TOY STORY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: TOY STORY is the epitome of Pixar's
computer graphics work to this point: a feature-
length film in which toys come to life and have
adventures. And the humor is genuinely funny,
making this really a family film. And the computer
graphics are superb. Pixar makes inanimate objects
come to life well, but they ought to find other
ideas for their stories. Rating: high +1 (-4 to
+4)
For years one of the more interesting aspects of the annual tournees of animation was to see the developments in computer animation. An early example--early meaning 1986--from Pixar was "Luxo, Jr." in which metal lamps behaved in human ways. Pixar started life in 1979 as a division of Lucasfilm but became an independent company in 1986. The Luxo lamps were ideal for early attempts at computer animation since they were articulated collections of rigid pieces. Certainly in computer animation rigid body movement is easier to describe to a program than is the movement of something soft and pliable. In fact, Pixar has done a lot of showing toys and other inanimate objects coming to life since if they come off too rigid it can look like part of the characterization. With that in mind it is not difficult to understand why their first feature film is a story in which toys are the main characters and humans play a relatively small role and are not the center of attention. Different animation techniques have different advantages, but TOY STORY is certainly a milestone in computer animation. Pixar still has to prove that their animation techniques are more versatile than Will Vinton's clay animation or the Puppetoons of the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, their style is very like the results of Puppetoon animation. There is nothing wrong with what they do here, but they need to be thinking about how to get more variety in their themes, particularly if they want to be more than hi-tech Puppetoons.
That said, the film is certainly as watchable for the adults in the audience as for the children. We are not talking Merchant-Ivory level here but the adults should appreciate most of what is aimed at the kids and there is some intelligence in the humor (including a very nice bit about the origin of religions--hot stuff for a Disney family film). The story deals with a collection of toys owned by young Andy. What Andy does not know is that when he is not watching, the toys come to life and live lives of their own (a very familiar fantasy theme). Andy's current favorite is Sheriff Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), but he has just gotten a new toy, Buzz Lightyear, Space Hero (Tim Allen). Woody is not happy about being displaced as Andy's favorite for reasons never made clear-perhaps it's job security. And it does not help that Buzz is not quite bright enough to realize that he is not the real thing. The rivalry is watched by the community of toys including tyrannosaurus Rex (ironically voiced by Wallace Shawn), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Slinky Dog (Jim Varney), and Bo Peep (Annie Potts). Just how Bo Peep got into this collection of Andy's toys is anybody's guess, but she adds a love interest for Woody. Eventually the rivalry will get out of hand and will have the two racing to return home first from the outside world and then from the house of the neighbor boy Sid, a budding sociopath with an impressive imagination when it comes to mutilating toys. One rather nice touch here is that Disney animations nearly always equate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil, but it is not necessarily true here.
The animation technique used here is extremely good. The attention to details like reflective surfaces and the play of light and shadow get better and better with succeeding Pixar productions. Surface texture still seems to be a problem. Pixar does a sort of semi-gloss surface very nicely, which may be one reason they do so much with plastic toys. But the detail and texture they would need to do realistically a man's arm with hair, for example, is not really there any place.
Pixar has made a charming movie carrying their current plot concepts and animation techniques to what appears to be about the limit. TOY STORY is a lot of fun. Now the important question for Pixar is what do they do next. This one gets a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. (And special kudos to the Supervising Layout Artist.)
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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