Toy Story - The Ultimate Toy Box

Pixar produced the first fully computer animated feature length film in Toy Story back in 1995. It has since produced A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2. Pixar have been around for a very long time, producing the first computer rendered short film back in 1986 with Luxo Jr., and later in 1988 with Tin Toy. I remember these with fondness as an undergraduate computer science student, knowing the huge amount of computing power required to make it all happen.

It was with great anticipation that I awaited this Box Set, including the Supplemental Features DVD, which has lots of information about how the films were made, and lots of background information on the character development and original ideas that started the process. This Box Set has been delayed since October 2000 due to some technical difficulties in the production of the third DVD. It has been a very long wait, and has been very difficult in not purchasing the two movies individually since October!

The Box Set includes the original Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and the Supplemental Features.

In Toy Story, Woody, six-year-old Andy's favourite toy, was leader of the toys. At Andy's birthday party, a new toy, Buzz Lightyear joins the toys, and becomes a potential threat. Their initial rivalry finds them in the clutches of the nasty next door neighbour, but working together, they find friendship in each other.

Of note, a friend of mine with small kids (most under 7) noted that the scene where the "scary toys" from Sid's house were on, and when Sid was torturing the toys, was distressing to several of his kids. I didn't think too much of this, but these scenes are kind of scary looking, so be warned if you have sensitive kids.

In Toy Story 2, Woody is stolen by a greedy toy collector. We then discover that Woody is a collector's item. This story is about the rescue attempt to recover Woody, and adds a new set of characters in Jessie the Cowgirl, Bullseye the Horse, Stinky Pete the Prospector and Zorg the Evil Alien.

The Supplementary DVD is split up into two parts, one each for the respective movies. Each movie's menus then has the following components:

Toy Story is presented in 16x9 widescreen (1.77:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 sets. As with most animated features, there is very, very little that can be found wrong with the video quality.

Toy Story 2 is presented in 16x9 widescreen (1.77:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 sets. Again, what can you find wrong with these animated titles? I couldn't find anything worth worrying about.

The Supplementary DVD has mixed animation and real-life video. It is presented in 4:3 ratio. Some of the real-life video looked a bit ordinary, but as for the other DVDs, we're talking a degree of pickiness that even I would find difficult to justify. Some of the scenes go between still shot photos of story boards, to "preview renders" and full animation. The varying qualities of each of these makes it sometimes haphazard looking, but these are offcuts, outtakes and developmental work from the movies, and as such, show the signs of "roughness" in parts.

Toy Story is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Again, there isn't too much negative to be said about the audio track. It is never obviously using the surround channels (which I found sort of strange), but then again, often the trick with a good surround track is to not have obvious effects in the speakers, but to have an immersed sound experience. It supports English 5.1, French 5.1 and Arabic 2.0 language tracks, as well as English and French subtitles.

Toy Story 2 is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX. I don't have a Surround EX decoder, so I don't know what difference this makes to the sound track, but given that the surround channels did not get a huge work out in my opinion, I don't know if it would be all that useful. It supports both English and French language and subtitle tracks.

Note: After this review was first published, fellow reviewer Paul D rang to discuss my lack of surround sound on these DVD's. Turns out my home theatre was quite unbalanced as I had placed a number of new items of bulky furniture in there without recalibrating the balance. Some work on tuning with a sound meter helped some, but I still felt that the surounds were not used as much as the could have been. According to Paul, some of the following items which use the surrounds nicely are:

Toy Story has the Academy Award Winning Short : Tin Toy, and also a Making of Toy Story feature.

What's missing compared to the Region 1 version is an Audio Commentary by the filmmakers, On-Set Interviews, Toy Story Treats, Buzz Lightyear of Start Command: The Adventure Begins Preview, THX certified. Some of these extra are not a great loss, but the audio commentary is something that movie buffs, especially on a collector's edition release, is shameful. The French language 5.1 track (which I can only assume is there for a simultaneous Region 2 release) could have been used for much more than this.

Toy Story 2 has the Academy Award Nominated Short : Luxo Jr, a Character Featurette, Music Featurette, Coolest Toy Featurette, and, especially funny, the Outtakes which are also featured in the end credits.

What's missing compared to the Region 1 version is an Audio Commentary, Music only track, Effects only track, THX certified. The Region 1 DVD does not get the 3 featurettes that we do though, so that makes up for some of it, although, audio commentary is a big one which I can't get over!

The Supplementary DVD has no extras as such (the entire DVD is an EXTRA), but there are some "Easter Eggs" for this DVD which are not documented on the case cover. You can read about these easter eggs at DVD Net's Easter Egg section, or you can link directly to it here. Unlike the other 2 DVD's in this set which are only Region 4, this disk is encoded for both Region 4 and 2.

Overall this set of DVD's is well worth the $85 odd dollars. As an avid computer animation buff, these are not only mandatory viewing, but of course, the prime examples of computer animation in the film industry. If you have even the vaguest interest in computer animation, you must purchase this set of DVDs.