Review: Toy Story 3

Perhaps the smartest thing Pixar ever did when it came to the continuation of the Toy Story franchise was to wait. Wait eleven years in fact.

At the conclusion of Toy Story 2, it would seem the story had run its course, for if the first movie was Buzz coming to terms with his identity crisis, then the sequel did the same for Woody. In those final moments, the two friends are at peace with each other and their joint purpose in life. One day Andy would no longer need them, but that day was not today, and it was enough to simply enjoy his childhood while it lasted.

But then… that day did come. And it came in real time. Those who watched Toy Story as kids were now at the end of their adolescence, and it was time to leave their childhoods behind. The third instalment and culmination of the franchise was therefore perfectly primed to make a potent statement on the passage of time, the inevitability of growing up, and the putting away of childish things… if Pixar could pull it off.

Well, of course they could. Just as the sequel was built heavily on the ideas and themes established in the original, Toy Story 3 had the advantage of expanding on everything the first two films had set up for it, as well as an obvious built-in premise: Andy finally outgrows his toys.

This was an impending reality that was discussed throughout Toy Story 2, largely through conversations between Woody and the Prospector, with the latter’s secret agenda leading him to stoke the former’s fear of change and rejection. “Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college?” he asks at one point, a question that’s unexpectedly answered eleven years later.

Um, yes actually.

Toy Story 3 is so rich in story, imagery and themes that all sorts of wild metaphors have been grafted to it; everything from it being a retelling of Dante’s Inferno to a Holocaust metaphor. But it’s really in taking the story-threads that were woven throughout the first two films and drawing them to completion that makes the third film such a triumph.

We learn in the original Toy Story that toys consider themselves the guardians and protectors of their owners: silent allies and constant playmates in the exciting, scary, changeful world of childhood. Toy Story 2 delved into the fear that would inevitably grow from this kind of self-identification: the toys’ knowledge that one day they simply wouldn’t be needed any more; that a child’s love is as fleeting as childhood itself, and that one’s own impermanence will eventually lead to rejection.

(Geez, this is all so much darker than I remember).

The third film sees this fear realized: Andy he hasn’t touched any of his toys in years and is now heading off to college, and the best the severely depleted gang can hope for is retirement in the attic. Woody promises them that Andy will take care of them, that there’s a reason they were never given away or thrown out – yet during the film’s climax, the villain viciously taunts the toys in their moment of darkest despair, shouting: “where’s your kid now?”

It’s a question that’s not all that different from the Prospector’s query as to whether Andy will take Woody to college, as it serves the same purpose in its attempt to undermine, unsettle and mock Woody’s faith in Andy.

And yet though neither question is answered in the moment, Toy Story 3 eventually provides a response to both, and in exceptionally profound ways – by flipping the script on each villain’s assumptions about just how far the love of a child can go.

Because ultimately, Woody’s faith in Andy is vindicated. Andy does plan to put the toys safely in the attic and take Woody to college with him, and it’s only when Woody communicates the lesson he learned in Toy Story 2 – that they were designed to be loved by a child, not stagnate behind glass or in storage – that Andy instead takes them to the house of a little girl, assuring they’ll be loved and played with for years to come.

The beauty of this film (especially in the context of the entire trilogy) is that all this time the toys have been silently speaking to Andy, and now finally: he answers back.

***

With that in mind, it’s hard to know how to praise this film, not only as the culmination of the trilogy, but as a work of storytelling genius, released to coincide with the impending adulthood of its original audience, which makes good on all the themes and story beats of its predecessors. It’s easy to criticize things, goodness knows YouTube has thousands upon thousands of videos of people doing this exact thing, but if something is perfect – well, it’s more difficult to articulate why.

The thing about perfection is that it looks effortless. Everything about Toy Story 3 seems effortless: the way it melds characterization into its twisty plot, the elegant ways it handles the sharing of exposition, the tragedy of its villain, the early seeding of Chekhov Guns, the structuring of its heist sequence, the emotional climax, the pay-offs (oh, the pay-offs!), that final panning shot into the sky…

Is there anything in this film that isn’t perfectly conceived, crafted and calibrated in order to meet its full potential? I just want to wave my hand at it and say: “yes! Yes! THIS!”

