June 15, 2010: Toy Story 2
It’s a rare occasion when a sequel equals its predecessor, and rarer still when it exceeds it. It’s my thinking, after back-to-back re-watchings of the first two Toy Story films, that this may be one of those rarest occasions. Toy Story 2 is absolutely a worthy sequel, and with continuing character development, a wider range of characters interacting, and improved technical capabilities, this is a sequel with something to say and a unique way of saying it. It’s telling that Pixar has never before or since made sequels to any of their other animated features, which suggests that they have very high standards required to justify such a move. Mind you, the upcoming Toy Story 3 as well as planned sequels to Cars and Monsters, Inc. suggest that the standards may be slipping somewhat.
Released in 1999, four years after the original, Toy Story 2 sees Woody accidentally put out in a garage sale, from which he is stolen by a collector who realizes the value of this vintage 1950s toy. Woody meets the other toys which originally were sold with him, a new family which he never knew he had, and he is torn between wanting to stay with them and wanting to return home. Woody is confused about what his proper home should be, and who his family really is. Meanwhile, Andy’s other toys are on a cross-town mission to rescue their pal Woody, in a parallel approach to the original film which also required a rescue mission out in the real world.
This is a plum Hollywood gig, and as such all the big voice actors are back, with Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, and supporting work from Wallace Shawn and John Ratzenberger and Joan Cusack, among others. This lends to the great camaraderie among the toys as well as a realistic amount of tension and competition and actual personality. Box office business was great, as Toy Story 2 piled on the action sequences and continued to explore human themes, including most prominently the lure of immortality. The toys all know that Andy will eventually grow up and will discard or store his toys, whereas Woody has the opportunity to go to a museum and be forever loved by millions of kids, though never again to be played with. Play and possible damage from one loving child, however, turns out to be what a toy really wants.
The ending of Toy Story 2 is almost too convenient, with a good outcome for everybody including the villains, but it’s nice to see a movie now and then in which the villain doesn’t need to be impaled on a convenient spike if he doesn’t repent for his sins. The villain in this case is one of the other characters in Woody’s gang, who has been preserved in his original box for nearly 50 years, and even he ends up with a loving child who will treat him in a way which impacts his dignity (a tough old prospector being dressed up to sit around and drink tea), but at the same time he’s being loved by a child in a way that has never happened during his existence, and I think that’s a nice touch.
The story is still straightforward and the pacing fast, the characters are deeper than before, and Toy Story 2 is a chance to revisit a family we felt we knew even upon first sight four years earlier. Perhaps overshadowed by the historical significance of its predecessor, I think the critical consensus is that Toy Story 2 is in fact the better film of the two.
Sequel exceeds original. Very rare indeed.
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