Toy Story (1995)
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Overview

Toy Story is a 1995 film created by Pixar Animation Studios. It follows two toys, Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear ( Tim Allen), who get lost in the real world and are desperately trying to get back to their owner Andy (John Morris). The film was met to great critical and box office acclaim and had a huge impact on the film industry due to its innovative computer animation technology. It went on to produce two sequels, Toy Story 2 in 1999 and Toy Story 3 in 2010.

Plot Summary

Woody checking his mic

Toy story follows the story of Woody, a toy favored by a child named Andy. Woody is the top toy around in Andy's room. That's until Andy's birthday comes up. Woody sends toy soldier's down to the ground floor with a walkie-talkie to spy out what toys Andy is receiving, as many of the toys fear they're going to be replaced. Woody tells them not to worry and the soldier's report back with what toys Andy is receiving. Once all the toys are open, everyone is happy they're not getting replaced, but one last present is brought out from the closet.As the soldier is saying what toy it is, the walkie-talkie is knocked off the table by a nervous toy dinosaur ( Rex), causing the batteries to fall out. After finally getting the batteries into the walkie-talkie, the message they are receiving from the soldiers is that Andy is returning to his room. Everyone runs back to position and acts lifeless. Woody is accidentally knocked down the back of the bed to make room for Andy's new toy.

Once Andy and his friends have gone back downstairs for cake, Woody is the first on the scene to investigate the new toy. He heads onto the bed to find a space ranger toy, named Buzz Lightyear. A toy with delusions that he is in-fact a real Space Ranger in a new planet. Woody introduces himself and the rest of the toys to Buzz, who take an instant liking to his new-age gadgets. This makes Woody jealous, for fear of getting replaced. Woody makes a bet that Buzz can't fly, however, due to luck, Buzz manages to unintentionally give the illusion of flight. This only makes the rest of the toys more infatuated with him.

Woody watches as quickly, Andy becomes more obsessed with Buzz and the whole 'Space Ranger' aspect and starts to forget out cowboys and Woody. Soon Woody sets up a scene to be rid of Buzz, so he can be picked by Andy to go to Pizza Planet. However, things get out of hand and Buzz is unintentionally knocked out the window. The other toys find out what Woody did, but before they are able to carry out a revenge, Woody is reluctantly taken to Pizza Planet by Andy. While Woody is in the car at a petrol station, the other toys are trying to find Buzz. Buzz, however, is not at the house anymore. He managed to get to the car before it left and he confronts Woody while the family is out of the car. They have a scrap and fall out of the car.

Buzz is kinda pissed

Andy and his mother return to the car and drive off, leaving both Woody and Buzz stranded. They argue with one another under a truck, where Woody tries to convince Buzz he's a toy and not actually a Space Ranger. Buzz gets angry and storms off. Woody then spots a Pizza Planet car filling up at the station. Woody realizes that he can't go back to the room without Buzz, so he convinces Buzz the car's a space ship and they both board the car and get to Pizza Planet.

The two disguise themselves as trash and sneak into Pizza Planet, however, before Woody has a chance to get into the pram of Andy's little sister, Buzz makes his way into a crane game, in the shape of a Space Ship. Woody goes in after him to try to get him out, when a boy uses the crane and grabs Buzz. Woody tries to stop the boy pulling Buzz out, but ends up getting pulled out as well. The boy turns out to be Sid, Andy's neighbor. Sid has a history of blowing toys up with fireworks, so when Woody and Buzz end up in Sid's house, Woody realizes he has to get out of the house. It's during this time that Buzz sees and advert for himself, claiming that he cannot fly. Buzz tries to fly out a window and plummets down the stairs, losing an arm in the process. Buzz spirals into depression as Woody tries to get Buzz out of the house. However, Andy comes back and straps a rocket to Buzz, then places him and Woody under different boxes for safe keeping. Woody tries to help Buzz, but Buzz is too depressed, convinced that Andy wouldn't want him. All the while, Andy is looking for both Woody and Buzz, with no luck.

Woody convinces Buzz that he's a great toy, but then starts to think that he's useless. Buzz escapes from the box and saves Woody, but before they can escape, Sid's alarm rings and he wakes up. He grabs Buzz and takes him outside. At this point Woody hatches a plan with the abomination toys that live under Sid's bed to save Buzz. They carry out a plan to scare Sid, and it works. Meanwhile, Andy's family is packing up and moving house. All Andy's things are put into a moving truck. Woody realizes he has to catch up to the moving truck with Buzz and they make it, but before they can get in, Woody is grabbed by Sid's dog 'Scud'. Buzz then sacrifices himself to save Woody. Woody then gets into the moving truck and pulls the Remote Control Car (R.C) out of his box to save Buzz. The toys, thinking Woody is up to something bad again and chuck him out of the moving truck.

