Toy Story 2 was the first time Pixar tried to reduce the whole audience to a sobbing wreck
Image: Screenshot: Toy Story 2 Film Features The Pixar Moment
From its inception, the Toy Story franchise has focused on cowboy Woody’s attachment to his owner, Andy. In the first movie, Woody feels threatened by the addition of action figure Buzz Lightyear to the toy stable. In the second, Woody has separation anxiety and fear of abandonment after Andy doesn’t bring him to cowboy camp due to a torn arm. We know that Woody is afraid of being left behind, but we don’t know just how the dire the stakes are until we learn Jessie’s tragic backstory in Toy Story 2.
Cowgirl Jessie (enthusiastically voiced by Joan Cusack) is a member of Woody’s Roundup, a lineup of toys—including Woody’s horse, Bullseye, and prospector, Stinky Pete—that has been stuck in storage for a long, traumatizing time. While generally good-hearted, Jessie is adamant that Woody join the gang so that they can be displayed together at a toy museum in Tokyo, and treats any mention of instead wanting to return to Andy with disdain. The reason for Jessie’s ire becomes clear in a flashback that arrives around the movie’s halfway point, accompanied by Sarah McLachlan’s rendition of the Randy Newman song “When She Loved Me.”
Just the verb tense of that song title is a heart-twister. McLachlan’s angelically high vocals deliver the pity-inducing pathos, as she describes how “When somebody loved me / Everything was beautiful.” The lighting that strikes during the sequence is especially effective, bathing everything in golden hues and lush greenery as Jessie remembers how she and her owner, Emily, were once in the throes of cowgirl-inspired play. Eventually, the inherent conflict of the toy/owner relationship emerges: The kids are going to grow up, but the toys are not (as the lyrics indicate: “So the years went by / I stayed the same / But she began to drift away”). The fact that kids don’t realize that the toys have actual feelings only adds to the (unintentional) pain they inflict.
Jessie unceremoniously tumbles from her honored position at the top of Emily’s bed to being forgotten underneath it. From her new, dusty vantage point, a bottle of nail polish looks especially foreboding. Eventually, Jessie is picked up again, but as the lyrics fervently wish for “the day when she’d say, ‘I will always love you,’” the honeyed sun dims in the late afternoon, and the tree where Jessie and Emily once played goes from green and vibrant to autumnal. In the scene’s ultimate gut-wrenching moment, instead of being played with again as she hopes, Jessie is discarded in a donation box by the side of the road, cruelly forced to gaze out at the very spot that once brought her so much happiness.
Kids might understandably tear up over Jessie’s plight, but “When She Loved Me” was an almost inevitable sobfest for the parents sitting next to them in the theater, understanding how fleeting those hallowed moments of childhood innocence are. Billboard reported that McLachlan started crying upon hearing the song for the first time, rightly predicting that “every mummy in the audience is gonna be bawling their eyes out. I don’t know about the kids, but it’s pretty hard for the mothers.” Her heartfelt delivery helped the song land both an Oscar nomination (it lost to Phil Collins’ Tarzan ode “You’ll Be In My Heart”) and a Grammy win for Best Song Written For Visual Media.
Toy Story 2 was only the third Pixar feature, and this one short segment elevated the movie from an adventurous romp (a few scenes later, kids watching would have moved on to wondering how in the world all these toys were going to get home from the airport) to a meditation on the losses associated with growing up. Pixar’s eventual parent company, Disney, had never shied away from tear-jerking moments like the death of Bambi’s mom or Dumbo’s mother singing “Baby Mine” through a cage. “When She Loved Me” immediately joined the pantheon of emotionally wrenching scenes delivered via the deceptively cheerful and brightly colorful vehicle of animation.
The accolades the scene received paved the way for Pixar to insert similarly effective moments into its animated adventures: the tragedy that kicks off Finding Nemo, for example, or the heartrending intro to Up. The ultimate lesson of Inside Out, after all, is that sad moments are as vital as happy ones; as Pixar’s John Lasseter was fond of saying, “Walt Disney always said for every laugh, there should be a tear. I have always believed in that.” The “When She Loved Me” scene brought that crucial poignancy to Pixar for the first time, making it possibly the most memorable moment in the entire Toy Story franchise. Once viewed, it’s impossible to shake, a piercing reminder of the impermanence of childhood.
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Literally everyone I could see in the theater (and me, too) was crying when I saw it. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything quite like that before or since.
It’s an absolute world killer. I don’t much remember seeing TS2 in theaters, but I had a similar experience with ‘Up’. I’m so glad that movie got as silly as it did in its back half, because man, after that first ten minutes, we needed the wackiness of Kevin and Russell and Dug and trained dogs flying biplanes with little bone-shaped squeaky toys as the controls.
I have to say, in the marketing at least these days Pixar perhaps tend to lean a bit too heavily into the whole “we’re the bittersweet and emotionally mature animated company who’s gonna make you CRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” thing, to the point where it can start to seem a little mawkish and emotionally manipulative. Like, I get it trailers for Toy Story 4, we’re gonna learn a bittersweet lesson about the heartbreaking truths of life and growing up again, you don’t have to lay it on quite so thick. Not that they can’t and don’t do them well, but Pixar movies aren’t just about the emotionally devastating bits. And, as great as it was, I feel that whole tendency can trace its roots right back to this moment. And in case anyone tries to accuse me of being a heartless sourpuss made out of stone, I will proudly admit that Inside Out has made me cry literally every time I’ve seen it, so there.
One thing to note is that any child who saw this in the theater with their parent is now in their 20s, so those parents have now been on both sides of the loss: Knowing their kids are going to grow up, and then having them be grown. I think an argument could be made that all the Toy Story movies are about parenting.I’ve got two older kids in their 20s, with whom I watched all the children’s movies up to about Cars 2, and now I’ve got a 6-year-old to go through it all again. I didn’t want to watch Onward because I didn’t think I could handle the weeping. But my kid made me and…I cried a lot less than I expected.
I loved Onward. It’s basically ‘Frozen’ for boys. Good messaging in there.
I lost my dad when I was 19 and Onward brought all of that back. Cried like a baby.
One thing to note is that any child who saw this in the theater with their parent is now in their 20s, so those parents have now been on both sides of the loss: Knowing their kids are going to grow up, and then having them be grown. I think an argument could be made that all the Toy Story movies are about parenting.I’ve got two older kids in their 20s, with whom I watched all the children’s movies up to about Cars 2, and now I’ve got a 6-year-old to go through it all again. I didn’t want to watch Onward because I didn’t think I could handle the weeping. But my kid made me and…I cried a lot less than I expected.
One thing to note is that any child who saw this in the theater with their parent is now in their 20s, so those parents have now been on both sides of the loss: Knowing their kids are going to grow up, and then having them be grown. I think an argument could be made that all the Toy Story movies are about parenting.I’ve got two older kids in their 20s, with whom I watched all the children’s movies up to about Cars 2, and now I’ve got a 6-year-old to go through it all again. I didn’t want to watch Onward because I didn’t think I could handle the weeping. But my kid made me and…I cried a lot less than I expected.
