Toy Story 3 anticipation thread

Only 381 days to go.

Toy Story 1 was, perhaps, the best Pixar movie. A friend was recently explaining to me how the film also works as an analogy to the '08 election, with Obama being Buzz Lightyear and Bush being Woody.

At least its not Cars 2. Hows that for anticipation?

As much as I love Toy Story, I actually prefer Toy Story 2 as a storytelling vehicle. There's more heart in it. And, at this point, Pixar's gotten so good at what they do, and the Toy Story characters are so beloved now, that this has likely success (by my standards) written all over it.

Some bits, some pieces:

Never-before-seen footage screened for the audience at the D23 Expo opens with home-movie-style vignettes from Andy's childhood, as a boy being measured against a door frame (and measuring Woody), playing on the floor with his toys, followed by the jarring image of Andy as a teenager -- and the toys discussing his impending departure for college.

Next, the audience sees the familiar "Toy Story" characters dumped at a day-care center -- where the children disassemble Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, slime Buzz and commit other comic mayhem. The toys decide to make a break for it.

Lasseter offered no more details about the much-anticipated movie, but he did talk casting. He said Michael Keaton will provide the voice of Barbie's anatomically incomplete beau, Ken. The movie's other voice talent includes Ned Beatty, "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" Jeff Garlin, Bonnie Hunt and Whoopie Goldberg.

The only new "Toy Story 3" character to put in an appearance at the fan convention was a hedgehog in green lederhosen and accessorized with a traditional German feather cap. The character, a thespian dubbed Mr. Pricklepants, will be voiced by none other than former Agent 007 Timothy Dalton.

Anyone else seen the 3D reissue of TS 1 & 2? Since they weren't designed as 3D movies, there's not much in the way of objects appearing to pop from the screen and such, but my appreciation of the art/backgrounds was greatly enhanced. Haven't seen either one since my 14-year old was little; he actually WANTED me to go with him to see these! I've long remembered preferring the sequel, but now I think I love them equally for different reasons: #1 = more pure fun, #2 = more bittersweet and nostalgic (and dammit, "When She Loved Me" makes me cry every time.)

i never finished the first film, and always meant to see the second but never got the chance. gonna try to see 'em tomorrow. going alone. life!

Pixar has gotten better at doing trailers over the years as the new TS3 trailer is quite good.

I'm gonna go see those this weekend if I have the time. Double feature of two great movies I haven't seen in years = awesome even in 2D.

i've seen these on dvd so many times over the past six months that I don't know if I can bear going in and paying money for them again, although I really love 2. My kid wants to go but he's going to be more excited by 3 than these.

Huh, we in the UK are only getting the first film for our 3D reissue, no double feature for us. I suppose it's rare enough that it's hitting the cinemas here at the same time as the US (we're still waiting for Up...).

Wow, I woulda thunk Pixar films would do North America, Europe and Japan all together at the same time. Don't see why they'd stagger it like that (especially as long as it's been since Up came out over here).

http://i48.tinypic.com/rhvej5.png

Mr. Hanks looks kinda creepy.

It's coming! Next week! Possibly the only trilogy where the third one not only doesn't suck, but is a fantastic movie in its own right.

Army Of Darkness

CAN'T WAIT

and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Army Of Darkness

Went on a first date to that movie with the girl I ended up getting engaged to. Should've know it was doomed from that very night.

Should've told that she-bitch to go to hell!

Am I alone in having only mild anticipation for this? I definitely preferred the first film to the second, though (ended up going to that 3D double feature). It seemed like Toy Story 2 taught Pixar not to make sequels anymore - an admirable goal - until this, and the upcoming Monsters Inc and Cars sequels. Still, they've had an amazing run these last several years for which I'm highly enamored of them, but I doubt this will be as good as Wall-E or Up.

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2010/03/16/toy-story-3-a-triumph-puts-exhibitors-at-showest-in-tears.aspx

I mean, I sat in that hall today surrounded by hardened industry professionals. Exhibitors who care more about how much popcorn & soda they’re selling than the movies they’re currently showing at their multiplexes. And these jaded theater owners – as “Toy Story 3” entered the home stretch – were openly weeping. Tears streaming down hundreds of faces as the ultimate fate of Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the whole Andy’s Room gang was decided.