Woody and Buzz on top of R.C

Woody then boards R.C with Buzz and they chase after the moving truck. Woody and Buzz are almost there and the other toys see them, however, they run out of battery before they make it. All seems lost, until they realise Buzz is still tied to the rocket. Woody uses the sun shining through Buzz's helmet to light the rocket. As the rocket's about the ignite, Woody realises he just lit a rocket. They blast forward on R.C, approaching the moving truck at speed. They start to lift off the ground, and Woody lets go off R.C, sending him into the Moving truck. Woody and Buzz are rocketed into the air. Buzz then releases his wings and snaps the tape holding the rocket on. He then glides down towards the moving truck, but then keeps moving. To Woody's surprise, Buzz isn't aiming for the moving truck, but is actually heading to Andy's car. Then land in through the sun roof and Andy finds them, to his relief. The final scene is Woody and Buzz sitting by the Walkie-Talkie in the new house, listening to the toy soldiers report what presents are being opened. Woody banters with Buzz about there being to present worse than Buzz, then they hear over the radio that Andy has gotten a puppy.

Production

Script

Pixar pitched Disney the idea of making a 30-minute Christmas special based on their Academy Award winning short film, Tin Toy. But the folks at Disney said, "forget about that, lets make a full length feature film". From John Lasseter's and Pixar's initial pitch, Disney had finally fulfilled their dream, of making the world's first full length CG animated film.

Early concept drawing of Woody and Buzz

Pixar didn't want to make a musical or a fairytale because they believed that Disney had already that area covered with films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. There was a desire at Pixar to make Toy Story "edgy". Which basically meant very snappy humor and something for adults. The people at Pixar starting working on the storyboard with this in mind. By December 1993, Pixar were done with their storyboard, which they had worked on for a year and flew to Burbank to show it to Disney. But the reaction they were going to get from Disney, wasn't good. It wasn't funny, it wasn't emotional, it wasn't moving. The characters didn't quite work either. The Woody character became one of the most repellent characters they'd ever seen on screen. He was very unlikeable and basically appeared as a sarcastic jerk.

This resulted into Disney forcing Pixar to shut production down, but Pixar refused. And so Pixar rewrote the script entirely. The writers became brutally honest with eachother on what they felt about everything. And after only two or three weeks they were done. They went ahead and showed it to Disney. And Disney said that it was good; it wasn't great, but it showed the potential of what Toy Story could be. And so the production of Toy Story was started back up.

Casting

Tom Hanks (left) and Tim Allen (right) giving voices to their respective characters

Lasseter had set his sights on one particular actor, for the voice of Woody, Tom Hanks. They told him that they just wanted to show him this thing, because it's too hard to explain what it is. They had taken Hanks' voice from his film Turner and Hooch and animated it with Woody's body. This convinced Hanks and he agreed on giving his voice to the Woody character.

Billy Crystal was originally approached for the voice of Buzz Lightyear, but he turned down the role, something he later regretted, however he did get the role of Mike Wazowski in Pixar's Monsters, Inc. So Lasseter approached Tim Allen who was appearing in Disney's Home Improvement at the time. Allen looked at the early sketches of Buzz that Lasseter handed him and accepted the part.

	John Lasseter	Story
	Pete Docter	Story
	Andrew Stanton	Story & Screenplay
	Joe Ranft	Story
	Joss Whedon	Screenplay
	Joel Cohen	Screenplay
	Alec Sokolow	Screenplay

	Tom Hanks	Woody
	Tim Allen	Buzz Lightyear
	Don Rickles	Mr. Potato Head
	Jim Varney	Slinky Dog
	Wallace Shawn	Rex the Green Dinosaur
	John Ratzenberger	Hamm the Piggy Bank
	Annie Potts	Bo Peep
	John Morris	Andy
	Erik von Detten	Sid
	Laurie Metcalf	Andy's Mom
See Full Credits

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Name	Toy Story
US Release	Nov. 22, 1995
UK Release	March 23, 1996
AUS Release	Dec. 7, 1995
Runtime	81
Language(s)	Add a new language English
Genre(s)	Add a new genre Adventure Comedy Family Fantasy Animation
Theme(s)	Add a new theme children computer animated
Rating	G
Alias(es)

	The Christmas Toy
	A Bug's Life
	Toy Story 2
	Monsters, Inc.
	Cars
	Ratatouille
	WALL-E
	Monsters vs Aliens
	Up
	Toy Story 3
	Gnomeo and Juliet
	The Good Dinosaur

	Get A Hold Of Yourself!
	Evil Laugh
	Homologous Aliens
	No One Believes The Hero
	Let's Split Up!
	You Just Don't Get It, Do You?

Domestic	$191,796,233
Foreign	+$170,162,503

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781	All-Time Rank

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Domestic	$191,796,233
Foreign	+170,162,503

Toy Story (1995) Add