I think Pixar earns a very high percentage of its most emotional moments exceedingly well, most likely moreso than any other comparable studio. The first ten minutes of ‘Up’ are a world killer. The ‘flying in space with a fire extinguisher’ scene in ‘Wall-E’ is just flat-out sweet and romantic as hell. And as for ‘Inside Out’, I think the main messages of that movie should be taught in elementary schools. We’d probably have a lot fewer adolescent rage monsters roaming around free if they were.
I’ve never quite understood what’s so devastating about the scene from Up. The not having much-desired children is sad, and it’s a bummer that they didn’t take that vacation, but they had, like, 50 years together. It just doesn’t seem all that tragic. Immortality was never an option, everybody’s going to die, so what’s awful about an apparently peaceful death after so many years with somebody you love who loves you. Definitely could be a whole lot worse. If somebody says to you that you’ll meet that special someone, marry them, and you’ll grow old together in love, but that they’re going to die a little before you do, I mean, it doesn’t sound like a curse. I’d take that deal, happily.
I’ve said before that between the last ten minutes of Wall-E and the first ten minutes of Up, Pixar technically had me uncontrollably sobbing for an entire calendar year.
I had two girls in their early teens when Inside Out came out and I tell you, that movie friggin KILLED me, because I was just fresh out of that pre-adolescent phase. I bawled so much.
Inside Out is the one that didn’t really affect me too much emotionally. The whole Bing Bong issue was sad and sweet, but I found the movie more enlightening and educational than anything else. I don’t have kids, so maybe that was a factor. Great film, though. Pete Docter is a wizard.Speaking of Bing Bong, I did see Richard Kind roaming around Disneyland one night, though. He was dressed exactly how I imagined Richard Kind would be – in a winter coat zipped up all the way to the top and carrying a notebook or journal of some sort. So that was fun.
The ending of Inside Out destroyed me, with Riley coming home after sadness takes over. I don’t have kids of my own, but I was about Riley’s age when my family moved across the country for my dad’s job. I will never forget how hard that was.
Imagine if people ever discussed Up! beyond those first ten minutes. If they did they’d probably see that it’s a tedious talking-dog movie with very little of the Pixar charm.
Imagine if you quit talking shit long enough to read and realize that some of us are doing just that right here in this very comment section.
I would argue that the stronger emotional moment is when Carl goes through the scrapbook and realizes that Ellie has documented their entire life as one long adventure, with her telling him to write in his own afterwards. It really hits home that they lived a life together and highlighted Carl’s inability to move on and take control of his destiny, up until that point.
It’s an emotional high point for sure, and if you prefer it, that’s fine, but it’s the opposite end of the spectrum and the defining result of Carl’s arc. I’m not sure he even would have been able to accept or properly interpret Ellie’s message to him at the beginning of the film.
Yeah, it’s almost like how a horror movie isn’t as scary if you know when the scary parts happen. Pixar (whether intentional or not) has built this expectation that there will be a sad scene (for the last few it seems like right at the beginning), and you better be ready. It makes them not as effective, as opposed to this one where it hits much harder because you don’t expect it.
The whole thing with Bing Bong in Inside Out did nothing to me, as it was so damn obvious what they were going to do with him the second he showed up.
Disagree. TS2 came before TS3, which came before UP which came before Inside Out.Tell me you cried *less* as you watched those each in order and I wont believe you.
I definitely cried at them more (well, except for Inside Out, that one just didn’t do anything for me), but I maintain they’re just not as effective because I go in expecting at least one emotional gut punch per movie, the same way i go to a slasher expecting at least one dead teenager. The slasher can still be scary and I might jump in my seat, but it’s expected. Thinking about it, of the ones you listed, TS3 and Up probably worked more effectively for me because their gut punch make-ya-cry scenes came at the beginning of their movies*, rather than later where I’d have expected (and already hardened my dark icy heart). Compared to those, other Pixar movies like TS4 and Coco have made me tear up, but not bawl like earlier features. *yes, I listed TS3’s big gutpunch at the beginning because watching the montage of Andy’s childhood only for “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” to cut off and cut to black at the line “our friendship will never die” made me say “damn” out loud in the theater. The furnace scene is great and yeah, made me cry, but when I think of great moments my mind jumps to that opening part first.
Agreed entirely. And hell, they’re good at it! I still haven’t seen Coco because I don’t want to become a quivering, sobbing wreck. But it’s become a cliche if not a crutch for them and it’s limiting — I like Laika’s movies more in general because of their gnarlier style, but they also have a broader emotional palette. Is Pixar interested in even trying to do something like the furious horror of Paranorman’s final confrontation?
Coco is SO, so good. It’s worth becoming a quivering wreck. And it’s visually stunning.
It does look visually good! And I’m not opposed to wreckhood, just need to find the right time.
Coco doesn’t feel like it’s gotten the accolades it really deserves–such a sweet and engaging story, and some of the best music in all of the Disney films. It’s in the upper ranks of Pixar movies for me.
I know Coco is good but I’ve avoided it since it came out the same year my mother died and that song was hard enough without story context.
Similar situation here.
I took my… then six year old? … to see Coco for one-on-one time (she has a younger sister). I don’t recall the exact part, somewhere in there, but I was a mess. “Papa, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” she reassured me, squeezing my big hand with her little one.
She then turned to the little girl on the other side, smiled sheepishly, and said, “He’s just gotten to that age, you know?”
Warning: I was mildly interested in Coco, ended up watching it at home instead of the theater – and cried for an hour afterwards! Sobbing guaranteed when watching that one.
Heh, thanks for the warning — this is what I assume happens on the regular with that movie.
I have to say, the big emotional ending of TS4 landed with a thud for me. It just didn’t seem in Woody’s character at all and contradicted the whole point of 3.
I liked TS4 but still have issues with it, particularly with what you said. Woody’s always been adamant about the other importance of staying with your kid and your friends but he winds up leaving Bonnie all of them at the end. But…you could see the end if the movie as being about retirement, though but that seems like a little off for a kid’s movie i guess.
Woody left because Bo Peep is hot.There, I said it.
True
Woody left because Bo Peep is hot.Yeah, this is what seemed off about TS4—I realize they couldn’t have Bo Peep rejoin the rest of the gang at the end, but having Woody leave everyone else and his owner when the previous films were all about how devoted he was to them just seemed wrong. The moral almost becomes, “Annoyed with your current relationship? Leave it for the hottie that got away!”
Bonnie isn’t Woody’s owner, she’s a subsequent owner. He cares for her, but it’s not the same and he was NEVER her favorite toy. He couldn’t leave Andy for Bo, but Bonnie… she has plenty of toys. Including Forky, her actual FAVORITE toy.
