Toy Story

Toy Story is the first Disney/Pixar feature film, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the US on November 22, 1995. It was written by John Lasseter, Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow, and featured music by Randy Newman.

The film was so successful it prompted a sequel, Toy Story 2. Eleven years later, an additional film, Toy Story 3, was also released. Both sequels were hits and garnered critical acclaim similar to the first. Leading up to the third film's premiere, as part of its promotion, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were also re-released as a double feature in Disney Digital 3-D on October 2, 2009.

Plot
The film begins with a 8 year-old boy named Andy playing with his toys, such as a Mr. Potato Head, a plastic dinosaur toy, and his favorite toy, Woody, a cowboy doll. He takes Woody into the living room and plays with him some more, with a short interruption talking to his mom about his birthday party later that day and the upcoming move to a new house. After playing with Woody, Andy starts helping his mom by carrying his baby sister to her. While he is gone, all the toys come to life.

The party makes all the toys extremely nervous, wondering if Andy will get a toy that will replace them. Woody sends the small green soldiers downstairs to spy on the party. At the end of the party, Andy's mom pulls out a surprise gift from behind her, which turns out to be a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Buzz does not seem to be aware that he is a piece of plastic, believing himself to be on a mission to save the universe from Evil Emperor Zurg. The other toys take to him immediately, being impressed by his many features. Only Woody is unconvinced, showing jealousy towards Buzz, who might replace him as Andy's favorite toy.

Eventually, when Andy is told he can take only one toy with him on a trip to Pizza Planet, Woody tries to shove Buzz behind Andy's dresser, but instead knocks him out the window. When the other toys learn of Woody's actions, they think Woody killed Buzz out of jealousy. They try to attack him, but he is rescued when Andy, unable to find Buzz, takes Woody on the trip. At a stop at a Dinoco gas station for gas, Woody finds that Buzz grabbed ahold of the family's minivan and is with them. The two begin to fight, knocking each other out of the minivan, and are left behind when it drives away. Woody convinces Buzz to hitch a lift on a Pizza Planet truck, in order to return to Andy.

Woody finds Andy there, but Buzz, still believing he is a real space ranger, climbs into a toy crane game, thinking it is a spaceship that will take him to his rival's location. Woody goes in after him, but the two eventually are found by Sid Phillips, who lives next door to Andy and is known to torture and destroy toys for his own entertainment.

Left alone in Sid's room, Woody and Buzz come upon a group of mis-matched toys, the results of Sid's many "experiments". Woody and Buzz react in fear, thinking that the mis-matched toys are cannibals. Meanwhile at Andy's house, the toys continue to look for Buzz in the bushes. But when Andy and his mother come home, he notices that Woody is gone. The other toys wonder what has become of the two. Some are worried for both Buzz and Woody, while others express their hope that Woody has met a bad end. The next day, at Sid's house, Woody and Buzz, having been mistreated by Sid, (Sid managed to burn Woody's forehead with a magnifying glass) try to escape, only to run into Sid's maniac dog, Scud. Eventually getting out of Sid's room, Buzz comes upon a television where he sees a commercial for the Buzz Lightyear line of toys. Watching it, he realizes that Woody was right about him: he was a toy this whole time, not a space ranger. However, in denial, and one last desperate attempt to prove he is not a toy, Buzz tries to fly out of a window by jumping off the guardrail of the stairs on the second floor, only to fall to the floor, losing an arm in the process. He is found by Sid's sister Hannah, who takes him away to put him in her tea party.

Woody finally finds Buzz in Hannah's room, dressed as "Mrs. Nesbit" and attending a tea party. While Woody formulates a plan of escape, Buzz is too depressed to care. When Woody throws a string of Christmas tree lights across the way to the toys in Andy's room, Buzz refuses to back him up; Woody tries to use Buzz's detached arm in a desperate attempt to convince Andy's toys that Buzz is with him, but when they see through this act, they take it as evidence that Woody truly did murder Buzz and leave him in disgust. The mixed-up toys then return and swarm over Buzz, and Woody finds that they have repaired him. Before Woody can make friends with them, however, Sid returns with his new acquisition: a firework rocket. He decides to blow up Buzz with it, but is stymied by rainfall.

Overnight, Woody and Buzz make amends, with Woody helping Buzz come to terms with being a toy, and the two try to escape (Although Buzz accidentally knocks the toolbox on Woody when trying to get the milkcrate off of him). Unfortunately Sid wakes up and takes Buzz out to blow him up, leaving Woody alone in the room. Of course, it was also when Andy and his family is going to move. Andy, still depressed to lose Woody and Buzz, finds only the cardboard spaceship of Buzz and his cowboy hat. Woody calls out to the mixed-up toys to tell them a plan to escape. After a daring escape through the house and past Scud, Woody and the other toys end up in the yard with Sid. They decide to break the rules and they allow Sid to see that they can move on their own. Woody even speaks to him through his voicebox, telling him that his toys are sick of being tortured, then with his own voice tells him to "play nice." This freaks Sid out and he runs screaming into the house, where his sister frightens him with a dolly.

