Toy Story: the 30th Anniversary

The Blind Eternities forum

Posted on Feb. 17, 2025, 5:29 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

This year is the 30th anniversary of Toy Story, the first feature film by Pixar Studios, and also the first feature-length film to be composed entirely of computer-generated imagery (CGI). Several films that had been made prior to that used CGI, but only in addition to either live-action (as seen in Tron or the Last Starfighter) or traditional animation (as seen in the Black Cauldron or the Great Mouse Detective), but the idea of a film being made entirely from CGI was a new and radical idea, at that time, as it had never been done, before. Today's audiences likely are accustomed to films being composed entirely of CGI, but Toy Story was groundbreaking, for its time, helping to inspire a new generation of movies and also, rather unfortunately, leading to a severe decline in the usage of traditional animation in moviemaking.

Thankfully, the makers of the film understood that technological advances alone would not make a masterpiece, so they put forth great effort in writing a compelling story that deals with jealousy, existential crises, and questioning one's identity and place in the world, and also produced some of the most memorable characters in motion picture history, most notably Woody and Buzz Lightyear, a dynamic duo rivaling Batman and Robin in terms of popularity. The movie's premise, that toys are sentient and self-aware beings, likely led to many children hoping to catch their own toys being alive and also feeling guilty about abandoning them, and I imagine that Buzz Lightyear's identity crisis likely strikes viewers much more harshly as adults than it did when they were children. Toy Story was also a departure from Disney's usual stories in that it did not have a main villain who drove the conflict of the plot; Sid was certainly an antagonist from the perspective of the heroes, but he was present for only a small percentage of the film's story, as the majority of the conflict was between the two lead protagonists, one of whom was jealous of the other, which was an unusual idea, at the time, but lead to many Disney movies forsaking the idea of a traditional antagonist/villain, as the writers began exploring different ideas for stories.

I can hardly believe that this movie is now three decades old, as I remember watching it, when I was younger, and being amazed at both the amazing new graphics and the well-written plot, so I can certainly understand how it began a new era in western animation, showing the potential of computer-generated animation as a serious tool for filmmaking; I am slightly sad that the usage of traditional animation seems to have declined, as most studios now use CGI animation very heavily, although I expect that the ubiquity of CGI in recent years has led to some people deliberately returning to traditional animation as an act of protest against CGI. As a side note, I shall say that I believe that Toy Story 3 was the perfect conclusion to the story, and that Toy Story 4 should not have been made, and I am further displeased about Pixar apparently making a Toy Story 5, as well.

What does everyone else say, about this? How do you feel about this year being the 30th anniversary of Toy Story?