I disagree. If anything, it’s a more interesting read on Woody than the other three (even if it’s the weakest film over all) and justifies itself by asking the question that should naturally come after Toy Story 3 – what happens to a toy with blind devotion to an owner when they’re no longer with that owner? Especially when the new owner doesn’t hold them in the same high esteem? Woody’s matured since Toy Story so he doesn’t react with the same bitterness and anger as when Buzz came along but this is still him reacting to no longer being the favourite or number one toy (either to the owner or in the social group of toys). Him being adrift at that lack of purpose is an extension of the first film, minus the jealousy. And him finding a new purpose where he unites toys and owners – something which his entire belief of what a toy is for is based on – is pretty logical.
But it’s always in service to the story. Jessie’s motivations are entirely legitimate.
On a personal level, my oldest is going off to college next year halfway across the country, and with me at home from work for the last two months we’ve been cleaning closets all over the house and taking stuff to goodwill (I have two younger ones as well). I want to keep every last item of my kids’ that we come across because I honestly feel like I’m throwing away their childhood. I couldn’t even read the description of Jessie’s song scene without nearly breaking down. Pixar isn’t just killing Bambi’s mom to make kids cry before embarking upon some great adventure. They tap into something primal that also drives the entire plot.
I absolutely know what you mean about the way getting rid of toys can trigger some really deep feelings about kids.Although I will add that there are toys I hate and can’t wait to get rid of. I can’t stand cheap plastic collectables, bad construction sets that try to be the next Lego, and noisy educational toys. Especially the educational toys. I almost wish those really had souls that I could send into the incinerator.
“bad construction sets that try to be the next Lego”I will hear no slurs against Construx, sir! Top toyologists worked incredibly hard to come up with something that was even more painful to step on than Legos and you will respect their efforts!
I am surprised Construx is a thing again, but it looks like just lego knockoff. When I was a kid I had piles when it was those cool cubes with all the bits to connect the sticks and bars to.
All of those toys that looked like they ought to be compatible with Legos but weren’t, so when you swept a bunch out from under the couch you had to choose between dumping $10 worth of bricks or spending an hour in maddening sorting.
Doesn’t help that I have a pretty deep nostalgic streak. Even when I was a kid of I was cleaning my room and came across a toy tucked away I hadn’t played with in a while, I felt compelled to do so. It could take me all afternoon to finish the job.
My six-year-old is playing with Lego sets I played with when I was only a little older, which my oldest also played with. I’ve reached the point of ordering replacement bricks from BrickLink because the more fragile pieces are…in pieces.
So, yeah, I hear this.
My parents kept some of my old toys, so it was fun to see them break out old Matchbox car sets and stuff like that for my son when he was little. My wife’s and my MO has been that if it’s something that one of our kids was truly attached to, we’re keeping it. I’ll deal with the attic clutter.
Right there with you.
The wordless montage to open UP is…the theatre was silent except for muffled sobs. And Inside Out is so, so, so beautiful.
but what about the rest of the movie of Up. The ensuing 90 minutes. Have you tried to do a critical evaluation of that which does not rely on the good will of the first 10 minutes?
I enjoyed the movie.The end. Go away.
I thought Up was good for the first hour or so. Once the bad guy showed up, though, it went off the rails for me.
When I saw Up after the montage there were several kids in the audience asking where’s Ellie?For me the part in the montage where after the Dr appts and realization that they won’t be having children, when she is sitting outside in the chair with her eyes closed and the gentle breeze in her hair, wrecks me completely.
This is why I think the “Fry’s dog” episode of ‘Futurama’, one of the classic tearjerkers in animation, is so effective. This is the show about the boozy robot and the idiot delivery boy. You don’t expect it to kick you in the emotions, so there’s a moment of surprise at how sweet and how devastating that moment is when it comes. But with Pixar, no matter how well they do it, it is kind of an expectation now, so waiting for the emotional bomb to drop is a bit like when you’ve figured out in an action film that one of the good guys is actually a traitor and you’re just sitting there waiting for the film to get to it.
Luck of the fryrish > Jurassic Bark…DON’T YOU —- FORGET ABOUT MEOh oh oh oh
You know what, I’ll back you on that. ‘Jurassic Bark’ is just a kick in the guts, but ‘Luck of the Fryrish’ is quite lovely in a bittersweet way. Yancy naming his son Phillip and passing on Fry’s legacy to him is one of the show’s finest moments.
That last minute pivot and how it lands… every single time.Also: “There! Now no one can say I don’t have John Larroquette’s spine.”
Jurassic Bark is still fantastic, of course. As you note, you don’t expect it. Also: “PROFESSOR! LAVA! HOT!”
Inside Out was a tipping point for me. It didn’t make me cry, but when it was over my youngest burst into tears and couldn’t explain why she was crying. That wasn’t the first time something like that had happened with my girls at a Disney movie, but we all seemed to come to the same conclusion. It wasn’t enjoyable for us. From that point forward, my girls refused to see a lot of Disney/Pixar movies because they looked too sad.Ironically, the same daughter who bawled during the credits of Inside Out loves Coco. I leave it up to them to decide which potential tear jerkers they want me to take them too. Toy Story 4 wasn’t a problem. We skipped The Good Dinosaur and Onward.For me, I have grown to resent the emotional manipulation of Pixar just a bit. I still think Up was a great movie, but now it just feels like they go to that well too often. If I get the sense Pixar is going to Up or Insider Out me, I’m not really interested in that any more. That’s just me and where I am right now. I don’t want to cry in any more cartoons.
The epitome of this was the Kitbull short they put out last year. That was clearly the product of some dare among the animators about who could extract the most tears in the shortest amount of run-time.
Toy Story 2 was the first time Pixar tried to reduce the whole audience to a sobbing wreckI HAD SOMETHING IN MY EYE!
I carry a piece of onion with me to rub in my eye for the times I need to simulate human emotions.
Someone was cutting onions when I watched this!!!
Look, I thought the in-cinema restaurant was gonna take off. Excuuuuuuuuse me for having an original idea.
Listen I’m all for in-cinema dining, but must it be open kitchen????
Just realised I’ve spent the last 21 years under the completely mistaken impression that Jodie Foster voiced Jessie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew.
“Good-bye Jessie. Will you let me know if ever Bo Peep stops screaming?” “Yes.”Woody was taking her arm. It was go or fight him.“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”“Do you promise?””Yeeeee-haw!”
“You know what you look like to me with your handstitched polyvinyl hat and your cheap cowprint trousers? You look like a rube.”
I hear you. I spent a decade or so thinking it was Holly Hunter.
(it lost to Phil Collins’ Tarzan ode “You’ll Be In My Heart”)
Ah yeah, well, understandable; it’s the super-memorable Phil Collins song from the super-memorable Tarzan movie that served as the emotional linchpin of the film.
I’ve had the running theory that Randy Newman did something to royally piss off Oscar voters.
I’m guessing that the reality is a lot more boring — just a combination of taste (Oscar voters are the type who love Phil Collins), competition and politics. There are a lot of head scratchers out there — Newman lost the same year that the score for Raiders of the Lost Ark lost too — and I think it’s probably just bad voters. His cousin Thomas is 0-15.
Turns out Academy voters actually don’t love L.A.
