Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 30th Anniversary
The story starts in the early 1980s when Disney animator John Lasseter was invited to a screening of the live action movie Tron (1982). John was a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts where his last 2 student films won awards. At Disney, he was an animator under Glen Keane’s unit for The Fox and the Hound (1981). What made Tron interesting was that it was one of the earliest films to extensively use the then new medium of computer animation. When John saw the finished render of the film, his mind was immediately blown by the possibilities of computer animation. At the same time, Lance Williams at the Computer Graphics Lab of the New York Institute of Technology was trying to get off the ground a feature film done entirely in computer animation called The Works. But it proved to be too ambitious for its time that it was scrapped.
It was then John Lasseter tried to pitched the idea of an animated feature that would use computer animation and he also, along with Glen Keane, put together a short test video that featured 2D characters in a 3D environment. It was then John pitched the idea of adapting the book, The Brave Little Toaster, into a feature that too would be 2D characters in 3D backgrounds. But, the Disney executives at the time rejected it because it was deemed “too expensive” and John was soon fired from Disney because, similar to Brad Bird and Tim Burton, they didn’t know what to do with him. While it was real letdown for John, it was then he joined a recently established group at Lucasfilm that specialized in computer animation. Founded by computer scientist, Ed Catmull, the group would soon be bought by Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs and the company was renamed Pixar. While the startup focused on selling the Pixar Image Computer, in the back, John Lasseter was making short films to help evolve the art of computer animation and in 1988, the studio won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Tin Toy.
The success of Tin Toy caught the attention of the new leadership of Disney and Vice President, Peter Schneider, tried to convince John to return to Disney but John chose to stay with Pixar. It was then that a deal was struck between Disney and Pixar to fulfill the Pixar’s dream of producing a fully computer animated feature film. At first, Ed Catmull thought that they should first produce a half hour television special called A Tin Toy Christmas to earn experience in a longer format. But Disney thought that vetoed that in favor of a feature film instead. Once the feature was greenlit, what had to be done was to create the proper story. The first thing that was done was listing what this shouldn’t be. Since it was apparent that the pallet of animation stories was limited at the time of fairytale adaptations and musicals, and John and his team wanted to be different. On settling on what the subject should be, they decided that since computer animation made things look plastic at the time, they thought that a movie about toys was suitable. And it was also decided to make the story into a classic buddy movie, which Disney never really did at the time.
At first, it was thought to use the title character of Tim Toy as the protagonist but it was believed that he be too old fashioned and it was decided to instead develop a space toy that would later be developed into Buzz Lightyear. As for the older toy, Woody, he was to be a classic ventriloquist dummy before Bud Lucy suggested making him into a cowboy. As for the rest of the cast, with the exception of Slinky Dog, the Pixar team chose toys that stood the test of time and were thought to still be in production after the film’s release.
What needs to be remembered is that this was the studio's first shot at a feature film and the core team was willing to listen to whatever Disney said because they were seen a "more professionals". In December of 1993, a screening of the first half of movie in storyboard form was presented to the Disney executive and it ended in disaster. When developing the plot, the Disney executives, in particular chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, pushed for the film to have edge in it because it was thought that the subject matter was "too juvenile" and the first version of Woody was a tyrannical jerk in the initial treatment. During the screening, John Lasseter was so embarrassed by the early version because of how unappealing the characters were. Disney was prepared to shut down the production but John asked for 2 weeks to rework the script and they were able to save the movie. As for the animation, Pixar invented tools for traditionally trained animators to learn computer animation since the medium was relatively new at the time.
After all that, Toy Story was released on November 22, 1995 to critical acclaim. While some people were skeptical about its box office performance, the film became a hit with audiences. The film went on to also win the Special Achievement Award at the Academy Awards. In 2005, Toy Story was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and is still considered one of the best animated films of all time and one of the most important films ever. The 1995 classic also became a successful franchise with sequels and spinoffs. And it’s all thanks to a small team in Richmond, California that had a dream of creating a new kind of movie.
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