Toy Story 3 Is One Odd Movie
Toy Story 3 may fill you with nostalgia — nostalgia for a time when kids’ movies were about youth and whimsy rather than aging and being forgotten.
Although the third episode in the Disney-Pixar trilogy will please kids (it also has some fairly scary sequences and a really mean teddy bear) and is frequently a lot of fun, it is also suffused with a melancholy air that at times seems excessively dark. Like Shrek Forever After, which is about Shrek’s wish to be free of domestic boredom, its point of view seems more aligned with Prozac-popping adults than with mischievous children.
Now that it’s been 11 years since Toy Story 2, the toys’ owner Andy is heading off to college, leaving Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and their pals wondering what their next move should be. They decide that living in the attic is not a bad option (though Woody believes he will be the one toy heading off to college with Andy) and spend much of the film trying to get there.
Aching for a chance to be left alone to rot seems an odd goal to power the plot, but the toys’ other options are to be thrown into the trash or to accept adoption by a new set of kids — at a day care center called Sunnyside where everyone is at first made to feel welcome by the aged, wise pink teddy bear (Ned Beatty) who is in charge of the toys.
There is an uncomfortable parallel between what the toys are going through and what senior citizens experience — no one really wants them anymore and they find themselves nudged into a bright, clean new facility seemingly designed especially for them. Except their loved ones gradually turn into strangers. When Woody says, “I’m callin’ it, guys — we’re closing up shop,” it effectively means he’s accepting retirement — or worse. For a toy, not to be played with by a child anymore seems tantamount to death.
Yet the toys are resolved to make the best of the situation until it turns out that the teddy bear is a ruthless tyrant and that he has welcomed the newbies to daycare because he needs victims. The center has a special room for toddlers who scamper around madly dunking the toys in paint and treating them roughly. The toys resolve to escape this situation and make their way back to Andy’s place — because, yes, they believe they’ll be better off in Andy’s attic than being played with by small children. I repeat: this movie is odd.
A warning of “Spoilers Ahead!” Would have been nice. Maybe up there at the top of the column. Can’t say much for the comments on the movie since I haven’t seen it yet.
Good lord.
I’m depressed just reading the article.
And, can you imagine the script writers brainstorming this plot: “Yeah, let’s scare the crap out of preschoolers by having a teddy bear villian!”
Ugh.
You do realize that Pixar films aren’t made for “preschoolers” any more than the classic Bugs Bunny shorts were? WTF are some people bound and determined to lump anything animated in with Barney and Sesame Street?
Even my teenagers didn’t quite catch it all; one has to be at least a parent, and probably a parent of older kids, to appreciate the theme.
When all the marketing is towards preschoolers, all the toys, games, and clothing sold is for preschooler you have to make the assumption they would take preschoolers in mind when writing the scrip and ease up on the dark parts.
Go to any wal mart, disney store and anywhere that sells toys for little kids and they have the TS3 items, you can’t target that audience with just your merchandise and leave such a disappointment with the sensory, where parents can’t even take the little ones who have been anticipating TS3 up to the movie release. It’s a shame!
This dreary, melancholy air, has been with Pixar, right from the beginning, especially the Toy Story franchise, which seems to see kids as, essentially, bad—they hurt toys!—and growing up as somehow selfish, and wrong. (Is Andy, now a college student, really to blame for not wanting to play with his old toys anymore? Wouldn’t it be a little odd, if he did? In these movies, growing up is seen as bad, and toys are portrayed as suffering horribly, when their young owners mature. Is this sort of message likely to mess up kids’ minds? Yeah, that and the evil teddy bear!)
“Up” and “Wall-E” were depressing. So were the first two Toy Story movies, though they had a lot of humor, as well. They really should have stopped the franchise after Toy Story II.
Toy Stoy”?
