{"id":17738,"date":"2015-12-08T23:43:02","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T04:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=17738"},"modified":"2015-12-08T23:44:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T04:44:23","slug":"twenty-years-later-toy-story-still-works-as-the-beginning-of-a-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/08\/twenty-years-later-toy-story-still-works-as-the-beginning-of-a-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty Years Later, “Toy Story” Still Works As the Beginning of a Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I was lucky enough to be one of the folks that went to see \u201cToy Story\u201d in theaters back in 1995 when Pixar premiered their newest animated adventure. It was an amazing experience then, and it is still one of the best movie going experiences of my life. Back then, the very notion of a motion picture completely computer animated was absurd and made people gasp in shock, even when Pixar boasted about creating a large realistic world. Just producing Homer Simpson in computer animation for a segment of \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d cost a lot of money and took immense man hours, just think of a movie based around the medium. \u201cToy Story\u201d is gladly not a film you\u2019d expect to be computer animated since Pixar takes great pains to unfold a world that\u2019s charming, magical, and grounded in enough reality to enjoy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cToy Story\u201d is still a wonderful masterpiece of Disney animation twenty years later that inspired a ton of knock offs and wonderful follow ups. Surely, the premise is kind of derivative (\u201cThe Brave Little Toaster,\u201d anyone?), but the movie is so damn good, you really don\u2019t mind Disney riffing on the original animated film from the late eighties. \u201cToy Story\u201d is about growing up and moving on with your life, and what happens when the things we loved as children figure out what life would be like without their owner consistently imbuing them with love and affection. We\u2019re given a wide scope of a self contained and small universe, exploring what toys do when we\u2019re not watching them. And surely enough they\u2019re doing a lot. They have their own ecosystem, social classes, and they tend to appreciate seniority for some reason.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s made apparent with toy Woody, the pull string cowboy doll of owner Andy, who cherishes his cowboy and holds him tightly. That is until the new toy in the block Buzz Lightyear presents a compelling argument to take out the old and bring in the new. We\u2019re given hilarious and witty peeks in to the secret world of Andy\u2019s toys, as Disney and Pixar paint the film with familiar relics of childhood that most owners possessed in the late eighties and most of the nineties.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the loyal bucket of toy soldiers, there\u2019s the dinosaur, Mr. Potato Head, a piggy bank, Etch a Sketch, a slinky dog, a race car, monkeys in a barrel, and so many more trinkets that touch on audience nostalgia without ever feeling over exploitative. And with the limited screen time they\u2019re given, thankfully the writers flesh the characters out enough for us to garner emotions for them and understand why they\u2019re so close to one another and co-exist. I particularly still really enjoy Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, and he was only improved by the introduction of Mrs. Potato Head.<\/p>\n

As for Woody, he is so charmingly and enthusiastically voiced by Tom Hanks, as he takes pride in organizing Andy\u2019s room in to his own community that\u2019s centered on making Andy happy and taking record of his life and developments in his life. Sub-consciously the toys tend to understand their life, like any on Earth, is limited and running on borrowed time, so every little aspect of Andy\u2019s world is crucial to them. When Buzz comes crashing in to the room with his own enthusiasm, charisma, and dashing persona, it\u2019s tough to dislike the toy. Even though he\u2019s vastly oblivious to the fact that he\u2019s a toy. Tim Allen is remarkable as Buzz, playing beautifully off of Tom Hanks\u2019 more average protagonist, and helping to convey the interesting dichotomy of old and new, modern and classic, and old fashioned and technological.<\/p>\n

A lot of Woody and Buzz\u2019s dynamic is based around Woody\u2019s line of thinking against Buzz, prompting a clear head and logic against Buzz\u2019s man of action and ability to take charge more often than Woody appreciates. Along the course of the narrative, Buzz and Woody manage to bring something out of each other that\u2019s positive and negative. By the time the first chapter of the \u201cToy Story\u201d series comes to a close, the pair manage to put aside their differences and appreciate the fact that they inspire something interesting and positive in one another that helps them develop in to well rounded and complex characters.<\/p>\n

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Most of their actions are based around self preservation, but they\u2019re also likable and entertaining protagonists whose motivations are based around maintaining the love of their owner Andy and not being forgotten. It\u2019s implied that love and attention is the life force for toys of all kinds, and Andy\u2019s love and attention keeps Woody and Buzz constantly fighting to outmatch and outwit crazed next door neighbor Sid, with a habit for demolishing toys, as well as his vicious pet dog.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s even a subtle implication villain Sid even abuses his little sister, as he even kidnaps her doll in one scene and dissects her as a means of torturing her. Woody and Buzz\u2019s kidnapping by Sid, and their ultimate escape is not the most consistent side plots of the movie, but one that still inspires raucous laughter and interesting looks at the creation of this series. The toys make it very clear they can\u2019t be found out by their owners that they\u2019re sentient, and yet Woody stages a large rebellion against Sid, showing they can think, and feel, prompting him in to a hysterical fit of horror in the finale. The further films emphasize this idea but the clear cut rules are never quite pointed out for the audience. Despite being twenty years old, \u201cToy Story\u201d still looks fresh and vibrant, with much of the action sequences complimented by Pixar\u2019s talent for creating incredibly lifelike backgrounds and environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cToy Story\u201d works as a one and done adventure film, and as a part of the sprawling series from Pixar. Surely it\u2019s a cash cow for Disney and Pixar, but it\u2019s also a genuinely excellent film, filled with hilarious gags, great nostalgia and sweet tale of friendship and finding common ground in a rough world. It\u2019s definitely held up stronger than \u201cA Bug\u2019s Life,\u201d and \u201cCars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was lucky enough to be one of the folks that went to see \u201cToy Story\u201d in theaters back in 1995 when Pixar premiered their newest animated adventure. It was an amazing experience then, and it is still one of the best movie going experiences of my life. Back then, the very notion of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[71,99,290,349,637,779,1119],"class_list":["post-17738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pcthugs","tag-adventure","tag-animation","tag-disney","tag-fantasy","tag-masterpiece","tag-pixar","tag-toy-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17743,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17738\/revisions\/17743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}