Movie Mondays: Toy Story 2

With the surprise success of Toy Story, a sequel was inevitable. In fact, talks of a sequel began shortly after the opening weekend of the first Toy Story film. According to John Lasseter, the idea of doing a sequel happened when he saw a young boy at an airport clutching a Sheriff Woody doll and realized his characters no longer belonged to him. He wanted to do a sequel for that kid and all the other kids that had watched and loved the first film.

Toy Story 2 was put into development around the same time as A Bugs Life with Lasseter sharing directing duties with Ash Bannon and Lee Ukrich. The initial idea for Toy Story 2 was that it would be part of the Disney direct-to-video initiative that was in full swing at the time. But when it became apparent that the cost of doing it as a direct-to-video release would outweigh the profits gained, not to mention the fact that they were able to get the original cast back to reprise their roles, it was upped to a theatrical release. By doing this they would also strike up another deal with Pixar for a 5-film deal, though Toy Story 2 would not be part of that.

So, you remember that original deal I mentioned in my first Toy Story review? Well, one of the stipulations of the deal was that Disney, not Pixar, would hold the rights to the characters. This would annoy Pixar to no end and the new deal would only confound matters. The reason that Disney didn’t count Toy Story 2 as part of the deal was because Disney wanted new IPs for use in merchandising and theme park attractions. If you’re wondering why Pixar wouldn’t do sequels until several years after Toy Story 2, there’s your answer. Pixar’s relationship with Disney was always a bit tenuous, at one point they were shopping around other deals, including one with Warner Bros. Imagine how that would have turned out.

Toy Story 2 was rife with production issues. At one point during production, some hapless dipshit accidentally deleted 90% of the film's assets. Thankfully someone had a backup of them but they still lost weeks of work. Pixar very nearly lost the entire film, only to then throw the entire film out anyway. Pixar did not like how the story was coming together and decided to redo the film to match their standards of quality. The problem? Toy Story 2 had a set release date of November 1999 that couldn’t be changed. By the time Lasseter was done with A Bugs Life and could fully commit to Toy Story 2, Pixar had to completely redo the film, in only 9 months.

If you’ve been following the gaming industry for a while you will probably recognize what came next, crunch! Pixar broke themselves to finish this thing on time. They had injuries such as carpal tunnel, they couldn’t spend time with their families, at one point someone locked their baby in the car because they were so exhausted, fortunately no one was hurt but, Jesus. Pixar were in overdrive to finish the film. It takes years to do an animated film like this and they had to do it inn 9 months. These guys had to work 100-hour weeks, every week, for 9 straight months. All to ensure the film as something they could be proud of. If that isn’t dedication to your craft, I don’t know what is.

But the question is, did it pay off? Well at the risk of spoiling the remainder of the review, I will answer with a definitive, hell yes! Not only was Toy story 2 a bigger box office success than its predecessor, but it was also a critical darling as well. Toy Story 2 is considered one of those rare sequels that manages to surpass the original. As a kid I absolutely adored it and as an adult, it’s somehow even better. But I should probably stop waffling on and explain why.

Sometime after the events of the first film, Woody is looking forward to going to cowboy camp with Andy. But when Andy rips Woody’s arm while playing with him, he decides to leave him behind on the shelf. Woody is distraught over this and when another toy he had befriended on the shelf is put up for sale in a yard sale he sets off to rescue him. Only to then be kidnapped, or toynapped if you prefer, by a greedy toy collector named Al.

Buzz and the gang deduce this is the Al that owns the toy chain Al's Toy Barn and mount a rescue mission. Al's Toy Barn was actually referenced in the first film and now it’s a major plot point, I like it when filmmakers take little titbits like that and expand on it, it makes for good world building. Woody, meanwhile, ends up in Al's apartment and meets four other talking cowboy dolls. Bullseye who, to be fair, can’t talk because he’s a horse, Jessie the yodelling cowgirl and Stinky Pete the prospector.

As it turns out, they were all characters in an old Saturday morning puppet show called Woody’s Roundup. Al has collected all the merchandise related to the show and plans on selling the whole thing to a Japanese toy museum. Woody is initially against this and wants to go home, but when he learns the other round-up gang toys will be put in storage when he leaves and about Jessies backstory of being abandoned when her owner outgrew her, he begins to question whether it would be better to stay.

Toy Story 2 is a bigger movie than its predecessor. Not only are there a lot more characters this time around but the story itself also takes them to more locations outside of suburbia. This not only leads to better variety in the environments, but also to much bigger set pieces. Toy Story 1 had its fair share of set-pieces as well, but the sequel out does it in terms of quantity and quality.

