Chapter Two: Toy Story 2
By Brett Beach
October 7, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Inherent in these questions posed by Stinky Pete at the halfway mark of Toy Story 2 is an encapsulation of the beauty, the sadness, the deeper meaning and the heartache of the film. Toys are there to be loved, and to love their owners back. But children grow up. "Childish" things must be put away, we are often told, and it is a toy's existential dilemma to live each day teetering somewhere between those two extremes. With 20/20 hindsight and the knowledge that Toy Story 3 rests on the horizon next summer, there is also more than a little pointed foreshadowing in Pete's words.
But there I made the film sound as dire as a 19th century Russian tragedy. What is remarkable about Toy Story 2 is how it balances joy and silliness, punch lines, sight gags and winking humor with a deeper melancholy and an awareness and respect for the ways in which time marches on. As I was typing the first paragraph, I felt myself getting teary, much as I did during the sequence in Toy Story 2 where Jessie recounts her own story to Woody and Sarah McLachlan sings Randy Newman's "When She Loved Me" on the soundtrack. It's a terribly affecting moment and offers at least some rebuke to the notion that the talent at Pixar is weak and/or lacking in writing for female characters. It must be said, however, that those who know me well would say this is just one of many examples of me being sappy. Perhaps, but I also have a deep loathing of films that work to pluck my heartstrings like cheap material as opposed to playing them like a fine violin. I am happy to be moved when an emotional moment rings true. With equal fervor, I would love to set fire to all prints of Pay It Forward, Patch Adams and that ilk with their dime-store philosophies, cloying and cruel sentimentality, and self-congratulatory trimmings.
And now I have gotten myself distracted. I was going to post a few words about my feelings towards Pixar. I must confess, while I admire their consistent streak of quality, or at the very least, their endeavor to release quality productions, I don't have quite the reverence for them that some of my compatriots at Box Office Prophets do. I haven't even seen all of their productions yet (ixnay on Cars and Ratatouille) and out of the rest have seen most but not all in the theaters (I chose to wait for home viewing on Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo). This is due really to my own small quirks about animation. For a large past of my adult life, I have gone through stretches where I simply haven't wanted to see animated programming. It's odd; I will be the first to admit. It is not the same as saying, "I am tired of romantic comedies or horror films". Those are genres and animation is, well, more of a style, even if it is often simultaneously viewed as a genre to boot.
In the United States, there is still the tendency to view animation as a kids playground, no matter how many South Parks, Simpsons or whatever Adult Swim throws on at 2 in the morning there may be floating around. This leads to the mindset of reviewers to make allowances for most animated features with some kind of caveat along the lines of "Kids will like it the most, but parents won't be bored out of their minds." And that steadfast mindset really gets under my skin. I was doing my best to think of a fair number of animated films - just from this decade alone - that have been crushingly reviewed and not many come to mind (yes, yes, I am not forgetting you, Delgo.) God knows I am already mentally lined up and fairly giddy for Toy Story 3 and I expect to be laughing and bawling my ass off in at least a 1 to 2 ratio. I am not someone waiting for Pixar to "fail." I approach most every film in an attitude of prayer because the chance to see a great film is a small miracle every time. But if the third installment isn't worthy of praise, will enough voices rise up to lay claim to this sad truth?
The Pixar productions I do adore - Toy Story, WALL-E, and Toy Story 2 - I admire and embrace with a great fervor. As an example of what I think Pixar does better than a lot of films, animated or otherwise, let me cite this brief story. Most recently, I caught Up in a second-run theater/brewpub during an afternoon matinee when kids were still allowed. Shortly after the scene where Muntz captures Kevin the bird, a young boy in the row in front of me went into deep unshakeable spasms of sobbing. Not the kind of crying that comes from being scared or sad, but that emanates from your soul when you have been moved beyond all proportion. Eventually, his father had to take him and his younger brother (who had not reacted) out and alas, the lad did not return.
There is an emotional clarity and unifying theme to most of Pixar's films, as well as a resistance against jokes and references good for a cheap laugh today, but that would sorely date the work at some unforeseen point in the future. From the start, with Toy Story in 1995, they have been, in ways both large and small, ruminations on the passing of time and what that can mean for a family, for one's dreams, for the relationship of a toy to its child. Toy Story 2 finds a way to unfold a tale that in many ways is very similar to Toy Story but the joy is in all the details that flesh out the story and make it different. I had not seen the sequel since Thanksgiving Day 1999 when I was packed into the front row of a sold out theater, stomach stuffed, neck craned back and eyes staring up. It's probably the most fun I have ever had being that uncomfortable at a screening, as well as one of the last times. The opening sequence and how it unfolds had completely slipped my mind before I watched it again last weekend. So when the film's title hurtled towards me against a starry backdrop with a very Lucas-ian bent to it and then plowed right into an action spectacle with Buzz Lightyear that felt more like a videogame than a movie, I began to doubt my memory - which is a more than common occurrence nowadays.