And, speaking of this dreariness having been there all along. . . anybody remember the original Toy Story, wherein poor old Buzz Lightyear thinks he’s a real person? An actual human being, a member of Star command? Then, he finds out he’s a toy! Not even an ordinary, non-space faring human, he’s just a plaything! This is an idea worthy of weird sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick, and it’s played for boffo laughs! In fact, all the Buzz toys seem to think they’re actually space rangers. Ha, ha, ha, ha, isn’t that funny, kids? HEY, MAYBE YOU’RE JUST A TOY, TOO, AND NOT A REAL PERSON! AFTER ALL, BUZZ THOUGHT HE WAS REAL, AND HE ISN’T! MAYBE YOU’RE NOT REAL EITHER! HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!
It continues to amaze me how critics coo over Pixar, and declare how “heartwarming” and “deep” their movies are.
Oh, man. What a wet blanket! Saw it last night, and it’s brilliant- and, yes, bittersweet, which is precisely why it’s so good: possibly the best of the Toy Stories, or even of the whole Pixar corpus. You’re quite right in observing that it’s not all icing-sugar, but why on earth would you want it to be?
Love, loyalty, mortality: aren’t these the ingredients of any story that has something to say?
“In these movies, growing up is seen as bad, and toys are portrayed as suffering horribly, when their young owners mature”
Not in the least. Growing up is seen as a *fact of life*, which the toys have to deal with; it’s their ways of trying to deal with the inevitable that makes the film so touching. TS3 , like last year’s Up!, is as much as anything about *letting go*.
“nostalgia for a time when kids’ movies were”
Why do you think it’s a “kids’ movie?” Because it’s animated, and everybody “knows” cartoons are for kids?
The toys rather be in Andy’s attic (actually Andy’s parents) than in the toddlers’ playroom makes perfect sense.
Those toys were used to being owned by a single child, who cherished the toys for themselves. That was the life they knew. While being in a commune (toddlers’ playroom), nobody owns them, and they get equally abused.
Sure, staying in the attic and not being played may seem the end of the toys, but they have dreams – Andy will eventually have kids, and their usefulness may some day be rediscovered.
Well, I haven’t seen the movie, but this is my take reading your description. But I don’t know how / what to make of the reference to convalescences center.
Hey! Thanks for the spoilers. Nice job.
People think of it as kids movie because it’s marketed to kids, and because the toys it inspires are pushed at kids, in happy meals and the ultra-new-triple action Buzz Lightyear/Woody/whoever new Toy Story toys that come out every Christmas—not to mention various Toy Story books, games and the like, all marketed to kids.
As for the way it portrays kids—the toys are always agonizing over how hurt they are that they’ve been abandoned by their former owners, or they’re in constant terror that they’re going to be abandoned, or thrown away. This angst makes up the majority of the emotional conflict in the movies. In the first Toy Story, one kid, a rather nasty boy who lives next door to Andy, is shown abusing toys! (Haven’t the creators of Toy Story actually seen the way real kids, especially little boys, treat real toys?) In the second one, Woody is tempted by the offer of going to a museum in Japan, where he’ll never be damaged or broken by children. Whether this is the intention or not, the overall message is that growing up causes pain, and is somehow unkind to others.
Also the message that kids are cruel, and destructive as with. . .
SPOILER ALERT!
The toys being abused by pre-schoolers, at the Day care center. This is what toddlers do, guys! Furthermore, it’s rare for a kid, even a very careful, considerate one, to care much about a particular toy after a few months or so. (One of the mistakes parents make when they battle other parents each Christmas for whatever is the “hot” toy of the moment.)
Kids can be rough on toys, and furniture and lots of other things, especially when they’re young, but that’s part of being a normal, rambunctious kid!
I haven’t seen it yet, but the other option is going off to the attic until needed again by a new family member should Andy get married and become a father. It’s just as well inanimate objects don’t have feelings we have to worry about.
I really like the characters in this movie.
I would kind of like to dress as Woody for a oarty, I think he’s just plain fun.
He has a great attitude!
Yeah – a SPOILER ALERT would have been really, really nice.
But to those bitching about the Pixar movies – get a life. I’m 21 years old and loved every single one of their films. I grew up with them and enjoy watching them again and again. I loved WALL•E as well as Up. I admit I wept during the latter, but why must every film fit into some sort of saccharine, cookie-cutter stereotype?
What you consider “depressing”, I consider art. And damn good, award-deserving art at that.
