Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)

Toying

Toy Story is a witty, precisely paced picture, a flawless entertainment. It has all your favorite toys packed in one movie. It has the voice of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, two proven actors with a pair of Oscars and several hundred million in boxoffice between them. It has wall-to-wall, state-of-the-art, computer-graphic effects designed to pop your eyes out, if you’re not careful. It has the multimedia might of the Walt Disney conglomerate behind it, for heavy marketing muscle. It’s going to be the biggest hit of the year.

The heart of the movie however isn’t the computer graphics or movie stars or Disney machinery at all; it’s John Lasseter, and Lasseter’s secret as he describes it is his ability to think of the toys as if they were alive; to put himself in their situation and imagine what, for them, are their fears their desires their goals. He gets into the mind of characters like Woody (Tom Hanks) so thoroughly that we feel what Woody feels, when a state-of-the-art plastic spaceman has replaced you as top playmate in a boy’s heart. Lasseter with unerring accuracy has put his finger on the toy’s worse fear: its disposability. The very definition of the word “toy” implies something you don’t take seriously, something to manipulate, to throw about for a while, then ultimately set aside. A plaything, an amusement, no more.

If Lasseter is key to the movie's appeal the movie itself looks prepared to assume a key role in Disney’s master plan at world domination. Think of it: this is a killer opportunity to plug products-- toy manufacturers will pay through the nose, beg on their knees, sell their children’s body parts to have their companies’ Christmas offerings put onscreen-- that’s millions right there, and you haven’t started filming yet. Killer merchandise-- action figures, t-shirts, lunch boxes, semiautomatic weaponry-- with the “Toy Story” logo on them will sell twice as fast (ammo not included).

The toys themselves will help-- who doesn’t want to watch toys have funny adventures? It has an appeal that knows no boundaries. Children will love this film all over; you could put a subliminal message-- “Buy More Disney” or “Katzenberg Is A Jerk” or “Death To All Unbelievers”-- and two billion people will watch, easy.

What do you call two billion marching in step, with Buzz Lightyear’s laser (in full working lethal order) in one arm and Karate Chop Action swinging away in the other? The end of the world as we know it.

Maybe I exaggerate. But precisely because it’s a well-crafted entertainment in the hands of a soulless multinational entity-- that’s the thought that gives me reason to pause. Weren’t we handled-- expertly perhaps but nevertheless handled-- by the movie? Weren’t our emotions tossed about a while? Weren’t we ultimately disposed of, permitted to go forth and spread the word, while more converts sit in our place? Didn’t we end up feeling like we were some sort of amusement-- something to be toyed with, perhaps?

First published in Businessworld, 5.2.96