Portal reaches the movies

Hey All-
So, I took my three year old to the see the new Pixar movie WALL-E today and was intrigued by the little short film that they always show before their feature film.
It was a short take on a stage magician and his rabbit and how he uses his "magic hat" to cross distances. About three minutes into it, it hit me that it's exactly what you do in Portal. Clearly, the makers of this short movie we're influenced by the popularity of Portal.
If anybody sees it, look for it in the movie, you can't miss it.

 

Clearly, since the game portal invented the whole concept of portals. And WALL-E hasn't been in development for years.
Sorry that was a bit rude.
But I don't think that Portal influenced the movie

 

why do you say wall-e hasn't been in development for years? it's a movie, how long do you think it was it took to make, 2 weeks?

 

i guess portal did somewhat make the idea of portal more popular than before. but yeah it could be completely unrelated although i have a feeling that maybe the director was inspired by it

edit: oh yeah i think the mini film before featured film is completely separate.

 

what? lol

 

I've never heard of sarcasm; what is it?

And no, the game had absolutely, positively nothing to do with the short. The concept of going in one "portal" and coming out another is hardly unique... hell, even The Monkees did it on their show way back when (hallway of doors that don't lead where they should), and it's a staple of animation gags. It's absurd to think that a game that came out less than a year ago had a major conceptual influence on any aspect of an animated feature film.

 

i think Wall-e, the character, looks like a cheap knock off of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.

 

Thank you! I've been saying that for a long time...

 

Wow, you people are extremely critical of a childrens' movie.

 

no, everyone just enjoys bursting each others bubbles lol.

 

yeah, i say that everytime i see the preview and people either don't know what i'm talking about, don't think so(not sure why), or think i'm lame for liking those movies.

 

I don't think anyone remembers that movie.

Ah... his cheesy taxi-cab one liners...

 

I think Portal was influenced by Prey.......

 

Wow, all it takes is 12 hours for all the bitter folks to come out of the woodworks. So much for an environment that spurs discussion. Jeez, all I did was make a simple observation.

 

I wasn't trying to be rude, and apologize if I came off that way. I just really think Wall-E does look like Johnny-5.

By the way, Tsavonglah, is that your son standing with a Sand-Creature?

 

Nah, it wasn't you that was making the disparaging remarks. It's OK, I should get used to it. Yes, that's my son at the Star Wars weekends at MGM Disney in Florida. He also got to fight Darth Vader in a lightsaber duel. He's still talking about it three weeks later.

 

That's an awesome experience for a kid! Hope he is a fan of Star Wars...


Wish I would have gotten to battle Darth Vader... And not including action figures in the bathtub 20 years ago...

By the way, good to see another Texas Native. (Dallas, TX here)

 

The point is that your observation was this:

"Clearly, the makers of this short movie we're influenced by the popularity of Portal."

And, well... do you have any idea how long it takes to make an animated short of Pixar quality? They couldn't have been influenced by Portal's popularity. It's simply impossible for that quality of animation to progress from conceptualization to completion that fast.

Not to mention, again, that the entire concept is a time-honored classic of slapstick animation. Given the content of the rest of the short I'd say Chuck Jones was the main inspiration. Remember, although it was a unique concept in gaming cartoons have been doing it for the better part of a century. It's a bit like saying literature got the idea for a dystopia from Half-Life 2.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, just pointing out that even if John Lasseter himself wanted a Portal-influenced cartoon Pixar wouldn't be able to turn it out in the time this was made.

The Short Circuit thing, though... Pixar's been denying it up and down, but somehow I doubt character designers doing research on robot designs both in real life and in movies would have missed that.