The ‘Toy Story 3’ Director Admitted That the Toys Can Actually Die
By George Robbins
For many years now, the Pixar company has been one that has created a lot of different content for people to enjoy and their films are usually pretty well acclaimed critically. They got there start back in the 90’s with the creation of the first ‘Toy Story’ film and from that point on they just kept going on making acclaimed films. When the first ‘Toy Story’ film released in 1995 it quickly ended up being the highest grossing film of that year. They would go on to make a sequel, ‘Toy Story 2,’ that would release in 1999 with similar levels of success that rivaled the original film. It wouldn’t be until 2010 that ‘Toy Story 3’ would eventually come out, but it ended up being a movie that was well worth the wait.
The third film in the franchise would not be the last as ‘Toy Story 4’ ended up releasing in 2019 after a length of time almost as long as the gap between the second and third films. Despite the saying that sequels usually don’t do as well as their predecessors, every film in the franchise has done well both critically and at the box office. ‘Toy Story 3’ is where everything changed for the franchise though because it was much more emotional than the first two films as it saw the toys’ owner growing up and going to college. This was a major moment for people, especially those who grew up with the original films.
There were several moments in the film that give a perspective usually unseen in media when we see the growth of a character and the beginning of the next generation. The original films were already interesting enough given their backgrounds that toys come alive when their owners aren’t around. For those of us who misplaced our toys when we were younger and thought they simply moved on their own, it was something that we all thought of when watching the movies. Often times we would imagine what kind of adventures our own toys were having without us and this movie only fueled our imaginations.
In the third film though, we saw a moment where we as the audience weren’t really sure what would happen and we watched as the toys thought they were going to be incinerated. Ultimately this does not come to pass, but this brought up an interesting question that people have been wanting an answer to ever since the movie’s release. Many people have wanted to know if the toys in the movie could actually die, because we know they can be taken apart, but we don’t know if they are just immortal or not. ‘Toy Story 3’ director Lee Unkrich answered this question posed by a fan this past weekend by saying that they can die, but only if they are destroyed. So it seems the threat in the movie of being incinerated was one that was very real and we should now be glad it didn’t come to pass.