LogFAQs > #983474758

Got a late start due to a Blood on the Clocktower game that ran a bit too long, but hey, if I'm still awake and I press play before midnight, it counts.

Toy Story
Originally released November 22, 1995

Pixar's first theatrical release! When this movie came out, it was kind of an event. This was, as I remember, the first feature-length animated movie to be made entirely with computer-generated graphics rather than hand drawn or stop motion. And the visuals have aged well, but not great. There are flat textures everywhere, and the movie is filled with honestly really weird animations and facial expressions, especially where a human character is involved -- or especially Sid's dog. But hey, I'm not going to judge it too harshly for that. The movie is the first of its kind (or at least one of the first), it's almost 30 years old, and it still looks pretty good, albeit not nearly as mind-blowingly realistic as we used to think.

Moving day is coming up, and Andy's toys are preparing for it. They're surprised when Andy has an early birthday party, worried about any incoming new toys that might take their place. So, to ease their fears, the sheriff Woody -- Andy's favorite toy, and thus the de facto leader -- deploys plastic army men to do recon. Andy gets a bunch of shitty gifts like a lunchbox and bedsheets (who invited THAT kid?) until he opens a Buzz Lightyear figure, bringing it up to his room.

Buzz is more than a bit delusional, believing himself to be a real space marine and not a toy. Woody immediately becomes a jealous prick about it, and while the other toys play along (no pun intended), he just treats Buzz like an idiot. Slowly, Andy's room changes to a space theme, validating his fears of being replaced.

A couple days before moving day, Andy's going to Pizza Planet, and is told he can bring a single toy with him. Woody tries to knock Buzz behind a dresser but accidentally knocks him out the window instead. RC the remote-controlled car tells the other toys what he's done and they turn on him, but before they can execute Woody, Andy returns to the room. Unable to find Buzz, he brings Woody along. Buzz emerges from the bushes below his window and, angry at Woody, climbs onto the car.

At a gas station, Buzz attacks Woody and they both fall out and get left behind. They hitch a ride on a Pizza Planet delivery car and arrive at the restaurant, where Buzz climbs inside a claw machine thinking it's a spaceship. Woody follows to retrieve him, and they're both won by the neighbor menace Sid, who brings them back to his Bedroom of Terrors. They witness two toys being Frankensteined together and realize how fucked they are.

Woody and Buzz escape from Sid's room, where Buzz sees his own commercial on TV and realizes he's a toy. He tries to fly and breaks his arm off, then has an existential crisis that throws him into a deep depression. Sid straps a firework to his back, intending to launch him into space and blow him up, but Woody gives him a pep talk that snaps him out of his funk. The moving truck arrives moments before Sid beings Buzz into the backyard, and Woody enlists the help of Sid's pigeon-rats to rescue him.

The toys rescue Buzz by revealing their sentience to him, and he runs screaming into the house to seek decades of therapy. Buzz and Woody barely catch the moving truck, but Buzz falls off to fight Sid's dog Scud. At the world's longest residential red light, Woody opens up the back of the truck and digs through boxes until he finds RC, pushing him off the back of the truck and using his remote to rescue Buzz. The other toys think Woody is now trying to get rid of RC like he did Buzz and attack him, then throw him off the truck.

RC and Buzz pick up Woody and chase after the truck, but RC's batteries die before they can reach it. They employ Rocket Power to catch up and throw RC into the back of the moving van, with Woody and Buzz landing through the open sunroof of Andy's mom's minivan. With everyone reunited and back on good terms with each other, it's Christmas time, where Mr. Potato Head gets a Mrs. Potato Head and Andy gets a puppy. The End.

Pixar went all-out for their first theatrical film. I mentioned earlier that the animation hasn't aged particularly gracefully, but you can tell they gave it their all here. For how rough it is, any ACTUAL mistakes are incredibly rare; there were a few times I noticed some odd clipping, and Scud is animated VERY badly, but the movie's still a real treat to look at. And Randy Newman's soundtrack fits the theme perfectly.

It's easy to point at Sid as the villain of the movie, but that's not really accurate. He's more of a force of nature or a plot device, something to bring Woody and Buzz together at last. Woody himself is the antagonist of the movie, letting himself get so consumed by jealousy that he never gives Buzz an honest chance until the end of the movie. The conflict of the movie really feels like a sibling rivalry, with an only child being jealous about a new baby and all the attention they get.

Finally, I need to address the spaceman in the room. Nine years before this movie released, Jim Henson released The Christmas Toy, a movie about toys that only come to life when their owner isn't around, and at Christmas, are worried about new toys that may usurp their place. One of them is Meteora, a space-hero toy who thinks she's real and landed on a strange planet. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's Toy Story. I don't think there's any actual proof that Disney/Pixar ripped it off, but there are honestly so many similarities, and nine years is a bit too long for benefit of the doubt. I don't think I can cost it a point for this, though, because I don't think I've penalized any other movie for doing this (specifically) and Toy Story DID move in different directions after hijacking the core concept.

...why did Buzz still pretend to be a toy when Andy was around, though?

Final Score: 10/10