Cool, you’re 21. you now officially know everything.
Damian G,
I’m with you, I love all the Pixar films. But I appreciate the heads-up on whether it’s appropriate for my toddlers, that’s all.
I agree with you, John. Although, I would argue that NO Pixar movie should have toddlers in attendance – in the theatre. They are horrible and disrupt the film for those of us with no children as well as those with well-behaved (and usually older) children.
Just because a movie is G-rated, people feel as if they have the carte blanche right to bring their snot-nosed prick urchins and let them act as if they own the place. It’s enough to make my inner Jonathan Swift come out and have at the little bastards.
End of rant.
To clarify, those few toddlers who ARE good – have at it – but too often my experience with wide-appeal children’s films have devolved into an orgy of whispers, screeches and even full voice level talking.
And that’s just the parents.
I think the first 2/3rds of the movie was good, creative, and fun. But the last part starting with the end of the escape at the trash dumpster was hard to watch. The scene with them about to go into the incinerator was alot like watching the scene in Titanic where there were people waiting for thier time to die. The movie was made for both adults and kids, but I think several scenes were for adults only but should have been kid friendly instead. This is a mass market film, so it should have been softened up some. It doesn’t need to force feed kids what the depths of tragedy is about.
This is NOT appropriate for young children. they really ramped up the “scary” parts this time. I thought because it’s a TS & Pixar, it would be safe. It wasn’t, my five year old had a really hard time, was covering his face, crying, and asking to go home. (maybe I should have left and demanded my money back for false advertising as a NOT age friendly film?)
I loves me the PJTV but this article really misses the mark. Just saw Toy Story 3 with my 8 and 5 year olds, and it was brilliant. Pretty intense towards the end (which the older one struggles with more than the younger, go figure).
And don’t worry this article doesn’t really need a spoiler alert. I read it before the show and it didn’t ruin anything.
As a plus, we had already been exploring the notion of a dictator (a Fairly Oddparents episode had opened that subject, of all things) with our 8 year old. This movie helped develop the meaning further, esp. the fact that a dictator can express all kinds of benevolent purposes and really twist reality if given the chance.
I suppose you could worry about the feminine tendencies of Ken, and I can’t say what the writers had in mind. But he IS a girls toy, after all, and a large part of character development in the Toy Story series seems to match what the toy was made for. It’s just toys, and it’s just a kids movie so the whole sex aspect of femininity doesn’t come up.
So many “kid flicks” stink so very, very badly. Don’t pass up one of the rare great ones cuz of this one review.
Just finished watching the movie, have a hard time understanding some thing said in this review.
I didn’t notice much, if any, ‘Ken is gay’ jokes, save maybe when Barbie pretends to be Ken in a space suit but still wears pink heels. It’s pretty clear, though, that the others tease him over being a “girl’s toy”, and he’s obviously attracted to Barbie. At worst, he’s a metrosexual too worried about his wardrobe.
Early in the movie, the toys think their options are either the attic or the trash. They opt for the attic because there is at least hope that they will be useful again someday–perhaps Andy will have kids, and then they will be played with again.
The toys object to being in the toddler room because they are not toys built to be played with by toddlers (something it could be argued the adults at the day care center should have noticed, but that’s a digression).
It’s a good movie, not as odd as the review makes it out to be.
It’s not too late to edit in SPOILER ALERT.
(Looked like it was full of spoilers to me, so I skipped reading this piece until I saw the movie.)
All I can say is, I think some people don’t understand kids very well. Or movies made for kids, or made for families.
Or something. To me, it’s like when people see “dreary” it is a very individual take on things, or an expectation for movies in general that I don’t share. I don’t mind movies being about life.
And what would one expect in a movie about toys? What is portrayed in the Toy Story series IS from the toys’ point of view, and their “lives.” Naturally, what happens to toys – and to old toys – is going to be in the movie!
None of the series – nor the other Pixar movies – struck me as “dreary”. If one thinks they are, then one simply gets something else from the same movies that most others are finding “touching,” “uplifting,” “funny,” and the like. It has got to be just an individual take on things.
