What if toys came to life when their owners’ backs were turned? What if they had lives of their own that they lived while their owners were at school or asleep? This is the premise of the hit Pixar film, “Toy Story.”
Andy is an imaginative little boy who loves cowboys. His favorite toy is a Woody doll, a cowboy dressed in a vest and hat. Andy has a cowboy bedspread, cowboy posters on his walls, and he spends most of his playtime pretending that Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is a sheriff who saves all the other toys from danger. Woody loves Andy with all his toy heart.
But then comes the dreaded day – Andy’s birthday. Birthdays mean new toys, and new toys mean that there’s always a chance that old toys will be ignored. Woody sends a troop of green plastic Army guys down to spy on the party and report, via baby monitor, what the gifts are. Andy doesn’t get anything too threatening until the very last gift, which is a Buzz Lightyear space ranger toy (voiced by Tim Allen.)
Woody’s not too worried at first. He’s been Andy’s favorite forever. But suddenly, Buzz is the favorite. Gone is the cowboy bedspread, to be replaced with a space bedspread. Woody is left alone more and more often. And the worst part – Buzz thinks he really is a space ranger. He doesn’t understand that he’s just a toy.
Buzz claims to be on a mission to stop the Evil Emperor Zurg, whose quest is to take over the galaxy. In his obsession to return to Star Command with the secret information he possesses, Buzz looks for every possible opportunity to escape via rocket. Woody just can’t take it anymore and partly on purpose, partly by accident, knocks Buzz out the window.
Dinnertime rolls around and Andy’s mom is taking him to Pizza Planet. He may bring one toy with him, and he wants to bring Buzz, but Buzz is nowhere to be found. He takes Woody, disappointed that he can’t find Buzz. But what he doesn’t know is that Buzz has climbed onto the back bumper of the van and is coming along anyway.
Through a strange and yet hysterical series of events, Buzz and Woody end up inside a claw machine at Pizza Planet. It looks like a rocket, and Buzz thinks he can fly it. But before he has a chance to try, along comes Sid, the boy from the house next door, a mean child who tortures his toys. He plunks some quarters in the machine and manages to pull out Buzz and Woody, taking them home for his own brand of play time, which involves affixing Buzz to a rocket and blasting him into space. Sid’s intent is to destroy, not assist Buzz in returning to Star Command.
I won’t give away too much of the ending, but I’ll suffice it to say that Woody and Buzz manage to put aside their differences and become the best of friends.
You’ll enjoy this movie. It’s full of one-liners, great imaginative sub-plots, adventure, madcap mayhem, and even more. This is one of our favorite movies and I’m sure it will become one of yours, too.
This movie is rated G.
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