Production onA Bug's Life began shortly after the release ofToy Story in 1995. The ants in the film were redesigned to be more appealing, and Pixar's animation unit employed technical innovations in computer animation.Randy Newman composed the music for the film. During production, a controversial public feud erupted betweenSteve Jobs and Lasseter of Pixar andDreamWorks co-founderJeffrey Katzenberg due to the parallel production of his similar filmAntz, which was released the month prior.
A Bug's Life premiered at theEl Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 14, 1998, and was released in the United States on November 25. It received positive reviews for its animation, story, humor, and voice acting. It became a commercial success, having grossed $363 million at the box office. It was the first film to be digitally transferred frame-by-frame and released onDVD, and has been released multiple times on home video.
Plot
A colony of ants, led by the elderly Queen and her daughter Princess Atta, lives in the middle of a seasonally dry creekbed on a small hill known as "Ant Island". Every summer, they are forced to give food to a gang of grasshoppers, led by Hopper.
One day, Flik, a courageous but clumsy inventor ant, inadvertently destroys the food offering with his grain harvester. Hopper discovers this, and demands twice as much food as compensation. When Flik earnestly suggests the ants enlist the help of bigger bugs to fight the grasshoppers, Atta sees it as a way to get rid of Flik and sends him off.
Flik travels to "the city", a heap of trash under a trailer. Flik mistakes a troupe of joblessCircus Bugs for the warrior bugs he seeks. The bugs, in turn, mistake Flik for a talent agent, and agree to travel with him back to Ant Island. During a welcome ceremony after their arrival, the Circus Bugs and Flik discover their mutual misunderstandings. The Circus Bugs attempt to leave, but are pursued by a nearby bird; while fleeing, they rescue Atta's younger sister Dot from the bird, gaining the ants' respect. At Flik's request, the Circus Bugs continue the ruse of being "warriors", thus enabling them to continue enjoying the ants' hospitality. Learning that Hopper fears birds inspires Flik to build a crudeornithopter disguised as a bird to scare away the grasshoppers. Meanwhile, Hopper reminds his gang of the ants' superior numbers, warning them the ants will rebel if not kept in line.
The ants finish constructing the fake bird. During the subsequent celebration, the Circus Bugs' old supervisor, P.T. Flea, arrives, seeking to rehire them and blowing their cover; the ants exile Flik and the Circus Bugs, and desperately try gathering food for a new offering. Hopper returns, sees the mediocre offering, and takes over the island. He then demands the ants' own winter food supply, planning to execute the Queen afterward. Overhearing the plan, Dot persuades Flik and the Circus Bugs to return to Ant Island.
After the Circus Bugs distract the grasshoppers long enough to rescue the Queen, Flik deploys the bird. It initially fools the grasshoppers, but P.T., who is also fooled, sets the bird on fire. Realizing the deception, Hopper has Flik publicly beaten and proclaims the ants are lowly life forms who live only to serve the grasshoppers. Flik asserts Hopper actually fears the colony, because he has always known what they are capable of. This inspires the ants and the Circus Bugs to fight back against the grasshoppers, driving all but Hopper and his affable brother Molt away.
The ants shove Hopper into the circus cannon to shoot him off of the island, but rain suddenly begins to fall. In the ensuing chaos, Hopper frees himself from the cannon and abducts Flik. The Circus Bugs and Atta pursue, with the latter catching up to Hopper and rescuing Flik, who lures Hopper to the real bird's nest. Believing the bird is another fake, Hopper taunts it, until it grabs him and feeds him to its chicks.
With the anthill now at peace, Flik improves his inventions to help gather food for the ants. Flik and Atta become a couple, and proceed to send Molt and a few ants to help P.T. and the Circus Bugs on their new tour. Atta and Dot become the new Queen and Princess. The ants celebrate their victory and congratulate Flik as a hero. They then bid a fond farewell to the circus troupe.
Voice cast
Dave Foley as Flik, a courageous but clumsy inventor ant wanting to make a difference.
Kevin Spacey as Hopper, the cynical and hot-tempered leader of the grasshopper gang oppressing the ants.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Princess Atta, Queen's nervous elder daughter and Flik's love interest.
Hayden Panettiere as Dot, Queen's younger daughter and Flik's good friend.
Phyllis Diller as The Queen, Atta and Dot's elderly mother, who is training Atta to succeed her.
Richard Kind as Molt, Hopper's dimwitted yet well-meaning younger brother.
