Time & Perspective Quote by John Lasseter

Lasseter’s line is a polite demolition of a comforting myth: that technology is the magic. Cinema, he argues, has never been intrinsically entertaining in the way studios sell it when they’re hawking the next “revolutionary” format. Sound didn’t do the job. Color didn’t. CGI didn’t. Not even the camera itself. The medium is a container; the charge comes from the choices inside it.

The intent is defensive and daring at once. Defensive because it pushes back on the idea that Pixar’s success was a byproduct of shiny new tools, as if computers did the storytelling. Daring because it quietly raises the bar: if the medium can’t entertain by itself, creators can’t hide behind novelty. You don’t get credit for inventing a pipeline or upgrading a projector. You get credit for constructing moments that make an audience lean forward.

The subtext is also an industry critique. Hollywood periodically behaves like a gadget company, treating viewers as early adopters who will pay to witness the next technical leap. Lasseter’s claim reframes entertainment as a human problem, not an engineering one: character, timing, emotion, surprise. It’s a craftsman’s rebuttal to marketing copy.

Context matters here: Lasseter emerged when CGI was being positioned as both threat and salvation, and Pixar was often reduced to “the computer animation guys.” His quote insists that tools are morally neutral. They can amplify imagination or merely polish emptiness. The real medium, he implies, is story. Everything else is packaging.