Ok, so I ended up moving which is why there hasn’t been a lot going on around here lately. And after I got settled I wanted something comforting. Like hanging out with an old friend. A friend in me? That doesn’t make sense. Anyway, newly acquired access to Disney+ opened up a fresh array of movies to exploit. Right away family movie juggernaut Toy Story was staring me in the face so it got the call. Unexpectedly however, this put me on a path to rewatching the whole series and checking out number 4 for the first time. Surprisingly the journey was an enlightening one.
You may have read the title to this piece so let’s quickly
get some business out of the way from the top.
The first film is damn near perfect.
I absolutely love it and can’t imagine I have a helluva lot to
contribute to the conversation at this point.
The second is still great with an insanely tight script but it doesn’t
have quite the same magic as its predecessor.
There’s actually a lot to breakdown there but I’d rather touch on the
later sequels for reasons that will soon become apparent.
Number 3 is basically a prison break movie where
Woody (Tom Hanks (Turner and Hooch)) must bust out his pals from a
daycare center run by a tyrannical strawberry scented bear named Lotso (Ned
Beatty (The Big Easy)). This
asshole sacrifices newcomers and toys he simply doesn’t like to the rowdy group
of toddlers who deface, beat and mangle anything they get their hands on. Lotso sets himself up, along with his
friends, to be played with the gentler kids. Your choices are fall in with A No. 1 or take
your own chances with the beast babies.
Even though the film isn’t that haha funny, it’s strange
funny. There’s edge to it. Like they depict the bad guy toys gambling
and talking shit about the other toys.
Not to mention the very idea of having your family movie take place in a
prison (daycare) is a touch odd. But perhaps
the most shocking part is when Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen (Redbelt)) gets
tortured. They eventually push his reset
button so he reverts back to thinking he’s a real space ranger and they recruit
him as their bodyguard. Think about that
for a minute. This goddamn film implies
that Buzz gets fucked up so badly that either he has a break from reality and
can’t remember who he really is or they brainwashed him and now he’s a
villain. That’s kinda dark man.
Later a large chunk of the picture takes place in an antique
store where an old doll from the 50’s and her ventriloquist dummy goons fill in
as the villains. The dummies move like
zombies with their arms sorta lifeless and their legs wobbly and their mouths
always agape. These things are
legitimately creepy (which they fully acknowledge in the movie by the
way). And the doll’s evil plan is to rip
Woody’s voice box out so she can replace her own broken one. So part 4 is by far the weirdest of
the bunch.
Stepping back for a moment though it’s fascinating to see
the progression of the series. One of
the most noticeable aspects is the animation.
While the first installment still looks fantastic there are certain
things that stick out like the backgrounds have little detail or are
silhouettes. The animators knew to focus
their attention and the limited power of their computers towards the
characters, what’s happening in the foreground, crafting a story that stayed
within their means and carefully picking shots that would have the most impact
without frying their equipment. Talk
about impressive. And now the technology
has come amazingly far since 1995. Like
parts of 4 look a hundred percent photorealistic, the camerawork is more
confident and you can tell the filmmakers aren’t worried about what’s possible,
freeing them up to concentrate on the story and the characters and if a used
spork with a crooked clay mouth constitutes a toy and all that kinda shit.
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| Toy Story 1, essentially a blank background |
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| Toy Story 4, now they have the ability to fill in all the detail |
Buzz seemed to be a bit of a problem for the filmmakers in
the sequels because they kept wanting to turn him back into the old Buzz from
part 1 where he doesn’t realize he’s a toy. They did this in 2 and 3 and the
twist in part 4 is they simply make him extra dumb. Bo Peep (Annie Potts (Designing Women))
is the one who ends up kicking all the ass while Buzz is just sorta there to meekly
help out. He’s supposed to be equal to
Woody in terms of stature but in reality he’s a total side character who plays
a much smaller role in all the sequels.
Woody is a good guy ‘n all but his antics of trying to save
every troubled toy he comes across gets extremely tiring. I know his heart is in the right place (well,
if he had a heart) but he seriously needs to learn to let some shit go. Probably a majority of the sticky situations
these characters get in is due to Woody having an uncontrollable impulse to
rescue and find a home for all toys.
During this Toy Story deluge I opted to watch the two
TV specials that came out in 2013 and 2014 (which were clearly abandoned ideas
for a fourth film) and one of them, Toy Story That Time Forgot,
highlights the fact that all toys in this universe don’t realize they’re toys
at first. They think they’re the real
thing they’re supposed to represent, a space ranger, a battle dinosaur, a
stuntman, etc. So I guess all toys need
to be educated on what they truly are at some point.
The toys don’t need any sustenance. Food and water isn’t necessary for their survival
so presumably as long as they’re taken care of they’ll live forever.
They can feel pain sometimes, maybe. During fights the toys act like they’re
experiencing pain but if an arm gets ripped off sometimes they don’t react at
all.
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| This hurts |
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| This doesn't |
This leads me to the issue I had the hardest time wrapping
my head around (and the question most folks have been asking since the mid
90’s). Why are some toys alive and
others aren’t? This question popped into
my head over and over. Why aren’t board
games sentient? Wood blocks? Hell, the remote control car from part 1
is alive but the one in part 4 isn’t?
A chair with eyes is living but a toy truck that Woody randomly comes
across isn’t? Bouncing balls aren’t
alive but friggin’ hockey pucks are?! Of
course the answer is: whatever the fuck the filmmakers felt like doing or
needed for a particular scene. That
doesn’t make this conundrum any less frustrating though.
Plus batteries may or may not be vital for certain toys to
function, individual pieces of a toy can detach and work independently of the
main body, Woody’s voice box is removed but he can still talk normally and AHHHH
MY BRAIN IS GOING TO EXPLODE!
Ironically that’s the elephant in the room with these
movies. They’re delightful to watch as
long as you don’t think about the concept for more than half a second. In most other instances this would almost
certainly be an automatic disqualifier.
Yet the people behind the franchise found the fine line that made sense
to everyone and, friends, they walk the shit out of it. Again, ridiculously impressive with how they
knew what would work and what wouldn’t.
Alright everyone, it was a messy year and I don’t doubt the
next one will be any less head scratching.
But keep on truckin’. See you on
the other side.
