The Movie
It's been more than a decade since the events of Toy Story 2, and as central human Andy prepares to head off to college, inevitably he must decide what to do with the things of his youth. A bag full of his old toys is misdirected on its way to the attic, and instead winds up in the trash. But the toys of Toy Story 3 have a healthy self-image and won't surrender that easily, instead hitching a ride to the local daycare center.
There they meet a smiling crew of new plush and plastic characters, and all seems right with the world after all. But this dream gig is actually far from it, and so Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the gang plan a bold escape. Some of the dialogue is intentionally recycled from the original Toy Story, and some of the tone and twists are reminiscent of its first sequel, but it all works with that dual-action Pixar magic: abundantly fun for the kids and plenty smart for the grownups. Oh, and a friendly warning to all the parents out there: Get your hankies out for the final scene.
Be sure to check out Peter Suciu's review of Toy Story 3 as well.
The Picture
As with all Pixar movies on Blu-ray, Toy Story 3 boasts a stunning precision of focus, albeit it a synthetic focus ("faux-cus"?), with more texture here than in real life! Witness the Barrel of Monkeys mushroom cloud comprised of more than a million monkeys. Colors are virtually explosive, and the quality of the 1.78:1 image is unremittingly rich and true, as close to "perfect" as I've seen in this high-def medium.
The Sound
Toy Story 3 generated quite a lot of buzz (no pun intended) this past summer as the first move ever released theatrically in Dolby's new 7.1-channel Surround format. It is presented on Blu-ray in a discrete 7.1 as well, albeit in DTS-HD Master Audio format. And in a generous move to help satisfy the 5.1 crowd, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES track is included as well. The transparent details help to put us inside this world, mostly at child height or lower, with distinct, sometimes exaggerated room tones plus lots of doors opening/closing, off-camera footsteps, voices and more. There are not as many showoff scenes as we might expect, but what we are given are among the best of the year.
Also worth noting is that the accompanying new Pixar theatrical short, "Night & Day," is also presented in 7.1, this time as DTS-HD High Resolution.
The Extras
I was initially a little disappointed with the Disc One extras: no audio, no commentary, no Bonus View, no BD-Live? Further exploration found all three curiously parked on Disc Two, which presents the entire film a second time, but viewable only with our choice of Disney's Cine-Explore mode or with the Alternative Commentary Track. The picture-in-picture version proffers director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson, with multiple photos and artwork window pop-ups, animation tests, even script pages which can indeed be read on the big HD screen. The secondary audio track is by supervising animators Bobby Podesta and Mike Venturini, supervising technical director Guido Quaroni, production designer Bob Pauley and story supervisor Jason Katz.
The pickin's on Disc One are slim, mostly just "Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs: The Science of Adventure"--the third educational installment in the series--"Night & Day" and a fairly generic but enjoyable "Toys" featurette. Disc Two's alternate movie presentations are further bolstered by lots of little video snippets, the formats of some no doubt familiar to Pixar fans, organized into one of four categories: "Family Play" (basic background, interviews and behind-the-scenes), "Film Fans" (more in-depth "making of" and insider stories), "Games and Activities" (the BD-Live-powered Toy Story Trivia Dash) and "Publicity."
This last section repurposes all manner of promotional videos created to help spread the word about Toy Story 3, a must for Pixar completists, of which there are many. A listing of all extras can be found below.
Disc Three is a standard-definition DVD of the movie with a subset of the above-mentioned features, including the same Unkrich/Anderson commentary but audio only. Disc Four carries a Digital Copy for iTunes or Windows Media.
Final Thoughts
Another touching and thoroughly entertaining Pixar event film, Toy Story 3 also makes for a wonderful Blu-ray experience, generously decked out with all the latest digital accoutrements. And it looks and sounds every bit as good as fans should expect.
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Product Details
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