Pixar Pint #11: Toy Story 3
Pixar's first threequel: their best film yet? Or just a sign that they're running out of ideas?
Welcome back to Pixar Pints, our summer-long journey through all 25 Pixar films in release order.
Six Pixar films to date (seven, if you believe the rumors for the upcoming Lightyear) are tied for the firm’s highest budget on a single film: $200 million. Toy Story 3 was the first to hold this budget and it paved the way for numerous others to come by becoming the first animated film to ever gross over $1 billion. What was so great about this movie that it made 10 figures at the box office?
Let’s get into it.
Toy Story 3 quick facts
Release date: June 18, 2010 | Director: Lee Unkrich | Music: Randy Newman
Starring: Tom Hanks (Woody), Tim Allen (Buzz), Joan Cusack (Jessie), Ned Beatty (Lotso), Don Rickles (Mr. Potato Head), Estelle Harris (Mrs. Potato Head), Jodi Benson (Barbie), Michael Keaton (Ken), John Morris (Andy)
John Ratzenberger as: Hamm, same as he ever was
Budget: $200 million | Box office: $1.067 billion
Academy Awards: Won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (“We Belong Together”); nominated for Best Picture (lost to The King’s Speech), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing
Eli
Aesthetic: 10/10 | A little oversaturated, but it's a Toy Story movie, so that's the point. The humans look much better here than they ever have in Pixar to this point; I feel like Pixar's had this in them for a while, but given that these human characters are supposed to be grounded in reality, their regular-looking designs make a lot more sense than if they looked like the humans in Up did. Speaking of Up, the background characters here are so much more diverse and interesting than in that film too. Most importantly, though, the main toys just pop here in ways they didn't in the series' first two films. Pixar took an already shiny bubblegum look and made it even sleeker.
Animation: 9/10 | I can't point to anything this film that knocked my socks off or even really anything that they hadn't done earlier in the series (except maybe the incinerator), but I also can't name a single thing I thought looked faulty.
Story: 8/10 | I agree with Leah below that I thought the Andy/Bonnie relationship needed to be fleshed out more or even introduced once before I'd believe Andy would just give her all of his favorite toys because he read her address on a sticky note. I also thought a few pretty major plot points were just a little too convenient; for example, it wasn't clear to me how anyone in Lotso's gang thought to get the intel on Woody and friends out of Chatter Telephone or how Chatter even knew exactly where they were in the first place. All that aside, this one still hits hard. Not quite as hard as the first time I saw it at age 12, but seeing Woody decide yet again to stick with his friends and Andy playing with them all one last time before he heads off to college still makes me feel things, and it's pretty hard to make a prison break boring. Finally, I'd like to praise Pixar for their adeptness at speeding through falling action in end credits sequences; the scenes that play during the credits are critical in closing out the narrative, and sticking them in the credits allows the writers to quickly move from setting to setting, tying up a bunch of loose ends at once.
Characters: 10/10 | None of the main characters notably changed, which...if it ain't broke. The exception, I guess, is Mrs. Potato Head, who changed for the better in getting less stereotypically naggy and actually having a real purpose within the group. Lotso's villainy actually makes sense here, as opposed to in Toy Story 2, where I ended not really sure why Stinky Pete was the way he was. It's great that the humans actually get some real runtime in this one, which clearly Pixar felt comfortable doing now that their humans actually looked good. Now that Andy is basically an adult, you can actually tell what his characterization is supposed to be, and I thought he was written well.
Acting: 10/10 | Man, so many memorable performances. Aside from the main cast continuing to shine (and Tim Allen basically playing two parts again), Ned Beatty's Lotso is phenomenal and Teddy Newton's Chatter Telephone is also great. Additionally, this cast just has a bunch of good voices I could recognize but couldn't immediately place. Ken is voiced by Michael Keaton, who – man – sounds a whole lot different than he did as Chick Hicks. In Bonnie's room, you have Trixie the dinosaur voiced by Kristen Schaal (Gravity Falls' Mabel) and Dolly voiced by Bonnie Hunt (Cars' Sally). All of these people and many more just turn in excellent work.
Music: 10/10 | Randy Newman used and expanded upon "You've Got a Friend in Me" perfectly again and the rest of the score is just as good as you remember it. The metallic-sounding dirge that plays as the toys slide down the garbage dump is killer.
Final score: 10/10 | The modern sheen makes this film better than its predecessors in many ways but I can't quite say it's my favorite, in part because its sheer intensity makes it a little rougher to rewatch.
Leah
Aesthetic: 10/10 | This movie was so fun to look at. Pixar has improved over the past decade, but I think this movie stands well on its own too. I love how far they push the freaky factor with the Monkey and Big Baby. I also think they did a good job making each environment distinct and conveying the emotion appropriate to the setting (nostalgia/moving on of Andy's room, comfort of Bonnie's house, horrors of the dump...) I couldn't stop noticing cool things about the visuals this whole time. Also, rejoice, the humans look good! I think these were my favorite human designs out of Pixar so far.