The entire opening sequence is a testament to this. The whole thing is a scene of Buzz lightyear vs Zurg, who we actually get to see this time around, and it is glorious. It was cool to see the real Buzz in action since we never got to see it in the first film. Granted it’s revealed to be a videogame, but it was the closest thing we had at the time. Another highlight is the scene where the toys attempt to cross the street in traffic cones. Not only is it intense it’s also very funny.

Can these set pieces come across as filler at times? Kind of, but they do a good job of making them feel like a natural progression of the plot. As a kid I watched this movie a lot more than the original and I think the fact that it had more action was probably the main reason for that. That, and it had more interesting locations. Remember Pizza Planet? The equivalent to that in this movie would be Al's Toy Barn. Not only is it neat to see toys explore a toy store they also spend a lot more time there so they’re able to do a lot more with it. You could have probably set the entire movie there and I would have worked. Hell, if you look at the Toy story level in Kingdom Hearts 3 that’s exactly what they did, and that was one of the better levels in the game.

These sequences not only make Toy Story a bigger movie than its predecessor it also allows the animation to truly shine. If Toy Story 1 is the birth of the CG film then Toy Story 2 is it reaching maturity. While the first movie had some elements that hadn’t aged well, Toy Story 2 has aged like vintage wine. The human characters in particular look far better than they did in the original for a start, but even without that the level of detail is insane in both the characters and environments. There are little touches throughout the film I'm just now noticing. Combine that with the more energetic and expressive character animations, something that Pixar had already nailed previously but have by now perfected, and Toy Story 2 is a fantastic looking film.

I mention this because I need to remind you all that most of the animation in Toy Story 2 was done in just 9 months. The fact they made the film look not only as good as the original, but better is a testament to the sheer talent of Pixar’s animators. Hell, the character of Buster the dog was added in at the last minute and he looks way better than the dog did in the first film. Pixar know their craft well.

But being a bigger movie does not necessarily make you a better movie. Having bigger action set-pieces is great and all but it’s little more than fluff without a strong story to back it up. Fortunately, Toy story 2 excels in the story department with flying colours. But this is a sequel, and a sequel has different expectations. A good sequel needs to do three things, build on what came before it, continue the story in a logical way and introduce new elements that mesh well with the elements already established. In short, take the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and do the opposite of what was done there.

So does Toy Story 2 manage to pull these off? Well in terms of building on what came before then it absolutely does. It takes the theme of a toy being abandoned by its owner that was hinted at in the first movie and expands on that with more ideas. Even little tidbits from the first movie have been expanded on. Als Toy Barn and Zurg are both examples of this. As a continuation it does feel like the natural next step from the first film, the characters are the same lovable bunch you remember but they have clearly grown and changed since the last film. Buzz’s entire motivation for helping Woody is an effort to repay him for saving him in the first movie and Woody’s entire arc is an extension of his arc from the first film.

And as for the new stuff, well that’s where the characters come in. I’ll be splitting this section into two groups, Buzz’s group and Woody’s group. Buzz’s group is mainly comprised of characters from the first film. Buzz is obviously there, he is a main character in the series after all, but he’s joined by Hamm, Mr. Potato Head, Rex and Slinky Dog. I already liked these characters before but their increased screen time in this movie means they’re given a bigger chance to shine.

While none of them go through any kind of a character arc, aside from Rex who goes through an arc of trying to beat a video game, they are still very entertaining. Plus, with them going to more interesting locations the writers are given a lot more to work with. At one point Mr. Potato Head rescues three of the little green men from the last film and they won’t stop bugging him afterwards as just one example. Rex and Hamm are probably the highlights of the group, Hamm’s sarcastic commentary is always good for a laugh and as a lifelong gamer I found Rex’s struggles with beating a videogame oddly relatable.

But those are characters we already know about. The movie also has its fair share of new characters. There's Wheezy a depressed squeaky toy with a broken squeaker, Mrs. Potato Head is introduced as the wife of Mr. Potato Head and even Barbie shows up briefly. Yes, that Barbie. I guess it makes sense given that she’s probably the most famous toy in the world. I remember this being a big deal in the marketing even though she doesn’t really do much in the film itself. She would go on to become a main character in Toy Story 3 and I do like how they kind of poke fun of her without it coming across as cynical.

One of my favourite new characters isn’t really a new character. It's a second version of Buzz that suffers from the same delusion the main version had in the first movie. Granted a lot of his schtick is the same as it was before but it’s a lot funnier here. It makes for some good character moments when Buzz comes face to face with what he was like in the first film. It also leads to one of the best scenes in the film when they fight a toy version of Zurg on top of an elevator.