John Lasseter, the director ofA Bug's Life, at the Austin Film Festival in October 2011
During the summer of 1994, Pixar's story department began turning their thoughts to their next film.[8] The storyline forA Bug's Life originated from a lunchtime conversation betweenJohn Lasseter,Andrew Stanton,Pete Docter, andJoe Ranft, the studio's head story team; other films such asMonsters, Inc.,Finding Nemo andWALL-E were also conceived at this lunch.[9] Lasseter and his story team had already been drawn to the idea of insects serving as characters. Like toys, insects were within the reach of computer animation back then, due to their relatively simple surfaces. Stanton and Ranft wondered whether they could find a starting point in Aesop's fableThe Ant and the Grasshopper.[9]Walt Disney had produced his own version with a cheerier ending decades earlier in the 1934 short filmThe Grasshopper and the Ants. In addition,Walt Disney Feature Animation had considered producing a film in the late-1980s entitledArmy Ants, that centered around a pacifist ant living in a militaristic colony, but this never fully materialized.[10]
As Stanton and Ranft discussed the adaptation, they rattled off scenarios and storylines springing from their premise.[9] Lasseter liked the idea and offered some suggestions. The concept simmered until early 1995, when the story team began work on the second film in earnest.[9] During an early test screening forToy Story inSan Rafael in June 1995, they pitched the film to Disney CEOMichael Eisner. Eisner thought the idea was fine and they submitted a treatment to Disney in early July under the titleBugs.[9] Disney approved the treatment and gave notice on July 7 that it was exercising the option of a second film under the original 1991 agreement between Disney and Pixar.[11] Lasseter assigned the co-director job to Stanton; both worked well together and had similar sensibilities. Lasseter had realized that working on a computer-animated feature as a sole director was dangerous while the production ofToy Story was in process.[11] In addition, Lasseter believed that it would relieve stress and that the role would groom Stanton for having his own position as a lead director.[12]
Writing
InThe Ant and the Grasshopper, a grasshopper squanders the spring and summer months on singing while the ants put food away for the winter; when winter comes, the hungry grasshopper begs the ants for food, but the ants turn him away.[9] Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft hit on the notion that the grasshopper could just take the food, with Ranft saying "What if that grasshopper came back with a gang to thump on the ants".[9][13][14] After Stanton had completed a draft of the script, he came to doubt one of the story's main pillars – that the Circus Bugs that had come to the colony to cheat the ants would instead stay and fight.[12] He thought the Circus Bugs were unlikable characters as liars and that it was unrealistic for them to undergo a complete personality change. Also, no particularly good reason existed for Circus Bugs to stay with the ant colony during the second act.[15] Although the film was already far along, Stanton concluded that the story needed a different approach.[12]
Stanton took one of the early circus bug characters, Red thered ant, and changed him into the character Flik.[15] The Circus Bugs, no longer out to cheat the colony, would be embroiled in a comic misunderstanding as to why Flik was recruiting them. Lasseter agreed with this new approach, and comedy writers Donald McEnery and Bob Shaw spent a few months working on further polishing the script with Stanton.[16] The characters "Tuck and Roll" were inspired by a drawing that Stanton did of two bugs fighting when he was in the second grade.[13] Lasseter had come to envision the film as anepic in the tradition ofDavid Lean's 1962 filmLawrence of Arabia.[15][17]
For Hopper, the film's villain, Lasseter's top choice wasRobert De Niro, who repeatedly turned the part down, as did a succession of other actors.[18]Kevin Spacey met John Lasseter at the1995 Academy Awards and Lasseter asked Spacey if he would be interested in doing the voice of Hopper. Spacey was delighted and signed on immediately.[15]
A Bug's Life was the final film appearance of actorRoddy McDowall, who played Mr. Soil, dying shortly before the film's theatrical release.[19]
Art design and animation
It was more difficult for animators during the production ofA Bug's Life than that ofToy Story, as Pixar's computers ran sluggishly due to the complexity of the character models. Lasseter and Stanton had two supervising animators, Rich Quade andGlenn McQueen, to assist with directing and reviewing the animation.[5] The first sequence to be animated and rendered was the circus sequence that culminated with P.T. Flea's "Flaming Wall of Death". Lasseter placed this scene first in the pipeline because he believed it was "less likely to change".[20] After Lasseter thought it would be useful to look at a view of the world from an insect's perspective, two technicians obliged by creating a miniaturevideo camera onLego wheels, dubbed the "Bugcam".[12][21] Fastened to the end of a stick, the Bugcam could roll through grass and other terrain and send back an insect's-eye outlook. Lasseter was intrigued by the way grass, leaves and flower petals formed a translucent canopy, as if the insects were living under astained-glass ceiling. The team also later sought inspiration fromMicrocosmos (1996), a French documentary on love and violence in the insect world.[12]
