On it's 20th Birthday, Toy Story still soars To Infinity and Beyond!

Rating: 10/10 (22 November 2015)

In 1989, Disney's The Little Mermaid became a success and launched what is known to be a Disney Renaissance. While The Rescuers Down Under underperformed, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King later became big hits. Unfortunately, Pocahontas, while turning a decent profit, didn't do that well with critics. Because of that, Disney needed some help.
They managed to co-produce with a CGI animation company known as Pixar to release their very first computer animated feature known as "Toy Story", a story about a cowboy doll named Woody who becomes jealous when a new space toy named Buzz Lightyear becomes top toy to his owner named Andy. One day, when Woody knocks Buzz out the window, he becomes despised and after reuniting with Buzz, they get separated from their owner and end up in a house owned by Sid, a boy next door who destroys toys for fun. Because of that, they need to come up with a plan to make it out alive. But first they need to overcome their differences in order to do so. I remembered seeing this film as a child on VHS and loved it. Twenty years later, it's still a beloved classic and there are a lot of things to talk about.
First off, the story is very well-written. It displays some themes of jealousy, friendship, being a toy that makes you special to your owner, and what it means to go Infinity and Beyond. Also, it has some of the best comedy I've ever seen as it has lots of laugh out loud moments including a scene where Buzz starts acting a bit crazy after pretending to drink some tea with some dolls in the "I'm Mrs Nesbitt" sequence and the "You Are A Toy" where Woody shouts at him that he is a child's play thing and Buzz replies "You are a sad strange little man and you have my pity. *makes a Vulcan gesture* Farewell. However, the most important thing about the story is it's heart and it's moments are handled really well. Like the scene where Buzz realizes that he's nothing but a toy which leads to the song "I Will Go Sailing No More" from Randy Newman which would leave everyone in tears, but the most important scene in the movie is the iconic "To Infinity and Beyond" sequence where Buzz and Woody are flying in the sky after freeing themselves from a rocket. That scene itself is and always will be the most epic part in animation history.
There's a lot more good things to discuss as well like the animation. I'll admit it doesn't hold up that well after twenty years due to some of the human character animation that look like toys than actual human beings. But to it's credit, this was Pixar's first computer animated movie and some of the animation in Toy Story works to it's advantage. Like the textures of all of the toys and some incredible details like that spoon (seriously, it looks really neat). The pacing is very brisk. At it's 81 minute length, it's never too fast, but it's never too slow either and it takes it's time to let the dialog flow and it does it perfectly. The music score from Randy Newman is really beautiful and well-composed with it's light-hearted tone while balancing it with it's serious moments and the songs are really good. Whether you love Randy Newman or hate him, you can tell that he's actually a good singer and his songs "You've Got A Friend In Me" and "I Will Go Sailing No More" hit the right notes by being memorable songs.
Then, there's the voice acting and it's really spot on. Tom Hanks does a fantastic job as Woody, a cowboy doll with his wit, sympathy, and realizes that others are important to Andy as he is. Tim Allen is great as Buzz Lightyear, a space toy with wit and confusion as he figures out whether he's important to Andy or not. Their chemistry together is the heart of the movie since it's a tale about putting aside each other's differences and working together which strengthens it to it's advantage. The side characters, including Bo Peep, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Slinky, and Rex, voiced by Annie Potts, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger, Jim Varney and Wallace Shawn are never annoying and are very funny. The human characters are also good too and Sid, while nothing special as a Pixar villain, is still very menacing he reminds you of a bully at high school.
Toy Story started the trend of computer animated films and other production companies such as DreamWorks Animation, Blue Sky Studios, and Illumination Entertainment to do the same. While some of them rely on style over substance, there are some that had the same heart and creativity and competed against Pixar for nearly two decades and it's still going as of today. Toy Story and later films such as Monsters INC, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up is what made Pixar so compelling because of their heart that helped them earn their critical acclaim. What I'm trying to say here is that computer animation is what made the industry so successful it convinced Pixar to do the same in the late 2000s' which they also succeeded. Not because of the writing, not because of the characters, and not because of their heart, but because of one thing: imagination. It convinced DreamWorks Animation to do the same and they lived up to them just that on movies such as Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How To Train Your Dragon.
So, overall, Toy Story is not only one of the best Pixar animated films ever made, but one of the best CGI animated films that will always go To Infinity and Beyond forever. My thumbs up to Pixar and Happy 20th Birthday.