to the caterpillar form,
 * Dim carries Heimlich throughout the film, but at the end, he's carried by Francis and Manny as Dim is carrying P.T. Flea's circus train.
 * A similar version of Flik's telescope is seen being used by a bird in an episode of Disney's Legends of the Ring of Fire - "How The Nightingale Became the King of All Birds".
 * Heimlich may be a reference to Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
 * The Bug City near the trailer home looks like Times Square from New York City.
 * This is the first full-length Muppet film not to have a human character.

Further references to other movies

 * A poster for Disney's "The Lion King - On Broadway" can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the screen when Flik walks through the city traffic in Bug City. The location corresponds to the location of the New Amsterdam Theater on Times Square where the show ran at the time.
 * During the warriors' introduction, Slim whispers to Heimlich, "Wow, they sure are starved for entertainment" - a direct quote from the similarly themed Flubber.
 * A Bug's Life is parodied in a mid-credits scene by its own production company, Pixar,

Voice cast

 * Flik - circus ant - Dave Foley
 * Tuck & Roll - pillbugs - Michael McShane
 * Francis - ladybug - Denis Leary
 * Gypsy - gypsy moth - Madeline Kahn
 * Manny - praying mantis - Jonathan Harris
 * Slim - walking stick - David Hyde-Pierce
 * Rosie - black widow spider - Bonnie Hunt
 * Dim - rhino beetle - Brad Garrett
 * Heimlich - caterpillar - Joe Ranft