The transition from treatment to storyboards took on an extra layer of complexity due to the profusion of storylines. WhileToy Story focused heavily onWoody andBuzz Lightyear, with the other toys serving mostly as sidekicks,A Bug's Life required in-depth storytelling for several major groups of characters.[16] Character design also presented a new challenge, in that the designers had to make ants appear likable. Although the animators and the art department studied insects more closely, natural realism would give way to the film's larger needs.[17] The team took out mandibles and designed the ants to stand upright, replacing their normal six legs with two arms and two legs. The grasshoppers, in contrast, received a pair of extra appendages to appear less attractive.[17] The story's scale also required software engineers to accommodate new demands. Among these was the need to handle shots with crowds of ants.[17] The film would include more than 400 such shots in the ant colony, some with as many as 800. It was impractical for animators to control them individually, but neither could the ants remain static for even a moment without appearing lifeless, or move identically. Bill Reeves, one of the film's two supervising technical directors, dealt with the quandary by leading the development of software for autonomous ants.[17] The animators would only animate four or five groups of about eight individual "universal ants". Each one of these "universal ants" would later be randomly distributed throughout the digital set. The program also allowed each ant to be automatically modified in subtle ways (e.g. different color of eye or skin, different heights, different weights, etc.). This ensured that no two ants were the same.[21] It was partly based on Reeves's invention of particle systems a decade and a half earlier, which had let animators use masses of self-guided particles to create effects like swirling dust and snow.[18]
The animators also employedsubsurface scattering—developed by Pixar co-founderEdwin Catmull during his graduate student days at theUniversity of Utah in the 1970s—to render surfaces in a more lifelike way. This would be the first time that subsurface scattering would be used in a Pixar film, and a small team at Pixar worked out the practical problems that kept it from working in animation. Catmull asked for a short film to test and showcase subsurface scattering and the result,Geri's Game (1997), was attached alongsideA Bug's Life in its theatrical release.[22]
Feud between Pixar and DreamWorks Animation
During the production ofA Bug's Life, a public feud erupted betweenDreamWorks Animation'sJeffrey Katzenberg, and Pixar'sSteve Jobs and John Lasseter. Katzenberg, former chairman of Disney's film division, had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner. In response, he formedDreamWorks SKG withSteven Spielberg andDavid Geffen and planned to rival Disney in animation.[23] After DreamWorks' acquisition ofPacific Data Images (PDI)—long Pixar's contemporary in computer animation—Lasseter and others at Pixar were dismayed to learn from the trade papers that PDI's first project at DreamWorks would be another ant film, to be calledAntz.[24] By this time, Pixar's project was well known within the animation community.[25] BothAntz andA Bug's Life center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies that struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. WhereasA Bug's Life relied chiefly on visual gags,Antz was more verbal and revolved more around satire. The script ofAntz was also heavy with adult references, whereas Pixar's film was more accessible to children.[26]
Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg.[10][23] Katzenberg had stayed in touch with Lasseter after the acrimonious Disney split, often calling to check up. In October 1995, when Lasseter was overseeing postproduction work onToy Story at theUniversal lot'sTechnicolor facility inUniversal City, where DreamWorks was also located, he called Katzenberg and dropped by with Stanton.[23][27] When Katzenberg asked what they were doing next, Lasseter described what would becomeA Bug's Life in detail. Lasseter respected Katzenberg's judgment and felt comfortable using him as a sounding board for creative ideas.[27] Lasseter had high hopes forToy Story, and he was telling friends throughout the tight-knit computer-animation business to get cracking on their own films. He told various friends, "If this hits, it's going to be like space movies afterStar Wars" for computer animation companies.[10] Lasseter later recalled, "I should have been wary. Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released."[23]