Another thing worth noting here is – while “Toy Story” was basically a buddy movie and “Toy Story 2” was more of a road picture … “Toy Story 3” – in its heart of hearts -- a caper.

They were crying because they realized how much money they were going to make from it.

xp What didn't you like about TS2/ prefer about TS1?

xp and because there's some scary shit in there :)

It wasn't bad, but especially watching them back-to-back in a single theater sitting, it felt like the second one wasn't particularly... necessary? The first movie felt really complete with a solid story back-to-front. The second movie was still entertaining, but the concepts of nostalgia and "letting go" themes didn't really do it for me that time around, and I didn't like the action chase side of the story as much in the sequel either. (Also it completely lacked the creepier stuff from the first Toy Story as well.)

Also think they learned the "stay away from the uncanny valley" lesson in that movie too - the dog (which seems to be back in TS3) just felt weird next to all the toys, but it was a small part of the film.

i remember being absolutely disgusted by uncanny valley stuff in the toy story movies. so long since i've watched them i can't remember if a dog was one the problems. Seem to remember the humans being horrific.

Are you joking? Uncanny valley is where they try and do photorealism but fail because it's slightly off. The humans in TS are cartoony, not photorealistic.

i found them deeply creepy and grotesque as a child and they are disgusting in the same way that harryhausen's skeletons or the terminator exoskeleton crawling after sarah connor is - both things i've always thought of as uncanny valley.

Also They were fairly realistic as far as computer graphics were concerned at the time.

to be honest i found them more perturbing than either of those examples.

yes, but you wouldn't nearly mistake the characters in any pixar movie for actual humans, right? OK if you don't like the design but that's nothing to do with the uncanny valley effect.

So I bought this book at Target, for my kids, and unless I'm mistaken, it completely spoils the whole movie! I'm not usually a very spoiler-averse person, but this seems like a massive marketing fail, releasing this book months before the movie. Maybe the real plot of the movie will be different, but I doubt it.

yes, but you wouldn't nearly mistake the characters in any pixar movie for actual humans, right? OK if you don't like the design but that's nothing to do with the uncanny valley effect.

the uncanny valley concept as posited by masahiro mori includes bunraku puppets as falling within the uncanny valley.

http://asobi.info/noriko/archives/04021044_1.jpg

You're not exactly likely to mistake them for people; but they're somewhat too human-like not to be creepy: exactly like the humans in toy story.

Bunraku puppets use actual human movements iirc. That's why you'd perceive them as moving in a way very similar to humans' movement. You may perceive Pixar's characters as moving in a way that mimics human movement but if you compared it to a character using motion capture (eg Polar Express) you'll notice a huge difference. If you can find a clip of what you mean I'd be interested to see it.

Schwantz: a quick browse on Amazon throws up several books that seem to give away the entire plot (from what I can tell from "look inside"). Marketing fail indeed!

Yeah, Toy Story not in the Uncanny Valley. Polar Express and that Scrooge movie last xmas (both by Zemeckis) are all sorts of Uncanny Valley.

umm, ok, it's decided, this totally unspecific and vague area of human-like movement/appearance which is experienced subjectively by individuals as discomfort or uneasiness does not apply to anything in the Toy Story movies because you like them.

Yes, that is exactly what I said. Study one Animation 101, or give me an example.

yeah pixar don't give a fuck about copyright and they'll be hundreds of videos on youtube i'm sure.

You may perceive Pixar's characters as moving in a way that mimics human movement but if you compared it to a character using motion capture (eg Polar Express) you'll notice a huge difference

did i miss the meeting when we decided that anything less lifelike than Polar Express was automatically not in the uncanny valley?

As mentioned upthread, the humans in the Toy Story films are too cartoony to be included, and pretty much everyone but you would agree. Sounds like you get creeped out too easily.

Like, you must have HATED The Incredibles, then.

To be fair, maybe that's what ppl look like in Glasgow

guys, I was talking mostly about this
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5162/oldbuster.jpg

Though some of the human stuff weirded me out at times, but usually it was when they were large up close shots where you saw someone's moving arm or shoulder, not so much the faces - the camera effects and motion of the body parts was a little too realistic looking at times. Harder to get a good clip or screenshot of it though.

