Toy Story, and the growth of characters, thanks to the villains.

An alternative title for this would be: Why Toy Story 3 isn't as good as 1 or 2.

Many people watch Toy Story 3 and say that the ending was amazing and made me cry. My response to that is, just watch Toy Stories 1 and 2 and then watch the ending of 3, and you'll still get the same heart warming feeling if you watched the full length feature of 3 (I mean, the only person that would watch Toy Story 3 without 1 and 2 would be a mad man... or something living under a rock for 10 years.... or a baby that wasn't born in our generation and watched them after watching 3).

You see, the problem with Toy Story 3 is that it's clear cut. The story goes on with a good start where the toys would rather move onto another child so they could be played where as Woody doesn't want to let go of Andy. A very strong theme.... but this whole theme goes out the window when Lotso is revealed as the evil strawberry-scented Teddy Bear.

Toy Story 2 also had an evil antagonist, the Prospector!! but his true identity wasn't revealed until the end and the battle against him was resolved rather quickly so you can't really point fingers and say, "This all happened because of you Prospector!!!".  The Prospector wasn't the true cause of Toy Story 2's complication, it was Woody and his combat against fame and fortune for his true love of his owner Andy.

Enough about Toy Story 2 and back to 3. You see, Lotso is pretty much the reason the toys are in this mess. It's his fault they can't leave the day care center and it's his fault the kids treat their toys so badly... or so I think. I can't remember that far back but I remember Ken taking over the place in the end and everyone being happy and stuff... so I believe Lotso was mind controlling toddlers over the world to drool on their toys... or something like that. 

The problem with this is that, it really breaks the formula of Toy Story altogether. Toy Stoy's main theme was the feelings and emotions of inanimate objects. The whole meaning of Toy Story was to get people feeling and crying over these plastic items. To grow the imagination, and to imbed the thought of :


"What if?" 


What if this keyboard was alive? Would I treat it the same way I do now? Would I hesitate when I try to throw it out to replace it for a new one? 


It doesn't just have to be about things coming to life, it can be anything:
What if Aliens are watching us?
What if Atlantis still exists?
What if I can fly by shouting "To infinity and beyond"?


Toy Story 3, destroys this idea by saying "THE  BEAR IS EVIL!!! BLAME THE BEAR!!!!"

Toy Story 1 was about Woody's jealousy against the new toy, and Buzz's acceptance of the truth. Leading to the climatic ending of Woody and Buzz flying together into the moving van. The evil kid, Sid was also a key character that actually helped Woody and Buzz resolve their differences. So without Sid, Woody and Buzz probably would of never gotten along even at their new home. 

Toy Story 2 turned the table, and placed Woody into Buzz Lightyear's boots, being exposed as the icon Cowboy Woody, and not the toy. Leading to what Woody would say to Buzz at the end of the film, "I know Andy's going to grow up, but I would never miss it for the world". Woody probably would of never said this if wasn't for Al and the Prospector. The Prospector stopped Woody going back to Andy allowing the conflict between him and Buzz. This made Woody to realise his true purpose as a toy. If Woody had just gone home without even considering going to Japan, then Woody probably would of spent the rest of Andy's life fearing that one day he would get thrown out. 

In Toy Story 3 however, you can just cut out the whole Day Care Center part (removing the bear, the main and probably only antagonist in the film), and throw Woody into Bonnie's room and still end up with Andy giving his toys away to her. 

No matter how cool watching toys rein-act mission impossible, it still has no affect on the story nor the characters. 

The great thing about the first 2 films is that, the evil characters were never part of the problem, but more the solution. The toys already had an conflict between each other way before the evil characters were even introduced. Because of this, Toy Story 1 and 2 is not clear cut, you can't say that Sid and Al are the reason for all this conflict, because it isn't. You can't point fingers and say "He's the one!! If we defeat him everyone would be happy again!!" that's what made Toy Story so great. 

The Toy Story series are an amazing piece of art, and Pixar are probably one of the greatest film makers in the world, and with that, I tip my hat to you Pixar, bravo. (but watch out, Snowy Entertainment is going to catch up!!)