Eh, when Newman lost in 1981, it was to Chariots of Fire, which is a pretty phenomenal movie and score.
But losing to Phil Collins was just egregious. I also think his song for Babe: Pig in the City is a gem (That’ll Do)
And of course Collins also beat out another emotional linchpin song, Blame Canada.
You Got A Friend In Me also lost to Colors of the Wind. Also not a bad song but come on really? The Toy Story 3 song winning has to been an apology for getting it wrong twice.
…Toy Story 3 had a song?
Yeah, Furnace Room Lullaby.
Nice Neko reference.
We Belong Together. Also this the correct reaction.
I rembered ‘Youve Got A Friend’ losing because wtf.I did not remember what it lost to because ‘Colors of the Wind’ is a complete mediocrity of a song that should never have made it to consideration.
So how do animal toys in this universe work? Ham can talk, but Bullseye can’t? Could Bullseye talk if he wanted to?
By the Goofy/Pluto Transitional Corollary, it’s clear that Bullseye will never talk.
Goddamn, I teared up just READING this. “Daddy, what’s wrong with your eyes?” My then four year old daughter asked me when we watched this together the first time. Now I have to leave the room whenever they watch it, which is rarely because both of my kids can’t take that scene either. Add to that that my daughter is now well into the age when her former favorite toys are shoved under her bed and forgotten and WHY IS IT SO DUSTY IN HERE
My kids were five when we saw TS3 in the theater, and I sobbed so much at the ending even my kindergartners were like, “Geez, Mom, get it together.”
Oh man. We saw it in theaters too, in 3d. I’d heard about the furnace scene and made it through that relatively intact. Then we get to the final scene and OOOFF. I just remember seeing every adult in that theater lifting up their 3D glasses to wipe their eyes and the sounds of rampant snuffling and snorting up through the credits.
Exactly. It’s the double-whammy of those two scenes that’s so devastating for parents. I think it’s the closest I’ve come in the movie theater to actual keening.
Yeah, it was bad. I was looking around for a coffin to climb onto.
Man, that scene in the furnace is super intense and kind of dark. I felt like it was more intense than hundreds of non-cartoon action movies that involves the near death is the main heroes.
It went on for so long that I actually thought they were gonna burn the toys in a furnace. I knew they couldn’t really do that, but they got me anyway. That’s some impressive movie-making.
While I can think of many Pixar moments that bring a lump to my throat or make my eyes water up, the sequence that always, always murders me outright is the opening to Up. I don’t know how any husband can possibly watch that without dissolving into an absolute blubbering mess. The moment where Carl is sitting alone in the chapel after everyone has left the funeral is the worst and GODDAMMIT I’M CRYING AGAIN RIGHT NOW
I don’t have the ability to do this myself (and I’m just as wrecked by Up’s beginning as anyone), but I would laugh extremely hard at someone using the first part of that opening, right up to the death, in one of those Ghanaian Pallbearer memes.
I saw that movie with my whole family, and we all lost our complete shit. The rest of the movie is fun and hilarious as hell, so that helped.“But it’s a TALKING DOG!”
Ha, that final scene is a kick in the nuts. Although the movie is not fucking around from the very beginning, it got me hard on the happy play montage ending with Andy’s dog now being still game for fun but clearly old and slow. DON’T YOU DARE KILL THAT DOG PIXAR
I was on holiday when TS3 came out so I didn’t get to see it straight away – but did get to see reports (actual news reports on the BBC website) about how everyone was just breaking down at the ending. So when I did finally see it and the furnace scene began I imagine I was even more tense than most because the hype about the gutwrenching nature of the film made me genuinely believe we were about to watch the toys burn to death.
This is why I don’t want kids. I’m not having those judgemental fucks telling me when I can and can’t cry.
Hi, hello, I just commented similarly on the previous Toy Story post, but my youngest sister was born the year the first TS came out, and since then we’ve seen all of them in theaters together. She is never, ever, ever going to let me forget the blubbering disaster I was at the furnace scene/end of TS3.
Tough movie going for adults for sure. This scene basically tore me up, and my wife decided she didn’t want to watch anymore Toy Story movies after that. TS3, nope, TS4, no but you can take the kids to see those. Couldn’t get her to go see Inside Out either, another rough theater experience too.
As I’ve been rewatching these with my son, I think Toy Story 2 is my favorite Pixar movie. It’s short but fleshed-out, it moves nice and fast, and minute for minute it’s probably their funniest movie. But there’s something really special about Inside Out. My wife and I saw it in the theater while she was pregnant, so it has some extra resonance just for that. It’s not perfect by any means. The whole climax where Riley’s on the bus while Joy and Sadness try to leap/vault/fly over the Memory Dump is about five minutes too long, and the stuff with Bing Bong is pretty maudlin. But building a whole movie around the richness of a little girl’s inner life, the validity of her emotions, and the importance of expressing them is almost radical. The movie builds some clever gags around how kooky kids’ thoughts are. But the bedrock assumption of the movie is that Riley’s thoughts are important, and she is important simply because of her thoughts (not because of some external factor or fantasy trope). Very few movies – let alone children’s movies – attempt something like that.
I know what you mean. I showed my kids Predator, and the room got a little dusty when Mac lost his brother Blain. But we still had us some fun that night.
I wasn’t a parent when I saw this film and I still cried. And now… God. When Andy gave Bonnie his toys at the end of TS3 I was choking sobbing.
I had to watch this fucking thing in one of my film studies classes lol. Nothing like that song to just drive in that you’ve literally left everything behind to become an adult.
I sat with my then 4-5 year old daughter in the theaters watching Inside Out….hoo boy, that was a rough one. Much like yours, I got a small pat on my leg, and “daddy, what’s wrong?” as I sat being a blubbering mess next to her.
“Kids might understandably tear up over Jessie’s plight, but “When She Loved Me” was an almost inevitable sobfest for the parents sitting next to them in the theater, understanding how fleeting those hallowed moments of childhood innocence are.”Someone made the great point the other day about how Woody’s anxiety in the first movie is childish, being displaced by a new “sibling.” The shift to parenthood here is effective but I think it’s where Pixar can start pandering to parents by making them protagonists — the Disney comparison is interesting, dead parents are traumatic but they let the kids be unencumbered protagonists.
My kids, at 5, saw TS and after a few minutes asked me ‘wheres his (Andys) daddy?’I had to explain that I didnt know. His lack of presence without explanation bothered them so much, I had to pause the movies to get them back into the groove.
Andy’s dad kept tripping over Woody and one night threatened to “throw this damn doll in the trash”. So Woody arranged for the dad to have … a little accident.
