We’re ranking the films of Pixar Studios, leading up to the release of Inside Out.
Toy Story
Directed: John Lasseter
Writers: John Lasster, Joss Whedon, et al.
It seems wrong to put Toy Story at #9 on this project. Origination counts for a lot when it comes to lists and rightly so. Toy Story was the first film in movie history of its kind. There had never been a feature film made entirely with computers. Ever. At the Oscars in 1996, John Lasseter won a Special Achievement Award “for the development and inspired application of techniques that have made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film.”
I remember seeing Toy Story in the theater when in 1994. It was one of the first times at the movies where I realized that movies, the jokes but also the films themselves, are references to other movies. In the past 20 years I’ve watched Toy Story countless times. But even this week, seeing it again, that experience is still alive. Pixar’s first film is a film steeped in films. Did you know the carpet in Sid’s house, the kid who captures toys and blows them up, is the same carpet as the Overlook Hotel? I didn’t. For all the innovation and novelty of Pixar Studios, there is always a love of movies, too, right there on the surface.
But Toy Story is #9 on the list, and that’s where it belongs. If this were a list of the most important Pixar films, it would be #1. If it were a list of the funniest, it would be close. But it isn’t; it’s a ranking of quality. Today we can recognize that Toy Story, for all its ingenuity, is still the first of its kind. The animation is clunky and dated, the surfaces are glassy, the human skin is like plastic, and the plastic faces are like, well, harder plastic.
Does this sound like I’m being too tough? So it goes. Twenty years later, Pixar is making computer animated cinema to which Toy Story simply cannot compare.
Pixar has never only been a about computer animation, though. They’re storytellers, too. The story of Andy’s toys is a story of Woody’s desperation to remain the favorite and Buzz’s need to hold on to his identity as an adventurer. Writers Joss Whedon and John Lasseter imbue Toy Story with the themes and emotions that will define so much of the studio’s future, and the VO performances of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and the rest of Andy’s toys brought prestige actors into the animation fold.
Friendship, jealousy, betrayal, regret. The loss of innocence that Buzz experiences when he realizes that he really is just a toy, the emotional back-break that is Randy Newman’s crooning (“I Will Go Sailing No More” is just…c’mon), these are elements that will be central to the Pixar picture viewing experiences. Integrated into the emotional richness is the striking images that stand alone and punctuate the comic or dramatic hits. 
But just as striking is the humor. After Buzz’s dramatic realization and musical number, what does he do? He joins a tea-party, becomes Mrs. Nesbitt, and gets drunk on imaginary tea.
Best Line: Buzz, drunk: “One minute you’re defending the whole galaxy, and the next minute you find yourself sucking down darjeeling with Marie Antoinette. And her little sister.”
Best Decapitation Joke: See Best Line
Best Toy Manufacturing Story: When Mattel learned that a GI Joe toy would be blown up by Sid, they withdrew permission for the film to use the name GI Joe.
Best Moment of Incredulity: “What are you looking at you hockey puck?”
Ratzenberger:
Best Animated Feature: Not yet a thing. It was nominated for three Oscars-Best Screenplay, Score, and Original Song. It also was awarded a Special Achievement Award for amazingness.
Best First Oscar Nomination: Toy Story was the first animated film nominated for Best Screenplay.
Best only Oscar Nomination: Joss Whedon
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