Toy Story Reviews

“Two things now stand out to me about Toy Story. Although it comes from 1995 — just two years after Jurassic Park, four years after Terminator 2, and the same year that the original PlayStation and Sega Saturn hit the shelves, ushering in the first wave of mainstream 3D game hardware — the movie still looks and feels current.

The goal was never photo-realism; the animators set certain stylistic boundaries and worked within them. So with the exception of a few organic characters — the boys, the dogs — the animation holds up perfectly well. And since the movie isn’t so much about toys or contemporary culture as it is about self-awareness and change, its story only grows more effective as one ages and comes to appreciate all the levels of Buzz and Woody’s emotional problems.

The only other comment I’ve got right now is about Pixar’s weird form of social commentary. Time and again the writers play nonhuman characters against humanity. Pixar’s humans are callous as a rule, oblivious at best, and at worst a malevolent force. They take the form, I suppose, of your typical Greek gods. Familiar human characteristics are instead assigned to non-human characters — toys, animals, robots, creatures.

You see it in the Toy Story movies, where humans are revered as gods and devils. You see it in Finding Nemo, where they’re a natural force like the wind and rain. Wall-E is all about working against Man’s callous nature. Monsters, Inc comes from another angle and positions them as a natural resource.

So thematically, Toy Story is the template for nearly every Pixar movie to follow. Yet somehow, going back to it after all these years, it avoids feeling generic or overly familiar. I guess that’s the talent at show over there in Alameda. Pixar may have a standard formula, but they put in enough detail and nuance that each product stands as an original, genuine story. That’s some good craft, there.”