Trailer

WARNING: The following review may or may not contain spoilers from the film. If you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t want it ruined, I suggest watching the movie before continuing.

There is no question that Toy Story changed the animation industry and the film industry as a whole. Just like in 1937 when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs broke many records including first feature-length animated film, Toy Story broke just as many records in 1995 including first feature-length computer-animated film. It is also very unique that during a time when CGI was mainly used for realistic visual effects in action and sci-fi films like Terminator 2: Judgement Day or Jurassic Park, the first movie that is entirely CGI is a family film. Boy, did it succeed on so many levels, which is why Toy Story (along with its two sequels that I’ll review later) is one of my favorite films of all time. Set in a world where toys come to life whenever people are not around, the “toy” story is about the toy collection of a young boy named Andy (John Morris). His toys include a Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), a Slinky Dog (Jim Varney), a toy T-Rex named, well, Rex (Wallace Shawn), a Bo Peep doll (Annie Potts), and a piggy bank named Hamm (John Ratzenberger in the debut film of many more Pixar films he would voice in). However, his favorite toy is a pull string cowboy doll named Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), also the leader of the group of toys. Andy is scheduled to move from his house, and so his birthday party has been moved to today. One of the presents that Andy received is a astronaut action figure named Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), who is not aware that he is a toy and believes that he is the real deal. Buzz starts to steal Woody’s thunder as Andy’s favorite toy, so Woody gets jealous and inadvertently knocks Buzz out the window. While rescuing Buzz, they are separated from Andy and get captured by a troublesome next-door tween named Sid (Erik Von Detten), who tortures and destroys toys for his own amusement. Woody and Buzz must learn to get along and ultimately escape Sid’s clutches and reunite with Andy before he moves. So, why did Toy Story achieve such critical and popular acclaim? Well, people like it for the same reasons I like it. Since it is the first computer-animated film ever, I’ll talk about the animation first. Disney has been discovering the computer-generated techniques since the mid-’80s and used it for many famous sequences that were very complicated to achieve in a hand-drawn fashion. Examples include the flight scenes in The Rescuers Down Under, the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast, the magic carpet scene in Aladdin, and the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King. However, they really made a big, time-consuming decision to make every single frame by computers, and successfully. While the animation may be a tad dated in comparison to the more recent Pixar films, I still appreciate how grand it was back in 1995, so it still holds up to me. Plus, the movie is three-dimensional both visually and figuratively. This movie had perhaps the most well-developed and most human characters in a Disney movie at the time. And on top of that, all of them are so extremely likable. Woody and Buzz Lightyear are two of my favorite characters ever. They both stand out as characters whether individually or whenever they are together. Woody starts off being the leader of the toys as well as Andy’s favorite toy, and, well, best friend, who gets jealous that this new updated spaceman toy that every child wants might take away his relationship with his owner, as well as his friends. Ultimately, he eventually accepts Buzz as his best friend, realizing how awesome he is in comparison to himself, and even willing to sacrifice himself to an exploding rocket for Buzz after realizing how dated he is. Buzz starts off as a delusional character who believes he is the genuine article instead of a toy, but once he finds out he is a toy, he is extremely disappointed in himself until Woody makes him realize how cool of a toy he is. That scene alone, as Woody and Buzz are held hostage in Sid’s house, is one of my favorite movie moments ever because those characters really learn from each other and have some development. Plus, the fact that Woody is an outdated cowboy doll and Buzz is a up-to-date spaceman action figure, and yet, they realize that they are not so different after all and manage to become best friends, proves that opposites are one of the best forms of friendship. On top of that, I can’t think of anyone else other than the legendary Tom Hanks and the always comical Tim Allen to voice the “Dynamic Duo of Animation” as I like to call them. Speaking of Sid, he’s a great villain. Even though he is an “evil” kid, he’s still just a kid having lots of fun with toys. And you have to admit, some of you knew or even were that kid at some point in your lifetime. Besides, it’s not like he knew that toys can come to life (well, at least not until the very end). So, calling him a villain is a little bit harsh. The other characters from the Brooklyn talking Potato Head to the pitiful Rex to the flirtatious Bo Peep are fantastic and memorable side characters as well. The voice acting is so impressive, particularly from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, that I can see characters, not a bunch computer images. However, the strongest thing about Toy Story (aside from the animation, that’s definitely the strongest) is its story and its heart. Aside from just accurately and intelligently portraying life from a toy’s perspective, the main theme of the movie is childhood and friendship. As the fantastic main theme song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by composer Randy Newman implies, during a person’s childhood, a toy was a child’s best friend, as shown by Andy and Woody’s relationship in the opening scene. And even though Woody becomes kind of a jerk when Buzz steps into his life, the audience can still sympathize with him because we all feel sad and jealous when someone supposedly superior than others stands in the any of friendship. The other type of friendship is the relationship between Woody and Buzz, which I had explained earlier, so I won’t go into too much detail. Plus, the movie is just a perfect balance of hilarious comedy to heartwarming drama. Overall, I think Toy Story is one of the greatest and most important landmarks in motion picture history with fantastic animation, lovable characters, a great story, and a ton of heart, and it is beyond a fresh start for the eventual legend of a studio that is Pixar. This movie is literally so good and so groundbreaking that I would call it the Star Wars and Wizard of Oz of animated films.

10/10