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In early 1992, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for a Best Picture award; the first animated film to have ever been so honored. That same year, Aladdin hit theaters and made over half a billion dollars worldwide. It is tempting to declare 1992 a banner year for both Walt Disney and animation in general, but that would be redundant: at the time there was no meaningful distinction between the two. It was understood, if not spoken, that animated cinema meant Disney, and that we were in the midst of its Golden Age. We were wrong.
A scant three years later, an upstart studio created the first widely released film to be composed solely of computer generated images. Intentionally or not, Pixar's Toy Story compensated for the immature technology by depicting toys rather than people, providing an elegant explanation for their unnatural smoothness and sheen. What struck moviegoers and critics most, however, was that the technological advance was not a cover for a shallow screenplay; the writing was as crisp as the visuals. It was clever, and even profound, and it tapped into an almost universal part of the human experience. Pixar's triumph was so thorough and sudden that it didn't merely make CGI family films possible; it made them inevitable.
Fifteen years and ten additional feature-length films later, the studio has countered Disney's Best Picture nomination with one of its own (Up, albeit in a diluted 10-film field), and has yet to produce a flop. Their disappointments (A Bug's Life, Cars) are on par with other studio's successes. If the early 90s were the Golden Age of animation, Pixar's gone Platinum.
This short history lesson seems particularly salient, because Toy Story 3 is a reminder both of how far CGI animation has come, and how little it's actually changed. The character models don't look much different than they did fifteen years ago, and it doesn't matter one whit. We may enjoy the Toy part, but we come for the Story.
That story is largely an extension of the second film's: it focuses on the inevitable abandonment that all toys must face when their owners grow up and move on. This was the most potent aspect of Toy Story 2, and it gets an entire film to itself in Toy Story 3. Andy's now 17 and getting ready to leave for college when his mom issues him an ultimatum: everything has to be thrown out, donated, put in the attic, or brought with him.
Woody is separated from the group when Andy decides to bring him along, and the problem is compounded when the other toys are mistaken first for trash, and then for donations to a local daycare. At first, they can hardly believe their good luck: the idea of being played with by a constantly replenished supply of children seems too good to be true. And of course it is.
A few characters are missing, and a few are added. Gone (though mentioned mournfully in passing) are Bo Peep and Wheezy, among others. Added are Barbie's counterpart, Ken (who gets most of the film's laughs), a baby doll in creepy disrepair, and a plush bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty) who's so cordial that you immediately know he must be hiding something. All of the voice actors have returned (save for the late Jim Varney as Slink), and the improvements to the animations are wisely marginal, making for a fast and seamless refamiliarization. It's as if we never left.
The film's third act packs an emotional wallop that will catch many older viewers off-guard, but it shouldn't. The end of this story has been a long time coming, and the feelings it evokes are genuine. A lesser film would tug clumsily at your heartstrings, but Pixar has always known how to deftly pluck them.
The eleven-year gap between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 has given fans of the original films time to grow up. This past weekend, millions of kids and college students found themselves sitting side-by-side, wearing funny glasses. The younger ones just starting to grasp the nuances of the tale, and the older ones with an entirely new appreciation for it. Both at different ends of the same story.
NOTE: I saw this film in the still-superfluous 3D format. It added little to the production, with one caveat: the glasses might help hide the fact that you've been crying.
A scant three years later, an upstart studio created the first widely released film to be composed solely of computer generated images. Intentionally or not, Pixar's Toy Story compensated for the immature technology by depicting toys rather than people, providing an elegant explanation for their unnatural smoothness and sheen. What struck moviegoers and critics most, however, was that the technological advance was not a cover for a shallow screenplay; the writing was as crisp as the visuals. It was clever, and even profound, and it tapped into an almost universal part of the human experience. Pixar's triumph was so thorough and sudden that it didn't merely make CGI family films possible; it made them inevitable.
Fifteen years and ten additional feature-length films later, the studio has countered Disney's Best Picture nomination with one of its own (Up, albeit in a diluted 10-film field), and has yet to produce a flop. Their disappointments (A Bug's Life, Cars) are on par with other studio's successes. If the early 90s were the Golden Age of animation, Pixar's gone Platinum.
This short history lesson seems particularly salient, because Toy Story 3 is a reminder both of how far CGI animation has come, and how little it's actually changed. The character models don't look much different than they did fifteen years ago, and it doesn't matter one whit. We may enjoy the Toy part, but we come for the Story.
That story is largely an extension of the second film's: it focuses on the inevitable abandonment that all toys must face when their owners grow up and move on. This was the most potent aspect of Toy Story 2, and it gets an entire film to itself in Toy Story 3. Andy's now 17 and getting ready to leave for college when his mom issues him an ultimatum: everything has to be thrown out, donated, put in the attic, or brought with him.
Woody is separated from the group when Andy decides to bring him along, and the problem is compounded when the other toys are mistaken first for trash, and then for donations to a local daycare. At first, they can hardly believe their good luck: the idea of being played with by a constantly replenished supply of children seems too good to be true. And of course it is.
A few characters are missing, and a few are added. Gone (though mentioned mournfully in passing) are Bo Peep and Wheezy, among others. Added are Barbie's counterpart, Ken (who gets most of the film's laughs), a baby doll in creepy disrepair, and a plush bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty) who's so cordial that you immediately know he must be hiding something. All of the voice actors have returned (save for the late Jim Varney as Slink), and the improvements to the animations are wisely marginal, making for a fast and seamless refamiliarization. It's as if we never left.
The film's third act packs an emotional wallop that will catch many older viewers off-guard, but it shouldn't. The end of this story has been a long time coming, and the feelings it evokes are genuine. A lesser film would tug clumsily at your heartstrings, but Pixar has always known how to deftly pluck them.
The eleven-year gap between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 has given fans of the original films time to grow up. This past weekend, millions of kids and college students found themselves sitting side-by-side, wearing funny glasses. The younger ones just starting to grasp the nuances of the tale, and the older ones with an entirely new appreciation for it. Both at different ends of the same story.
NOTE: I saw this film in the still-superfluous 3D format. It added little to the production, with one caveat: the glasses might help hide the fact that you've been crying.