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 14, 1998, and in the United Kingdom on 5 February 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.

The story of A Bug's Life is a parody of Aesop's fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper. It is similar to the comedy ¡Three Amigos!, which is about out-of-work actors defending a town while thinking they're merely giving a performance, and it gives an obvious nod to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (as well as its Hollywood remake, The Magnificent Seven), which is about Japanese (Mexican in Magnificent Seven) villagers hiring a rag-tag group of swordsmen (or gunfighters) to fight off rampaging bandits.

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 dollars 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, Dot, Francis, etc.) were on one (by themselves) cover of the video cover, considered a collectible in many cases.

A laserdisc version was also released in Japan by Pioneer, one of the last.

The widescreen version of the film has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

Trivia

 * The film's title is a play on the Charlie Chaplin's 1918 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 face of Geri from Geri's Game (a Pixar short) can be seen modeled in the tree above the ant colony.
 * 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 Dumbo.
 * 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 Harris'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, except that he has knob-like antennae.
 * When Heimlich is seen again in the Toy Story 2 bloopers, he is back to the caterpillar form, no longer a butterfly. He and Flick can also be spotted in the actual movie where Buzz looks through the bushes (as in the blooper). Flick is on the far left and Heimlich is on the far right.
 * 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 Pixar film not to have a human character.

Relation to Toy Story
It is widely believed that the bugs in this film live in the same universe as the toys in the Toy Story films. The following examples could be seen to show this:
 * At the scene where the bugs are "riding" the can, you can see a Pizza Planet Cup from Toy Story.
 * When the two bugs are arguing about the light you can see a Pizza Planet Truck.
 * In the comical bloopers of Toy Story 2, Flik was on a leaf talking to Heimlich about "A Bug's Life 2". Heimlich confessed that a sequel was being made, but not to A Bug's Life. It is then that Buzz Lightyear appears and knocks them off of their leaf, more or less answering Flik's question about what movie's sequel was being made.
 * The Pizza Planet truck is parked next to the mobile home as Flik approaches the City.
 * A Pizza Planet cup from Toy Story is seen above the bar as Flik enters.
 * A Bug's Life was released on DVD with the first-generation iMac
 * Two references are made to Toy Story during the outtakes:
 * Flik holds up a dandelion feather seed to use as a parachute and yells the signature catchphrase of Buzz Lightyear, "To Infinity and Beyond!"
 * At one point when two ants are laughing, Sheriff Woody suddenly appears holding the marker upside-down.

See also: Trivia on Toy Story 2

Further references to other movies

 * When Flick looks around the city there is a bug with a pattern similar to that on the body of Sulley from Monsters, Inc.
 * During the first visit by the grasshoppers, Hopper mentions the "circle of life", an obvious reference to The Lion King.
 * 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 The Three Amigos.
 * A Bug's Life is parodied in a mid-credits scene by its own production company, Pixar, in the latest Pixar film Cars. In it, Flik is a Volkswagen Bug.

Other appearances

 * The characters Flik and Hopper appear in the 3D movie attraction It's Tough To Be A Bug which can be found at the Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park in Walt Disney World, as well as at Disney's California Adventure. The Disney's California Adventure park also has an area of rides for younger children called "a bug's land".
 * In 1999, Disney produced Flik's Musical Adventure at Disney's Animal Kingdom as part of their Sing Along Songs series. Pixar created new footage of Flik introducing versions of classic Disney songs.
 * Flik and Heimlich appear in an "outtake" during the ending credits of the Pixar movie Toy Story 2. In one scene, Heimlich appears alone, crawling on a leaf in the same location as in the outtake as well as falling off it after Buzz chops through the leaves. He can be seen on the widescreen version of the film, on the right.
 * A scene from the film is recreated with Volkswagen Beetles in place of the bugs in the ending credits of Cars. Mack, John Ratzenberger's character in Cars, comments on the familiarity of the voice of P.T. Flea, eventually leading into him mocking Pixar and Ratzenberger.
 * When Flik arrives in the city. The trailer which he passes appears to be the trailer that Randall in "Monsters Inc" Gets knocked out in

Voice cast

 * Flik - pavement ant - Dave Foley
 * Hopper - grasshopper - Kevin Spacey
 * Princess Atta - pavement ant - Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Dot - pavement ant - Hayden Panettiere
 * Queen - pavement ant - Phyllis Diller
 * Molt - grasshopper - Richard Kind
 * Slim - walkingstick - David Hyde-Pierce
 * Heimlich - caterpillar - Joe Ranft
 * Francis - ladybird beetle - Denis Leary
 * Gypsy - emperor moth - Madeline Kahn
 * Tuck & Roll - pillbug - Michael McShane
 * Rosie - black widow spider - Bonnie Hunt
 * P.T. Flea - flea - John Ratzenberger
 * Manny - praying mantis - Jonathan Harris
 * Dim - rhinoceros beetle - Brad Garrett
 * Mr. Soil - pavement ant - Roddy McDowall
 * Thorny - pavement ant - Alex Rocco
 * Dr. Flora - pavement ant - Edie McClurg
 * Cornelius -pavement ant David Ossman
 * Lead Blueberry Scout/Additional Voices - Ashley Tisdale

Attached short film
Theatrical and video releases of this film include Geri's Game, a Pixar short made in 1997, a year before this film was released.