So unlike my reviews of the first two films, this one is going to be more of a recap with commentary. Because sometimes keeping things simple is the best way of appreciating things that can’t be improved on.

***

All the early Pixar films had one thing in common: finding a world that existed tangentially to our own and asking: “how do they live there?” Whether it was toys, bugs, monsters or superheroes, this same idea applied across all the studio’s most popular films, and it was a concept rich with potential. What set Pixar apart was that it was never content to skate by on that premise alone, even though you could hypothetically make “toys come to life when their owners leave” an entertaining enough film without including rivalry between an old toy and a new one, exploration into what it meant to be a child’s plaything, commentary on the importance of identity and purpose, and how all these things related to each other.  

With that in mind, it fascinates me that Toy Story 3 opens with a sequence that projects Woody, Buzzy, Jessie and the other toys into the realm of Andy’s imagination; replaying the game that opened the first film, right down to the lines of dialogue (“I brought my attack dog, with a built-in force-field”, “well, I brought my dinosaur, who eats force-field dogs”).

Seeing playtime through the eyes of these toys is to watch them in the larger-than-life roles of heroes and villains, interacting in a vast landscape filled with trains, bridges, spaceships, trolls and hordes of screaming monkeys. If this is truly what toys experience when they’re in the hands of a child, it’s no wonder they’re so obsessed with being played with.

And it occurs to me that this sequence is what inspired the twist ending of The Lego Movie. For the duration of that story, we unknowingly watch Lego pieces live out their narratives in the imaginative space of a child’s mind.

And yet what makes up the entirety of The Lego Movie and its sequel is just the opening act in Toy Story 3. This film is such a wealth of riches that its introductory sequence alone provides a concept that fills a whole other movie – another really good movie. I mean, wow.

The scene also provides a poignant call-back to the first movie, considering it’s a re-enactment of the playtime that introduced us to these characters back in 1995 – especially in its opening shot of blue sky and white clouds, harking back to the distinctive wallpaper of Andy’s bedroom, our very first image of this entire franchise. Remember that? Because it’ll be important later.

But after a reminder of the glory days of Andy’s childhood, we’re reintroduced to the toys in very different circumstances. It’s over a decade later, they’re stashed away in the toybox, and they haven’t been touched in years. Their number has depleted: Bo Peep, R.C. and Wheezy have been given away, and the remnants of the Green Army Men are leaving as well. Even Buster – last seen as a boisterous puppy – is slow and grey, and Molly has grown into rather obnoxious pre-teen.

It was established in the previous films just how quickly a toy’s world can be ripped apart – things like yard sales, spring cleans and birthday parties can uproot their existence in seconds. They live with the constant fear of losing friends without warning or goodbyes; constant is the horrifying certainty of an uncertain fate hanging over them.

But for the remaining toys, it would seem the worst has already happened. They’ve lost friends, and now they have a newer, greater terror: the garbage dump. Perhaps they remember the parting words of the Prospector: “you’ll all be ruined, forgotten! Sending eternity rotting in some landfill!”

Yet Woody assures the others that Andy will look after them. He’s held onto them for all these years, and even though he’s now headed for college, Woody is confident he’ll store them up in the attic. “Andy’s gonna take care of us, I guarantee it.”

But due to a misunderstanding, the toys are put in a trash-bag which ends up on the side of the road. The others are certain they’ve been discarded despite Woody’s assurances that it’s a mistake. (This is perhaps the one false note in the movie. I know the toys are afraid and confused, but shouldn’t Woody have earned their trust by now? Why don’t they take him at his word?) In any case, the toys take the opportunity to get into a box which Andy’s mother takes to a local daycare centre, where at least they’ll have a purpose.