This song absolutely killed me the first time I watched this after I had kids. Like, hiccuping through tears sobs. I think my kids thought I was unhinged. But I loved it despite the pathos. Most Pixar movies have this moment, of course, but frankly, I think Onward was a misstep. It was the first time I cried and was actually pissed off at the movie for doing it to me. I found it incredibly emotionally manipulative and cruel, but that might be because I lost my dad 22 years ago, and the central idea, as well as the resolution of that idea, made me so mad I was in angry tears for the rest of the day after I watched it. I haven’t read this anywhere else, so it might just be me, but really, *spoilers* the idea that you can spend a single 24 hours with a passed love one and then only get the last couple of minutes of those 24 hours to actually talk to them is the cruelest thing I can think of. I realize the story was about brothers, really, but that aspect of it pissed me the hell off.
Agree with you; I think this is why I disliked this movie. It felt like a shameless rip-off, in order to prove the point about brotherhood.
“the idea that you can spend a single 24 hours with a passed love one and then only get the last couple of minutes of those 24 hours to actually talk to them is the cruelest thing I can think of.”To be fair, that was entirely down to the brothers messing up the spell. Had they got it right they’d have had 24 hours with a passed loved one, which is a nice idea (A.I. notwithstanding). I don’t think the film was saying it was anything but a bad set of circumstances.I think that they only just managed to get a couple of minutes to speak to him and that the younger one sacrificed meeting him so the older one had a chance to say goodbye was a really sweet, beautiful ending. Considering how generic and forced the action in the finale seemed, the fact the emotional aspect worked so well (to me) really surprised me.
I might have been too close to it to see it that way, maybe. I was just angry. Especially since, as soon as the mess-up happened, I knew they would have some kind of truncated amount of time, but I spent the whole movie hoping it would be longer. “Okay, if they fix it now, they’ll still have 4 hours. Okay, 2 hours. Okay, half an hour. GODDAMN IT.” And I know the makers of the movie realized it was shitty. What I’m saying is that it’s way shittier than even they thought. Again, just for me. First Pixar movie since Cars 2 that I have zero interest in watching again.
I agree with you on this one. Usually I embrace the waves of emotion pixar films bring out in me and happily let them wash over me, but this one felt different. Maybe it’s because the movie as a whole was sloppier than we’ve come to expect from Pixar, but for such a rich premise it felt like I was really being manipulated into feeling things. How can you not cry at the idea of getting to spend one more day with a dead loved one? The nuances of that are ripe to be explored, and the theme of brotherhood is such a beautiful way to do it. It’s a shame the movie ended up being mostly so generic. I have no basis for this claim, but this felt like the first truly “post-lasseter” pixar movie, and while he got what he deserved it’s also undeniable that he is an exceptional storyteller. I hope this “new guard” so to speak lands on it’s feet and figures out how to continue telling emotionally complex stories that are married to mad cap adventures
Yes, I was extremely disappointed in the storytelling this go round. Just felt like they were yanking things where they wanted them to go, rather than following where the story wanted to go. And yanking emotions right along with. I don’t mind being emotionally manipulated, usually, but when it feels forced it doesn’t work.
I can definitely see it not appealing in the slightest to those who had lost their parents at a younger age. However, for me it was right in the emotional wheelhouse – I have 2 very young sons who are about the same age apart as the main characters seem to be. If I were to die tomorrow, it is more important for me personally that my sons learn the deep bond and care they have for each other than any subsequent length of time I might get to spend with them. Having a brief check-in to learn how they’ve grown and say a final goodbye would be really all I’d need anyway. Any more than that and the leaving again part is going to be that much more difficult.
Oh hell. I saw this with my wife on a date (the whole TS1&2 double bill they did before the third one came out), and she STILL makes fun of me for how much I cry at this scene. Now, after having two kids too… I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to watch it through clear eyes.
If this film taught me anything, it’s that you can’t rush art.
That Phil Collins crap beat this song, “Blame Canada,” and “Save Me.” Banner year for Oscar stupidity.
Robin Williams performing Blame Canada is an all-time Oscars highlight. Absolutely inspired.
Best was the way he delivered “and that bitch Anne Murray too!”
Being from Nova Scotia I felt a pang with that line even though I love the song. Eh! Uncle Fucker, love it! “You’re the one who fucked your uncle, Uncle Fucker. You’re an Uncle fucker yes it’s true….”. Stuck in my mind and I haven’t seen it in over a decade.
You don’t eat or sleep or mow the lawn!You just fuck your uncle all day long!
Honestly, “Uncle Fucka” would have been the better nominee from South Park (though with just as much chance of winning), but yeah, the other nominees were robbed.
“You don’t eat or sleep or mow the lawn / You just fuck your uncle all day long” is probably my favorite (although, “Just like Jesus he’s tender and mild / He wore a smile while he wore a thorny crown!” from the opening song is also in the running).
I was already getting my pitchfork reading that it beat “When She Loved Me.” It also beat BLAME CANADA????? Go fuck yourself, Oscar!
The following season of South Park was riddled with Phil Collins jabs SPECIFICALLY because of that Oscar loss. Matt & Trey said at the time that they knew they weren’t going to win, but they resented losing to THAT.
Oscar was never going to gasp award that profane south park show. But it was pure Broadway FFS. You’ll be in my heart is pure schmaltz tho. Everything else was better.
You’re wrong only in the sense that the Oscars get it wrong far more than they get it right. Toy Story 2 was released in 1999, which was both a murderer’s row for film that year, as well as a cavalcade of own goals in retrospect by the Academy. This was the year Elizabeth, The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture, Roberto Benigni beat Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan and Edward Norton for Best Actor, and Gwyneth Paltrow beat Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep for Best Actress.There was no Best Animated Film award, but just from the nominations that do exist, there’s a solid argument to be made that The Prince of Egypt would have beaten out both Toy Story 2 and The Iron Giant had there been an award to be given.
Saving Private Ryan is a mediocre movie at best. One great battle scene followed by by-the-numbers war movie.
“a murderer’s row for film that year, as well as a cavalcade of own goals in retrospect by the Academy. This was the year Elizabeth, The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture, Roberto Benigni beat Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan and Edward Norton for Best Actor, and Gwyneth Paltrow beat Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep for Best Actress.”To be fair, while that happened at the 1999 ceremony, it was for a separate years’ batch of films than the 1999 “murder’s row” of films and any related Oscar fuck ups which were presented a year later. The Prince of Egypt wouldn’t have been eligible against Toy Story 2 but you’re right that The Iron Giant would have been in the running, as would South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Tarzan and Fantasia 2000. I would have hoped TS2, Iron Giant or South Park (yeah, right) would have grabbed the hypothetical statue but for all we know Pokémon 2000 would have done it.
The ’99 Oscars – they gave Elia Kazan an honorary award for naming names, Bob Weinstein bought himself a boatload of trophies, and Roberto Benigni climbed on top of the seats, ran up and down the aisle and seemingly burned every ounce of goodwill he had in Hollywood by the time he got to the stage.
Well, not every ounce, I suppose. SOMEBODY financed an American release of Pinocchio. (Ah! It was Miramax, and it got a bad dub job. Another home run for Bob.)
You think that’s bad? Wild Wild West wasn’t even nominated!
My God, I’d forgotten that “Save Me” was also in that group. That’s got to be one of the biggest Oscar whiffs ever.
