They'd played around with computers and animation for years, with such scuzzy shallow fare as Tron, but it was with Toy Story in 1995 that the computer generated film came of age, with the whole thing created by beige boxes and the only human thing being those wonderful voiceovers from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and the score from Randy Newman. But for a synthetic piece of art, the whole thing was surprisingly humanitarian and moving, capturing the wonder of childhood in a truly remarkable way.
The film was an absolute masterpiece, directed by John Lasseter, and featuring one of the movie villains of the year in the awesome Sid, a sort of latter day, junior Frankenstein who takes all the flotsam and jetsam of a boy's bedroom and creating a whole new series of terrible and awful creatures - totally true to life, this is how kids' minds work and some of the creations you get here are truly frightening, terrifying Buzz and Woody when he falls into the Evil One's despicable clutches.
Like
all of the truly great pieces of art, the premise here is truly simple, with the basic facts going thus - Andy is the key human of the piece, a little boy who is rapidly approaching his birthday. His toys, who can secretly talk (of course), are waiting with baited breath to see what new toys Andy will be given, dreading that any of them will be so popular with him that one of them will get hurled onto the scrapheap of emotion.
Woody, a cowboy puppet with a drawstring and hackneyed phrases, is the lord and master of Andy's bedroom and keeps a tight ship - he supervises the military operation to observe all the new entrants, with some wonderful scenes with toy soldiers, many of whom get wounded in action (by Andy's Mum's trampling) and all goes well, i.e. we have nothing remotely memorable to worry Mr Potato Head, Bo Peep, Rex the Dinosaur, Woody or Slinky, until the very last surprise present ...
Suddenly all hell breaks loose, because this last present is a very worrying and powerful one, the one and only, Buzz Lightyear, 'To Infinity and Beyond', a Space Ranger who can fly. Suddenly, Woody's whole world starts to fall apart as his role as top dog in the eyes of both Andy and the rest of the toys is mercilessly usurped by Buzz, who is absolutely convinced that he actually is a Space Ranger, whose only role in life is to protect humanity.
The politics of envy and those nasty little toy hormones are soon working overtime and gnawing away at Woody's insides, sparking off a Gunfight at the Bedroom Corral.
The thing is that Buzz is just so popular with everyone - he reassures Rex that his roar is indeed frightening and teaches him how to make it even more so, and he has a similar impact on everyone else, although Bo Peep knows how Woody is feeling and seeks to comfort him (in a wholesome, clean, plastic toylike way, of course!)
It's all splendidly attractive stuff from start to finish, and wonderfully enjoyable, happy ending (of course) and all, but it's quite deep for a kids' film, and has some marvellous, marvellous moments, which live long in the memory. It started a whole new genre in cinema and it was easy to forget that all of this had come out of a plastic box.
There's more real life in here than there is in many a normal film with those nasty human things, and the pure delight of Toy Story is genuinely charming, apart from Vicious Sid, who (don't you know) is bound to get his comeuppance in the end.
The songs get a bit mawkish at times, but are a pretty good fit for the mood here, which is unashamedly sentimental and childlike.
This film was massively popular and not just for its totally unique, innovative style - it is quite simply a BLOODY GOOD FILM - Jesus, it even has a webring devoted to it - http://www.bomis.com/rings/toystory/ - even though it only has four sites involved!
Pixar and the Disney Studios were the twin geniuses (genii?) behind Toy Story and put in plenty of neat tricks to get the whole family entranced, including all the in gags for the oldies amongst us - dig the pompous and lonely Mr Potato Head, hoping against hope that Mrs PH will come along soon to comfort him. He even rearranges his features in a surreal fashion to re-emerge as Mr Picasso Head.
There's the scarcely disguised moral undertone, warning that unless you can cope with rejection your jealousy will lead you all to your doom. Patronising maybe, but intelligently and subtly handled here.
Production Year: 1979 - Family - Original Language: English - Classification: Exempt - Starring: Jon Pertwee, Geoffrey Bayldon, Una Stubbs, Mike Berry, Charlotte Coleman, Jeremy Austin, Megs Jenkins, Norman Bird
There is greatness in film that can be discussed, dissected, and talked about late into ... more
the night. Then there is genius that is right in front of our faces--you smile at the spell it puts you into and are refreshed, and not a word needs to be spoken. T...
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