There is something very special about Pixar films that captured my mind since I saw the original Toy Story movie Thanksgiving Day in 1995. I remember it being a special family occasion that we did together. I was in the sixth grade at that time, still very young and still growing. I remember Toy Story was the first major motion picture that was entirely computer-generated that I saw in my life.
I remember the film was one of the most visually appealing things I had seen. I had no previous exposure to Pixar except for Sesame Street shorts that featured their little lamp. The other thing I remember about the film was that it had a very engrossing plot. Anytime a Pixar film came out, I would always be eager to go to the movie theater and watch their latest film. At some point, Pixar started screening shorts right before the movie started. As this became a regular feature, I looked forward to seeing these short films as part of my movie experience. I didn’t understand what it was about the film that made me like it so much until I was in my late teens and early adulthood.
What makes Pixar so fun to watch and experience is in how they present their content. The storytelling aspect is what draws the viewer in and is what captured me when I saw the first Toy Story movie. What they did was open up a world and invited everyone into it. It was stuff of pure imagination and somehow they were able to tap into the childhood recesses of the mind that had been displaced by the reality of growing up.
Pixar’s films are really stories for adults and not just children. It has a universal type of feeling to it, that everyone can connect personally with the film deep down inside. They don’t resort to fart jokes, toilet humor, and cheap thrills like in other movies produced by other mainstream animation studios. I think those things are very insulting, and watching those kinds of movies is the visual equivalent of eating junk food. Even Pixar’s bad films are still good compared to other movies.
Somehow Pixar doesn’t try to one-up themselves and upstage their previous films. I believe that is what hurts sequels more often than makes them better. More importantly, Pixar also manages to find a balance between art and entertainment (which I associate the terms “film” and “movie” with respectively) Â and still be marketable a pleasurable story for everyone.
With Toy Story 3, Pixar took me back to the world that I felt when I was young. That was 15 years ago, and the premise of the Toy Story 3 is that the toys have to contend with growing up and facing reality. Seeing old characters was exciting and disheartening when others were not present anymore. It is one of the more emotional movies Pixar has produced because it represents how we all have to deal with change and growing up. It’s about ending and beginnings, letting go of the past but not forgetting it either