I always thought ‘America, Fuck Yeah’ should have won something, but ‘Blame Canada’ was an acceptable substitute.
..,……WHAT WOULD BRIAN BOITANO DO?IF HE WERE HERE RIGHT NOW
He would kick an ass or two, that’s what Brian Boitano’d do!
In anyone else’s hands, this would be such a nakedly obvious ploy to extract tears from the audience I might laugh–but it’s just so good and so well done. On a related note, I love Joan Cusack (the better Cusack, if I’m being honest), and she should get all the awards.
I have a soft spot for the whole family, from High Fidelity to even Ann Cusack in Better Call Saul.
Yes! +1 for Joan Cusack from me. She is amazing.It’s really something if you are watching a great movie about assassins killing each other at a high school reunion and you are most excited for the bits when it cuts to a secretary talking on the phone.“Carrots and celery are just a base of a soup!”
IT’S NOT GOING TO BE A BORING SOUPI totally picked this scene downthread as well!!!!
Especially as Debbie in Addams Family Values!Between her and Anjelica Huston – …pastels?
My absolute favorite Joan Cusack moment is from “In and Out,” where she’s drowning her sorrows in full bride regalia, having been dumped at the altar with the devastating news that the love of her life has just outed himself. Tom Selleck is sitting next to her and mumbles something about “I’ve just had a really bad day.”
Pause. Pause. Pause. Then:“Ex-CUSE ME???????????” Yep. All the awards.By the way, I just want to say that this is the most enjoyable AV Club comments section I’ve read in MONTHS.
I forgot she was Oscar nom’d for that in addition to Working Girl
Which also puts her into the very obscure category of “SNL Cast Members Nominated For Acting Oscars,” which also includes Murray, Aykroyd, Murphy, and fellow cast members Downey and Randy Quaid.
Wasn’t she in “16 Candles” at the dance, with braces and head gear?
Still the best of the Toy Story movies, for that scene alone. And to think it was originally supposed to go straight to video
No comment:
Top three Pixar tear jerkers: this scene, the end of Toy Story 3, and the end of Coco when Coco wakes up. God, all the feels.
When She Loved me is amazingly powerful and good, although I can’t help but feel a little bit like Philip Pullman did about the sneering tone of CS Lewis toward Susan. Kids putting away toys and moving toward grown up relationships shouldn’t be seen as so selfish.But that scene is still really good, regardless.
I dunno, I don’t think it’s that sneering. It’s just so shocking to see that side of it when we haven’t been exposed, from the toy POV/audience POV. And even if Pullman has a point about Lewis/Susan (to a degree), he’s still a pretentious crank with his own problems! =D
Lewis is the sneering one. Toy Story 2 is just a little bit like him.
I think it’s the nail polish image that Gwen referenced that was a bit too much of a twist of the knife hinting at superficiality as Emily grows up, instead of naturally shifting affections. Not enough to mess anything up, though. It’s still a great scene.You’re right that Pullman is cranky, but he definitely was right this time about Lewis and Susan. Jessie had no reason to understand what had happened. Her grief was pure and in the end is really a stand in for the feelings of the loss due to the passage of time. Lewis was just engaging in cheap moralizing.
Yes, I comprehend that Lewis is the sneering one in your original comment. And while I agree with some of the take on how the Last Battle plays out regarding Susan’s absence, and have read multiple essays wrestling with these ideas, I don’t have the same perspective as you.As far as Toy Story 2 goes, I think you’re putting too much into it based on your own piece. The nail polish, IMO, is just a quick signifier that she is now into teenage years. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean superficiality, nor do I see it that way by intent or interpretation. Pullman doesn’t get much of a pass for me. He is too much up his own asshole and not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. It affects his actual output negatively.
I dont think the nail polish was a dig as superficiality at all – it was showing how kids tastes change as they mature. My daughter is now at the ‘nail polish’ stage and while I miss the ‘Tinkerbell’ and ‘Princesses’ and ‘Ballerina’ phases, she is growing up and nail polish is a fun thing for some kids to enjoy. When she was 5, she painted pretty fingerpaintings… all over… now at 10, she paints pretty nails. Its nice!
The Toy Story universe is kinda devastatingly strange when you think about it. All these neurotic toys that are so obsessed with being loved by their indifferent owners, who are perfectly in the okay for treating their toys like inanimate possessions because that’s all they are “allowed” to be to them!But from the toy perspective, there’s some serious trauma/psychological issues/destructive behaviors going on with being so emotionally invested in relationships that from their perspective in which the other party eventually treats them like trash. All the villains of these movies (Sid, Stinky Pete, Lotso, Gabby) are actually pretty empathetic when you consider the “rules” of this setting against the “cruelty” the toys repeatedly endure.
The Toy Story universe is kinda devastatingly strange when you think about it. All these neurotic toys that are so obsessed with being loved by their indifferent owners, who are perfectly in the okay for treating their toys like inanimate possessions because that’s all they are “allowed” to be to them!But from the toy perspective, there’s some serious trauma/psychological issues/destructive behaviors going on with being so emotionally invested in relationships that from their perspective in which the other party eventually treats them like trash. All the villains of these movies (Sid, Stinky Pete, Lotso, Gabby) are actually pretty empathetic when you consider the “rules” of this setting against the “cruelty” the toys repeatedly endure.
I dunno, Sid intentionally destroys other people’s stuff, Stinky Pete is bitter and deceitful, and Lotso is a fascist (I haven’t seen the newest one, so I’m not sure where the new antagonist ends up). Starting with Toy Story 2, they’re more or less fatalistic morality stories for kids: the toys know that they’re going to be abandoned one day, and the heroic ones find joy in what they have while it lasts. The evil ones try to protect their own interests at others’ expense. I think Toy Story 2 captures that theme in a song and a couple lines of dialogue, where Toy Story 3 belabors it for almost two hours. Either way, they get their emotional power from the idea that the characters (Jessie in TS2, all the toys in TS3) are getting another chance to delay the inevitable.
What they do after they turn to villainy isn’t excusable, but their motivations are all incredibly understandable and mostly tragic (save Sid). For Sid, aside from being an unpleasant kid, I don’t remember it showing him willfully stealing other people’s stuff. His great evil in the movie is that he likes to dismantle and blow up toys- but what’s wrong in that action when they are just, to his understanding, inanimate objects? But Stinky Pete being passed over, Lotso being replaced, and Gabby being . . . also passed over, you can feel bad for them (because it’s messed up) even while not condoning their dickery to the heroic characters.But your second paragraph is on point. I think the major difference that makes these films really crazy when you think about it is that the toys know they will be abandoned, and know the ones who will abandon them, yet willfully (delusionally?) place all their sense of worth within that relationship, doomed to failure. It’s why I like where TS4 ends up, because it sort of acknowledges the cycle and breaks it.
