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If you have ever wanted to rummage through the books in Andy’s bedroom from Toy Story or inspect the vintage trinkets lining the shelves of Carl Fredricksen’s home in Up, you’re in luck.
Scenes from some of Pixar’s most beloved films have been meticulously recreated in Wembley, north London, as part of the newly opened immersive Mundo Pixar Experience.
Visitors can shrink to toy-size in Andy’s towering bedroom, salsa over a dancefloor admiring Día de los Muertos decorations inspired by Coco, or experience Finding Nemo’s shimmering undersea world, surrounded by colourful coral and translucent jellyfish.
Jay Ward, a creative director at Pixar, said the exhibition, which features 14 film sets from the Disney-owned animation studio, sought to recapture the studio’s trademark attention to detail.
“We are film-makers and we love to really lavish attention to detail on our movies, which you can tell when you watch them again and again. Same thing with Mundo Pixar – we want to give a lavish amount of details and hidden Easter eggs and fun things,” he said.
The sets were “about 98% authentic”, Ward said, with graphics coming directly from Pixar, though there were “some creative liberties” taken to make the spaces more engaging for visitors, including added photo opportunities.
Mundo Pixar Experience also highlights Pixar’s painstaking research process – from studying behaviour in daycare centres to understanding how children interact with toys to using dogs as facial-expression models for Finding Nemo’s fish.
The exhibition forms part of a wider trend for immersive entertainment, after recent successes including the Van Gogh immersive experience, Netflix’s Stranger Things pop-ups, and Studio Ghibli’s set walk-throughs in Japan.
Ward believes the exhibition resonates particularly strongly with families who have grown u[ with Pixar since Toy Story debuted in 1995.
“There’s something universal about our storytelling that has a deep emotional connection. It has an authenticity to it. These stories resonate with people. It may be toys or monsters or fish, but it’s a human story that you can relate to,” he said.
Ward says he has seen visitors recreating scenes from Pixar films: “They’re like, ‘Andy’s coming.’ They lie flat, like they’re a dead toy.”
The exhibition opens before two new Pixar releases: next month’s original film Hoppers, about a girl who uses technology to turn herself into animals, and Toy Story 5 in June.
Ward said he hoped Hoppers – which he described as “wild, very funny and very unorthodox” – might eventually find a place within the exhibition.
He acknowledged a degree of sequel fatigue among some viewers in the run-up to Toy Story 5, but said Pixar’s plan was to continue striking “a balance”.
He added: “The sequels are beloved [intellectual property] that people know. Have you a little bit less of a risk in making a sequel? In some regards – but it also helps fuel the desire for new originals.”
Ward noted that as films approached their 20th anniversaries, interest often spiked as a new generation of parents wanted to share childhood favourites with their own children. Cars, released in 2006, is “coming back into the popular consciousness again”, which could pave the way for another instalment.
Pixar is learning how to adapt to shifting audience habits: more viewing at home, fewer cinema trips, shorter attention spans and a move towards quicker cuts in film-making. Even so, the studio aimed to retain its focus on producing “high-quality full-length films”, he said.
“I do think that attention spans tend to be shorter. People are distracted. People are looking at a mobile device while they’re watching a movie now, which is incredible. You’re hearing stories of people saying: ‘Oh, you have to reiterate the plot three or four times to get it’,” Ward added.
“I hope we’re not at that point. [But] if so, do we find a smarter way to do that? So it doesn’t feel like you’re beating people over the head with something.”
