The story reaches back to Andy as a child, through his imaginative play captured on video
and realized through a fantasy opening sequence involving a train robbery, wrecked
bridge, flying spaceship and hoards of swarming monkeys. From there, we have the basic
plot driver and ticking clock: the departure of Andy to college and Mommy Ultimatum’s
directive to trash, donate or store his toys in the attic. Although ignored for years, our
favorite toys cling to the hope that Andy will keep them around and perhaps play with them
again or, in a faint distant future, pass them on to his own kids sometime, somewhere,
somehow.
Andy’s favorite is Woody and he decides to take him along to college (thus the subtle metaphor of every boy’s choice to take his woody to college) and leave the rest to long- term storage in the attic with the Xmas decorations (what fun!). Woody is the cheerleader for togetherness and devotion to Andy, so when the inevitable mix-up occurs and the toys find themselves on the curb waiting for garbage pick-up, they are quick to abandon Andy.
They choose life in a day care over destruction, despite Woody’s pleas to trust Andy’s devotion to their ongoing happiness under his care and protection. There wouldn’t be much of story if the day care was a happy place. Don’t worry, it’s not. It is run like a prison by a mean teddy bear that was abandoned by his owner and has
taken twisted revenge on all toys, building up a hierarchy of privilege and punishment for
all donations to the day care. Woody escapes, leaving his friends behind (don’t worry,
only momentarily) and the new Barbie character finds a Ken to dream over (yes, they
WERE made for each other).
Between Ken and Barbie jokes, Buzz Lightyear re-booting back to his “defender of the galaxy” personality and horrible scenes of destruction from toddlers at play, Woody works his way back to his friends and organizes an elaborate break-out of the day care prison. The great escape is one long, logical series of daring stunts, leading to a final
confrontation between Woody and the bad old teddy bear at the dump. There are
moments of bravery for each toy until their final unlikely rescue from incineration by what
only can be termed as “alien intervention”. By now, the average studio would have ended the movie with our heroes rescued and
back home where they belonged but this is Pixar and they have a grander and quite
touching resolution in mind. Without giving anything away, the ending tears at your heart
in surprising ways; Woody’s faith in Andy is confirmed, the gang stays together and the
smartest toy in the world has to be this pull-string cowboy with a star on his chest.
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