My point is that after TS2, I noticed in future Pixar films they deliberately avoided uncanny valley-type designs, animations, and post-processing effects (I missed A Bug's Life though, so I can't speak for that one).

now imagine seeing that dog IN 3D

I agree that the human characters look kind of horrible, particularly 15 years on - although they look like visions of heavenly loveliness compared to Pixar's Tin Toy from 1988:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZtl5SZvbM

btw, the voice of Andy is the same guy as the first two movies.

andy and sid look pretty bad in toy story one. pixar went for more cartoony forms with real people in toy story 2. I'm not sure why they didn't do that in 1; wasn't the old man playing chess in the park done around the same time as toy story 1? maybe it came after....anyway he's in toy story 2 as well. as soon as they moved away from super-real human forms they looked better.

anyway I've seen 1 and 2 innumerable times now because I have a toy story addicted 4 year old; I have to have seen them both at least 50 times. Toy story 2 is a better film.

Toy Story 2 is probably my least favorite Pixar film. Don't get the love. The first one is tops though.

Oh shit, forgot about Cars. Both on the same level imo.

I've seen TY1 countless times for similar reasons as akm, and it's amazing how it refuses to really ever bore me like most movies would have after the millionth viewing. Part of the reason must be that it's a lean 82 minutes or so iirc.

Bug's Life had zero uncanny valley moments, unlike its evil Dreamworks competitor film, Antz. Did I need to know what Sharon Stone and Woody Allen look like as Ants(z?)? No.

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/a/images/antz-2.jpg

compare:

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/090521/Bugs-Life_l.jpg

bugs life used to be one of my faves but I find it pretty dull these days. but it looks great.

Fun trivia: they made the ants pink & blue to avoid it being a racial allegory.

btw guys, I am way excited for Toy Story 3. I cried at the freaking trailer.

Oh my gosh...Woody was Lotso!

http://newslite.tv/2010/07/21/toy-story-fan-changes-his-name.html

What is the story w/British people and Buzz Lightyear?

Wait, you mean this is a "thing"!?!?

I don't know, this is coming from my mom, who told me British people are crazy about Buzz Lightyear. She's also told me a bunch of wacky stuff that "black people secretly believe," so I don't know how trustworthy she is on other cultures.

Pretty sure there's no 'thing' with us Brits, although when the first Toy Story came out, the Buzz was THE toy to get for Christmas, and it sold out like everywhere. My mum happened to be going to Canada and managed to get one for my little brother. But I think it was nuts there too because she had to fight for it!

This was great, as expected, though if they had gotten the cameoing Totoro toy just to say "To-tooorr-ro" once it would have next levelled it imo.

http://twitchfilm.net/news/Totoro_ToyStory3.jpg

Big Baby was scary as fuck.

The Monkey Shines monkey was a bit freaky as well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f7/monkey_shines.jpg/402px-Monkey_shines.jpg

Yes, such an awful, soul-rending noise it made.

God I loved this. Mr Veg & I held hands & bawled...so hard to say goodbye to childhood. Spent the whole ride home wondering if my childhood teddybear is still in my old bedroom closet at my parents' house.

Little Molly in her gumboots and tutu was the cutest. And Spanish Buzz was awesome. Slinky Dog sure is the workhorse of that toybox...

this was absolutely amazing you guys - scene at the end where Andy and Bonnie play with the toys was literal :''''''''''''''')

not gonna go into the good bits now (there were lots of them) but the way it kept bombarding us with believable emotional climaxes was astonishing

I liked this but it was a fraction of the film Up was. The opening ten minutes of that will forever be Pixar's 'Bambi's mum' moment.

SPOILERS
The bit in the dumpster was genuinely intense until those bloody aliens saved them in classic kid's movie style.

I thought that would be it - and that it would be the jawdropping mindmelting never-been-there-before antidote to every kid's film ever - but equally that movie NEEDED closure with Bonnie's toys and Andy's toys being brought together, which I realised pretty much as soon as they first came onscreen

'jawdropping mindmelting never-been-there-before antidote to every kid's film ever'

Now this is what I wanted, in a kind of perverse way. Pixar should have totally gone for a historic unhappy ending.

I really enjoy Pixar's films but this one also suffered with being somewhat overfamiliar with the characters...third installments are always so hard to pull off. Just didn't feel like this fresh, inventive adventure like their previous three or so.