I agree with Behomand @6 and Damian @14. My kids are about Damian’s age now. Our family has seen all three Toy Story movies, together, including this latest one. I have to tell you, none of us has ever come away from any of them with any sort of “dreary” or “depressing” take on them, or any kind of “bad” message.
We have loved the Toy Story movies. We have identified with them. My kids grew up along with Andy. We have had our lives enriched by, as Damian says, “art – and damned good, award-deserving art, at that.”
Less an “odd” movie than an odd take on a movie, I think. Not everyone is going to love the same things, of course, but I think most people who go to this movie will enjoy it a great deal.
Just saw the movie, my 7 year old came out with a literal headache–I was left with a very depressed feeling that took me the rest of the day to shake. Not the light, funny shows like the other two. It seems the writters were trying to convey a message about our current governement, very well said—but never-the-less very depressing–I went there to try and forget all this for awhile!
My 5 year old daughter is still crying after seeing this movie 2 days ago. I really enjoyed it but it was too sad and even scary at times for younger children. She loved the first two Toy Story movies so we were very surprised when this one was so sad. I can understand a sad moment but I felt this movie was filled with sadness.
Count me as one of the die-hard Pixar fans who agree that these are not necessarily movies for little kids. Are they marketed to kids? Sure! So is Iron Man – would you call that a kid’s movie? I saw the first Toy Storyfive years before I had kids. In fact, I loved every Pixar movie far more than my kids did (some, like Cars and Wall-E, bored them to tears). And any good Pixar movie is going to make me cry. I cried during Toy Story 2 when Jessie described her heartbreaking rejection by Emily, her original owner. I cried during Up, several times.
Oh yeah, I also want to agree with Damian – NEVER bring toddlers to movies! And I say this as a parent who has made that mistake before.
A lot of kids do get taken to see Iron Man, and Spider Man, and all the other superhero movies; so, while some of them aren’t made specifically for kids, they’re not necessarily strictly for adults, either. A lot of kids are going to be taken to Toy Story III, because of its G rating, and all the kid marketing. So, it should be judged as to whether or not it’s age appropriate.
And Emily does not reject Jessie; Emily GROWS UP! She no longer wants to play with her old doll, just as she no longer wants to play with a rubber ducky, or a baby rattle! This isn’t rejection, it’s maturity! Only in the weird world of Pixar are kids growing up, and outgrowing their toys, seen as some kind of tragedy. This is exactly the sort of bleak message, hidden behind a lot of Toy Story’s cutsieness, and “warmheartedness” I’m talking about!
“Only in the weird world of Pixar are kids growing up, and outgrowing their toys, seen as some kind of tragedy.”
Maybe not tragedy, but certainly bittersweet for the toy. My older child is eleven now, and as she grows up I know that more and more of her world and life will be outside my sphere. It’s natural and, as you said, it’s maturity. But I have to admit that, for me, it is a bit of a “tragedy,” too.
I don’t think it makes me any more selfesh to recognize that emotion than it makes Jessie wierd to twisted to feel the same.
As a 20 year-old who saw Toy story 1 &2 in theatres, this was a very depressing film. The entire theme is just sad and theres a few scenes (the toys accepting their fate at the landfill in particualr) that had me questioning what on Earth had happend to Toy Story. However, I disagree with the reviwer saying that Ken is strongly hinted as being gay; he’s not. He never shows any sexual/romantic interest in any male characters nor are any comments made by any of the toys that point in that direction. Ken is seen as effiminate, but not gay.
Anyways, I dont think that this film is particularly frighting in any parts, but if you grew up with the other two films, this one is highly depressing.
