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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

"And then, some months later, Pixar rewrote the film from almost the ground up, and we made ToyStory2 again"

So that effort to recreate it (not to mention produce it in the first place) was pretty much all for naught? That must have been soul destroying

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In the comments, Oren addressed exactly that particular question:

"We didn't scrap the models, but yes, we scrapped almost all the animation and almost all the layout and all the lighting. And it was worth it.

Changing the script saved the film, which in turn allowed Buzz and Woody to carry on for future generation (see ToyStory3 for how awesome that universe continues to be - well done to everyone who worked on the lastest installment!) and, in some ways, set a major cornerstone in the culture of Pixar. You may have heard John or Steve or Ed mention "Quality is a good business model" over the years. Well, that moment in Pixar's history was when we tested that, and it was hard, but thankfully I think we passed the test. Toy Story 2 went on to became one of the most successful films we ever made by almost any measure.

So, suffice it to say that yes, the 2nd version (which you saw in theatres and is now on the BluRay) is about a bagillion times better than the film we were working on. The story talent at the studio came together in a pretty incredible way and reworked everything. When they came back from the winter holidays in January '99, their pitch, and Steve Jobs's rallying cry that we could in fact get it done by the deadline later that year, are a few of the most vivid and moving memories I have of my 20 years at the studio."

https://www.quora.com/Did-Pixar-accidentally-delete-Toy-Stor...

Out of curiosity, is there any outline of the prior script available publicly? I'm curious where they were taking the franchise before the rewrite.

I found this PDF[0] that purports to be the first draft of the script, but I can't vouch for its authenticity. It was linked from this summary on a Pixar fan wiki[1].

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20121213100913/http://www.raindan...

[1] http://pixar.wikia.com/wiki/Toy_Story_2_(original_storyline)

How is it possible to get a remake done by deadline? How did the original have so much extra time padded into its schedule?

> Steve Jobs's rallying cry that we could in fact get it done by the deadline later that year

There interesting but here is that Jobs didn't know if his cry was true. But he needed it to be true, so it was. Jobs was a member of the "action-based community", not the "reality-based community" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

They got it done by killing everyone, working multiple shifts, 24/7, no days off, etc. Some people left after it was over, due to burn out. Surviving TS2 was a test of Pixar's resilience that they passed, but at a cost.

Didn't they shut the whole company down for a period of time to give everyone a break after that push? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

I disagree wholeheartedly, they had a rare chance to rebuild using their acquired knowledge with none of the debt or cruft.

"We have to keep this scene even though it's not quite perfect because otherwise it's a waste of money".

Maybe this is a bad example actually, movie industry is something you launch and market and leave.

But the best architectures I've seen have been demolished, destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up for their purpose.

Same with code.

Right, but I'm thinking from the perspective of someone who's been working on something for ages, gone through the stress of nearly losing it, then miraculously recovering it ... only to have found that a lot of their work was ditched. You're right that it probably ended up better, and sister comments are right in that it wasn't ALL for naught ... but can you imagine the moment you found out it was being reworked?

No need to imagine. It's not just during disasters like the Pixar case. Creative collaborative ventures like films and animation are filled with months of effort being deleted with a few quick keystrokes.

Back when I was still in the film/video industry, it happened often, you kinda get accustomed to the ephemeral nature and you try not to get too attached to your work. Not always successfully but you try.

> But the best architectures I've seen have been demolished, destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up for their purpose.

This can also be a destructive siren call:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

But I think it's not absolute. Sometimes rewrites are imperative.

In the case of toy story 2, I think the analogy would be that they ditched the product they were working on to create a different one. Thus making joel's point non relevant there

It wasn't a new product, they kept a lot of the assets (notably the characters and the universe) but rewrote the script extensively and had to scrap a lot of animation.

I don't think an analogy to software rewrite works very well, the domains are so different. For example Joel makes the point that code have a lot of embedded information which you have to rediscover if you rewrite from scratch. This introduces a huge risk and uncertainty.

If you rewrite a movie script halfway during production you have to scrap a lot of work but you don't really loose knowledge, so the risk is more manageable.

And I'm also pretty sure they reworked their backup and validation tools as well.

Same with government.

Indeed, about every couple century in history we come up with some new form of government. It's only ever so incremental (hence why 'revolutions' are few and major in scope), and often has to do with adapting to new conditions (technological and social change mostly).

That statement really resonated with me.

So often something happens which seems like a total disaster, the end of the world, and you struggle desperately to fix it.

In hindsight it turns out it didn't matter as much as you thought it did anyway. Has happened in so many startups I've worked at.

"The only stress and pressure in life is the stress and pressure you put on yourself".

Life goes on.

A large percentage of files in a CG production are not shot specific, so no, the recovery work was definitely not wasted. There are sets, lighting setups, props, layouts, models, textures, shaders, character rigs, procedural and effects systems, etc., etc. A few of those things might have to be redone, but when those things are set up and the script changes, the main bulk of the work is cameras and character animation, and then re-rendering.

> all for naught?

I bet you they were suddenly industry experts in source control and data backups.

I made a mistake like this once, I feel most that are really dogmatic about backups have something like this.

A long time ago I had a hard drive fail that had a bitcoin wallet with about 10 bitcoins in it.

At the time it was worth a hundred USD or so. I tried to fix it myself, ended up failing and throwing the drive out.

Right after that bitcoin started its meteoric climb. Every now and then I check the prices, then I go check that my backups are running, that my restores work, that my offsite backup is setup correctly, that every single one of my devices is backed up.

It was a $9,000 life lesson (as of right now...)

Having lost quite some Bitcoins myself to different errors, IMO it was a hundred USD lesson. You could have replaced them but chose not to. The value therefore was whatever they would have netted you at the time. Worrying about what could have been will just drive you nuts.

I know, I'm not actually as broken up about it as I make it sound sometimes. It was a mistake, and it could "technically" cost me 10 grand, so it's a nice number to remember when I think about the time I'm spending setting up and testing my backups. (And it's a fantastic story to tell others which can often get them to start using a backup system)

In the end, it may end up being net positive in my life when I save something huge later.

Caring to take good backups and the knowledge/skill of doing so is well worth more than $9K in the long run. Losing months of work is a mental killer.

(What's worse is losing 100+ BTC to Gox. :p)

I have not lost anything really important but I cannot live without at least 3 geographically separated backups of generations of backups for something I don't want to lose.

> (What's worse is losing 100+ BTC to Gox. :p)

I lost 18 BTC to MtGox... Bought most of them when the exchange rate was about $500.

I knew there was danger in keeping it on the exchange. I wanted to show my girlfriend who bought one of those BTC how easy it was to transfer them to a local machine, to demonstrate the power of Bitcoin because I was passionate about it and thought it had a chance of changing our corrupt banking system.

She kept putting me off, she thought it was some big procedure and just wanted me to do it. I forgot about it after that for a couple of months... Then MtGox exploded.

:-(

If you're out there, MtGox thief, I worked for that BTC. Karma will get you in the end.

I believe that the original version that was scrapped was intended to be a straight-to-video release. It was completely reworked when the company decided to give the project bigscreen treatment.

Almost. TS2 was originally a direct to video film. But Disney liked the work-in-progress so much that they approved making it a feature film. And Pixar management at the time wasn't really thrilled with the idea of having an "A" team that made feature films and a "B" team that made DTV films. That could lead to morale problems in the B team. It was much later that problems in the story lead to replacing the director and doing the restart.

> "And then, some months later, Pixar rewrote the film from almost the ground up, and we made ToyStory2 again"

Reminds me of Fred Brooks quote. "Plan to throw one away. You will anyhow".

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