Smash and Grab, the newest animated short from Pixar Animation Studios, has a science fiction inspired look and feel. It follows two antiquated robots who risk everything for freedom and for each other after years of toiling away inside the engine room of a towering locomotive.
There’s an action adventure element as the two robots break free of their chains and decide to take on the system that has confined them and their prospects.
That definitely has some WALL-E vibes going on there. Not just the design of the patrol robots, but in the sound design too.
Written and directed by Brian Larson and produced by David Lally, Smash and Grab is part of the Pixar SparkShorts series is designed to be part of the Disney+ direct-to-consumer streaming service coming later this year.
Here Larson and Lally talk about the vision behind Smash and Grab:
You can also watch a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the animated short here:
Okay, so the fact that the production used motion capture acting for this short is great. It shows that Pixar can be flexible on how they produce their animation. The result is something touching, beautiful, and quite powerful.