User Reviews

This is yet another Disney/Pixar computer-animated short shown before their main feature which in this case is Monsters University. This one has a different look as initially, it looks like real live action with the depiction of city streets in the rain. But then, the title character comes to life-complete with eyes and a smile-and as the score starts playing, so do many of the city's inanimate objects also come to life. And then, this blue umbrella sees a red one and...well, watch the short if you want to know. In summary, The Blue Umbrella has a wonderful charming atmosphere that permeates throughout the brief running time and should leave a long enough smile on your face as you wait for the main feature to begin...

The animation and sound design in this are surreal. The story is super simple and bland but what can I say, sometimes I'm just tryna feel good.

This short made me feel good.

I do think this was a great animated short. PIXAR really outdid themselves with the hyper-realistic CGI in here, and the simple story of a blue umbrella falling for a red umbrella in a sea of indifferent, monochromatic umbrellas. The subtle expressions of their surrounding environment can really captivate future animators who're looking for something to build off of.

Unfortunately, it's slightly awkward to watch in a theater, as it comes before Monsters University, and it makes me feel as though some people may have walked into the wrong movie. I really want them to enjoy it, but because of its placement, it's hard to do so.

I'm sure PIXAR had good intentions placing it before Monsters University started, but with a bunch of kids coming in to watch MU, I don't think it will garner much positive attention. I, for one, like it, but parents of rambunctious kids may not find it funny when their kid starts to act out from boredom. Maybe those kids will appreciate this short in the future, but not today.

Maybe not one of Pixar's absolute best short films in the same way Geri's Game, One Man Band, Presto and Knick-Knack are, but that can be ignored because The Blue Umbrella doesn't disappoint at all. It accompanies Monsters University wonderfully, one of those cases where the short film and the feature are about equal in rating and quality and not a case of the short film being better or the feature being so. The visuals are stunning to watch, with everything looking so real and there are a lot of lavish colours. The music matches the quality of the visuals, it is understated and gentle but immensely charming also. The story, effective in its simplicity, keeps ones attention even with the brief(perhaps too brief?) running time and never feels too obvious, it has a lot of whimsy and heart, as well being very touching. And of course it is very charming too, from the very start right through the ending. The ending was especially well done in this being heartfelt and touching respect. That is not to say though that The Blue Umbrella isn't without funny moments, there are some but done subtly and gently without being in-your-face. The characters are simple but really sweet, carrying the story beautifully. Overall, beautiful and heartfelt, not one of the best Pixar short films but it didn't need to be to be good. All it needed really was to be of at least good quality, and it ended up to be great quality. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The Blue Umbrella (2013)

*** (out of 4)

Fun short from Pixar, which was shown before their feature MONSTERS UNIVERSITY. This film here deals with a blue umbrella who sees a red umbrella and quickly falls in love. The rest of the film pretty much as the blue umbrella going through a wide range of events trying to make its way over to the red one. This idea might seem quite simple but director Saschka Unseld does a very good job at making it move at a very good pace and also keeping the viewer interested in what's going on. The most amazing thing about this short is how real all the animation looks. There were times when we see a large number of umbrellas from the top that you'll actually think you're looking at something real and not just a piece of animation. There's also some funny moments where various items "come to life" to try and prevent the blue umbrella from being hurt. I'm not sure how much kids are going to enjoy this one but parents should be fascinated by the animation and the style, which really looks like some avant garde stuff from the 1920s.

I didn't think that you can actually capture the vibration of a city through umbrellas. I love to see open-minded people that have crazy ideas. And I love more to see their ideas put into practice. This short is the case. Together with the soundtrack, which is as cool as the one used in "Piper", Pixar won my heat for the 2nd time.

I know this is animation and we're supposed to be dazzled, but I had the opposite reaction. I did love it, I do marvel at it, but it's so well done I allowed myself to believe it was real. That's the goal, I think, of this kind of animation work, this advancement and it was so advanced beyond what we've come to expect I said YES and went along with it. Of course, I know the truth ... but my 7-year old nephew who watched it with me did not think it was animation. For him and for children, inanimate objects can come to life, they can have faces, they can have drama. So I watched from his perspective and it was marvelous.

I hope this kind of work continues and becomes so accepted that audiences will stop talking about the technical and come back to the story. (Or as much.)

I will note that in my opinion, the storytellers worked very hard to prevent any decision of male or female for their humans. There was only one moment when I thought "that's a woman" -- otherwise, it could have been two men, two women, one of each ... I wonder if people are assuming male/female because of the colors of the umbrellas and boots? Or because the umbrellas' faces have been rendered with choice of male/female? Then again, that's ME making an assumption, that long eyelashes and coy looks are female. And that's not necessarily so!

As far as the idea of coupling it with MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, I think it's a great idea. As I said, I watched it with my nephew and he has watched it over and over and over again, making my purchase of the DVD even more worth its value than if he was just watching an obviously animated movie. I'm happy for him that he also got a smaller packaged gift of suspension of disbelief.

This simple story is about two umbrellas who meet in the city one rainy night. But, they are soon separated and it sure looks as if the boy umbrella will never again meet the lady umbrella. As far as the story for "The Blue Umbrella" goes, it's good….but that's NOT the reason to watch the film—especially since the story is incredibly simple and lacks complexity. Instead, it's like Pixar's showing off to the world just how good they can do CGI, as the film often looks like it was filmed live---it's THAT good. This is especially true at the very beginning. Then, slowly, it becomes obvious that it's NOT real, as you see an anthropomorphic city—but one that is amazingly well rendered. In fact, it's so well done it makes you wonder just how much longer it will be until they create films where you simply cannot tell it's not filmed live and with real live actors!