Animation: 9/10 | I enjoyed the way the toys moved. The plastic-y movements of Barbie and Ken stood out in a good way. Woody and Buzz got some cool action scenes throughout the movie. Pixar gold standard animation.
Story: 9/10 | This is a very touching story about growing up. It's fun to watch the prison break parody and listen to the toys' banter, but it also pulled at my heart. The toys holding hands in the face of death hit me harder as an adult than as a teenager. One minor gripe is that I wish there had been some earlier development of a relationship between Andy and Bonnie. I think it would have made the ending even stronger.
Characters: 10/10 | Every toy has so much personality and I'm here for it. We get to see more of old favorites like Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and meet a bunch of fun new characters, like Ken, Bonnie, Lotso...even Andy has a personality in this movie! It's hard to pull off having such a strong main and side cast, but this movie does it flawlessly. I remember after seeing this movie for the first time, I wanted them to make a TV show just so I could see more of these characters.
Acting: 9/10 | Another strong showing from the Toy Story cast.
Music: 9/10 | Great soundtrack; it set the mood of the movie well. You've got a friend in me.
Final score: 10/10 | Really fun movie that packs an emotional punch. The visuals are a joy to watch, and the themes resonate as an adult. A fantastic end to the arc.
Maddy
Where it should’ve ended.
Aesthetic: 6/10 | Movies from the early 2010s look weird to me. What was the hip aesthetic trend going on and why has it not aged great?
Animation: 9/10 | That said, it is honestly nice to see these characters in modern animation, and the humans looking, y’know, good. I don’t have qualms with the animation; it’s just the aesthetic of this movie that gets me.
Characters: 9/10 | Much of this rating is focused on the new additions, which are all great. Lotso is the standout in my opinion, being one of the few good twist (was it really a twist?) villains of modern Pixar/Disney. The OG cast is still great and the continuation of Woody’s arc is written well.
Story: 9/10 | I’ve admittedly had a hard time figuring out what to put here. This movie of all Pixar films, ones we've discussed and ones we have yet to, is the one I feel the most emotional connection to. Toy Story was my childhood. I had both movies on VHS as a kid and adored the films, even having a Woody doll. By the time Toy Story 3 came out I was also reaching the point of "growing up". Even watching it now, a lot of themes hit me in my core. These characters, this series: it’s my comfort food. I’m already running out of words but I love Toy Story 3 not because of its film qualities, but its impact on me and a lot of people in my age group, and what it means to us as we get older, especially now as a college senior.
Acting: 10/10 | It’s amazing how good this VA cast is, movie after movie.
Music: 8/10 | It’s Randy Newman. The classics are good, the motifs are there…it’s more comfort food.
Final score: 51/60 or 8/10 | I’ll definitely discuss this more when we get to Toy Story 4, but I really do wish the series ended here. In my heart, it’s where it ended. Ratatouille is my favorite movie, Toy Story 2 is my favorite in the series, but Toy Story 3 is the most emotional movie to me. It holds a special place in my heart forever.
Fun Maddy note: Like Up the year before, this was also nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
David
Aesthetic: I think this is a good build on the first two movies and on other Pixar efforts in recent years. Not much else to really say.
Animation: Is it weird to feel a little disappointed, almost? It's not bad, but it doesn't feel like they innovated much here, and after movie after movie of them hitting it out of the park, I think maybe my own expectations were set a little high. We're getting to the point where a lot of those innovations are much smaller changes, and though minor differences are obviously visible over time, I think the days of massive shifts are behind us by this point.
Story: I wasn't much a fan of this, to be honest. It all felt a little too well put-together – and yes, a story about toys is going to be surreal, but the amount of times where things happened to just click into place got to a point where I was like...yeah, this is kinda bullshit. I think it still has the punch we've come to expect from Pixar films – the emotional heft of Woody's decision is not small by any measure – but I think it's a bit muted because everything in the subplots is so cluttered.
Characters: They know what works; they continued to do that. Lotso's a far better villain than Sid or Stinky Pete, I think.
Acting: This is where I think this movie shines – maybe above every other Pixar classic. So many absolutely phenomenal performances from all corners that I think lift some of the gaps in the story and in the characters themselves, covering holes where otherwise lesser efforts may have failed to bridge those gaps.
Music: Hard to go wrong with the classic Toy Story motifs. “You've Got A Friend In Me” still owns.
Final score: 6/10 | It's weird. Objectively, I think this is supposed to be a great movie, but it's less than the sum of its parts in the end. I feel as though the pieces don't come together well enough to warrant a higher rating, despite a lot of the individual pieces sitting higher than that final rating. Incoherent isn't the right word, but it just doesn't fit. This movie came out the day after my 13th birthday, and I think being at that age put me at an unfortunate disadvantage regarding my love for this film – I couldn't (at the time) relate to either Andy nor Bonnie, and by the time I was in Andy's shoes, it had faded from consciousness. Not the fault of the movie, but I think what it does mean is that this film lacks any real sort of nostalgia shielding that other movies before it have had.
Final notes
I double-checked and yes, David was of sound mind when he wrote his review. Your funeral, buddy.
Next up: Cars 2 (oh boy)