Those who’ve actually seen Pixar’s first film, Toy Story, sit in wonder of those who blew it off. Even today you can hear the occasional misguided sneer at its title and subject matter. Your loss buddy. Toy Story was one of the most important moments in animation history; the 361 million dollar worldwide success opened the doors not only for Pixar to become the monster hit making machine it is today, but for CG animation in general. It’s 100 % fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s won award after award, is listed on the AFI’s greatest American films of all time and even took home a special achievement Oscar for director (and eventually, deservedly, chief creative officer for Walt Disney Animation) John Lasseter. Oh, and did I mention the sequel is even better? Yeah, but, you know, it’s just some toy kids movie…
Tom Hanks plays Woody, a cowboy doll who holds the head honcho position in the bedroom of a little boy named Andy. He’s the favorite toy so all the other toys tend to line up behind him. The status quo is interrupted when a science fiction action figure of Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen, joins the collection. As Andy’s tastes change, so does the attention of the other toys, fascinated by the shiny new guy who has sound effects, laser lights, and actually thinks he is the character he’s based on. Woody is filled with resentment and while trying to knock Buzz into the space between a desk and the wall, accidentally knocks him out the window. The other toys accuse Woody of doing it intentionally and only Andy grabbing Woody to take him with him to “Pizza Planet” saves him from their wrath. Buzz sees them leaving and hitches onto the car to seek revenge but they both end up getting left behind and have to work together to get back to Andy’s house before the moving truck arrives to take them away to a new home.
Toy Story 2 begins with Andy leaving for Cowboy Camp, and Woody being left behind because of a tear in his arm. He’s distraught, but when Andy’s mother grabs another toy to bring to a yard sale, he cowboys up and goes down to rescue him. Unfortunately, an unscrupulous toy collector (Wayne Knight) finds Woody and steals him. As the other toys plan and start to execute a rescue for him, Woody finds himself in a room filled with merchandise from a time when he was a TV star, as well as the other characters from the show: the cowgirl Jesse (Joan Cusack), his horse Bullseye, and Stinky Pete the Prospector (Kelsey Grammer). He wants to escape back to Andy but the other toys plead with him to stay, because now that he completes the set, they’ll finally be removed from storage and sold to a museum in Tokyo. Torn between the inevitability of Andy abandoning him some day versus a lifetime behind glass, Woody doesn’t know what to do.
It’s been fifteen years since the original Toy Story popped onto American screens, drastically changing the landscape of animation. While you can see in the first film that Pixar was gonna go a long way in technology, the relative simplicity isn’t distracting at all and still looks fantastic. Thanks to the new home HD format of Blu-Ray, Pixar fans have the best reason yet to re-purchase these classic films. As you might expect from Pixar/Disney releases, no expense was spared to fix these up to the highest quality possible for HD. They are breathtaking in the format, so crisp, clean, and perfect that they’re almost seem 3D; the characters pop right off the screen. These new sets are also packed with most (so, you know, hold onto your original copies for collector value) of the extra features of the original releases as well as having a significant amount of new HD features, like Buzz’s adventures on the Space Shuttle, and a series of very entertaining animated shorts about stories from behind the scenes at Pixar. Once again, these bits compound my notion that Pixar has GOT to be the best company in the world to work for.
All this is, of course, in anticipation for the upcoming Toy Story 3 theatrical release on June 18th. All the characters return in a new story where Andy is growing up and is headed off for college and most of the toys get sent off to a daycare center. The two Toy Story Blu-Ray discs come with exclusive preview sequences of the film, all the more reason to not wait until next Christmas, but to pick these fantastic and immortal works of entertainment now. They’ll be the new display movies for your high-tech home system, I guarantee it.
