Film #017 - Toy Story (1995)
Ah, Toy Story. Although they had done several shorts and dozens of memorable TV commercials (Listerine bottles swinging on vines and dancing gummi Life Savers ring a bell?), it was with this, the first computer animated feature film, that Pixar Animation Studios made its name and reputation. Prior to Toy Story, precious few knew who they were. In fact, even with the release of Toy Story, precious few knew of them. This was because it was branded, quite reasonably, as “Disney’s Toy Story“. Pixar, you see, were hired hands, brought on by Disney to produce content for them. But after the success of Toy Story, Disney was keen to lock Pixar in to a five film deal and part of the negotiations included branding all future films (and Toy Story in subsequent releases) as “Disney / Pixar” (or some variation).
But before you start shaking your fist in anger at Disney for taking all the credit for the film, remember that, unlike later films, Disney was very “hands-on” with Toy Story. Later bad blood would lead Pixar to being much less open with their projects, but at that time, having never made a feature film, director John Lasseter and Co. were eager for the input that Disney provided (and more than once, a swift kick in the pants). In those days, Disney was in the middle of their “renaissance”, having just come off four smash hits (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King) out of five (The Rescuers Down Under, the last gasp of the previous era, underperformed). They had invested a lot in Pixar and weren’t about to let their money go to waste. In fact, they apparently went as far as to promise to cut off funding if Pixar didn’t get their house in order and shore up serious story problems the film was having.
Of course, they did solve those problems and Toy Story wound up being important not just for showcasing a new form of filmmaking, but for carrying on a Disney tradition of forging new ground, while Disney Feature Animation began trying to re-invent the wheel. (It is notable that Toy Story came out the same year as Pocahontas, widely held as the first sign that Disney was losing its touch. Pixar looked to tell new stories, the likes of which had not been told before (or, at least, not in this form) while Disney simply seemed determined to set up the next toy line or Disney Princess. Toy Story is, in a way, the passing of the torch from one generation of Disney animators to the next. Only at the time, the new generation wasn’t actually a part of Disney.
Of course most of the major players at Pixar cut their teeth at Disney, including head creative honcho Lasseter. At the time hooking up with Disney made sense because there really weren’t any kind of successful animated films coming out of other studios. But it made more sense from a creative perspective. Can you see Warner Bros. or Fox or (heaven forbid) Sony understanding how to market Pixar’s films? Do you imagine they would have done as well on their own as they do under the safety and comfort of the DIsney corporate umbrella? In the Pixar era, only one studio has had even remotely the same kind of consistant success that Disney/Pixar has and that’s Dreamworks Animation SKG, and that mainly on the back of the overrated “Shrek” franchise. (Of course, they’ve just jettisoned Aardman Studios, their most creative and intelligent parter, so I’m not sure how much longer they will survive before following the fate of the original Dreamworks.) Disney is the prefect place for Pixar because Pixar is the Disney of fifty or sixty years ago. That they’ve all come home and are practically running the show is just poetic justice.
Now, not every effect of Toy Story was a good one. There’s those “Shrek” films, for one. Pre-Shrek, Dreamworks Animation was making quality films like The Road to El-Dorado and The Prince of Egypt, but no one was paying attention. Enter Toy Story and Dreamworks suddenly gets all CG-minded and slaps out Shrek, a non-stop roller coaster of fart jokes and snide digs at Disney. And suddenly everyone and their mother is starting a CGI animation studio and we get a year like last year where there were, what, sixty CGI animated films? (I know, an exaggeration, but good heavens there were a lot.) Heck, the CGI phenomenon nearly killed traditional 2-D animation completely on the strength of sheer momentum alone (helped along, of course, by a short-sighted Michael Eisner).
Pixar made it look too easy. Make a CGI film, make a lot of money. Inevitably, Happily N’Ever After, Everyone’s Hero, Arthur and the Invisibles and Doogal proved that CGI alone won’t carry the day. So, hopefully, things will calm down and we can see some variety in the industry again. Disney is back on the 2D track, with one of Lasseter’s first moves being to greenlight The Frog Princess, a traditional 2D animated fairy tale from Disney feature Animation. Nothing will compare to the 1939 debut of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, of course, but here’s hoping the debut of The Frog Princess is as big a shock to the system as The Little Mermaid was in 1989 and Toy Story was in 1995.
Note: I realize I didn’t actually talk about the film much, but if you don’t realize how friggin’ great Toy Story is by now, what could I possibly say? But here’s the short version: perfectly balanced story, with engaging and original characters perfectly rendered and voiced, wrapped up in a gorgeous package that will never grow old.