Woody is vehemently against this. For him, his purpose has always been Andy. He must be there for him, whether it’s college or the attic, even if he’ll never be played with again, even if all he has to cling to is the possibility that one day Andy will have children to play with him in their turn.

And yet with the defining relationship between Andy and the other toys severed (at least in their minds) their only family is each other. When the others decide to stay at Sunnyside Daycare, where the inhabitants are friendly and there’s a neverending stream of children to play with, Woody is forced to choose between Andy and his friends for the first time. Jessie tells him: “Andy’s moving on, it’s time we did the same,” and Woody responds by calling them selfish for going against their owner’s wishes. Both sides have a point, neither one is truly wrong.

But perhaps because he already knows Andy plans to take him to college (how can he abandon him now?) Woody chooses to go back – though I suspect he would have done so even if the attic was a certainty.

***

Naturally, the remaining toys soon realize that when things seem too good to be true, they usually are. Sunnyside is not all it’s cracked up to be, and being played with by a toddler is a very different gig than being played with by a child – as Mr Potato Head found out way back in the first movie when Molly got a hold of him and promptly bit off his extremities.

That scenario is now timed by a thousand. The toys are given to the mercy of two-year olds, who are more like miniature hurricanes than children. There’s paint, there’s noise, there’s snot. It’s traumatizing – and it gets worse.

When Buzz tries to have them moved to a safer area, the benevolent and strawberry-scented patriarch in charge of the centre and its residents shows his true colours. Lotso is the movie’s antagonist, and if you thought Sid and the Prospector were bad and pitiful, this guy is on another level – not just in the canon of Pixar movies, but films in general.

Early on he gets a line that foreshadows his dark past, telling the newly arrived toys: “no owners, no heartbreak”, and promising them generations of children that pass through the daycare doors. We later learn that he was once the toy of a little girl called Daisy, who he loved dearly.

But Lotso was left behind after Daisy fell asleep during a picnic on the side of the road, and after the gruelling journey through the wilderness to get back to her, he finally arrives home to discover Daisy has replaced him with a new Lotso bear.

It’s a story that’s so heart-wrenching that it’s almost sickening. 

There’s that saying “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” and yet in Lotso’s case I’ll make an exception. He’s so much worse off than the Prospector, who was never loved at all, because he has to live with the bitterness of knowing his love for Daisy was easily replaceable; not understanding that the new version of himself in Daisy’s life was a testimony to how much she did love him.

Can you imagine the tears and unhappiness that must have ensued once she realized her beloved bear was missing? The lengths her parents must have gone to before buying a new Lotso and passing it off as her old one? She probably never doubted for a second that the replacement was the original, and the implications of this are pretty unsettling, knowing as we do that all toys are sentient and individuals.

It’s a scenario that’s totally outside the realms of human experience; something that could only ever happen to a toy, and yet it goes a long way to understanding why Lotso is the way he is. And yet this is Pixar. They’ll explain a sad backstory, but they won’t use it to excuse anyone’s actions. Lotso’s heartbreak could have been used to make Sunnyside a place like Barbie creates at the end of the film: where toys take turns with the toddlers and everyone is cared for and respected. 

But Lotso’s disillusionment turned him bitter, and Sunnyside gets modelled after his twisted worldview, in which his pathological need to make other toys believe they’re worthless and unloved leads to his famous line: “where’s your kid now?” – but we’ll get to that.

***

Meanwhile, Woody’s quest to get home is interrupted when he ends up in the backpack of a little girl called Bonnie Anderson, who takes him home and involves him in play for the first time in years. But then he learns from Bonnie’s toys that Sunnyside isn’t the safe haven he thought it was, and yet another choice opens before him: stay and enjoy the newfound excitement of Bonnie's room, return home to Andy, or go back to Sunnyside and his friends. Well, this one’s easy. He’s the hero, so of course he goes to save his friends.

