I have a confession to make. An admission which has troubled me deeply throughout my teenage and post-teenage years. Something which caused me no real chagrin until it became apparent how everyone around me seemed to unite in a warm glow of camaraderie, rooted in the appreciation of something which, frankly, I could take or leave.
I never liked Toy Story as a child.
There. Said it. And it seems an especially ludicrous assertion for someone of the tender age of 22, for whom the Toy Story trilogy is now aimed at. Yet, even as I attempt to formulate the reasons as to why my six-year old self was left so untouched by the sacred friendship which formed between Andy, Woody, and Buzz, watching the Toy Story 3 film has created in me a wish to throw off my inexplicable childhood idiocy, and proclaim myself a Toy Story fan par excellence.
It is surely a credit to the final instalment of the Toy Story saga that it causes me to feel this way.
Toy Story 3 certainly relies on a level of nostalgia, and I feel that I would have enjoyed it more had I had any real attachment to the first two films. Bo-Peep is gone, and we are introduced, quite abruptly, to a new host of characters, none of whom we are really given the chance to form any attachment to. Actually, with this in mind, it is perhaps not the case that TS3 depends upon nostalgia and because of this fails to really make the grade, but that the new relationships which we stumble upon are not adequately explored.
And yet there is so much here that has been wonderfully executed. Buzz Lightyear’s accidental reboot into Spanish lothario did make me chuckle, as did the fantastic Western train chase sequence at the beginning, in which evil Dr Pork Chop sends forth “death by monkeys”. Amazing. Pixar’s new release also works incredibly well with 3-D. This, also, is quite startling coming from someone who also didn’t get into the 3-D thing at all. Although perhaps that was clouded by a deep and abiding hatred of Avatar. The perfectly formed, computer-generated Pixar images were simple and colourful enough to make 3-D delightful. There was also a quite touching exchange between Andy and the child to whom he eventually hands over Woody.
But though emotive, this did not come near to the emotional intensity of Up or Wall-E. Perhaps it is simply because the relationship between Andy and Woody just isn’t as close to my heart as it should be. Or, perhaps this is because the bar for Pixar has been set at a ridiculous height, with the steady stream of astonishing breakthroughs in animated film. Even with the (relatively minor) criticisms which can be levelled against the finale to the chronicle of Andy, Woody, and Buzz, this is still an excellent film which, though perhaps no magnum opus, is still a feather-in-cap for the Pixar group.
Words: Zoe Jellicoe
