TOY STORY 2 (2010, Blu-ray released November 2, 2010 – MSRP $45.99)
Somehow, I always manage to forget how much I love the Toy Story films. Perhaps it’s just a matter of my age or the passage of time between the original films’ release and the current, modern me. As such, I found that when this most recent sequel was released to theatres I was intrigued but didn’t feel compelled to set aside valuable time to experience it in all its cinematic grandeur. A viewing of the brilliant new Blu-ray edition of the film has shown me the error of my ways.
I should know by now that the Toy Story films have grown as I have, over time. And Toy Story 3 speaks more clearly to me now than its predecessors do. It’s a story about change and how we accept it or fight to stave it off. Absolutely brilliant. The little-boy-that-was is now grown to a young man, preparing to move off to a college life and leave his childhood behind. That childhood, of course, consists of toys – Sheriff Woody, Buzz Lightyear et al. In this animated universe, however, those toys don’t drift off silently into the twilight (or garbage truck, or what have you.) These toys fight back. And they won’t be abandoned or destroyed. They will be played with. They will be loved. And they will make you cry.
Yeah, I got choked up a bit. The story is great here. The performances by the old standards (Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Joan Cusack etc.) and the new crew (Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton) are spot on. And the animation is beyond reproach – miles beyond what Pixar was able to accomplish in their last outing with the franchise. Toy Story 3 is as close to perfection as modern animated filmmaking can be.
Speaking of perfection, I can’t find even the slightest fault with the digital-to-digital transfer of the Blu-ray disc. This is phenomenal work from the folks at Disney/Pixar. Vibrant, pitch perfect colours, deep, dark blacks and incredible detail are the hallmark of every Pixar Blu-ray presentation and Toy Story 3 is amongst their finest. The same can be said for the stunning DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround track. With clean, clear voices up the middle, ever-present ambiance from the rear and a thundering LFE presence, this soundtrack is some of the finest demo-material you’ll find on Blu-ray this year. All around technical perfection!
Where do I start with the extras? Hmm… Well, there’s a ton of them. Enough to keep you engaged with this 4-disc combo pack for hours beyond your initial viewing of the film. There are two excellent commentary tracks, both found on the second Blu-ray disc of the set. Strange, I know, but I have a feeling that since the primary commentary track comes with picture-in-picture content in tow, the powers that be decided to move it over to the bonus repository where they could crunch the heck out of it (compress it down, taking up fewer gigs of precious disc space), leaving more bandwidth for the feature presentation on Disc 1. Good move! I don’t mind at all, Disney! They did leave enough room on that first disc, however, for the requisite accompanying short film. Day and Night screened alongside Toy Story 3 in theatres and is a wonderful complement here on the Blu-ray disc as well.
The bulk of the remaining extras are featurettes (you’ll find a couple of featurette clips above) covering every aspect of production from “Beginnings: Setting a Story in Motion” all the way to a look at film editing in “Paths to Pixar“. They can be found on the second Blu-ray disc of the set, organized into to convenient categories for easier consumption – “Film Fans” Featurettes and “Family Play” Features along with additional categories “Games and Activities” (containing the lone game, the “Toy Story Trivia Dash”) and “Publicity” (trailers, promos and posters.) The third disc in the set is a DVD copy of the film with the fourth a digital copy.
For a detailed list of the ample collection of special features, read our previous post here: Toy Story 3 and Ultimate Toy Box 3-movie collection coming to Blu-ray
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