The Brave Little Toaster

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2010)

The first "Toy Story" movie was about a Space Ranger called Buzz Lightyear who realizes that he is not a "unique and special toy" but a mass-produced piece of plastic. In a bit of reverse Nietzscheism, Buzz therefore casts aside his delusions of grandeur ("To Infinity and Beyond!") and learns to find value in his lowly community of toys.
"Toy Story 2" told virtually the same tale, but instead of a toy called Woody teaching Buzz the value of community, we had the reverse, Buzz and his friends trying to convince Woody not to abandon his toy family in favour for life in a classy museum.
"Toy Story 3" rehashes this tale (right down to the kindly old man who turns out to be the villain), but is more explicit in its existentialism. Here, Woody makes the argument that the purpose of a toy is to "be there for Andy whenever he needs them". Toys therefore believe themselves to be the servants of their owner Andy, who is portrayed as a sort of pint-sized God. No matter how apathetic or neglectful Andy is, Woody believes that the value of a toy comes from its usefulness and acceptance by its master. In other words, toys only have extrinsic value. This is a direct contrast to most religions and cultures, which all stress that humans have intrinsic value.
Before Andy goes off to college, his mother gives him a cardboard box and a garbage bag. "Decide," she says, "which things you're going to throw away and which you're going to store in the attic!" As the toys view the attic and the garbage bag (and later a garbage dump) as miniature versions of heaven and hell, Andy's choice is awaited with apprehension by our gang of plastic heroes.
Due to a misunderstanding, the toys all think they are being thrown out. Better to escape now, they decide, and flee to Sunnyside, a daycare centre which is portrayed as a Retirement Home for Toys. Woody, of course, resists this move. He tries to convince the other toys to be faithful to Andy, but through a series of betrayals eventually grows to accept that he lives in an uncaring world and that all toy's must suffer (like the myth of Sisyphus) the fate of being loved and then abandoned many times over.
At Sunnyside, Woody's polar opposite is Lotso, a stuffed bear who was once abandoned by his owners. Lotso interprets his abandonment as a total betrayal by (his) God and so (unlike Woody) wallows in negativity. As a direct result of his emotional scarring, Lotso has turned Sunnyside into a nightmarish concentration camp which masquerades as a libertarian paradise. In his Sunnyside introductory speech, Lotso touts the joys of self-ownership as well as the improved material comforts which his system brings (dream houses etc). Our heroes, who are portrayed as a bunch of immigrants fresh off the boat, are understandably enchanted.
They quickly realize, however, that this paradise masks something quite sinister. New toys have to work their way up Lotso's system, starting by doing the painful, backbreaking jobs that the rulers of Sunnyside won't do. There are a couple exceptions: Barbie is taken by the ruling elites as a mail-order bride (essentially a hooker) and the entrepreneurial Buzz is chosen for promotion to the managerial class and brainwashed so he won't sympathise with his old comrades. In other words, Sunnyside's supposed "freedom" is actually slavery, complete with military discipline, brainwashing and a panopticon prison (an all seeing monkey).
Like all the "Toy Story" films, "Toy Story 3" then turns into a prison break flick, our heroes overthrowing Lotso by working together, harnessing the collective power of the working class and using the managerial class (Ken, Bookworm) against itself. "Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not the threat of force!" Barbie states during a rousing speech. Having nailed the system's key flaw she then overthrows Lotso and installs a kind of communal utopia, Barbie and Ken the new leaders of a Sunnyside that's filled with lots of dancing and groovy parties.
Before this, Woody and the gang battle Lotso and his henchmen at a hellish waste disposal site. Just before our heroes are about to die, however, they're rescued by a giant claw. Significantly, this claw was the God of a bunch of friendly alien toys in "Toy Story 1". I.e. – fictitious, harmful Gods have been replaced by the actual helping hands (claw) of friends.
The film then ends with our heroes being transferred from Andy to a kid called Bonnie, their new master. The Pixar folk turn this into a happy ending when it shouldn't be. Realizing their ultimate purposelessness our heroes learn to find joy and meaning in community rather than Gods. But the film then sells out by delivering them into the hands of a warm and caring owner all over again. This is half-hearted nihilism: What happens when Bonnie grows indifferent? Isn't Bonnie just another master? What happens when the toys grow tired of one another? The Pixar Universe may admit that these toys are just pieces of plastic meant to be discarded when they've outlasted their usefulness, but it doesn't ultimately treat them that way. Still, maybe that's a good thing. This is already a pretty twisted children's movie. Any darker and we'd have an audience of suicidal six-year-olds.
Beyond all this, the film's action sequences can't touch those in the first two movies. Whole chunks of th film, including its junk yard/trash compactor climax, are also lifted right out of Thomas Disch's "The Brave Little Toaster". Indeed, the whole "Toy Story" franchise is a virtual rip off of Disch's film, a flick which many of the Pixar boys (Lasseter, Joe Ranft etc) worked on, and which also used various household objects (toasters, appliances etc) to tell an adventure tale about ageing, abandonment, impermanence, loss and death.
8/10 - Creepy.