Toy Story – Movie Meister Reviews

Released: 18th June
Seen: 19th June

The Toy Story franchise feels like a miracle at this point, it’s certainly a franchise that goes past any reasonable explanation in terms of quality. The first film was basically a test to see if you could even make a full-length feature film using CGI characters and make it interesting, it went on to be the second-highest-grossing film of 1995 (I know, I feel old too just realising it’s been 31 years) and effectively killed the hand-drawn animation genre. Toy Story 2 was almost deleted by accident and intended to go straight to DVD, it ended up as the third highest-grossing film of 1999 and is widely considered as good as, or better than the original. Toy Story 3 came out nearly a decade later in 2010, had a six-year production period and seemingly closed the story out. It would go on to make a billion dollars, be the highest-grossing film of that year and finally win this franchise the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Then in 2019 came Toy Story 4, a film that many people doubted because the story was finished pretty perfectly in part three but it proved us wrong, creating another nearly perfect movie that again made a billion dollars and won this franchise its second Best Animated Feature Oscar. It’s kind of wild just realizing that this franchise has somehow produced four absolute classics of the genre and keeps finding new ways to delight young audiences with its story about a bunch of toys that come to life whenever you aren’t looking… Well, looks like we’re gonna have to make that five absolute classics because the bastards did it again.

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Released: 20th June
Seen: 20th June

The world of animation in 1995 was a very different place. Hand drawn animation ruled the land, the Disney Renaissance was in full swing and the only CGI you ever saw was used to enhance 2D work. This was mostly because CGI was still early in its development and no one really knew what to do with this toy. Sure there were little short films popping up, but no one really tried to make a feature-length film with this brand new tool until a little company called Pixar told the story of a pull-string cowboy who had to deal with an astronaut coming into his space and propelling him on an adventure. Toy Story set a standard that every CGI animated film would have to try to compete with for years to come, it became the highest grossing film of 95 and spawned two sequels. The second film would be the third highest grossing of 1999 and then in 2010 the third film would come out and be top of the box office. Every film in the franchise has received overwhelming critical acclaim, part three even taking home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Of every franchise that Pixar has done, this is the one they’ve gotten right every time and the ending of part three felt like a nice end to the series. The toys were given to a girl named Bonnie in a sequence that was designed to make everyone watching cry like a baby and we were sure that we’d only see Woody and Buzz in the occasional cameo or TV special… and then the company realised that they really liked money so they went and made the fourth film because they wanted to make more money. Luckily, they actually put in the hard work to make sure that they would actually deserve the money they were going to be earning.

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