This article contains spoilers for the “Toy Story” movies.
When John Lasseter’s “Toy Story” was released in 1995, it was a coup for the industry. CGI had been used in films for a decade and there were myriad computer-animated short films, but the first theatrically released, fully-computer-animated feature changed the landscape. It certainly helped that “Toy Story” was a massive success, raking in over $365 million on a mere $30 million budget. The film was also highly acclaimed, sporting a novel concept (your toys are alive when you aren’t looking), an excellent screenplay (credited to Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen, Andrew Stanton, and Alec Sokolow), and a first-rate cast (including Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, and Wallace Shawn).
After “Toy Story,” it felt like the floodgates opened, and a shift from traditionally animated features to fully computer-animated features occurred within the next five years. One might even recall when Disney announced that it would be shuttering its traditional animation studio and only make computer-animated features going forward. This was slightly before its 2004 film “Home on the Range” flopped.
“Toy Story” and Pixar, meanwhile, remained at the head of the charge. In 1998, the studio released “A Bug’s Life,” which made over $363 million, and its sequel, “Toy Story 2,” came out in 1999. Since then, there have been two additional “Toy Story” sequels, with a third on the way. There was also a spinoff featured called “Lightyear,” not to mention several short films and TV shows.
For the sake of brevity, the blow list will rank only the five extant theatrical features, although the shorts “Small Fry” and “Partysaurus Rex” are certainly amusing. The spinoff shorts from “Toy Story 4,” released as episodes of “Fluffy Stuff with Ducky and Bunny” — called “love” and “Three Heads” — are also rather hysterical. But for now, we shall remain in theaters.
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