To be fair, I haven’t seen the original movie in a very, very long time, and I think Toy Story 2 is really where the series found its thematic grounding. That said, I’m pretty sure Sid ruins his sister’s toys, and the climax involves him trying to blow up Andy’s toys just because they happened to be around. He isn’t being evil, but the movie clearly treats him as a thug (it’s a mean way to treat a child, but that’s the Pixar secret, really). To the larger point of the moral universe these movies exist in, you could ultimately say that they are – in essence – fables about mortality. The toys are all made to “die,” so the question isn’t which behaviors are understandable or which beliefs are delusional. The question is which characters carry themselves toward the inevitable with dignity and grace, and which ones try to elevate themselves at the expense of their fellow toys. It’s a story that was much more common a few generations ago, but we’ve moved away from it as capitalism displaced religion as the moral center of our culture.
Sid mutilates his sister’s toys to terrorize her.
Not so different from Westworld.
Let’s go through the most devastating Pixar moments like this, on whatever criteria we want:
* this scene
* last ten minutes of Wall-E
* first ten minutes of Up (still probably the overall champion here)* Entire final act of Toy Story 3* last ten minutes of Coco* saying goodbye in Monsters, Inc.* “what if I forget you?” and “reunion” from Finding Dory* Bing-Bong’s heroic death (spoiler alert), and Riley getting back home in Inside Out* Woody and Buzz say goodbye in Toy Story 4 (although for me the brief part with the little girl who was lost hit way harder out of nowhere)* I’ve only seen it once, but I did get some good healthy tears at the end of Onward. Will need to revisit at some point to see if it lasts – all the other ones on this list still hit just as hard every time.
They’re not devastating as such but the Ego flavour flashback and – first time I saw it at least – Remy making the omelette are two moments that made my eyes prickle on Ratatouille.
I watched Coco for the first time a few weeks ago, I started crying when that old skeleton died about halfway through and I just kept sobbing right until the end. When I realised that the main character was going to play that ‘Remember Me’ song to his grandma, that was it, I couldn’t stop until the credits were over!
I was very pleased when “Remember Me” won the Best Song Oscar, because it was the rare example that was not only a great song but a pivotal plot point in the movie itself. Very satisfying.
The beginning of Up killed me. Just absolutely devastated me when I saw it. That full and happy marriage depicted on screen with no words. True, they couldn’t have kids, but they loved each other SO MUCH.And then the part near the end with the album!
Someone must be cutting up onions in this apartment I live in by myself. Yup, that’s what’s happening.
So as someone who collects the toys of his childhood, I didn’t even need to be a parent to feel that emotional gut punch. My mind rushed back to some of my own childhood toys, similarly discarded, and I cried because of THEM. That’s how effective it was.Now that I’m a parent, forget about it.
……Around 11-12, feeling peer pressure to “finally” “stop” being into toys and cartoons…I purposely and gleefully destroyed all of my TMNT, including the Technodrome……….
That hurts. That really, really hurts. I was planning to give my old Lego sets to my son but found out my dad gave them away to a local preschool. I looked into buying a few of them on ebay, for nostalgia’s sake, and… yeah, turns out that’s like $1,000 worth of Legos in 2020.
Yep. I definitely lost some toys along the way, maybe garage saled, but most kind of went away “naturally.” The TMNT one kills me. It was a strange part. I simply never “grew out” of toys but that was a bad era. It’s hard right now with my own kids. They have too much stuff for sure. I’m going to box up and put it AWAY, but outside of a couple things, I don’t really want to get rid of it entirely.
You … you had the Technodrome, and you destroyed it?
So much regret, my friend. So much. Kill away
Can’t r a lain why and can’t really defend it but out if all the wonderful toys in these movies, Jesse is my favorite. I think it’s that killer combination of being overly enthusiastic mixed with underlying twinges of sadness underneath with a whole dollop of Joan cusack,
Joan Cusack is never not a delight. Grosse Pointe Blank is one of my favorite films. Obviously she’s a small part of it, but the sheer enthusiasm she brings to the role elevates the entire film. The bit where she switches from profane anger at a bullet supplier, back to her friend on hold talking about a soup recipe. Highlight ofc is when she is dousing the office in gasoline to burn it down, Martin tells her to “look under her desk,” there’s an envelope STUFFED with cash, and she just ERUPTS in delight. And her little lip curl and slight little slur to her speechhmmmm. minnie driver, joan cusack, welp. That explains a lot about me.
The casting in these movies are spot on and she’s the perfect actress for the role
Absolutely. It says a lot that when I watch Toy Story, I don’t think “Tom Hanks.” I hear “Woody.” If I hear that voice randomly, I hear WOODY. Not Tom Hanks. Hell, same with Tim Allen for the most part. They ACT. Not that dreamworks/blue sky celebrity horseshit. Grammar is fucking fantastic as Prospector. He finds a space somewhere between Frasier and Sideshow Bob and makes it new. =)
Agree. I HATE Tim Allen and all his work except Buzz and Galaxy Quest, but for those two I have to give it to him, he kills it.I am glad I never remember he is Buzz, though, until someone reminds me.
yssssssss galaxy quest
Heck, Joan Cusack even turned Barry Sonnenfeld’s divorce trauma into something marvelous, even compared to the glorious scene-chomping that Angelica Huston and Raul Julia performed in The Addams Family:“Malibu Barbie!”“The nightmare!”“The nerve!”
This is a slightly different take, but I do like how Jessies character is a giant homage to the influential Country singer Ruby Rose Belvin, better known as Patsy Montana. The lady was famous for yodeling and her song I Wanna Be a Cowboys Sweetheart was the first ever major female single in the genre. I believe she passed away in 1996 so its a fitting way to honor someone who paved the way for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton.
There’s something slightly insidious about shaming kids into not growing up. It’s sad stuff in the context of the film, and a great song, but you don’t become a bad person when you “mature” and find make-up. You change and I think your inanimate toys are fine with that. I wish the Toy Story franchise hadn’t gone down the whole path of finding out what happens when kids grow up. It made it overly sentimental and maudlin.
My son just went through a huge Toy Story phase and after all these years, they’re still wonderous pieces of filmmaking. Even after seeing each movie over about 100 times in the past six months or so, I can still watch one of them again. The jokes are still funny, the stories still well thought out out and the emotional bits still hit. The last ten minutes of the third film gutted me again. They’re one if the few franchises that still hold together and amazingly get better after each movie.
The song is perhaps my least favorite part of the movie. Instead of just baking that sadness into the dialog or the story, we stop and listen to a song and watch a music video that uses every emotional trick in the book. It’s fine, but Pixar has done a much better job of earning my tears later in their careers. The song I always just wanted to end.
All I need to do is think about my childhood dog in the context of this song and tears start to form*.(*NO we didn’t abandon him at all, he just had an uncontrollable bladder problem and would piss absolutely everywhere if we brought him inside. So he had to be an outside dog and it makes me sad thinking about all the missed opportunities we had to cuddle and watch a movie in the living room, or run through the house, or sneak him food at dinner)
I stand by my assertion that Best Song slate is the single best in the history of the category, and I have no problem with the Tarzan win. Every song is great.
