Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

By George Robbins

Animated movies are always a polarizing source in regular culture as their are plenty of B-Grade or worse films that are made on a regular basis. This isn’t really anyone’s fault as people do want to create a work of art, but they might have their own limitations put in place which usually revolve around budget. It is due to this that we only ever hear about larger studios when we see really beautiful animated movies being made, but even those studios had smaller starts. That being said, Pixar did something incredible even early on as they managed to make something incredible with ‘Toy Story‘ back in the 90’s. The fact of the matter is that they completely changed the way that CGI was used from that point forward and they helped mold animation into what it now is.

When the first ‘Toy Story’ released back in 1995, the movie immediately caught people’s attention as it wasn’t a traditional animated film. In fact, it was the first major CGI 3-D animated film and it was so different from anything that came before that it immediately caught the attention of just about everyone. On top of the advertisement that the movie was an incredible looking animated film, the plot of the film was one that drew people in and made people feel emotions for toys of all things. Of course the latter part was all made possible due to the incredible animation which made the titular toys feel so real to begin with. This was something no one had even really thought possible and they have only improved their craft as time has gone on.

After the first ‘Toy Story’ movie released, it was no surprise that we eventually were gifted with a sequel aptly named ‘Toy Story 2.’ By the time we received the second film in 1999, we had already seen an improvement in the animation just within a few years and we grew ever more excited about the films Pixar worked on. They continued telling an engaging story and while it would be many years until ‘Toy Story 3,’ we grew attached to the characters we’d seen and worried for them. Eventually, we even questioned whether the toys on screen could legitimately die because of our worry for them. All of this stemmed from the original release of the first movie and it changed the way we saw animated movies from that very moment on.

Even though it is mainly Pixar that works on these movies that we see, it is no doubt important to recognize that many other studios turned to their type of animation after ‘Toy Story.’ Why wouldn’t they though because it became vastly popular with the public as time went on and people found their attention being drawn heavily to these animated films. It wasn’t just the animation that changed after that though as animated movie stories just got better overall and have drawn people in as much as the animation itself. This is why so many animated movies nowadays have stories that are compelling instead of just being bad story-good animation movies. After all, what is the point in animating a bad movie that won’t grab anyone’s attention. Unfortunately this still happens, but they are only really made by cheap budget studios trying to make a quick buck.

‘Toy Story’ helped change animated movies in the modern media and while there may be companies who took advantage of this popularity to make a quick buck, many animators took the opportunity to start working on incredible films. Pixar managed to hire more animators and improve upon their own technology over time, Disney managed to eventually start making incredible 3-D animated films, and other companies made their own animation departments with 3-D capabilities. This was just the start for the newest generation of animated films and now 3-D animated films are the most common form of animation. Before ‘Toy Story’ 3-D animation was very rare and hand-drawn animation was king, but after it released we saw the inverse of this happen now to the point where 3-D is king. It is hard to think that it has already been 25 years, but it has been a period of time that truly transformed animated films.