It has been some eleven years since the second film's events and Andy is getting ready for college. The question is, what is he to do with old toys? This is, of course, a major question for many of our favorite characters like Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris), Rex (Wallace Shawn) and Hamm (John Ratzenberger).
When Andy's toys accidentally get piled in with a bunch of donation items, they quickly find themselves in a daycare that, at first, looks like exactly what they've been waiting for, but soon find it to be far worse than it really is. You see, for years, the gang has been waiting to get played with, and it seems Sunnyside Daycare is the answer to their prayers, that is, until the destructive nature of their new owners becomes apparent.
To make matters worse, the toys' leader, Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (Ned Beatty), isn't exactly the benevolent bear-in-charge that he originally appeared to be. He traps Andy's former toys in cages at night and forces them to play with the rough kids during the day, all in a matter of "paying your dues" before you can move on to the calmer classrooms. Needless to say, Andy's toys aren't going to take this sitting down. The problem is, they don't have a leader. Woody was whisked away to a little girl's house, and Buzz has been reset and is under the employ of Lots-O.
While Woody's stay isn't bad, he does meet a new girl by the name of Bonnie (Emily Hahn) as well as some new toys, but he is trying to do everything he can to get back to Sunnyside and help his friends. What ultimately results is a great prison-break sequence that uses all of the toys' unique abilities.
What's great about the Blu-ray release of Toy Story 3 is how well it looks in high definition. Like the release of the two prior films on Blu-ray earlier this year, this latest installment just looks gorgeous in HD. This fact combined with the solid selection of special features it comes with ends up making the package an all around solid purchase.
The special features include the short film that was featured along side Toy Story 3 in theaters. This time, we are presented with an interesting, if not odd, short about two characters, Night and Day, who are cutouts against a black screen. Inside Day is the world in the brightest sunlight, while within Night is the same scene, but after the sun goes down. I really enjoyed this short film, and while it might not have been as funny as some of Pixar's previous shorts, I found it very interesting on a technical level.
A lot of the special features actually do a good job of following suit from the previous two Blu-ray releases. Featurettes like "Path to Pixar" and "Studio Stories" as well as the third installment of "Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs" all return to help make the trio of Blu-rays feel more like a complete package. There are also a few featurettes that I found really interesting. One talks about developing the story for a movie using examples of not only Toy Story, but also Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Another discusses the design of a new area of Hong Kong Disney Land that shrinks its visitors to the size of toys and lets you interact with them on their level.
One of the more interesting featurettes talked about the fact that creating the first Toy Story film also inadvertantly made the filmmakers toymakers, and the story behind creating the first Woody and Buzz toys.
After that is a whole slew of behind-the-scenes style featurettes that talk about everything from defining Bonnie and how she plays, to what goes into a single scene of the film, to the amount of effort that went into the film's final scene where Andy says goodbye (a tear-jerker to say the least). Overall, the selection of special features really helps to add more value to an already great product. If the movie alone isn't enough to get you to buy Toy Story 3, then the special features should do the trick.
Clips
TrailerThe Rides (Bonus)
John Morris (Bonus)
Lending a Voice (Bonus)
Cereal Bar (Bonus)
Dancing with the Stars (Bonus)
