If you don’t know about these movies, well, what are you doing at an animation website? Seriously, what are you doing here? Get out of your chair, find the nearest theater showing the double feature, sit your butt down, and soak in two of the greatest movies ever made. Not just “greatest animated movies ever”, but greatest movies period. It is impossible to understate the impact these movies have had on the entertainment world. Yes, I said it, two of the greatest movies ever. For the rest of us who practically know every line on both movies by heart, I’ll try to keep the nostalgic gushing to a minimum.
Ostensibly the Toy Story movies are about the toys that belong to a young boy named Andy. Really though, it’s Woody’s story. Woody the cowboy. Buzz Lightyear, the space ranger, certainly figures into the story as the antagonist in the first one and the dedicated friend in the second film, but in the end it’s Woody’s story. He’s the stand-in for every toy that we, the audience, have ever cast aside in favor of the newest, latest and greatest. With his fear of being forgotten or his admirable idea of preserving history even if it means losing the thing that made it worth keeping in the first place, Woody is the anchor of the story.
The first film is fairly straightforward. Andy’s family is getting ready to move just before his birthday. His mom decides to celebrate a bit early. Birthday parties mean birthday presents. And what does an 8-year-old boy get as a present? Toys! Well, one toy anyway: Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger. This one, though, believes that he is not just a toy, but the Buzz Lightyear. Woody, the previous favorite toy in the room and leader of the rest of the toys, suddenly feels himself being a bit “old and busted.” Woody’s attempts to make himself the favored toy again kicks the major plot into gear, including a dangerous trip through the home of Sid, the toy-torturing neighborhood delinquent, where Buzz finds out the truth about himself and a little bit of truth about being a toy.
The second movie ups the emotional complexity quite a bit. Andy’s growing up, and he’s broken Woody just before leaving for cowboy camp. In the midst of an existential crisis Woody is stolen by an unscrupulous toy collector. As it turns out, Woody is far more than just another cowboy doll. He’s the centerpiece of a 1950’s television show and is highly prized in the collectors world, along with the rest of the cast of Woody’s Round Up: Jessie the cowgirl, Woody’s horse Bullseye, and the Prospector, a.k.a. Stinky Pete. While Woody is finding out who he really is, the rest of the toys are trying to rescue him from the toynapper.
The first film was a buddy movie. In the end it was all about making friends with people who aren’t what you expect. The second film still has that, but there’s even more going on, much if it wrapped around the idea of duty—duty to yourself and duty to others. If Woody leaves, the rest of the Roundup Gang go back into storage forever. If he goes, he gets put in a display space, never to be played with again. What would you do, if given that choice? Everything eventually wraps around and back on top of itself in a chase scene more than a little reminiscent of The Blues Brothers, one of many actually sly references in the film, as opposed to the more standard “beat you over the head with it” references of most latter-day CGI films.
Toy Story was the first real computer-animated movie. Sure, there were movies with extensive amounts of CGI and computer animated television shows, but no one had taken the monumental step of taking CGI from being a part of the movie to being the movie itself. It may not seem that way almost 15 years later, since now it’s big news that traditional 2-D cel animation is finally being done again, but it was such an incredible gamble at the time. The current theatrical re-release takes both films and gives them the full 3-D treatment. While it may be that 3-D is the new “look at how pretty the graphics are!” attempt by the movie industry to give themselves a shot in the arm, it’s not just a one-trick pony with these films.
Admittedly, they’re not the perfect films for the 3-D process, since neither one was originally intended to be seen in 3-D. Some of the camera angles don’t make for an ideal 3-D presentation, and there’s nothing coming “out” of the screen, only an incredible field of depth going into it, but those are really minor quibbles. On an overall level the process of going from a 2-D image to one seen in three dimensions has been a fabulous upgrade. Even in the comparatively rough first film, from a visual standpoint the 3-D process allows you to soak in so much more detail. From the little plastic edges on the green army men to the texture of the bed spread in Andy’s room to the mud hole in the sadistic neighborhood delinquent’s back yard, everything feels so much more alive. The second film amps it up even more. Four years of technical advancement, especially in how the humans move and in the texturing, makes Toy Story 2 positively explode in 3-D.
By the time you read this there’s only going to be about a week left in the theatrical run for these films. If you have the time I highly suggest getting out and seeing them ASAP. And be sure to catch the bits of stuff they added to the beginning and intermission periods if you go. It’s a hoot. I give this my highest possible recommendation.
