Steve Jobs's Big Friday: Pixar Ratatouille launch (oh, and something called the iPhone, apparently)

Okay, I admit it, I'm not-particularly-secretly a bit of a Disney geek. Until the groundbreaking Toy Story, I did believe that computers were there to enhance hand-drawn animation, not to replace it. But then Pixar swept in, and now I *heart* Steve Jobs for three reasons. He gave the world the MacBook Pro and the iPod and to top it all he's Disney's biggest shareholder. Hence today's slightly unusual column, which is really just an excuse to vent my geek love of all things animated.

In the US, Pixar's new film, Ratatouille, debuts today. I've seen the trailers and it definitely looks like it's going to be a stellar hit. There's no doubt that this is as much down to deft screenwriting as it is to expert animation, but it really is yet another nail in the coffin of traditional animation.

Is that a good thing? Instinctively, I say no, as like most people with any interest in history I automatically want to salvage any skill or technology that has served us well thus far. But the techie side of me also wants bigger, better, more, now.

Animation is a slightly unusual development, too. Usually when we move from one form of technology to another it's because it saves us time or is easier to produce. Computer animated films take just as long to produce as a standard animated film. Of course, we can do things in that time that would take unthinkable years to do on paper (the individual movement of the hair on Monsters Inc.'s Sully, for example), but still, it's not really taking us any less time (and certainly no less Herculean effort) to produce the finished product.

We've still got a long way to go, as well. Notice how Pixar in particular focusses on toys, fish, rats, monsters... very few people. Ratatouille's animators have self-consciously gone for comedy, Aristocats-style human figures, because as even the likes of Final Fantasy showed, we can't really render realistic humans yet.

Then again, you might ask, why would we want to? A mixture of live-action and CGI works perfectly well, thanks, becoming increasingly seamless, so shouldn't animation stick to making, well... cartoons? I'm inclined to say yes, because animation offers a uniquely magical, otherworldly approach which is surely the very reason for its existence and popularity in the first place.

So what's next for computer animation? Where else is there left to go? After tackling the fishy, the furry and the superhero, what now? I can't help thinking that, developing a theme which began to appear in The Incredibles, an exploration of space is on the cards. I would be interested in your opinions, and I for one can't wait to see the technology that will render Toy Story old hat.

One last thing: (and I echo CNET news here), it would take a cold heart (or a cast-iron Microsoft fangirl) to fail to toast Jobs's savvy and chutzpah today. Mazal tov, Mr. Jobs.

Alex is Deputy Editor of Shiny Shiny and is working from home due to a persistent lurgy. She will not break out The Jungle Book later, honest.