Yeah, I miss the good old days when kids movies were about murder, evisceration, and poisoning (Snow White), abandonment, threatened burning, forced dehumanization, and being eaten alive (Pinocchio), parents murdered, threatened rape, near-fatal injury, threatened burning (Bambi), parents being imprisoned, drug-fueled hallucinations, racial stereotypes (Dumbo), nudity, murder, death by starvation, Satanic revelry (Fantasia), kidnapping, threatened stabbing/bombing/drowning of children, racial stereotypes (Peter Pan), implied murder, near-fatal injury, abandonment (Lady and the Tramp), kidnapping, threatened murder of children (101 Dalmations), threatened murder, abandonment (Jungle Book), threatened murder (Robin Hood), murdered parents, threatened murder, violence (Fox & Hound), kidnapping, threatened murder, violence (The Great Mouse Detective), forced dehumanization (Little Mermaid), implied murder, threatened murder (Rescuers Down Under), violence, murder (Beauty and the Beast), threatened murder (Aladdin), murdered parent, threatened murder, being eaten alive (The Lion King).
Give me a break, BettyBlue. Classic Disney films have way more peril and darkness than Pixar (also, worse messages about respective gender roles, but that’s another post). If you remove all serious conflict from kids’ movies, you’ll be left with Care Bears. The MPAA ratings are designed to indicate to parents whether a film has graphic material that is deemed unsuitable for children, i.e. violence, cussin’, sex, drugs (take your pick of those in old Disney films and Looney Toons, by the way). If you want to protect your kids from ever feeling sad or, god forbid, that their actions may have unforeseen consequences toward others, maybe you need a different rating. It will be “W,” for “womb.” Films will only portray kids being happy and others being happy that kids are happy (have you ever seen the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life”?). You can take your bored toddlers to it and the rest of us can be free from complaints that G movies shouldn’t show characters being upset.
If you really think Toy Story is sending the message “getting rid of old toys is evil and unnatural, and you kids are evil for doing it,” look at the point toward the end of TS3 when Andy’s mom walks into his room, and realizes her son is growing up, and won’t be around all the time. Does it make sense now? Did you ever wonder what the psychology was behind these enigmatic sentient vessels known as toys, seemingly adult characters who put their own needs after that of a child, desiring his happiness and affection? They’re parents! Like Bohemond said, Toy Story is about how growing up is a perfectly natural thing, and that it can be painful to deal with, but you ultimately have to learn to accept it. To portray growth as a process completely without anxiety or confusion is not only boring, it’s a lie.
I’ll admit, I might consider whether the garbage disposal scene was appropriate to take my toddlers to, because that was pretty raw. But decrying Pixar movies for displaying emotional complexity and serious stakes is so wrongheaded and reductive I don’t know what to say.
Also: the toys it inspires are for kids? Yeah, no kidding. Who else would they be for?
Here’s another nugget of bizarre anti-wisdom I’d like to address: “one kid, a rather nasty boy who lives next door to Andy, is shown abusing toys! (Haven’t the creators of Toy Story actually seen the way real kids, especially little boys, treat real toys?)”
Well, I don’t know about you, but I think when a little boy wrecks the things his parents buy them, steals his sibling’s most cherished belonging and tears it apart just to see the look on her face (which Sid does), and plays with explosives in the back yard, he should be taught not to. By the way, are you next going to rail against Bambi for making hunters feel bad, or Chicken Run for making meat eaters feel bad? THEY’RE FANTASY MOVIES.
“Woody is tempted by the offer of going to a museum in Japan, where he’ll never be damaged or broken by children”
It’s not that he won’t be broken by children, it’s that he’ll never be ignored by children. But, also, he’ll never really be able to engage with them. And lets not forget, he decides NOT to go, that he’d rather stick with his own kid, who he loves and appreciates.
“The toys being abused by pre-schoolers, at the Day care center. This is what toddlers do, guys!”
The toys don’t say “My, how we hate those miserable devils for being so cruel and vicious.” They say, “Those kids are too young to play with us, they don’t know how.” You shouldn’t give age-inappropriate toys to babies. Is that such a terrible lesson? And at the end, it even shows stronger action figures tag-teaming each other to play with the kids, and being perfectly fine with it. Is that not enough of a concession to the nail-biters that think anything negative in a kids’ movie is an attack on their children?
In response to your psychotic episode regarding Buzz Lightyear: what is wrong with you?
Finally, regarding Ken’s sexuality: He’s a girl’s toy. That’s why he’s kind of girly. I’m a little unsettled by comments like “at the worst, he’s metrosexual.” We wouldn’t want to stumble into homophobia, would we?
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