Director(s): Sanjay Patel
Date Released: 2015
Chalk Sanjay’s Super Team up as the fourth Pixar short to outdo its feature-length film.
To be fair, The Good Dinosaur wasn’t putting up much competition—yet even without such comparison, Sanjay’s Super Team is, on its own, an entertaining and touching short. The “mostly true” story follows a young boy named Sanjay, eagerly turning on his television to watch a superhero cartoon. On the other side of the room is Sanjay’s father, performing Morning Prayer at his Hindu shrine. The two briefly compete over noise (Sanjay with the TV volume and dad with a prayer bell) before dad makes Sanjay come over to pray. Sanjay reluctantly complies, but soon begins daydreaming about the Hindu deities as superheroes, fighting against the villainous Ravana.
The short’s animation takes a unique form during the divine fight sequence, becoming sharper with shading and lighting, as well as richly vibrant in color. The fight itself is pretty cool: an expressive, lighthearted battle based on Eastern culture. Sanjay soon snaps back to reality, where the short then concludes on a touching scene between father and son. Sanjay’s Super Team succeeds with its lighthearted adventure and moments of tenderness—more so than its subsequent ninety-minute feature is able to.
