In his speech, the full video of which was discovered by Mashable, Jobs presciently compared computer-animated films to such game-changing breakthroughs as sound and Technicolor, even as Toy Story had yet to be released in theaters.
I want to talk for a minute about a place in history. The computer graphics community has been climbing the wall of the castle for 20 years, standing on each others shoulders and made immense progress as we've seen today. And finally we have now scaled the castle wall and we're in the castle now with Toy Story and I think that's an achievement that many in this room should take proud ownership in.
And we should take a few minutes today, on the hundredth anniversary of the invention of the motion picture, to contemplate the contributions that we're making. We have now pioneered, I think really, the next major offshoot of the motion picture. It's going to be a medium in its own right, it's going to have unique talents in itself that we will find boundaries for as we explore it over the next many years.
Before Toy Story, computer graphics were used for either short films or to augment live action movies with special effects. Since Toy Story, there has been a boom in the production of computer-animated films and less of the traditional hand-drawn animated films. In early November, Pixar Animation Studios named its main building in honor of Steve Jobs.
Article Link: Steve Jobs on Computer Animation as a Milestone for Film History, Before the Release of 'Toy Story'