The ensuing prison break sequence is probably the most ingenious part of the film’s plotting. Like any decent heist, it needs to set very clear rules as to what obstacles are keeping the protagonists imprisoned, followed by ways in which they can get around said obstacles. They can only use what would logically be at hand, and any manipulation of the antagonists will have to be based on established personality quirks (for instance, you can't bribe a guard with an ice cream if they're lactose intolerant and there's no way of getting hold of one anyway). Things will go wrong at some point, and they’ll have to improvise.

Such are the requirements of any decent heist, and because it’s very much the centrepiece of the film, the writers have to construct a “fair play” sequence, based on the stipulations listed above – to give the protagonists tools they couldn't easily get hold of, or rely too much on luck over skill would defeat the whole purpose of a heist. And for the most part, this delivers.

With the help of a Fisher Price Chatter Telephone, Woody gets the following intel: the doors and windows are locked inside and out each night, and the keys left on a hook in the office. Tonka trucks patrol the hallways, as well as the lobbies and playground. The walls are eight feet high, and the only way of escape is through the garbage chute situated in the far wall.

Then there’s the cymbal-playing monkey who watches the security cameras and sounds the alarm whenever a toy goes somewhere they shouldn’t. And of course, Big Baby – Lotso’s muscle – is a wild card, who could be anywhere at any time.

This thing is genuinely horrifying... and based on a real toy.

PLUS all the toys are being kept in storage baskets, guarded by Buzz who’s been put on demo mode, rendering him a mindless stooge of Lotso who once again believes he’s a real space ranger. Anyone who misbehaves is thrown into a sandbox for the night.

It seems a near-impenetrable prison, but here’s how they pull it off:

Mr Potato Head causes a distraction, allowing Slinky to escape from his basket with Woody while the monkey’s attention is on the scuffle. Potato Head gets thrown into the sandbox, while Woody and Slinky crawl through the air vents, subdue the monkey with Sellotape, and find the keys.

Once Woody swivels the security cameras to signal the others, Hamm and Rex stage a fight, distracting Buzz long enough for Jessie to escape and trap him in an upturned container. Meanwhile, Barbie has cried crocodile tears to Ken, and after enticing him into showing off his wardrobe, she ties him up and threatens his signature outfits until he gives up the instruction manual to fix Buzz.  

Woody and Slinky get the keys to Jessie, who uses them to retrieve a tortilla from a child’s lunchbox, sliding it under the door so that Mr Potato Head – who has escaped the sandbox by pushing his appendages through a loose knothole – can reutilize it as his body.

In possession of the keys, all the toys can escape the building and make across the playground for the garbage chute. Along the way, problems arise in order to slow them down: a pigeon tears Potato Head’s tortilla to shreds, Buzz isn’t repaired but instead put on Spanish mode, Big Baby unexpectedly appears, and of course, the telephone eventually gives them up after he's captured by Lotso's goons. Each time the toys have to adapt and find another way around the problem.

It holds together nicely, though there is a lot of luck involved: that the monkey would be so intent on Mr Potato Head’s distraction that he wouldn’t notice Slinky, that Ken would be so susceptible to Barbie’s suggestions, that there would be a tortilla in one of the lunchboxes and that Potato Head knew there was a lose knothole in the sandbox (though granted, he could have found it during his first stint in the box).

There’s also no way Woody could have gotten everyone under that pail without Big Baby seeing them, considering she doesn’t take her eyes off their hiding place from the moment she hears movement, and no explanation is given for how the toys retrieved Potato Head’s real body from the sandbox. Also, how did Lotso get across the other side of the wall in order to cut the toys off?

If it sounds like I’m nit-picking, it’s because heists have to be watertight – that’s the whole point of them. We have to marvel at their ingenuity while at the same time be given enough information to concoct an escape plan of our own – much like a fair play mystery gives us all the necessary clues without telling us how they fit together.

But though there are a couple of cheats, for the most part it’s a riveting sequence that leaves me in a cold sweat, ending with a stand-off between Woody, Lotso and the other toys that takes us into act three…

***

The final act of the film deals with Two Big Issues: firstly the toys’ escape from the dump's incinerator, and secondly the opposing worldviews of Woody and Lotso. Throughout this entire story, Woody has repeatedly advocated for Andy, insisting that he’ll care for the toys and do right by them.