But that’s all from Buzz’s side, Woody’s side is where things get a little more interesting. Buzz and the gang are there mostly for comic relief, it’s Woody’s side of the story where most of the drama comes from. I don’t think that’s a bad thing though since Buzz’s story is still very entertaining. In general, I find the comedy in this movie to be a lot better than the first one. And that’s saying something because the comedy in the first film was one of its strongest points.

But Woody’s story has a little more of a drama to it. Before we talk about that in more depth though, let’s talk about Al. He's basically the stereotype of the fat nerdy collector. He's obsessive, greedy and so lazy he complains about driving to work when it’s just across the bloody street. What's funny is despite being a greedy character he isn’t portrayed as being outright evil, he’s just a nerd trying to make money from his collection. The only outright evil thing he did was steal Woody, but that was only after he tried to buy him. He isn’t a villain so much as an antagonist and there is a difference between the two by the way. Now there is a villain in the movie, but we’ll get to them in second.

For now, let’s talk about the Round-Up Gang. First there’s Bullseye who, look Bullseye is just adorable ok. He's basically just there to be the cute animal sidekick and he does that job well enough. At least they have the courtesy to keep him silent. Animal characters are a lot more endearing when they use their expressions and actions to denote how they’re feeling rather than words.

In terms of characters with a bit more substance there’s Jessie. But before we talk about her, let’s talk about Woody and his arc since it sort of ties into Jessie’s character a little. Woody’s arc in the first Toy Story film was his fear of being replaced. As a toy his role is to make a child happy so when he began to be pushed out in favour of Buzz it hit him pretty hard. Toy Story 2 adds an extra layer to that. If a toys main goal is to be played with by children, what does a toy do when that child grows up?

It's an inevitability. Eventually all children grow up and leave their toys behind. Woody begins to feel a little bit of that at the beginning when Andy leaves him behind after accidentally ripping his arm. Throughout the film he struggles with the idea that Andy will break him so badly that he’ll throw him away. And then he finds out about Jessie’s backstory.

Jessie was introduced so the series could have a good female character. They had a female character with Bo-Peep but she didn’t have much going for her other than being very thirsty. Jessie certainly has a lot more going for her. She’s very spunky and energetic when we first meet her, but when Woody says he wants to leave she becomes a lot more bitter and cynical. And after being abandoned and placed in storage she’s developed some sort of claustrophobia.

She has a bit more depth to her character and that’s without going into her backstory. Like Woody, Jessie also had a child she was close to, but hers grew up and left her behind. When Woody finds out about this, he begins to realize that Andy will eventually abandon him too and that maybe being a collector's item is a better situation. At least then you get admired for years without fear of breaking. It's actually an interesting philosophical dilemma for a toy to be in. Is it better to be loved by a child and risk being broken or abandoned or is it better to be admired as a valuable item behind a display case?

But there’s one last Round-Up member I haven’t talked about yet. And I've saved him for last because I have to go into spoiler territory. Not that I haven’t been spoiling the movie throughout the review, but this is where there’s a massive twist so, spoiler warning I guess. Stinky Pete is the main villain of the movie. At first he seems like a decent guy, he’s portrayed as a wise old mentor character. Near the end of the film though he reveals his true colours. He's the one toy who wants to go to Japan since he never got sold, he sat on a bargain bin aisle for years and thinks this is his only chance at being appreciated. Unlike Woody or Jessie, he was never loved so he doesn’t really care if he doesn’t care if he ends up behind a glass display, in fact he seems to hate kids based on what he says at one point in the film.

When I watched this film again, I noticed that the prospectors advice came across as manipulative. You don’t realize it at first but going back to it knowing the twist you pick up on the subtle manipulation being used. In that regard I think Stinky Pete works as a twist villain. I know it’s an overused trope these days with Disney and Pixar villains, but Stinky Pete was one of the first to do it so credit to him being the originator.

Toy Story 2 is how you do a sequel story right. It builds on the themes of the original in interesting ways and introduces a cast of new characters that work well with the old characters while standing on their own. The first toy Story may have hinted at the notion of children abandoning their toys but it’s Toy Story 2 where that theme would come into the forefront. The film doesn’t go all in on the idea, that’s what the third entry is for, but it pays it much closer attention. And it’s this theme gives Toy Story 2 something A Bugs Life lacked, actual emotional weight.

Woody’s entire arc is learning to accept the fact that his friendship with Andy will eventually come to an end and to enjoy it while it lasts. That's a pretty heavy thing to tell a kid, that they will eventually grow up and lose their toys, and yet Pixar respects their audience enough not to sugar coat the message. The film has a happy ending but there’s a depressing reality that it won’t last forever and you should enjoy it while you can. I think this may have screwed me up as a kid, to this day I can’t watch the finale to a tv show because of the finality of it. Even now I fear the end, the inevitability of the end. What did you do to me Pixar?

