Toy Story and Coping with Change

Welcome back readers new and old alike! If you haven’t been with me I use this blog mainly to rank movie franchises and review beloved classics. And with the conclusion of my review of the Marvel Cinematic Universe last week I’ve needed a new franchise to start. And so I turned around and looked for the best option and then it became pretty obvious.

We’re doing Pixar! I will be ranking and reviewing each Pixar movie in release order for the next 22 weeks. So let’s get started with the very first Pixar movie. I’m taking of course about Toy Story.

There’s an interesting thing that comes with revisiting a beloved classic more than 20 years after it came out. You notice things you didn’t as a child and relate to things you didn’t when you were younger and hadn’t lived in the world as much. I hadn’t seen Toy Story in nearly 5 years and hadn’t really watched it thoroughly in at least a decade. So it brought up numerous questions, what was the movie trying to tell? Why do we invest so heavily in these characters and follow their journey for decades? So that’s where we begin this first essay. What is Toy Story trying to teach us? And the answer I believe is about how to adapt to change.

The three major characters of the first Toy Story are all going through some version of change. Woody (Tom Hanks) is wrestling with the challenge that comes from no longer being the top dog in his hierarchy. Buzz (Tim Allen) spends most of the movie in a delusion but has to come to terms when he quite literally falls from grace. And Andy (John Morris) has to work through the childhood move that will change much of his life and his need to get comfort from the toys in his life and the worry of losing that comfort when he loses Buzz and Woody.

Woody is the king of the toys. He’s the coolest, smartest, most important toy in Andy’s life. But when Andy gets Buzz Lightyear, that whole world changes. Woody has to come to terms with his jealousy and learn all about putting aside his pride and accepting that he doesn’t need to be in charge to still be loved by Andy and his fellow toys. It’s only through the accepting that his circumstances have changed and realizing that he doesn’t always need to have control that Woody can find happiness in his situation. Woody was living through an illusion of happiness because he never really struggled before, and it’s only through the trial by fire he experiences in this movie that shows him what he needs is to not be falsely confident when the world is good to him, but to crumble when it’s not. Woody has to accept when he’s no longer the top and realize that life is good when he has friends who care about him and can help him when he can’t help himself. We often get beaten down by the world and learn we are not nearly as important as we once thought. And our happiness comes from how we deal with that. Instead of working to fix it, we wallow in our own self-pity that we don’t deserve. But when we accept that the world around us can change and do something to adjust our new circumstances. In that way we are Woody.

Buzz is different than Woody. Buzz is wrapped in a delusion that he is not just a toy. He, like Woody, thinks his importance is far greater than it is. It’s only when he doesn’t have the false admiration of the other toys that he realizes just what he truly is. Buzz is a toy. And while he’s a cool toy, he’s not on some intergalactic mission to save the world, he’s not working to stop the evil emperor Zurg and he’s not able to truly fly. When Buzz falls, his whole world crumbles. He wrestles with his illusion shattering and has to find a new purpose upon learning that his original belief was a fiction. Buzz’s journey is one many go through learning that what they thought they knew isn’t true. And it’s a hard pill to swallow, the breaking of that illusion can lead to a depression and a sorrow that we have to struggle through before we accept our circumstances. In a way Buzz is grieving. He’s going through each stage of grief as he journey’s to self-discovery. Likewise we grieve our past when we learn that it’s false and have to come to know a new truth. In that way we are Buzz.

But beyond the toys, there’s one character who goes through the most change of all of them. Andy. Andy is a child whose family is moving. Moving is very displacing for anyone but for a child it is particularly hard. They often don’t understand why they have to move, they lose a very crucial group of friends for development and socialization, and they place comfort in the few things that stay the same, especially toys. I myself moved across country at around the same age as Andy. I had a few toys much like he did that gave me comfort. And losing any of those was tragic. When Andy loses Woody and Buzz his whole world crumbles. He becomes singularly focused on the pursuit of finding his toys and returning his world to as much normal as he can. We often place our investments in comforts when experiencing great change, whether that be people, things, places, or food. Andy places his worry in his toys. Think about the last big change you experienced, what did you put your comfort in? For me it was movies. In that way we are Andy.

The way we cope with change says a lot about us. Do we grow jealous? Do we get depressed? Do we place higher investment in the familiar? Do we do all three of these things? Watching a movie about toys as an adult brings new lessons and shows that even more than 20 years later these stories still have things to teach us. So be open to learn lessons, grow, and experience change. We are all Woody, Buzz, Andy, and so many other characters in this movie, and we need to learn that change is inevitable but how we cope with it is what leads us to be healthy functioning members of society.

Here is my breakdown for reviewing and ranking the movies in the Pixar series:

Voice Performances
Storyline
Worldbuilding
Most Memorable Scene
Villain

Each category will be ranked on a scale of 10 points for a possible total of 50.

So here is my breakdown for Toy Story:

Voice Acting: This movie is what really started the trend of taking A-List actors and putting them in voice roles. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen lead an Allstar ensemble which gives so much charm and personality to each of the characters. Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, Wallace Shawn, Laurie Metcalf, and so many others all create memorable dynamic characters with nothing more than their voices and the whole cast works really well together. (10/10)

Storyline: The movie’s story is simple but effective. The two acts work in contrast but could use a little streamlining as there are moments which feel disjointed from each other. By the time we get to Sid’s (Erik von Detten) house the story really takes off an gets interesting and fires off to the finale. (8/10)

Worldbuilding: The world is fully developed to be both familiar and whimsical. The Pizza planet set is unique and interesting. Sid’s house is horrifying but not outside the realm of something we’ve seen, and the world that Andy and his family lives in his absolutely imaginative while still familiar. (9/10)

Most Memorable Scene: The most memorable scene in this movie is when Woody rally’s Sid’s toys to confront their destructive owner and scare him straight. The scene is both comical and harrowing as we watch a young boy go through some serious trauma from the realization that his toys are alive and he has been torturing them for years now. It could be a bigger moment, but it certainly leaves and impression. (7/10)

Villain: Sid Phillips is a destructive and terrifying character… from the perspective of a toy. His big thing though is his ignorance. He doesn’t know that the toys are alive, he just things he’s destroying inanimate objects and when he learns the truth he sees just how terrible he’s been and how scary they can be when provoked. He’s a good villain for this story but really not evil in the grand scheme of things. (6/10)

Total Score: 40/50

Current Ranking:
Toy Story

And there we have it. First Pixar Blog in the bag. I’m moving these to Tuesday’s because of other things I’m working on but know they will be coming out each Tuesday until we run out of Pixar movies, and that’s not for a few months so come relive the best series of childhood films with me!

And as always, thanks for taking the time to get Ploominated!