On the other hand, Lotso shares this (edited) rant: “What are ya’ll doing? Running back to your kid? If your kid loves you so much, why is he leaving? You think you’re special, cowboy? You’re a piece of plastic. You were made to be thrown away… I didn’t throw you away, your kid did. Ain’t one kid ever loved a toy, really. Chew on that when you’re in the dump. We’re all just trash, waiting to be thrown away. That’s all a toy is!”

He doesn’t budge from this stance, not even when the universe (or rather, the narrative) gives him a chance to redeem himself. While the rest of the toys are struggling to stay on the conveyor belt that’s pulling them towards the incinerator (and after Woody and Buzz have put their own lives at risk to save his) he ends up in a position to push a “stop” button at no personal risk to himself that will halt the machinery and save them all.

He refuses. To prove his point that all toys are junk and kids are heartless, he yells: “where’s your kid now?” and makes a run for it, leaving the others to their doom.

It’s a harrowing moment, especially when the toys only narrowly escape a fiery destruction – and seriously, the animators do not hold back on the terror of this moment, in which the characters we’ve pretty much grown up with can do nothing but hold each other, close their eyes, and brace themselves.

This of course leads to the question: is what happens next a Deus Ex Machina? Face to face with certain death, the toys would have perished were it not for the three little aliens – who have been little more than tagalongs up until this point – managing to climb up into a crane and operating the grabbing claw to scoop up their friends.

Although they spotted the crane almost as soon as they reach the dump, and were separated early from the others, it’s still a stretch to imagine them trekking across the mounds of garbage and knowing how to operate heavy machinery with such accuracy. How did they know the others were even heading towards the incinerator anyway?

But you know what? I don’t care. To take these aliens who were first introduced at the base of a claw machine, treating it as their deity with the reverential intonation of: “the claaaaaaw,” only to eventually find themselves in control of a much bigger mechanical claw which they use to save their friends’ lives – that’s pure genius. Who could have ever seen it coming back in 1995?

It comes triumphantly full-circle, especially when Mr Potato Head repeats their line that so infuriated him throughout Toy Story 2: “You saved our lives, we are eternally grateful.” When it comes to the balancing act between stealthy set-up and maximum pay-off, the only things that are remotely comparable are the repeat of Tony Stark’s: “I am Iron Man” in Endgame or Alan Rickman sincerely promising: “by Grabthar’s Hammer, you shall be avenged,” to the dying alien in Galaxy Quest.

And this is still better. All you can do is sit back and slow clap, knowing you’ll never write anything quite as perfect in your entire life.

It compensates for the fact that the writers introduced a challenge, one set up by Lotso when he cried: “where’s your kid now?” that they can’t immediately answer. It’s always immensely satisfying when a villain posits a grim worldview that is refuted by the goodness of our heroes: think Wolverine sneering: “if you were really so righteous, it would be you up in that thing,” to Magneto when he plans to sacrifice Rogue to his doomsday device, or Buffy busting through the second floor window of Summers residence to save her mother right in the middle of Faith’s spiel about how Joyce doesn’t matter to her. It’s the ultimate “fuck you” to evil when the good guys DELIVER on their moral certitude.

Yet in this case, Andy can’t save them – he doesn’t even know they’re there. The cathartic satisfaction of seeing Lotso proved wrong wouldn’t have been worth the contrivances that could have gotten Andy to that place and time in order to operate the crane and save his toys – the answer to Lotso’s question has to come in another form.

(While we’re on the subject, it also seems narratively wrong somehow that Lotso never witnesses the vindication of Woody’s faith in Andy, and his karmic retribution – getting strapped to the front of a garbage truck – is either too kind or too cruel depending on how you feel about his backstory.

But again, how could they have made Lotso witness to Andy taking the toys to Bonnie without stretching things beyond far beyond the limits of credibility? We have to settle with Woody’s: “he’s not worth it.”)