When the trades indicated production onAntz, Lasseter, feeling betrayed, called Katzenberg and asked him if it was true, who in turn asked him where he had heard the rumor. Lasseter asked again, and Katzenberg admitted it was true. Lasseter raised his voice and would not believe Katzenberg's story that a development director had pitched him the idea long ago. Katzenberg claimedAntz came from a 1991 story pitch byTim Johnson that was related to Katzenberg in October 1994.[10] Another source givesNina Jacobson, one of Katzenberg's executives, as the person responsible for theAntz pitch.[25] Lasseter, who normally did not use profane language, cursed at Katzenberg and hung up the phone.[28] Lasseter recalled that Katzenberg began explaining that Disney was "out to get him" and Lasseter felt that he was cannon fodder in Katzenberg's fight with Disney.[10][25] For his part, Katzenberg believed he was the victim of a conspiracy: Eisner had decided not to pay him his contract-required bonus, convincing Disney's board not to give him anything.[25] Katzenberg was further angered by the fact that Eisner scheduledBugs to open the same week asThe Prince of Egypt, which was then intended to be DreamWorks' first animated release.[25][28] Lasseter relayed the news to Pixar employees but kept morale high. Privately, Lasseter told other Pixar executives that he and Stanton felt let down by Katzenberg.[25]
Katzenberg moved the opening ofAntz from spring 1999 to October 1998 to compete with Pixar's release.[25][29] David Price writes in his 2008 bookThe Pixar Touch that a rumor, "never confirmed", was that Katzenberg had given PDI "rich financial incentives to induce them to whatever it would take to haveAntz ready first, despite Pixar's head start".[25][28] Jobs was furious and called Katzenberg and began yelling. Katzenberg made an offer: He would delay production ofAntz if Jobs and Disney would moveA Bug's Life so that it did not compete withThe Prince of Egypt. Jobs believed it "a blatantextortion attempt" and would not go for it, explaining that there was nothing he could do to convince Disney to change the date.[10][28] Katzenberg responded that Jobs himself had taught him how to conduct similar business long ago, explaining that Jobs had come to Pixar's rescue by making the deal forToy Story, as Pixar was near bankruptcy at that time.[18] Katzenberg said, "I was the one guy there for you back then, and now you're allowing them to use you to screw me."[28] He suggested that if Jobs wanted to, he could slow down production onA Bug's Life without telling Disney. If he did, Katzenberg said, he would putAntz on hold.[10] Lasseter also claimed Katzenberg had phoned him with the proposition, but Katzenberg denied these charges later.[20]
As the release dates for both films approached, Disney executives concluded that Pixar should keep silent on the DreamWorks battle. Lasseter publicly dismissedAntz as a "schlock version" ofA Bug's Life.[22] Lasseter, who claimed to have never seenAntz, told others that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for the day so the entire company could go see it.[10][26] Jobs and Katzenberg would not back down and the rivaling ant films provoked a press frenzy. "The bad guys rarely win," Jobs told theLos Angeles Times. In response, DreamWorks' head of marketing Terry Press stated, "Steve Jobs should take a pill."[28] Despite the successful box office performances of both films, tensions would remain high between Jobs and Katzenberg for many years. According to Jobs, Katzenberg came to Jobs after the success ofShrek (2001) and insisted he had never heard the pitch forA Bug's Life, reasoning that his settlement with Disney would have given him a share of the profits if that were so.[30] Although the contention left all parties estranged, Pixar and PDI employees kept up the old friendships that had arisen from spending a long time together in computer animation.[20]
The film's score was composed and conducted byRandy Newman.Walt Disney Records released the soundtrack on October 27, 1998.[31] The album's first track is a song called "The Time of Your Life" written and performed by Newman, while all the other 19 tracks are orchestral cues. Although the album was out of print physically in the United States during the 2000s, in June 2018Universal Music Japan announced that a re-mastered edition would be released on October 3, 2018, along with other soundtrack albums from theWalt Disney Records pre-2018 catalogue. The album is also available for purchase oniTunes. The time duration is 47 minutes and 32 seconds.[32]
A few days before the world premiere, the film was screened atCamp David as the movie theater in theWhite House was under renovation.[33][34] A day after the screening, the crew visited theOval Office in the White House.[33][35]
The film's world premiere was on November 14, 1998, at theEl Capitan Theatre inLos Angeles.[1] It opened at the El Capitan on November 20, 1998[36] before opening nationwide on November 25.
A teaser trailer forStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was attached to the screenings ofA Bug's Life.[37] As with other films such asMeet Joe Black,The Siege andThe Waterboy, moviegoers bought tickets for the sole purpose of seeing the trailer and leaving before the film started.[38] Within a few weeks into the film's theatrical release, newouttakes were added to the theatrical prints.[39] Because the film is animated, no actual outtakes exist; they are animated specifically for the outtakes sequence.