My relief was immense when it was revealed that it was a videogame. Pixar's ability to remain both satirical and upfront about the Toy Story brand is a small joke carried from one end of the running time to the other (Tour Guide Barbie's offhand comment about retailers in 1995 and Buzz' travails with another Buzz Lightyear model are part of this as well.) It is not easy for a film to so boldly and deftly remind viewers that it is indeed a product while avoiding a slippery slope into self-referential noodling. Toy Story 2 pays homage to Jurassic Park in one amusing visual reference and with the voice casting of Wayne Knight as one of the two key antagonists. It borrows iconography and a plot twist involving Buzz' nemesis Zurg, from the Star Wars films.
Most importantly, it does for Woody what the first film did for Buzz, all in the guise of another action adventure rescue mission. In Toy Story, Woody's quest to save Buzz was balanced against the evils of Sid the toy destroyer from next door and of young Andy moving to a new home. Buzz came to learn that he was unique and special. Even though he is also one of millions of a mass-produced space hero line, he is granted a future that is all his own. Toy Story 2 creates another triangle of interlocking plot points and a unique revelation for Woody. Buzz and several others of Andy's toys must go to rescue Woody from an unscrupulous toy collector before Andy returns from camp. Woody discovers that he was once part of his own successful brand of tie-ins (music, television, even a yo-yo!) and that he is truly the last of his kind, but that he has "family" in the form of Jessie the Cowgirl, Bulls Eye the horse and Pete, the stinky (and not so nice) prospector. Woody is given a past. In a subtle touch that exemplifies the depth in the screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlain and Chris Webb, Woody's herky jerky and lanky manner is given context as well as we see that on his show, he was a marionette puppet. He still carries himself as if invisible hands were at work.
The addition of new characters in a Chapter Two can be dicey at best. The downside is that the figures we have come to love, who aren't the stars, may get shortchanged in the effort to introduce new faces into the mix and give them meaningful things to do. Consider (or don't) the Lethal Weapon and Austin Powers series for what happens when you both add new characters and feel the need to bring back all earlier characters and give them all equal billing. At some point, you are overstuffed and the audience is underwhelmed. The trick is acknowledge which characters are just right in small doses should they need to be brought back. Toy Story 2 is a model of how to accomplish this. By having Potato Head, Rex, Hamm and Slinky Dog accompany Buzz as he ventures into the world outside suburbia, equal face time is given to all four, who are about as lovable a quartet of sidekicks as one could ask for. When they must commandeer a Pizza Planet vehicle to make an escape, it not only allows one to reflect on the first film, but it also allows the Squeeze Toy Aliens to make their own return engagement appearance. The STA's could have become the Mini-Me of the Toy Story films but the role they play here is perfect comic counterpoint to the bang ‘em up action swirling around them.
At the center of it all we find the exceptionally well-cast voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. When I think about Woody and Buzz, how they look and act, it makes me smile. When I hear their words in my head in their respective tones, it's close to nirvana. Hanks has been mostly absent this decade from the sort of goofy comedies he did early in his career, and Woody is a reminder that, Hanks' deftness with serious work aside, his true genius is in seamlessly and convincingly blending irony and sincerity in a cocky attitude that always threatens to give way to a quiver. He may have been burdened with the tag of "Everyman", but he works hard to make both the positive and negative attributes of that archetype come alive, even in his voice work. Allen has the easier - or is it harder? - task of making his voice sound as ridiculously well chiseled as Mr. Lightyear's chin. Beyond confident but increasingly humanized, he finds a way to invest a little humbleness behind his words and not sound simply like Tim Taylor in a spaceman casing.
It is not an easy thing for me to say if I like Toy Story 2 more than or less than Toy Story. Kim Hollis' AFInity column on Toy Story does an excellent job of appreciating that film, particularly in regards to the technology, which has never been my forte. I recommend reading that as well. For my part, I enjoy getting to spend more time with characters I love who - most important to note - are evolving and becoming different, gaining deeper shadings and more detailed strokes. If Toy Story 2 has a weakness, it comes in making Prospector Pete into a last-minute villain and in the form of the overly extended and frenetic climax. The faux video game antics at the beginning were more than enough and it seems redundant if not a little lazy to have continuous action unfold on an elevator, at the airport and aboard a plane. But these are minor quibbles. If, as John Lasseter offers in the DVD introduction to Toy Story 2, they made the film simply because they wanted to find a home for the character of Wheezy the Penguin, well, many sequels have taken flight for far less nobler reasons.
Next time: an early Halloween double shot of horror-themed Chapter Twos. One is the decidedly non-scary sequel to one of the all time great B movies. The other is the much-reviled decades late follow up to a landmark of 1970s scares.