Alright, so first the review part of things: I loved this movie. It hit me as resonantly as possible as, like Andy, I'm going to college soon. I found the jokes and situations funny and the drama emotionally effective. That said, as I said, I'm doing an interpretation, not a review, so besides that final rating, I'm not going to go into detail. If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to go watch it. The 3D is minimal, and I'd yell about it being a ripoff if the movie wasn't high enough quality to be worth the extra $2.
If you have not seen the movie, stop reading now. Like, seriously. Right now. Major, extreme plot details are about to be revealed and picked over. The imagery and intent of certain scenes will be revealed. THE FOLLOWING IS A SECRET BLOG. MORTALS DARE NOT ENTER. I PREPARED EXPLOSIVE RUNES THIS MORNING.
One more disclaimer: an interpretation of a work is not necessarily the only interpretation. Also, an interpretation need not be a decoding of a deliberately placed message. I wrote a paper (one I quite enjoyed) about the similarities between Heart of Darkness and The Myth of Sisyphus, even though Heart of Darkness was written fifty years earlier than Myth of Sisyphus. Ideas can be applied to good art even if the creator was never aware of them.
Right, so. Humanism in Toy Story 3. Thesis material right here. If you are the intended age for Toy Story 3 (hint: late teens), you should be smart enough to pick up the underlying themes of mortality and loss. In particular, the toys in this movie must deal with the end of their careers as playthings. After a long twilight as their owner matured away from them, Andy packs for college and leaves them behind. It would be an understatement to say that this carries the same connotations as death--the toys deal with it exactly as a dying person would. At the beginning of the movie, they're expecting a long stay in the attic, with a faint hope for an afterlife in the form of Andy's potential children. However, only Woody really believes in this--the other toys are clearly not entirely happy with the possibility.
After some typical cartoon misunderstandings, the toys end up in a daycare, where they meet the most hateable character in modern cinema. I'll talk about him in a second. At the daycare, they have to choose--do they remain here, or do they return to a life that seems set to end quite quickly? Woody basically clashes with Buzz here. Buzz feels that "we have to do what's best for everyone," while Woody feels that "we are still Andy's toys." You can feel the tension between Buzz's utilitarian viewpoint and Woody's ideal of devotion.
Now, while watching the movie, at first I thought it was going to antagonize my humanist side. You see, Lotso makes a comment early on: "Here at Sunnyside [Daycare], we have no owners. We own ourselves. We choose our own fate, we're masters of our own destiny." And, honestly, I can see me saying that. I probably have said that at some point in my life. Disregarding higher powers in a sense of self-ownership certainly rings of humanism. However, on today's re-viewing, I realized that this shouldn't bother me. You see, Lotso may speak humanist rhetoric at times, but ultimately...he's a filthy lying dictatorial scumbag teddy bear. Who smells of strawberries. The point that really divorced him from my personal thoughts was when he threatens to throw the toys away. (They are attempting to escape his regime, which basically consists of having new toys beaten to death by three-year-olds.) He explains to them "You'll just get thrown away! You're just trash, that's all a toy is." At that point, it's pretty clear that Lotso isn't a humanist--he's a nihilist, and not the kind Nietzsche would be proud of. He accomplished "escape from traditional values" but failed the part of the Ubermensch exam where you create new ones to fill the void.
So we have a nihilist main villain. What about the actual toys themselves? As I said, Woody--the franchise's main character--is at first highly opposed to them leaving Andy, even if Andy intends to leave them. (Unwittingly, in his defense.) However, once he learns of the situation inside of Sunnyside, he goes back to them, judging their escape to be worth risking his ascension of following Andy back to college. That escape eventually leads them to the dump, where they face an incinerator--any treatment of death at this point ceases to be metaphorical. In fact, this scene may be the most hellish thing I've ever seen in a movie at least partially for children. Faced with a very literal realization of a very hard existential truth, the movie makes a heartwarmingly humanist gesture. The toys hold hands, and prepare to face their end--together. Even in the face of death (I am almost tempted to interpret the scene as, literally, Hell. It is that fiery) they find value and comfort in the relationships they have forged with each other. And, in the end, through the efforts of their fellow beings, they escape. Notably, they escape to actual daylight, which Rex had thought he'd seen earlier when he saw the incinerator. Hope in the face of death is transmuted into actual hope.
Finally, as the story draws near a close, Andy has two boxes. A "college" box contains Woody. Another box contains every other toy, and is being donated to a local girl. The final scene consists of Andy describing each toy and its role. When he gets to the bottom of the box, he finds that Woody has switched boxes. Hesitant at first, he eventually relents. While I think I could have done a post about Andy's growth in the story, it's Woody's choice that carries more significance here. He chooses to forgo what the toys once saw as ascension. Instead, he chooses to continue on the front lines of playtime, putting value and stock in the relationships he forges with his fellow beings, and realizing that all things, eventually, must end--but that new things can begin.
The interpretation is not perfect. Children, in real life, are not gods. Children in Toy Story do not quite approximate them. But I see the children as being largely unimportant in the grand scheme of the story--by the end of the movie, Sunnyside is a happy place again, even if it does not involve a personal relationship with a child. The contrast is between Lotso, who savagely hoards control and domination over his fellow toy, and Woody, who realizes that only in his family and friends can he actually fulfill himself. I think that's a very humanist message, and yet a very universal one. Dammit Pixar. Stop rocking.
Well, that's enough pseudo-intellectual analysis of Pixar movies for one night. Tomorrow's topic is, uh...definitely going to be thought of by then.
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