Film 1: #149 Toy Story
Firstly, this film is criminally low on the list. But that's more than made up for with the ranking of Toy Story 3 which we will of course come to at a later date. For now though, I'll look at one of an impressive seven Pixar films on the list, and fittingly it's Pixar's first feature length film. I've discussed my love for Toy Story a few times on this site and in Filmic, so I don't really need to express my feelings again. What I will do though is examine more closely why this first film is so fucking awesome and cinematically important.
The characters are definitely some of the most interesting and funny characters ever animated, and the character development of both Woody and Buzz throughout the film is highly engrossing. I never really thought about it when I was a kid, but Woody becomes a real dick when Buzz turns up. Jealous, abusive and turning on the other toys, his supposed friends, just for liking Buzz. Then he tries to knock Buzz down the side of the cabinet, it goes horribly wrong, and still all he can think about is pretending he didn't do it and defending himself! Thankfully, he softens a lot as he gets to know Buzz better and starts to become the selfless, caring leader we get to see a lot more of later on. Buzz on the other hand goes from thinking he's a real space ranger to spiralling down into mass depression when he realises he's just a toy, and then later regains his confidence when Woody convinces him that being a toy is actually pretty cool. For a film of just 80 minutes this packs in a whole lot of story and some very compelling character archs.
Potato Head, Hamm, Rex and Slinky all stand out as well of course, but it wouldn't be until Toy Story 2 (which for some reason isn't on the list at all, despite every fan knowing it is very close in quality to this first film) that they really got to join in the adventures and shine as well as they can. Still, there's some classic stuff from them here and we become familiar enough with each of their distinct personalities in the short time we have with them. Sid's mutant toys are also interesting additions, and even though he's an evil son of a bitch I always liked the character of Sid. The showdown with the toys breaking the rules for the one and only time across the 3 films and 'coming to life' in front of Sid is truly gratifying and rewarding after watching him destroy toys for the whole film. I always wanted to know if Sid was scarred for life by what happens here, though his little cameo in Toy Story 3 as a binman would suggest otherwise. Maybe he mentally blocked the whole thing out. Poor guy.
Being the first completely computer animated film, Toy Story broke new ground and was very revolutionary at the time. It will always be down in film history as being a landmark achievement. Today these kinds of films appear all the time, but it still looks great and I had no complaints at all when I went to see it in 3-D at the cinema just over a year ago. Now Toy Story 3 has been released though, and after watching that film about 4 times over the Christmas period, I really noticed how much the technology has advanced in the 15 years between the two films. It was like watching the original through new eyes and served to make me even more impressed with what Pixar acheived in animating Toy Story 3. You just need to compare Buster the dog in the newer film with Scud the dog from the original as a perfect example of how the animation has come on so much. Still, you can't deny there are some truly stunning shots and sequences in this film and it deserves to be remembered as being an influential and important example of what can be done through this method of animating.
As usually happens when I get talking about a film I adore, I've gone on for longer than I intended here. Not all of the 'meant to be small' review pieces for the 250 films will be quite this long but whatever. I've written it now. Basically Toy Story is awesome but should be rated higher. 1 down, 249 to go!
EDIT: I have discovered a possible (definite) flaw in my plan - the Top 250 list has changed already. Does it get updated daily? I'll have to look into it. If it does, it means that by the time I actually get round to watching all of the films the list will have changed and there'll be new films in there that I haven't watched. I may do a print out of the list as it is now and just watch all of those. Watch this space.
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