You know what else screwed me up, the music. Not the score, that’s fine, I’m talking about a song. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Randy Newman came back to do the music for the film and like before he wrote some new songs to go along with the returning “You’ve Got a Friend In Me”, the Woody’s Roundup theme which was sung by Riders in the Sky, and “When She Loved Me” sung by Sarah Mclachlan. I am convinced that anyone who grew up with this movie has been emotionally scarred by “When She Loved Me”, I can’t hear the first chords of this song without weeping like a baby. I love it but fuck me is it hard to listen to.

You know what isn’t hard to listen to though, the voice acting. The entire original cast returned and they’re just as good as they were before. Both Tim Allen and Tom Hanks are still wonderful as Buzz and Woody though credit to Tim Allen for doing both versions of Buzz and making them feel like distinct characters. The rest of the cast do a great job too and I should mention that this would be the last time Jim Varney would play Slinky before he passed away. Oh, and I completely forgot to mention that R. Lee Ermey is the voice of the sergeant in the army men toys. I apologize for that, it wasn’t because he was bad, it’s R. Lee Ermey doing what he does best, it just slipped my mind last time.

In terms of the new cast, Wayne Knight plays Al and he does a good job though that’s mainly because he’s doing his typical Wayne Knight thing. Al as a character feels like he was written specifically for Knight so he fits the character like a glove. And while we’re on the subject of actors from Seinfeld, Estelle Harris plays Mrs. Potato Head. She doesn’t have many lines but she’s does a great job with what she has. Joan Cusack is perfect as Jessie; she’s got just the right amount of energy for the role but she’s also able to handle the more emotional moments very well. And finally there’s Kelsey Grammar as Stinky Pete, who helps adds a sophistication to the character while also adding enough subtleties to the performance to hint at the characters manipulative nature.

The entire cast does a great job, but are you really surprised at this point. We’re three movies into Pixar’s library and all of them have had great acting. At this point we’re just going to have to accept that Pixar movies are going to have superb acting. Oh, there are exceptions to that rule, but those can wait. Oh they can wait.

If you haven’t gathered by the glowing praise in this review, Toy Story 2 is a damn good movie. It's not only a good sequel it’s one of those rare sequels that’s somehow better than the original. It has more action, the theme is a lot more fleshed out, the new characters are excellent additions yet it doesn’t neglect the original cast, the animation has improved significantly, this is the best Pixar movie so far. That being said, no film is perfect amid I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about them here.

Some elements of the plot feel a little rushed. The whole movie takes place over the course of about two days so certain plot elements feel like they happen faster than they probably should. Take Woody’s decision to stay for example. After learning about Jessie’s story, he decides to stay but later on he decides to leave. In the timeframe of the movie, these events would have happened within roughly 30 minutes to an hour of each other. It would have felt more natural if they had given the character more time to think about his decision.

I also find it odd that Jessie has this big character moment where she goes over being abandoned, only to then be completely willing to go with Woody to be Andy’s toy. Despite knowing full well she’ll go through the same thing all over again. Now we do see some hesitation from her, but it’s more so from Andy not liking her and not the fear of going through the same heartbreak. Some introspection on this would have been nice.

Then there’s this weird case of tonal whiplash. Right after you get Jessies story and Woody’s decision to leave it cuts to Buzz’s crew in Al's office which is a more comedic scene. I understand why they did this, it’s a kid's movie so you don’t want to keep things too heavy, but the transition could have been smoother.

And, for as much as I like him, the other Buzz in the movie is kind of pointless. He doesn’t contribute much to the plot, you could cut him out and not lose much. To be fair, they did have to write in a bunch of new scenes to pad out the films runtime when it changed to theatrical release. Some of it was going to come off as filler no matter how much they tried. But if one of the flaws in this movie is something I ended up liking, that should tell you how good this movie is.

Toy Story 2 is an easy film to recommend. The first movie was already fantastic and the sequel is somehow even better. Toy Story 1 had proven Pixar were a talented studio, but it was Toy Story 2 where they truly proved the depth of what they were capable of. And to think they were able to create it in just 9 months. I don’t know if it was through divine intervention or sheer raw determination but, well done regardless Pixar. This is one you can definitely be proud of.

Toy Story 2 also marked a bit of a turning point with animation as a whole. Disney was coming to the end of its renaissance period and would soon go through some, turbulent times let’s just say. Remember that direct-to-video initiative I mentioned at the beginning, that was going to be most of Disney’s animated output going forward. This basically meant that Pixar were effectively the new big boys on the block. They were the new standard everyone would try to live up to. The question was, could Pixar continue to live up to their own standards? We’ll find out next time when we look at the first Pixar film not to be directed by John Lasseter, Monsters Inc. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.