Toy Story 3

[phaidros]

Some thoughts on the latest Pixar film -- warning: SPOILERS

“I don’t want to sound pretentious here, but Itchy and Scratchy comprise a dramaturgical dyad.” - Nameless writer, The SimpsonsI was worried about TS3, not only because of the standard reasons one worries about sequels to beloved films. I was worried for two reasons

Comments

[phaidros]

The Onion's reviewer (in a podcast) said that, while he liked the movie, he found the ending saccharin and would have preferred it to end with their deaths by fire. I know what he means -- while I'm torn about the actual ending, I do think that ending with them accepting their irrelevance and death would have been mind-blowing. Never gonna happen, but would have been awesome. (See also: Wall-E ending with his death, which also seemed possible)

The thing is, I think Pixar tried to have their cake and eat it too by showing that the toys had accepted their irrelevance, before finding new love with a new child. It was as though, unable to pick between the two options I'd seen as the only possible two, they went for both. So even though that was a stunning moment, that it didn't end up meaning anything really took away from it - it became a moment of affirmation of their bond, which is nice and all, but no longer a way of responding to their larger dilemma.

And the claw-rescue did cheapen it, I agree, not least because that was the third claw joke the movie had given us. Would have at LEAST been more effective without the others (first when the Aliens find the claw toy at the day care, and the second when they see the claw from a distance at the dump).

Spanish Buzz was a great way of finding new ways to fuck with Buzz. There was a lot of that sort of thing in the movie -- infectiously funny and cute, but not particularly profound. But, then, Pixar excels at that, too.