Home media
A Bug's Life was the first home video release to be entirely created using a digital transfer. Every frame of animation was converted from the film's computer data, as opposed to the standard analog film-to-videotape transfer process. This allowed for the film'sDVD release to retain its original 2.35:1 widescreen format.[40][41] The DVD was released on April 20, 1999, alongside aVHS release which was presented in a standard 1.33:1 "fullscreen" format. The film's fullscreen transfer was performed by entirely "reframing" the film shot by shot; more than half of the film's footage was modified by Pixar animators to fit within the film's aspect ratio. Several characters and objects were moved closer together to avoid being cut out of frame.[40] The film's VHS release was the best-selling VHS in the United Kingdom, with 1.76 million units sold by the end of the year.[42] On August 1, 2000, these editions were re-released on VHS and DVD under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection banner.[43]
On May 27, 2003, a 2-disc Collector's Edition DVD was released. ThisTHX-certified DVD release once again gives the option of viewing the film in Widescreen or Full Frame.[44] The second disc features numerous bonus features, such as a set-top game and aFinding Nemo featurette.[45]
A Bug's Life grossed $371,940 at the El Capitan in its first five days before expanding nationwide.[2] The film grossed a record $45.7 million during the five-dayThanksgiving holiday weekend,[48][2] including $33.3 million for the three-day weekend,[49] ranking first at the box office, beating outThe Rugrats Movie,Enemy of the State andBabe: Pig in the City.[50][51] Its five-day Thanksgiving opening gross surpassed the previous record holder held by101 Dalmatians.[52] This record was surpassed byToy Story 2 the following year.[53] With a total gross of $12.5 million,A Bug's Life achieved the second-highest first two-day Thanksgiving gross, behindBack to the Future Part II.[54] It managed to retain the top position in its second weekend, making $17.1 million and outgrossingPsycho.[55] During its third weekend, the film's number one spot was taken byStar Trek: Insurrection, but it still overperformedJack Frost while earning $11.1 million.[56][57]
In its first international weekend, the film grossed $3.2 million from 5 countries, setting record openings for an animated film in Australia ($1.6 million) and Thailand ($400,000), with the latter surpassingMulan.[58] Furthermore, it made $2 million during its opening weekend in Mexico, which was the country's second-highest at the time, afterGodzilla.[59]
By late December 1998,A Bug's Life had earned over $100 million. Altogether, several in-year 1998 films combined withTitanic pulled $7 billion in North America, propelling the film industry to a record year at the box office.[60]
In February 1999, the film also had a record opening for an animated film in the United Kingdom with an opening weekend gross of £4.2 million ($6.9 million), surpassingToy Story.[61] Upon opening, it beatShakespeare in Love andStepmom to reach the number one spot.[62] The film would remain so for five weeks until it was overtaken byPatch Adams in its sixth weekend.[63][64] It also made $556,000 in the Philippines, which was the country's second-highest for an animated film, behindThe Lion King.[65] In Japan, the film endedArmageddon's 13-week-long run in the number one spot, earning $1.7 million.[64]
At the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed $162.8 million in the United States and Canada and $200.4 million in foreign countries, pushing its worldwide gross to $363.3 million, surpassing the competition fromDreamWorks Animation'sAntz,[2] which earned $171.8 million worldwide.[66]
Critical response
A Bug's Life was mostly well-received upon release.[67] On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 92% based on 91 reviews and an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A Bug's Life is a rousing adventure that blends animated thrills with witty dialogue and memorable characters – and another smashing early success for Pixar."[68] Another review aggregator,Metacritic, gave the film a score of 77 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[69]
Todd McCarthy ofVariety wrote, "Lasseter and Pixar broke new technical and aesthetic ground in the animation field withToy Story, and here they surpass it in both scope and complexity of movement while telling a story that overlapsAntz in numerous ways."[70]James Berardinelli ofReelViews gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "A Bug's Life, likeToy Story, develops protagonists we can root for, and places them in the midst of a fast-moving, energetic adventure."[71]Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing "WillA Bug's Life suffer by coming out so soon afterAntz? Not any more than one thriller hurts the chances for the next one.Antz may even help business forA Bug's Life by demonstrating how many dramatic and comedic possibilities can be found in an anthill."[72]Kenneth Turan of theLos Angeles Times gave the film four out of five stars, writing "WhatA Bug's Life demonstrates is that when it comes to bugs, the most fun ones to hang out with hang exclusively with the gang at Pixar."[73] Peter Stack of theSan Francisco Chronicle gave the film four out of four stars, stating "A Bug's Life is one of the great movies – a triumph of storytelling and character development, and a whole new ballgame for computer animation. Pixar Animation Studios has raised the genre to an astonishing new level".[74]
