Sunday, March 28, 2010

#83 Toy Story: Made in Taiwan

1995. Dir. John Lasseter, starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn.

Seen it before? No.

Level one idea: Children's toys are alive, and have their own adventures when nobody's looking. Level two idea: they are anxious about being replaced by newer and more interesting toys. Level three: They execute reconnaissance missions during birthday parties, Christmas, etc. to check out new toys. When one kid's Woody doll (voice of Tom Hanks) gets superseded by a Buzz Lightyear doll (voice of Tim Allen), Woody has to cope with his inadequacy.

This was a groundbreaking movie, and it ushered in a whole new era of 3-D computer animated movies. This movie came out one year after Lion King and represents a sort of changing of the guard. Disney's increasingly ridiculous 2-D animated films were getting dragged down by crappy songs, marketing-driven characters, and poor storytelling. Eventually they discontinued them because they thought traditional cel animation was obsolete. Well, no, you idiots, it's not - people weren't flocking to the PIXAR movies because they were computer rendered, it's because they were good movies, with good stories.

Of course Disney did market the crap out of this one; it almost diverges into "toy commercial" land in some parts - Woody says to Buzz Lightyear: "You're a cool toy!" grrr. kill.

Position on the list: 159
A-113: The minivan's license plate. Also they were playing "Hakuna Matata" on the stereo. grrr. kill.

No comments:

Post a Comment