TARZANYou’ll Be In My Heart in “Tarzan” Music and Lyric by Phil CollinsNOMINEESSOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUTBlame Canada in “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” Music and Lyric by Trey Parker and Marc ShaimanMUSIC OF THE HEARTMusic Of My Heart in “Music of the Heart” Music and Lyric by Diane WarrenMAGNOLIASave Me in “Magnolia” Music and Lyric by Aimee MannTOY STORY 2When She Loved Me in “Toy Story 2″ Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
This. Song. WRECKED. Me.The End
One of my favorite minor gags in TS2 is near the beginning when they’re channel surfing to find an Al’s commercial and Hamm goes past it, explaining it’ll be faster for him to loop back around the channels rather than go backwards. Makes me laugh every time because that is exactly what my dad (and eventually me) said whenever we passed by a show back in the days before even the most basic cable packages have 200+ channels.
It only occurs just now to me that the central theme/villain motivation of every TS movie revolves around abandonment issues. I mean, they find new ways to do it, but it’s always “toy is afraid of/has experienced being left behind by kid, turns heel”. The only exception is Woody in TS1, who behaves like an ass, but is not the film’s true villain.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.This scene gets me every single time, even reading about it makes me tear up. This is why TS2 is my favorite TS and favorite Pixar movie, period.
I saw this in a theater with my friends, years BEFORE having my daughter and I lost it. I mean I was sobbing uncontrollably. Just reading the description above got me real misty. And it’s always the same part…every shot is perfectly timed and composed but it’s the shot at the end of Woody’s face, and the realization. Good GAWD man.
I will fight anyone over this…that sequence is probably the best film scene of all time. And I’m not just talking about animated films, I mean film history. It’s perfect, it’s literally perfect.
I’ll never forgive Pixar for the beginning of “Up”. Diabolical.
My kid asked to watch this movie last night. When we got to the Jessie flashback scene, I suddenly realized why my kid freaks out every time we ask him to pick out some toys to take to Goodwill.
That song played on all of us whose hearts had a dagger thrust through it when one of our parents left because of divorce.
Sarah MacLachlan, queen of instant tear production. She is responsible for so many commercially related tears and THIS … I can’t get through “When She Loved Me” without tearing up. Damnit just THINKING about that song gets me.
I think I can predict the scene that will be used for Up. and if it isn’t that, fuck you, you’re wrong.
If it’s not the opening then I will allow Carl reading the adventure book.
Heck, I teared up a bit at Buzz’s identity crisis in the first one. lol
Pixar has trained us.By the time TS3 came out and we cut from the ‘adventure fantasy’ to the ‘real world’ Andy playing, all it took – ALL IT TOOK – was the details of a battery indicator telling us this was an old family video, and that it was not ‘now’ any more and I was sobbing like a baby. My first kid was like, 5 at the time and was looking at me like ‘whats wrong daddy?’Less than 5 seconds from cut to sobs. I see exactly what those people did. I bet they even place bets on it. Theres a Pixar office pool, ‘how fast can we gut-punch the parents?’ With special mention to ‘how few lines of dialog can we have before the bastards cry?’ – UP had 10 minutes and what, 5 words before we all got destroyed?
Toy Story 2 is the Pixar movie I don’t think of as a great one until I rewatch it and go “Oh man, this is great!”
I must have a heart of stone because I’m just not as impressed with Toy Story 2 and 3 like everyone else. They feel like the same movie over and over again. I fail to understand why everyone cries at the end of Toy Story 3. OK, the incinerator scene was pretty damn well executed, but Andy saying bye to his toys… I didn’t buy it. I’ve had zero desire to watch TS4.
This was the scene that shows the transformative and emotional power of animation that Pixar has discovered, nailed, and utilized to masterful execution time and time again. Without this, Pixar we fondly know probably would have never come to fruition.That’s one of reasons why Toy Story 2 is still hailed as one of, if not, the best films of their highly acclaimed library.
Apparently, Emily is Andy’s mother.
I’ve not seen ‘Toy Story 2′. In fact, I’ve never sought out the Toy Story films; the first one I saw as an end of year school excursion (I think) and the third as part of a friend’s birthday celebrations. (Haven’t seen number four either.) To be honest, it’s never been my favourite Pixar series. I can see what they’re doing, and they do it pretty well, but I never connected with the toys emotionally enough to get past the logical questions I have about a world of sentient living toys.I watched the clip above. It’s good, but it doesn’t reach me the way the start of ‘Up’ does.
This movie is incredibly underrated, and this scene just destroys me. Not as much as the last scene of Toy Story 3, which I caught once on HBO and found myself suddenly bawling at 8pm. Pixar just…knows how to utterly destroy a man.
I think the foreboding was never worse than when watching Coco and you hear that Coco is the great-grand mother’s name. From then on you are watching with tear-waiting fear. Then it’s a damn downpour at the end.
“Kids might understandably tear up over Jessie’s plight,”Kids? Grown 40 something men, anyone with a beating heart and soul. That scene is pure devastation and I’m crying just thinking about it I can’t go on…
Toy Story 2: or, “remember how sad ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ was when you heard the lyrics as an adult? Now it’s a whole movie.”
God almighty, that song. When my daughter was born, it was the only thing I could think of to start singing to her (not really remembering the whole thing). Turned out to be the only thing that got her to sleep (and its still her favorite song).
But I learned all the rest of the lyrics and spent a week not able to sing it without tearing up. I ended up writing two more verses and a new ending myself just so it wasn’t so damn depressing.
Rewatching this movie after Monsters, Inc. had come out, this scene is the one where I realized that all Pixar movies (up to that point) were about parenting. Toy Story is about how even when your “kid” finds a hero who isn’t you, that doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t act heroic for them (the metaphor is weakest here). A Bug’s Life isn’t much of a metaphor as Flik and Julia Louis-Dreyfus literally become the parents of a whole colony. And Mike and Sully taking care of Boo, teachers who care for their pupil like parents and end up getting to visit with her from time to time – it’s pretty straight forward. But this film has the hardest parenting idea.Jessie watching her “kid” grow up, then cast her aside, and the emotions she shows when things are good and when they’re bad really drive home the idea of a child leaving and losing touch with a parent. The whole movie hinges on the idea of taking a better position so later life will be easier rather than spending time with your “kid” that will inevitably be short-lived. This makes the Jessie scene so much harder because she had no dilemma: she just wanted to stay with her kid, and was disposed of. Rejected as a parent figure without even being given a reason why. There’s almost a retirement home metaphor to the museum concept in the film. Kids will grow up. Even if you have a good relationship with them (unlike Jessie), you still won’t see them much. The sadness in the Jessie scene is the undercurrent of the whole film. And even though they all end up with Andy, a loving kid in the end, even this will pass. Its harder, I think, than Toy Story 3, because the ending is unknown.Also, the museum owners were fucking terrible negotiators. ‘Let’s add another zero to that’ and they agree instantly – what? Ten times the money just because the seller throws it out there once? The key to negotiation is even if you’re desperate, don’t let the other side know that. Fucking amateurs.