They could have melted them down to metal ingots to be reincarnated as high-end die-cast toys for nostalgia-ridden adult Andy.

I went with my entire family actually...like the only film we could realistically enjoy all together, and they were totally charmed.

xpost yes hahaha!

I disagree - the opening twenty minutes (after the 'imagination' sequence) were a bit frantic and confused and 'been there before' but after that it went to some places that neither of the first two films went - the idea of toys DAMAGED by neglect being key - although in a perverse way, yeah, everyone frying and Woody somehow surviving to be just like Lotso would have filled me with immense catharsis.

But I still think that Bonnie and her toys did enough to justify the film's ending. The dread and despair of the dumpster scene was real - the happy ending doesn't remove that fact.

HAHAHAHA my brother made the same regenerative point!!!!!!!

except he said the new toys should be really faceless throwaway consumer-culture ones

I don't think I would have been able to handle myself if they had all burnt to death & that was The End. I would have needed to see a grief counselor.

I was crying hard enough even with the deus ex machina.

yeah also this ^^ although I was more weepy at Andy's mum being all 'my son is gone' and the BIT WHERE ANDY AND BONNIE PLAY WITH THEIR TOYS LIKE OMG ACTUAL CRYING YOU GUYS

hearts of steel

I watched Tokyo Story yesterday and that absolutely pwned Toy Story 3 in the emotional outpour stakes.

I was absolutely sullen for like half an hour. You would like it LJ, I think.

did anyone spy any toy story characters in the wall-e junkyards?

I bet it didn't have a moment like 1/4 as funny as Tortilla Potato Head xp but yeah I might watch it

Yes it is sombre as fuck. I give, lots of belly laughs like that Shakespearian hedgehog and SPANISH BUZZ.

spanish buzz was next-level for about 20 seconds, which is enough

That hedgehog killed me! Especially since it was wearing little lederhosen.

bonnie's toys were about as charming a bunch of toys as Pixar could have engineered, I was all 'squee'

"we do a lot of improv here."

I'm not one for stuffed toys. But the peas-in-a-pod are the CUTESTTTTT!
ahem.

what a totally wasted opportunity not to get Tom Waits to be the voice of Chuckles The Clowm

also that short at the beginning was probably the most spectacular piece of animation I've seen since Ren & Stimpy

For the all the makes-grown-men-weep hype I didn't find the sad parts particularly sad - I think partly cos grown-up Andy is kind of a tool. Up was far more heartwrenching. Still a really really good film though.

This is why I'm a valuable poster. I find this sort of depraved silliness just before everyone else.

http://i30.tinypic.com/9s4inl.jpg

Trying to work out whether Spanish Buzz or Metrosexual Ken was the best thing about this.

http://i31.tinypic.com/2l95zlj.jpg

Serious Actor Doll was the best imo

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O-_F30rZ2lA/TFBVXvNFLGI/AAAAAAAACHg/F6QT_7cK97U/s320/Mr+P2.jpg

^^^^you can take all the uranium you want if it's to build a truth bomb^^

Trying to work out whether Spanish Buzz or Metrosexual Ken was the best thing about this.

I liked the monkey myself.

Okay, so the store I work at sells this like $150 huge Buzz Lightyear toy that talks and does all sorts of fancy stuff. There's a display of it, so I hear kids pushing the button to make him talk like 1000 times a shift. Anyway, one of the random lines is Buzz doing the Spanish thing. Except its not from the movie, instead it is the most offensive, racist fake Spanish accent I've ever heard.

For the all the makes-grown-men-weep hype I didn't find the sad parts particularly sad - I think partly cos grown-up Andy is kind of a tool. Up was far more heartwrenching. Still a really really good film though.

Same here really. In my case it might be because I never held any real great lasting affection for my own toys in the first place. I got rid of them fairly quickly, and painlessly, when I grew out of them. I did like the film, and the ending though.

So a couple of people spent two years making a shot-for-shot live action version of Toy Story. Real human characters using the Toy Story toys to remake Toy Story. Something deliriously meta about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G0j_Huv2Fg

ok the unified theory of pixar thing was lol but this i TOTALLY buy - http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/02/25/toy_story_andy_s_mom_has_a_secret_identity_look_at_the_hats.html

ha, pretty good. very believable

just read that unified theory of pixar, hilarious!!