Toy Story was Pixar’s delightful debut into the world. Pixar has remained relevant ever since, producing countless classics.
This heartwarming film, brought to theaters in 1995, tells a magical tale of talking toys in a child’s bedroom.
The way Pixar was able to bring notorious childhood toys such as a slinky dog, Mr. Potatohead, or a piggy bank to life is comical but so intelligent all at once. The creativity behind the characters is amazing!
Each character is unique and has its own personality. As a kid it made me look twice at the toys I owned whenever I played with them.
The premise of this movie is that a boy named Andy owns a bunch of toys. When Andy leaves his room, the toys walk around, conversate, and behave as “human” as possible.
The trick is that nobody can find out that they are like this because they are toys. Whenever humans approach, especially Andy, the toys have to play as toys and essentially ragdoll onto the ground. The entire concept of Toy Story is childish, but I appreciate it. Although simple, it answered a question that we all asked as kids. What do our toys do when we are away from them?
The movie’s plot follows Andy’s favorite toy, Woody the Cowboy, as he watches Andy buy a new toy, Buzz Lightyear. Besides Buzz being extremely annoying throughout the movie and being convinced that he is a military astronaut, this movie tells a heartwarming story of letting go.
Woody has to learn that it isn’t about being Andy’s favorite toy, it is about seeing Andy happy. Sometimes in social relationships, we find ourselves selfishly trying to stand out or always be everyone’s “favorite”.
Toy Story argues that we as humans cannot stop change. We can’t control who likes us one day or the next and we will never be able to be everybody’s favorite. Toy Story tells us to just live life and be ourselves!
Toy Story, and the three films that follow it, tell this beautiful moral so movingly.
Aside from the plot, Toy Story also was transformative for Hollywood. After reaching the top of the box office in 1995, Toy story became accredited with the regular production of computer-animated features.
Toy Story broke a massive barrier for computer animation and introduced an entire generation of filmmakers to a new medium through which they could operate.
Films like Finding Nemo, Coco, How To Train Your Dragon, and Shrek, would have never been possible if it was not for Toy Story. Toy Story showed that computer-animated features could reach a large audience and compete with other major feature films at the box office.
Toy Story is one of my favorite films of all time and I think it most definitely deserves a spot on the AFI top 100. The film has a quality plot and creativity bursting at the seams.
The film also was the first computer-animated feature to reach the top of the box office, making way for plenty of filmmakers in the future to realize their visions.
Toy Story introduced the successful behemoth that is Pixar to the world, and I could not be any more grateful.
