Desperate to break out, our familiar friends escape through the only available way out: the garbage chute. If you survive, and aren’t eventually thrown out, you might get to live out your days in the serene fun of the older kids’ Butterfly area.
Leader toy Lotso Hugs the Bear (Ned Beatty) runs the place like a prison, putting the new “recruits” in the Caterpillar Room along with the rambunctious, destructive toddlers. There, they discover a surreal situational pecking order. His bag is mistaken for trash, but our plastic heroes avoid the landfill by hiding out in another box intended for a local daycare. Pushed to do something with the trinkets remaining, Andy decides to put them in the attic. Andy is now a 17-year-old colleg- bound teen, and his collection of playthings are feeling the sting of neglect and possible disposal. Toy Story 3 begins several years after the first sequel.
We are talking, of course, about the incinerator showdown, a moment which finds Buzz, Woody, and the gang relying on the wrong plaything to aid in their escape, a massive machine hurtling them ever closer to their doom, and a single moment of resolve that stands as one of the most emotional and heartfelt finales ever in the history of film - live action or animated.įirst, a little plot perspective. Instead of offering an in-depth review of Toy Story 3 let’s instead focus on a seminal sequence in the stellar Pixar trequel, a moment that will have many in tears and have more than a few covering their faces in fear. It certainly comes from one of the year’s best films (though at least three Rotten Tomatoes registered critics disagree with that assessment) and while it may seem too soon to suggest, there’s no doub few will match it come July and/or August. Andy will never be a kid again, and he'll never play with Woody again.Though it’s barely two months old, it is time to declare a best scene of Summer 2010. When Woody says goodbye to Andy, he knows that is the end of their life together. And they aren't able to communicate with him like they do with each other, so there will be no sending letters. Even if Andy visits Bonnie's family on a trip home from college, he definitely won't be playing with the toys. It wouldn't be easy to stay in contact, but the toys could find a way if they want.īut after Toy Story 3, Woody and his friends will likely never see Andy again. They could also find ways to send letters to each other, like the letters they send between Bonnie's house and Sunnyside Daycare in a credit's scene of Toy Story 3. The return of Bo Peep in Toy Story 4 proves that another meeting between the toys is possible. The fair could end up near Bonnie or her family could go on another road trip. When Woody leaves his friends in Toy Story 4, the door is open for them to meet again someday. What ultimately makes the end of Toy Story 3 sadder than the end of Toy Story 4 is that the former leaves no way back. At the end of Toy Story 4, it's clear he's in a position he feels more comfortable with and will probably never have a real owner again because nobody will ever live up to Andy. Woody wasn't happy to leave Andy, even though he knew it was time, and unfortunately, he wasn't happy with Bonnie either. But while the ending of Toy Story 3 promises a new life for the toys, the ending of Toy Story 4 promises a better life. It would have been almost as bittersweet as what does happen since he would have lost Bo Peep again. He knew it would be better to stay with them and a child for at least a little while longer than to sit alone on a dorm room shelf and never be played with.Īt the end of Toy Story 4, Woody could have returned to Bonnie with the other toys and tried to adjust to that life. If he hadn't, he would have had to say goodbye to his friends, anyway. Though Woody ultimately chose to leave Andy, it was something that would have inevitably happened someday, he just made sure it happened on his terms. The latter was due to Andy growing up, something nobody could stop. Woody's choice to leave his old friends is more conscious than his choice to leave Andy. The Toy Story 4 ending has a more positive spin.