Richard Corliss ofTime magazine wrote, "The plot matures handsomely; the characters neatly converge and combust; the gags pay off with emotional resonance."[75]Owen Gleiberman ofEntertainment Weekly gave the film a B, saying "A Bug's Life may be the single most amazing film I've ever seen that I couldn't fall in love with."[76] Paul Clinton ofCNN wrote, "A Bug's Life is a perfect movie for the holidays. It contains a great upbeat message ... it's wonderful to look at ... it's wildly inventive ... and it's entertaining for both adults and kids."[77] Michael Wilmington of theChicago Tribune gave the film three and a half stars out of four, and compared the movie to "Akira Kurosawa'sSeven Samurai (with a little of another art-film legend,Federico Fellini, tossed in)," where "As inSamurai, the colony here is plagued every year by the arrival of bandits."[78] On the contrary, Stephen Hunter ofThe Washington Post wrote, "Clever as it is, the film lacks charm. One problem: too many bugs. Second, bigger world for two purposes: to feed birds and to irk humans."[79]
In the years since its release,A Bug's Life has been regarded by critics and fans to be a Pixar film that, in contrast to its successors, has become largely forgotten by audiences.[82][83][84] While recognized as solidifying Pixar's success, the film has been seen as the studio'ssophomore slump in the wake of the critically successfulToy Story,[82][83][85][86][87] and inhibited by being released directly before the equally reveredToy Story 2.[82] Pixar's feud with DreamWorks as a result ofAntz has also been regarded as a factor inA Bug's Life's legacy.[87][88]
Critics have generally rankedA Bug's Life to be one of Pixar's weaker releases.[83][86][87][89][90] While it has been seen as "charming",[84][90] as well as an "ambitious" film[91] with pioneering animation for its time,[82][83][91] others have described it as "adequate",[89] and appealing more to a younger demographic.[90] Nonetheless, the film's characters, voice acting, and humor have received lasting praise.[83][84][85][86][91]
The film's theatrical and video releases includeGeri's Game, anAcademy Award winning Pixar short made in 1997, a year before this film was released.[92]
A game, based on the film, was developed byTraveller's Tales andTiertex Design Studios and released bySony Computer Entertainment,Disney Interactive,THQ andActivision for various systems. The game's storyline was similar to the film's, with a few changes. However, unlike the film, the game received mixed reviews.[93] Aggregating review website GameRankings gave the Nintendo 64 version 54.40%,[94] the PlayStation version 51.90%[95] and the Game Boy Color version 36.63%.[96] GameSpot gave the PlayStation version a 2.7/10, concluding that it was "obvious that Disney was more interested in producing a $40 advertisement for its movie than in developing a playable game."[97] IGN gave the Nintendo 64 version a 6.8/10, praising the presentation and sound by stating "It was upbeat, cheery look and feel very much like the movie of the same name with cheery, happy tunes and strong sound effects" but again criticized the gameplay by saying the controls were "sluggish with stuttering framerate and tired gameplay mechanics",[98] while they gave the PlayStation version a 4/10, criticizing the gameplay as slow and awkward but praising the presentation as cinematic.[99]
^Sterngold, James (December 4, 1998)."At the Movies; Bug's Word: Yaddanyafoo".The New York Times.Archived from the original on January 29, 2014. RetrievedFebruary 19, 2017.Tuck is older by a few milliseconds,...
^Wilmington, Michael (November 25, 1998)."'A Bug's Life".Chicago Tribune.Archived from the original on January 4, 2018. RetrievedJanuary 7, 2018.The players—whose colorful members include Madeline Kahn as Gypsy the moth, Michael McShane as the Hungarian pill bug brothers Tuck & Roll and, in his farewell appearance, Roddy McDowall as the grandfatherly Mr. Soil—all help make "Bug's Life" special.
^Corliss, Richard (November 30, 1998)."Cinema: Bugs Funny".Time.Archived from the original on July 20, 2014. RetrievedOctober 21, 2013.
^Owen Gleiberman (November 20, 1998)."A Bug's Life Review".Entertainment Weekly.Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. RetrievedOctober 21, 2013.
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