Rank/Rate/Discuss Toy Story.

This week, one more bittersweet playtime in the emotional Toy Story 3.

I can’t believe Toy Story 4’s almost here.

I thought the trailer for 4 was pretty cringe inducing, but it's no surprise the reviews are good. I'm not big on 3 at all, considering it to be uncomfortably manipulative but it has some good moments. 2 is where it's at and the first is a classic.

In a somewhat opposite way to your standard trilogy, I think this one got better with each edition. I should say, it's only slightly better, as the first film was so great that you didn't have too much room for improvement, but improve they did...twice.

Toy Story 3 (10/10) #51 on my all-time list. It's my favourite film of 2010 and if it weren't for Spirited Away & South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, it would be my favourite animated film too.

Toy Story 2 (9.5/10) I give this one the edge on Toy Story as it's just plain funnier as far as I'm concerned.

Toy Story (9/10) It's so great and creative, and it sorta set a required standard for a great age of animation that followed.

3>1>2. All 3 are pretty strong.

3
1
2

1. Toy Story 2
2. Toy Story 3
3. Toy Story

One of the greatest most consistent franchises ever. The fact that they apparently didn't mess-up 4, makes me happy to no end.

3
2
1
4

Did a bit of a retrospective on the original trilogy after being totally swept off my feet by the fourth installment. After doing so I think I'd say I'd rank the series as follows:

2 > 4 > 1 > 3

The first two films definitely hold a special place in my heart, for nostalgia reasons if nothing else. I grew up with them, along with some other earlier Pixar joints like Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles, but I think these two definitely spent the most time in my VCR back in the day. The first film is obviously revolutionary and established Pixar's voice in such a charming and confident way. I'm kinda blown away by that film's efficiency (an 80-minute movie, holy shit!!) and that it's able to do so much with that time, doing so by always staying in motion while also not getting annoying or overbearing. It's exceedingly clever and just so damn funny ... as many times as I watched it years ago, it'd been near a decade since I watched either of the first two all the way through, so with both there were definitely a lot of bits I outright didn't remember or only remembered with the new viewing ... and I'll just say, as is often the case with revisiting kids' (allegedly) movies, it's really a delight to get a refresher on all the jokes I definitely didn't get when I was little. This film gave me that experience in spades and I was laughing my ass off. It is a very small-scale film though, and while that's certainly not a bad thing inherently, it's sort of hard to deny that Pixar would go on to do things that were both bigger and better ... both within this same franchise and in addition to it. It's pretty affecting for what it is, though notably unambitious compared to what comes after it. Really, that's the only slightly negative thing I can say about it. It's an absolute gem and a total blast, right up to the iconic climax that still might be the high-point in the franchise. 

I had a very, very similar experience with Toy Story 2 as I did with the first one, but to an even greater degree. It was a childhood favorite for me even more than the first one, and I think because it's so much less of a cultural touchstone (who the hell knows why) my memory on it was even rustier, having hardly even heard it referenced in the many years since my last viewing. But yeah, this movie is just ... hilarious. This low-key made me jealous on some level that they make funnier movies for kids than they do for adults. Literally every time Rex had a line, I was in stitches. Like most sequels it recycles a similar formula as its predecessor all while slightly expanding its scope, but unlike a lot of sequels that just feel like bloated and deflated shells of what came before it, this is one that actually manages to be even better than the original. Just as efficient as the first one but even more emotionally ambitious, this is when Toy Story started getting real existential and totally crushing our souls. Never before did I think it'd be so moving to watch pieces of plastic question their own existence. There's literally a moment in this where Woody is staring into the dark void of an air vent and it's kinda devastating. All this, to me, puts TS2 up there with The Incredibles as peak Pixar, where they achieve that perfect balance of humor and ambition and do so without getting tripped up by overly-complex storytelling or pathos that just seems manipulative. Other than its music moments that I find cheesy, this is basically perfect. Such a blast, even if I was just swept up in a nostalgia trip. (And the scene with the toy repairman will never not be the most aesthetically satisfying thing ever!)

Then came Toy Story 3, which unlike the first two films I only saw once back when it came out and hadn't seen since. Perhaps the lack of the same personal connection I have with its predecessors is why it didn't impress me as much on recent viewing. That's not to say I didn't like it. I love it, and it's really only the weakest of these films by default. It's less actively funny and efficiently clever than the other films in the franchise, though, and is definitely a classic example of Pixar veering towards overlong and perhaps even indulgent filmmaking. There's a lot of great stuff, but there also kinda dull stretches to be found in here that just aren't in the other films. That said, the prison break stuff is awesome, and obviously the last fifteen / twenty minutes are so emotionally overwhelming and cathartic ... even while some of its story elements are half-baked, at its heart it's a really moving sendoff to childhood while also poignantly showing how imagination can be passed on from one generation to the next. 

And lastly there's Toy Story 4, which is so much better than it has any right to be. I've already written a bit about it on here and on LB so I'll probably keep this short. To me this is sort of the culmination of everything that made this franchise so great, all of its hints of existential undertones sort of building to this immense philosophical question mark of a film. There's something so fitting about the fact that it took us four whole films before finally hearing one of these things ask, "How am I alive?" It's a genuinely life-affirming story about what we mean to the ones we love, even when we just feel like trash, and such a poignant story of finding one's new purpose after their entire life seems to have vanished. While not as formally/structurally perfect as the first two films in the series, TS4 is ultimately the most ambitious and complex of the bunch, a seemingly unnecessary cash-grab that ultimately proved itself a rather brave storytelling exercise in confronting the aftermath of a deceptively-perfect conclusion by questioning what our beloved protagonist is supposed to do with himself now. It definitely stumbles a bit in the way that it gives the short end of the stick to many of the beloved OG supporting characters, which is unfortunate, but the new additions here are the best they've ever been and with them, and some incredibly witty writing, TS4 matches the comedic heights of its predecessors. I was laughing from start to finish. Except for when the end had me tearing up. Such a beautiful coda to this franchise and such a colorful adventure, with the finely-textured details and the splendor of the imagery making a strong case for being the zenith of Pixar's animation prowess. Just stunning in every way. 

So, yeah. Over the course of the past week I watched a bunch of kids' movies, and I had a stupid grin on my face during all of it.