As time passes, we can all count on the fact that the things we once held dear to our hearts will eventually fade into distant memories. Life goes on, and the sense of wonder and imagination that comes from the playthings of our youth can seem more like a luxury than the crucial part of our psyche they once were. It may never leave you, but the time and energy you can devote to it grows smaller with every adult responsibility that comes along. That’s just what happens when you grow up—unless you’re a toy.
In Toy Story 3, Pixar taps into this emotional cue and—with the odds of corporate wrangling and creative differences against them—creates a story that uses the passing of the last decade to its benefit to prove that toys are simply timeless. Like Andy, audiences who last saw Toy Story 2 in 1999 may have grown up and put Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear in the back of their mind, but there’s no need for introductions. Instead of simply picking up where the second film left off, Toy Story 3 revisits Andy as he’s preparing to move away to college and heads into deeper waters to show us what happens when the toys that shape our youth find themselves without purpose and without a home to call their own.
The themes of friendship and love are part and parcel for the Toy Story universe, but for this third adventure, the stakes are beyond anything we’ve seen before. Woody and friends get mistakenly donated to nearby Sunnyside day care, and even though it looks like they might have hit the jackpot of always having someone to play with them, things aren’t quite what they seem. Led by Lotso (short for Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear and masterfully voiced by Ned Beatty), a hierarchy amongst the toys at Sunnyside, including Ken, Big Baby and others, starts to rear its ugly head, and our friends discover that they’re in for a hellish life at the hands of rowdy toddlers. When Woody manages to get a glimpse of life outside of Sunnyside, he fashions a good ol’ jailbreak for Buzz and the rest of the toys, but when Lotso tries to stop them, the action escalates to the point where the very existence of these plastic friends that we’ve come to know and love over the last fifteen years is at stake.
Toy Story 3 is by far the most emotionally riveting film in the series. There are scenes that deal with the sorrow of being neglected and the ugly side of being displaced, and at one point, it seems as if everything we’d considered safe and comforting about the Toy Story universe is about to be turned upside down. It’s pretty heavy subject matter—not that Pixar has ever been afraid to inject that into its films—but it’s relatively new to the bright and colorful world of Toy Story. And yet, it works in every way. By the time we reach those poignant final moments of the film, there’s a sense of having been through a lifetime of adventures, and although more will be in store for these toys, our time with Woody, Buzz and friends is coming to an end.
Adults who enjoyed the movies over the last decade and a half can safely hold on to their memories while also passing on the experience to a new audience that may be discovering Toy Story for the first time. In a way, it’s much like the toys themselves. They’re always ready to go wherever our imaginations will take them and they never get old, but it’s up to us to make sure they don’t get tossed out with the trash or, maybe more importantly, get left behind.