UPDATE: Since I reviewed this film many months ago, the list of Oscar nominated animated shorts was released and I went to a special showing of the nominees today. "The Blue Umbrella" was not nominated and I assume this is because another Disney short, "Get a Horse!" was nominated (and I think each studio can submit only one short--though I could be wrong here). "Get a Horse!", in my opinion, is by far the best of the films I saw today--but "The Blue Umbrella" was awfully close. Confused? Well, in the last few years, in addition to showing the five nominees, the show also present a few so-called 'Commended Films'--ones that weren't nominated but which are awfully good--and "The Blue Umbrella" was one of them. Sadly, "The Blue Umbrella" was better than any of the nominees other than "Get a Horse!" and will probably be overshadowed by it. But it's a nice and lovable film on it's own merit.

I found The Blue Umbrella to be an almost surreal animated short with a simplicity to its animation which actually hides how complex some of it is.

The concept is very simple. One rainy night the people in the city are walking with their black umbrellas. However one blue umbrella is smiling in the rain and becomes enchanted with a red umbrella and decides to be with it.

Both umbrellas bring colour to their world, other objects aid the blue umbrella in its quest.

Amidst a sea of black umbrellas, a blue umbrella falls for a red umbrella and risks everything to be with her.

Holy cow, just looking at the almost unanimously glowing reviews here you would think that The Blue Umbrella was a work of both pure genius and originality, revolutionary in terms of storytelling and in technical execution. It's not. It's an overly twee short blessed with excellent CGI animation that frequently verges on realism but saddled with a predictable narrative and a saccharine sweet ending.

I'm also rather surprised that no-one has mentioned just how weird it is to see umbrellas—inanimate objects with zero control over where they go—fall in love; it's a bizarre concept that just doesn't work for me (and one that raises too many questions in my mind about how they might take their relationship to the next level).

5/10, largely for the technical skill that went into creating such photo-realistic animation.

'THE BLUE UMBRELLA': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another magical Disney/Pixar computer animated short; this one tells the story of two umbrellas that fall in love in a rainy/singing city. The blue umbrella must brave all sorts of harsh weather conditions in order to unite with the object of his affection (a red umbrella). The film was directed by Saschka Unseld, who's worked in the animation department on such popular Pixar animated features as 'TOY STORY 3', 'CARS 2' and 'BRAVE'. It's a seven minute short that debuted in theaters before 'MONSTERS UNIVERSITY' and it features a new rendering technique for lighting, shading and compositing called global illumination. The visuals are breathtaking and the music (by Jon Brion) is very moving. It's not quite as inspiring and emotionally moving as Disney's greatest animated short film ('PAPERMAN', from last year) but it's still an enormously impressive animated work of art that is far superior to the feature it accompanied, once again (in my opinion). My favorite part of seeing Disney and Pixar films in the theater is getting to see the animated shorts that often precede them. This one didn't let me down.

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The Blue Umbrella is yet again a brilliant and heartwarming short film that Pixar pulled off very well.When it first came on before Monsters University I thought it seemed really stupid,i said to myself,'how am I suppose to feel any love for an umbrella?',but they did it and I actually enjoyed this short even more than some previous shorts Pixar did (La Luna,Lifted,One Man Band,etc.) and I was so surprised that I cared so much about this male umbrella reuniting with the female umbrella,and the animation was just beautiful.Its not Pixar's best short,but anyone who's a fan of their previous shorts will definitely appreciate this.

A blue umbrella meets a red umbrella that he falls in love with,when the two separate,the blue umbrella escapes from his owners hands to find the female umbrella.

The use of a cityscape to tell a meet-cute romance story between two umbrellas is very cute. I like how the animation of the "faces" was all fairly simple and largely abstract. The short finds all sorts of way to produce mouths and eyes of its cast of characters while retaining much of the harsh geometry of cities. That is the feature I like the most. The animation for the most part doesn't humanize its characters *fully.* Yet there is a clear exception to abstraction from the human form: the umbrellas are clearly coded as masculine and feminine. It is not just the colors (that I could have put up with) but the eyebrows, overall shape and eyelashes code the blue umbrella as male and the red (pink) umbrella as female. No other object-including umbrellas!-is gendered in this way. There's no rhythm or consistency in doing so. The story can be a romance between umbrellas.

The next short on Disney Plus was "The Blue Umbrella" a technical marvel that Pixar provided alongside "Monsters University" back in 2013.

A blue umbrella falls for a red umbrella in a rainy city. Their owners though are headed in opposite directions, the city though recognises the situation and tries it's hardest to bring the two together.

"The Blue Umbrella" is undeniably impressive to look at. The use of lighting and water effects is excellently done and the buildings and objects that facilitate this story are near photo realistic. That said, it's a little more of a tech demo than a real narrative and though it wrings as much emotion as it possible could from those objects, and their near tragic but ultimately heart-warming plot. Those visuals though are matched by really good sound design, linking the visual action to the score.

Technically marvellous, but a bit too short of story for my taste.

Two umbrellas that are blue and red met each other on a rainy day. They fall in love so they connected to the owners of the umbrella. It's too simple even if this is a short movie. And the characters are boring to describe.