We saw the sneak preview of Toy Story 3 last night. I'm not a big fan of modern animated features, except for rare exceptions such as Wall E and Up. (As long as there are no talking animals that speak in modern American lingo, I'll sometimes like it.)
I loved Toy Story 3. In fact, it affected me so much that I was thinking about it last night, this morning, and have been half this day.
I'm not sure how many spoilers we want to mention just yet, but at least I can talk about the things that everyone knows.
It's been 11 years, Andy's 18 now. He's about to go to college. For the past several years all the old favorite toys have been languishing in the toybox, untouched. Andy's mom tells him to clean up the room, decide what he's keeping, taking to college, or getting rid of.
Through a series of events, all the toys wind up at the local day care, which at first seems like a good place to wind up. (The dinosaur, my favorite character, remarks, "It must be a nice place. There's a rainbow on the door!") They meet all the resident toys, led by Lotso, a big, purple teddy bear that smells like strawberries, (and voiced by Ned Beatty) welcomes them with open arms and leads them to their room, the adjacent room that, well, isn't the ideal environment for them after all. Believing that Andy didn't intend to throw them all away, Woody escapes and heads back home to try to be with Andy. Then . . . other stuff happens.
Here's are some spoilers shaded in white:
The daycare is a dictatorial prison camp led by Lotso, who was an abandoned toy. Lotso's chief "enforcing officer" is "Big Baby," who was one of the toys that used to be with Lotso before being abandoned. Big Baby is an infant doll with vacant, staring eyes, but truly a frightening sight and character. Andy's toys are put into cages, watched over by Buzz Lightyear, who has been turned into a prison guard by switching him into the "Demo" mode--all his familiar personality erased. Woody learns of this situation and returns to help the toys escape. Meanwhile, all the very young toddlers play with Andy's old toys, but the toys are not "age appropriate" for this set of rambunctious youngsters. They're truly in hell and couldn't possibly last several days intact. Later, at the end, all the toys are reunited with Andy who donates them to a neighborhood girl who looks to give them a good, new home and lots of happy playtime. This scene in particular is heartfelt and nostalgiac, and was forcing a few tears from my eyes.
My impression of the film was that it had darker themes than the previous two, and some of the scenes are both memorable and frightening, IMO. Definitely a kids movie, of course, but I know the adults will enjoy it immensely. Best of all, there were no scenes when a character stops the action to sing a song, as what happened in Toy Story 2, a scene I always fast forward through.
What's especially great is that all the original voices are back. The personalities are exactly as we remember them. Most striking is knowing that since TS2, Tom Hanks has done nothing but continue to grow into one of our generation's biggest movie stars. And yet, here he is, back in his old role as Woody, as if he was there all along.
