''Pixels'' is a 2010 French animated short film written and directed by Patrick Jean. It is about an invasion of New York City by classic 8-bit

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

characters, such as those from ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...

'', '' Pac-Man'' and others. The film won "the Annecy Cristal" (''le Cristal d'Annecy'') for Best Short Film at the 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Plot

On a Brooklyn sidewalk, a man walks over to a trash can, leaves a 1980s-era television by it, and walks away. After a few seconds, the television suddenly reactivates and an

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data bu ...

picture of a bomb appears. When its fuse runs out, the television's screen shatters and releases a cloud of

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

s (illustrated as

voxel In computing, a voxel is a representation of a value on a three-dimensional regular grid, akin to the two-dimensional pixel. Voxels are frequently used in the Data visualization, visualization and analysis of medical imaging, medical and scient ...

s because of the three-dimensionality of the scene). They fly over to

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and form into various characters from 1980s arcade video games.

start to shoot downwards; on contact, the projectiles cause a delivery truck and two taxis to degenerate into pixels. A cloud of pixels then flies down a subway station, eventually forming into Pac-Man, which eats subway trains and stations as it travels through the tunnels. Its progress is shown on the subway status display, similar to the cleared-away dots on the original game screen. Giant recreations of tetrominoes from ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

'' then fall from the sky and match up with floors of skyscrapers. One building gets a "Tetris", eliminating several mid-level floors as its top crashes onto the remainder of the building. Recreations of the Vaus from '' Arkanoid'' appear and destroy one of the piers of the Brooklyn Bridge, resulting in the structure collapsing.

Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the List of Don ...

then throws a barrel from the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...

which knocks down a traffic light and damaging a

fire hydrant A fire hydrant, fireplug, firecock (archaic), hydrant riser or Johnny Pump is a connection point by which firefighters can tap into a water supply. It is a component of active fire protection. Underground fire hydrants have been used in Europe a ...

, the latter of which sprays out suddenly pixelated water, while Frogger is seen trying to cross traffic in the form of pixelated cars. Finally, a giant pixelated bomb is shown. When it explodes, everything around it becomes pixelated. The effect envelopes the entire cityscape and eventually the whole of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, transfiguring it into a single giant pixel, which continues rotating as it drifts away. The end credits are shown as a high score list.

Feature film adaptation

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

and Happy Madison Productions developed a film loosely based on this short, in which the attacking video games behave more like an

alien invasion Alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and films, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade Earth to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resource ...

rather than a

natural disaster A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community brought by natural phenomenon or Hazard#Natural hazard, hazard. Some examples of natural hazards include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides ...

. Tim Herlihy and Tim Dowling wrote the script, which Chris Columbus directed.

Adam Sandler Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, producer and screenwriter. Primarily a comedic leading actor in films, List of awards and nominations received by Adam Sandler, his accolades include an Independent Sp ...

, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage, Brian Cox, Ashley Benson and

Michelle Monaghan Michelle Lynn Monaghan ( , born March 23, 1976) is an American actress. She has starred in the films ''Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'' (2005), ''Gone Baby Gone'' (2007), ''Made of Honor'' (2008), ''Eagle Eye'' (2008), ''Trucker (film), Trucker'' (2008), '' ...

star in the film. The feature film shot principal photography in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

in June 2014 using downtown streets decorated to resemble

Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. It was released on July 24, 2015.

References

External links

''Pixels'' by Patrick Jean
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pixels 2010 animated short films 2010 films French animated short films Films without speech Apocalyptic films Films about video games Films set in New York City French science fiction short films Short films with live action and animation Animated films without speech Animated films based on video games 2010s French films Annecy Cristal–winning films Films shot in New York City

Plot

Feature film adaptation

See also

References

External links