Now freed from Sid, Woody and Buzz attempt to catch Andy's moving van just as it is pulling away from the house. After saying farewell to the mixed-up toys, a harrowing chase follows, with Scud chasing them and Andy's toys not helping, since they still believe Woody intentionally got rid of Buzz. Luckily, Woody and Buzz get rid of Scud and the other toys finally see that Woody was telling the truth. Eventually, with the help of RC, Andy's remote control car, and strategic use of Sid's rocket, Woody and Buzz return to Andy, whose mother assumes they were in the car all along.

At Christmas, we see a scene similar to the birthday party, with the toys less worried about the new ones, save a slightly nervous Buzz. Mr. Potato Head is pleased to learn that Andy's baby sister has been given a Mrs. Potato Head. When discussing being replaced by a new toy, like Woody was almost replaced by Buzz, Woody poses the question to Buzz, "What could Andy possibly get that is worse than you?" The answer comes in the form of Andy's first present, when a dog's bark is heard....?

Production
Toy Story began its life as an extension of Pixar's short Tin Toy, which featured Tinny, a mechanical drummer who tries to find his way in a baby's play room. The original plot called for Tinny to butt heads with a ventriloquist's dummy. Ultimately, Tinny was found to be too immobile for the storyline and he was developed as a "space toy", first named Lunar Larry, but eventually becoming Buzz Lightyear. Meanwhile, the original ventriloquist's dummy was designed to be sneaky, mean and borderline evil. When tests proved that the character was too unsympathetic, his character was gradually modified until he became the Woody of the film.

Voice cast

 * Tom Hanks: Woody
 * Tim Allen: Buzz Lightyear
 * Don Rickles: Mr. Potato Head
 * Jim Varney: Slinky Dog
 * Wallace Shawn: Rex
 * John Ratzenberger: Hamm
 * Annie Potts: Bo Peep
 * John Morris: Andy Davis
 * Erik von Detten: Sid Phillips
 * R. Lee Ermey: Sarge
 * Sarah Freeman: Hannah Phillips
 * Laurie Metcalf: Mrs. Davis
 * Joe Ranft: Lenny
 * Jeff Pidgeon: Aliens/Mr. Spell/Robot
 * Jack Angel: Mr. Shark/Rocky Gibraltar
 * Debi Derryberry: Aliens/Pizza Planet Intercom
 * Penn Jillette: TV Announcer
 * Mickie McGowan: Mrs. Phillips

Critical
Toy Story has received universal critical acclaim since its release in 1995. It holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes and has gained "universal acclaim" on Metacritic. It has since been named the "best animated film of all time."

More recently, famous movie director Terry Gilliam praised the film and said it's "a work of genius. It got people to understand what toys are about. They're true to their own character. And that's just brilliant. It's got a shot that's always stuck with me, when Buzz Lightyear discovers he's a toy. He's sitting on this landing at the top of the staircase and the camera pulls back and he's this tiny little figure. He was this guy with a massive ego two seconds before... and it's stunning. I'd put that as one of my top ten films, period."

Box Office
Toy Story was the number one movie of the year in 1995, according to Box Office Mojo. It opened the day before Thanksgiving and made almost $10 million on Wednesday and Thursday, plus another $29 million over the weekend. It was the number one film for its first 3 weekends, and then again the last weekend of December. During its theatrical run it grossed $191.8 million domestically and $362 million worldwide.

Toy Story 2

 * Toy Story 2 was released November 24, 1999.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins

 * Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2-D animated spin-off movie to Toy Story) released direct-to-video 2000.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

 * Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2-D animated spin-off TV show of direct-to-video movie) aired 2000-2001

Toy Story 3

 * Toy Story 3 was released June 18, 2010.

Promotion
Toy Story had a large promotion prior to its release, leading to numerous tie-ins with the film including images on food packaging. A variety of merchandise was released during the film's theatrical run and its initial VHS release including toys, clothing, and shoes, among other things. When an action figure for Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody was created it was initially ignored by retailers. However, after over 250,000 figures were sold for each character prior to the film's release, demand continued to expand, eventually reaching over 25 million units sold by 2007.

Video games
There were several video games based on Toy Story, including:
 * Toy Story for the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and PC.
 * Toy Story for the Game Boy
 * Toy Story Racer for the Sony PlayStation (also contains elements from Toy Story 2)

There were also some "activity" titles released by Disney for the PC and Mac:
 * Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story
 * Disney's Activity Center: Toy Story

All these titles are significant, because Pixar created original animations for all of them, including fully animated sequences for the PC titles.