DK
such a terrific classic movie! First, I watched it with my kids, now Im watching it with my grandchild.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/16/25
Full Review
Franco E
Amazing experience seeing this in the theaters, but man, I am never taking my whole family to the movies again.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
09/16/25
Full Review
Darwin S
Its a classic. Loved seeing it again on the big screen !
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/16/25
Full Review
Joseph M
INTRODUCTION:
It's true that the first animated feature was 1926's The Adventures of Prince Achmed directed by Lotte Reiniger, but a full-length animated feature was unheard of back in the 1930s. Enter Walt Disney, who’s been making a lot of beloved Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons took a huge risk and chose to adapt Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a full-length animated feature. Many people scoffed at the idea, dubbing it as “Disney's Folly”. Then when Snow White premiered, it ended up becoming a big success and proved everybody wrong. Ever since then, Disney went on to create many more beloved animated features to come.
Then, all of a sudden in 1966, Walt Disney died. After his death, Disney's own animation division began to struggle in the years to come. In 1979, an former Disney animator named Don Bluth, left the studio with 11 others to form his own animation studio and became their first competitor in the animation business, with their own classics like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, and The Land Before Time. 1985 saw Disney nearing the complete end of their animation division with The Black Cauldron, and just when things look bleak, new management came in the forms of Michael Eisner, Frank G. Wells, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Everything was finally turning around and in 1989, The Little Mermaid was released and it birthed The Disney Renaissance and things are really looking up. But in 1995, the world of animation will changed forever.
An animator named John Lasseter got his start as an animation student in CalArts and working as a skipper on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise, and started working at Disney upon graduating CalArts. While working on Mickey’s Christmas Carol, two friends of John invited him over to see a preview of the light cycle sequences of the cult classic Tron. Amazed by it, he begins promoting computer animation at Disney, starting with a 2D-CG hybrid short reel of Where the Wild Things Are. Unfortunately, afraid to take a risk in computer animation, Disney immediately fired John and ended up taking a job at LucasFilm where they are doing some experiments with computer animation, but LucasFilm had to sell their computer graphics division and got picked up by Apple, now renamed as Pixar graphics group. They created many short films such as Luxo, Jr., Red's Dream, Tin Toy, and Knick Knack. These shorts played an important role in the creation of Toy Story.
After being impressed with Tin Toy, Disney gave Pixar the green light to create Toy Story as the very first ever computer animated feature in history. Many of the early story drafts were rejected by Disney because they wanted something edgier. Then, the Black Friday reel happened (I'll get to that later) and that really got Disney scared. They decided to let Pixar fix the movie and make it the way they wanted it. Everything turned out well in the end for both of them.
Ever since Toy Story's release in 1995, it's been herald as one of the most groundbreaking animated films in all of history and it even won a Special Achievement Academy Award. Nothing was ever the same ever since. Now it's pretty much considered that Toy Story is to computer animation what Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is to traditional animation. Both of them are groundbreaking first movies in their own right as well as becoming commercial successes that changed the course of film history forever.
I did remember catching a theatrical screening of Toy Story from when I was about 3 years old. 30 years later, I found out about their 30th anniversary screening in theaters and decided to catch it again on the big screen. I was going to see the 12:50 but ended up in the wrong theater room (that was going to be showing The Long Walk) so I went to see the 2:50. Big mistake there on my part.
STORY
In a world where toys come to life but only when the humans are not around, an old-fashioned pull-string cowboy doll named Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), Andy's favorite toy and the leader of Andy's toys, gathers the team around due to Andy's birthday party happening three days before the big move. Some of the toys are more nervous about being replaced, so Woody sends Sarge (R. Lee Ermey) and the green army man to spy on the birthday presents. One of these presents is a modern space cadet action figure named Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), who manages to impress the gang with his many gadgets and his “flying” moment, despite being very delusional that he is a real space ranger. Woody, on the other hand, has feelings of jealousy and resentment with Andy preferring Buzz over Woody as his new favorite toy.
Fed up with Buzz getting all the attention (and merchandising), Woody devised a plan to regain his status as Andy's favorite toy by having him stuck behind a desk so that Andy won't see him. At first it was going to plan, but Buzz ends up getting knocked out the window by accident.* Believing that Woody knocked Buzz out the window, the gang blamed him despite Woody saying that he didn't intend to. Thus, this is the beginning of the many misadventures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear as they tried to get back home to Andy as they both ended up in a gas station, a space-themed pizza restaurant named Pizza Planet, and a nasty toy-torturing kid named Sid Phillips.
Meanwhile along the way, Buzz Lightyear encounters a toy commercial of him, causing him to completely doubt himself if he was even a real space ranger to begin with. Eventually, Woody and Buzz make up as they try to find a way to make their way back to Andy.
*In an infamous story reel, dubbed as the Black Friday Reel, Woody did throw Buzz Lightyear out the window and is tyrannical to the other toys, so they decided to throw Woody out the window the same way he did to Buzz. You can see why Pixar was embarrassed about it.
REVIEW:
There are plenty of reasons why Toy Story still holds up as one of the best animated films in almost 30 years. It's not only the technology that's highly impressive at the time, but it's the writing and characters that help make it shine through. Worldbuilding is small-scale, but it thrives on concepts by having the world based on a toy's perspective and by making the toys have genuine human emotions like us. I can see where many people get the idea of the “What if X had feelings” meme that's been on social media.
The contrast between Andy's room and Sid's room really helps to use the designs and colors to capture the mood and feeling from Andy's bright wonder to Sid's dark angst.
The voice casting is top notch from Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, and John Ratzenberger. Each actor brought something special to the characters that we all know and love for years to come.
The music and songs of Randy Newman really are a joy to listen to and the iconic song “You've Got A Friend In Me” should've won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
While the animation on the toys are very impressive, the animation on the humans still feels rudimentary and quaint, but they at least are a step up from the baby animation on Tin Toy.
While I mentioned before that Toy Story is a groundbreaking success for computer animation, just like how Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a groundbreaking success for traditional animation. But I find Toy Story to be superior to Snow White in more ways than one.
FINAL WORD:
After 30 years since its release, Toy Story remains to be one of the best animated features of all time, from the well-crafted story and characters, to the terrific voice acting, to the amazing technological advancements in computer animation, and to Randy Newman's irresistible score and songs. Toy Story really help set the standard of animation for many years to come.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/15/25
Full Review
Reece A
A timeliness classic! Still full of laughs!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/15/25
Full Review
terri
the time was off by 45 minutes, my party and the theater staff were confused
I saw things I did not remember from the first time watching it. My son, which is why we went, had the dialog down. it was great!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/15/25
Full Review
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