I’m a total sucker for Toy Story. I loved the premise of the original – who didn’t imagine that their toys had secret inner lives once you closed the bedroom door to go to school for the day? Of course, a premise is nothing without characters, and Toy Story set the bar for every subsequent Pixar picture – Buzz and Woody were effortlessly iconic figures.
There’s quite a lot of opinion out there that says that Toy Story 2 was even better. I’m not really sure that’s the case. To me, the central flaw of most sequels is the need to pile more characters and plot into the mix (I’m looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean). Whilst Toy Story 2 managed to keep the plot fairly uncomplicated and Stinky Pete was a great protagonist, that cowboy chick and the dumb pony added too much high-pitched noise to the film for me. Like a lot of sequels, the pacing was just a bit… frantic. Nontheless, it clearly worked better than, say, Ghostbusters 2.
So Toy Story 3 is neary upon us, and shows yet again that Pixar have a decidedly unromantic bent at the heart of their Disney-sponsored fluff (if you didn’t want to shed a little tear at Jessie’s song in Toy Story 2 then you have a heart of stone – and it was a fucking icy set-up). Andy is a grown up young man and is leaving his toys behind to go to college. That theme of abandonment speaks to all of us, I think – and is why Toy Story is such a great franchise. We all have to put away our toys at some point and it’s bitter sweet when we look back to remember that our world used to revolve a plastic gargoyle. Imagining that they feel that abandonment too speaks to all kinds of Freudianally universal themes that run through our live.
So yeah – I’m in for a ticket.
I couldn’t agree more, but June? JUNE! That’s seven months away. Seems a bit early for a trailer.
I know – I do wonder whether they’re trailing this a bit too far in advance. I rather suspect it’ll do enormously well regardless, but a couple of months is normally plenty of lead up time so we don’t all get bored of it before it arrives.