Do you remember the very first time your parents took you to the movies Kind of hard, isn't it How old were you How did you react What did you see I can't answer for you, but there is a good chance that you were quite young, that you enjoyed it, and that the movie was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Or more likely, Bambi or another Disney classic.

Yes, most of us were introduced to the magic of movies via cute little bunnies, sleepy princesses and fearless heroes drawn frame by frame by talented and patient artists. There was only one King in the animation industry: the Disney studios. And we were raised with their dreams. Those dreams evolved as time passed, and the same studio teamed up with Pixar in the nineties to bring us Toy Story, the world's first entirely computer generated film, and a huge box office success.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, former head of animation at Disney, was one of DreamWorks co-founders and his own goal in this venture was to produce animated films that would challenge the quality of his previous company's efforts. When it came to develop the second CG feature-length animated film in history, an alliance was to be made with Pixar's rival: Pacific Data Images, or PDI. Today the company is known as PDI/DreamWorks, a leading and award winning animation studio, working not only on future animated films, but producing as well feature visual effects for other studios and films and advertising spots for a variety of companies. Their digital touch has been felt on such films as A.I., the Batman sequels, T2 or Mission: Impossible 2, and spots for Sony, Visa, Coca-Cola, Gatorade etc. Their collaboration with our favorite studio gave us Antz and Shrek.

20 years earlier, when Pixar and PDI were just created respectively by John Lasseter and Eric Darnell, a friendly rivalry established itself between the two studios. The two founders went to university together and knew each other well. Each team would come up with innovative short films or ads, and all major awards in the industry were usually going to one or the other. It was a battle for quality and technology, but fought with appreciation and respect for the rival's work. This still goes on today, although the war between their respective mother companies for the 3D animation crown is apparently starting to change all that as the pressure for box office success grows harder.

Nevertheless, for once the audience was not forgotten: this competition has led to excellent films from both sides, if certainly different in tone. Pixar's films are cuter and very Disney; while PDI chose to explore stories with a darker edge that would appeal as well to older viewers. Much has been said between the similarity of A Bug's Life and Antz, for instance, but these are two very different films. John Lasseter's movie is full of cute cartoon insects, with pastel colors; while Eric Darnell prefers to work on the realism of facial expressions, and on camera movements and shots that could be out of a live action feature film. Which is actually the feel of Antz, while A Bug's Life stays firmly in its crazy cartoon roots.

Released before its rival, Antz grossed more than $170 million at the box-office worldwide and received rave reviews. Its excellent script was performed by an all-star cast that most producers would dream of as an ensemble cast: Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Lopez, Dan Aykroyd among others. It would loose the box-office battle to A Bug's Life, but had showed Disney and the general public that PDI was now a new player in town.

PDI's next project, Shrek, became one of the biggest hits of 2001. The "greatest fairy tale never told" took CG animation to the next level, presenting incredibly detailed and realistic environments, and for the first time, convincing human characters. The realism of the facial animation is extraordinary, especially in Princess Fiona's character. Even effects reputed difficult such as fire, mud, water beated hands down all that had been seen until then. The animators actually achieved such a degree of realism in creating the human characters that Katzenberg had to ask them to rub out some of it so that they would not feel out of place in the animated movie! This was a good call, as it would be weird to see a human character as realistic as the ones achieved soon later by Square Pictures' Final Fantasy in Shrek. Once again, a top script helped transform the movie into something else than just a technical achievement, voiced by a stellar cast including Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz. Poking fun at the Disney Empire while turning the fairy tale concept on its head and staying faithful to its formula at the same time, the film grossed $260 million in North America alone. Combined with international box-office and DVD sales, the receipt gets close to $1 billion.

It's understandable then that a sequel is already in the works. Its story is of course top secret, but I understand that it could involve Shrek and Fiona coming back from their honeymoon and visiting Fiona's parents, who are unaware of their daughter's fate (what, they weren't invited to the wedding then). Time will tell if this will be more "Meet the Ogres" than the twisted fairytale that the original was, but one thing is for sure: we can expect origina lity and breathtaking animation. And Donkey is apparently back too for more laughs!

Shrek 2 is just one of the projects for the feature animation branch of PDI/DreamWorks. Currently in production as well, Tusker will tell of a herd of elephants venturing in Asia and over the Himalayas, enduring a journey of discovery, adventure and danger. Stars Jodie Foster and Morgan Freeman will lend their voices to the wise creatures.

Another project in development is Madagascar. The film will follow a group of animals from the New York Zoo who are sent back to the wild by animal rights activists and end up on the island of Madagascar in Africa and have to learn to survive. This comedy will feature the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Jason Alexander.

Finally, PDI announced recently that one of their new projects would be an underwater pirate adventure called Sharkslayer. Interestingly, Disney and Pixar are said to be developing a similar project, so we can look forward for another battle between the two mighty studios.

But this kind of competition is healthy for us the audience: no matter how long was the animation industry dominated by Disney, today's public seems more ready than ever to pay to watch animated movies. The reason is simple: most of them are a better experience than live movies, with better stories and in the case of CG animated films, that all-important factor: they show you something you have never seen before . As Star Wars and Jurassic Park did before them, they take you to uncharted places and generate repeated business and huge DVD sales: a patented formula for a box-office hit. It's a new kind of animation for a new millennium, and you can bet that all the above-mentioned CG films will remain classics such as Snow-White or Pinocchio were last century. So chances are that if you take your kids to the cinema for the first time to see one of these films, they will enjoy it as much as we did many years ago...except that at the time, it wouldn't have involved a disgusting green ogre but cute bunny rabbits. How tastes can change...