Did anyone catch the Pixar Halloween special, Toy Story of Terror! last night? I just watched it, and while it still maintained the spirit of Toy Story and had some good laughs, I wasn't terribly impressed by it. That's not too surprising considering it was a 22-minute special that was deliberately trying to fit into the holiday special fold. Pixar is at its best when it's breaking the mold, instead of trying to fit into it. However, it was great to see most of the major characters again as well as some new ones such as Carl Weathers as Combat Carl and the great character Stephen Tobolowsky as the creepy hotel manager (how is it it took him this long to show up in a Pixar production?). That being said, where are on earth was John Ratzenberger?
Saw it. It was pretty cool, but not at all scary. Jesse, Combat Carl, and PEZ Cat were the highlights. I was amazed at the quality of the animation! I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as good as the movies. I hope we get more in the future!
For me Pixar movies succeed on the strength of the writing. Somehow I doubt they rolled out Brad Bird for this.
^The movies were made to be fun too. You don't win awards by trying to win awards, you win them by doing something for fun but doing it well enough that it deserves awards. And brilliantly made fun is more fun than mediocre fun.
I thought it was pretty good. Granted, it completely forgot it was a holiday special about halfway through (and what concessions it made to the conceit were half-hearted anyway), but somehow it worked. It gave off the strangest vibe of being an episode from somewhere in the middle of a Toy Story TV series, as if there's an alternate universe ABC that airs it every week and this one fell through a crack in space to our reality. It wasn't the greatest on its own terms, but it did make me want to see more.
I didn't recognize Combat Carl's voice, but told Hubby that they should've used Carl Weathers. Joke's on me!!!
It wasn't bad. I was a little uncomfortable at first with having Jessie, the female lead, be the most frightened character, which is kind of stereotypical. But it helped a lot that her fear was something that grew logically out of her backstory; she had good reason to be afraid of being trapped in a box, so it didn't feel like her fear was because of her gender. Plus, of course, she was shown overcoming her fear and being the hero of the piece.
I got a huge kick out of the vehicle-Voltron style robot (which was surprisingly accurate to the original design, except for the different colors). As for the special itself, I thought it was pretty good. Even if the main threat was a little too similar to that of the second movie.
My long awaited review: it was cute, but these abiotic creatures are such rich and interesting characters, I've really had it up to there with their single-minded focus on getting back to/staying with their humans. Can't they all be marooned on some small island, and form the Republic of Toys or something? (Also, since when can the side of a paper clip cut masking tape? They should have used some sort of exacto-knife from the manager's office.)
I just tried it with a paper clip and a cardboard box that was still sealed on the bottom with clear packing tape, and it was just as easy as shown. Once you pierce the plastic with the tip of the paper clip, it slices through the tape quite easily. I think that packing tape of this sort is designed to be easy to pierce and tear. You want it to be able to hold together against shear forces and the like, so the box won't come apart, but you also want people to be able to open their packages without too much difficulty.