But finally the question of Andy’s love for his toys is answered, and Lotso’s attempt to deny a child’s reciprocal love for toys proved wrong once and for all. Andy comes through for the gang; not by stashing them up in the attic or taking them to college, but by letting go – growing up – and passing them on to Bonnie, whose imagination is as inventive as his own, giving the toys another child to love and securing them many more years of companionship.

And then the camera pans up, and we’re left with an image of the clouds in the sky, not the motif on Andy’s wallpaper that started this whole saga, but real clouds in a real sky, as Andy gets in his car and drives off into the real world.

Dammit Pixar. Slam fucking dunk.

***

Toy Story 3 not only exists as the final part of an overarching three-act story, but was released at a pivotal stage in the lifetimes of the franchise’s original audience, milking it for maximum emotion and nostalgia, and making it one of the very, very few trilogies whose third instalment is just as strong and fulfilling as its predecessors.

From the inevitability of Andy growing up, to the themes of purpose and identity, to the totally unexpected pay-off regarding the aliens and their claw obsession, Toy Story 3 nails pretty much everything that was laid out for it in the previous two films, and throws in a prison break from a daycare centre for good measure. What more is there to say? It’s so perfect that it’s almost depressing, as how could you or I ever write anything as wonderful as this?

Miscellaneous Observations:

The end of this movie reminds me of a comment made by the writers of the first Toy Story, in which they point out that Andy is something of a freak for treating his toys so nicely, while Sid was the "real kid" in terms of how he played (which involved destruction and experimentation).

But I like that in their depiction of Bonnie a third mode of play is explored, in which Bonnie inserts herself into the narratives she's created, and her toys (especially Pricklepants) treat playtime like an improv class.

Speaking of Sid, I take you all noticed his cameo at the beginning and end of the film as the garbage man? (Is there perhaps some class commentary in there somewhere considering Andy is off to college?) And do you know the theory about how he goes around collecting toys from the dump after his experience in seeing Woody come to life in the first movie? I mean... it's not totally out of the question.

Moreso than Lotso, it's the terrible tragedy of Big Baby that really stings. Along with Chuckles the Clown (who ends up at Bonnie's house), she was one of the three toys that Daisy left behind on the picnic, but it was Lotso's lies that prevented her from going home - he insisted that she replaced all of them. When Woody tells her the truth, she's the one that gets to throw Lotso in the garbage, but her devastated little "mama?" will haunt you.

And yet she's still the most unsettling thing in this whole film: her droopy eyelid, the way she stares at the toys as the door closes behind her, the scene in which Woody nearly runs into her sitting on the swing, gazing up at the moon. Shudder.

Who green-lit this nightmare?

Another slightly false note is that it was Bullseye who decided to try and follow Woody back to Andy's house. Shouldn't it have been Slinky? He's barely had anything to do these past two films.

Watch carefully: in the split second before the toddlers strike at the daycare centre, Buzz’s helmet snaps shut. It is somehow hilariously funny.

A running gag I never noticed before this rewatch is that Hamm always knows the minute technical details of any given thing.

It's hard to believe there was no room for this in the main bulk of the review, but: Barbie and Ken! They definitely make up the funniest part of the film, and yet both are given surprisingly powerful moments towards the end.

Ken (voiced by Michael Keaton) is depicted as a metrosexual man who loves his wardrobe, and starts out rather callow and cowardly before coming through for Barbie when he confronts Lotso in his underwear to advocate for a kinder, groovier Sunnyside. It makes sense in context.

A part of me wonders if his consternation over being mocked as a girl's toy has already dated, and yet there is no better example of characterization in this whole movie than Lotso wearily addressing him as "Kenneth." I laugh every time.

As for Barbie, her defiant: "authority should derive from the consent of the governed, and not by threat of force!" is truly the highlight of the whole film, and one of my favourite girl-power moments of all time. That the two of them reconcile and make good on their promise that Sunnyside can become a better place (as seen in the end credits) is the perfect end for them, and contains an idea I suspect is picked up in Toy Story 4: that belonging to a single child isn't the only way for toys to find happiness.

The world has changed since 1999, and the technology depicted here is not only updated, but used by the toys to navigate their world. I'm thinking specifically of cellphones and laptops, although the writers call on a whole range of things which help guide the flow of movement and exposition. For instance, Woody's initial escape from Sunnyside has him grabbing to the underside of a janitor's cart, climbing up the inside of a toliet stall, and gliding on a kite over the walls. It's such a short little sequence, yet it's ingeniously done. As with the first movie, the writers fully realize the challenges of size and space when it comes to being a toy, and find the best ways of moving them around.

Likewise, when it comes to sharing exposition, the writers are very careful to introduce characters like the monkey and the chatter telephone early (just in a silence capacity, noticed by Bonnie and Woody respectively) and have Chuckles on hand at Bonnie's house to relay crucial information to Woody regarding Lotso and Sunnyside.

Though there is one odd thing: when Woody escapes Sunnyside he loses his hat. You'd think this would be important, but the other toys just return it to him when he returns, even though there's no indication of how they found it (especially since it was dropped outside Sunnyside's walls). In a movie that’s otherwise so watertight, it’s a strange lapse in detail.

Another great setpiece is the seedy gambling den at the top of the vending machine, shot through with green light, where Lotso's cronies gather each night.

They finally found a way to make Buzz's ability to glow in the dark useful!

Bonnie's toys aren't fully fleshed out characters, but their purpose is mostly to create a warm and friendly environment that the toys can return to at the end of the film: Dolly, Buttercup, Trixie, Pricklepants, the Peas in a Pod... even Totoro! A couple of them get a bit more fleshed out in the various shorts and holiday specials, but we'll get to those in good time.

Perhaps the most unexpectedly poignant exchange between the toys is after Buzz is knocked out by a falling television which reboots his true personality. On asking where he's been, Woody answers: "beyond infinity."

In a way it's foreshadowing, as only a few minutes later all of the toys are clinging to each other as they face infinity together, but is there ever anything better than a repeat of a familiar catchphrase said under profoundly different circumstances that brings new depth and meaning to it? No, there isn't.

***

Toy Story 3 is the perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy, one that gathers together all the themes and threads of the previous two films and finds a way to tie everything off with utter satisfaction and maximum poignancy.

Moreso than its predecessors, it captures the genuine stress of being a toy: the heartbreak of a child outgrowing them, the wear and tear that makes them susceptible to the garbage, and the fear that they might be parted from their friends at any moment. Pixar never stinted on these facts of a toy's life, and to have our gang face all of them and come out the other side united and happy is the pinnacle of Earn Your Happy Ending.

You can see why people would have fun applying literary analogies to the content (my favourite being that it's a retelling of Dante's Inferno, with Sunnyside being Purgatory, the incinerator as Hell, and Bonnie's house as Paradise) and the writers excelled especially at taking familiar motifs from the previous films and heightening them through new contexts (the claw, "beyond infinity").

But perhaps its most magical element is that for the first time it flips the script on the relationship between Andy and his toys. Throughout his entire childhood they've been there for him; he's been the axis of their world, the purpose of their existence. To carry on the Dante's Inferno analogy, he's almost their God.

Credit

And after the toys have suffered so much doubt and worry for his sake across the course of the trilogy, he finally does right by them.

***

The only lingering thread is the abrupt disappearance of Bo Peep, who is only mentioned briefly - albeit sadly - by Woody. Her absence is certainly pronounced in a franchise that didn't have many female characters to begin with, but of course, her return is the subject of Toy Story 4.

As of this post, I haven't watched that film, and it's difficult to see how it will improve upon what's already been covered in the trilogy. To be honest, I don't really think of it as the fourth instalment in the story, but rather a coda that wraps up a loose thread.

Because, as I may have mentioned a couple of times before, you can't improve on perfection.