I’m trying to remember if he was in the Pizza Planet excursion. I can’t recall.
Nope. There is no dad present in any of the movies.
whoa nellie, that was a tough ending. i always feel bad for the horse when woody leaves him behind.
i figured that andy’s dad was “gone”, died, left, divorced, something. i also thought that dad was woody’s original owner and that was part of the reason andy was expecially taken with him. woody is a vintage toy.
Excellent point. It could have been one of the only connections between Andy and his Dad.
Yep, that’s him. 
one thing i thought of late last night.
the puppy sure got older… he has to be around 10ish… poor andy is gonna have to say goodbye to his dog soon, and he won’t have woody around to help him with that.
I was blown away by how the final scene when Andy gives his toys away broke me down. When he was riding Woody on his back like he did in the opening of TS1, just beautiful. Caught me completely off-guard and I was a blubbering mess.
The incinerator scene was touching and fitting, but I have to say, my one big fault with the movie was their being saved by the claw; it was too big of a stretch for me given the level of “reality” of the movie’s setting. Those little green guys would not have been able to get through the dump, find the control room, figure out how to operate it and save the toys. Obviously, something had to save them – it’s Toy Story, after all – but this came off to me as a literal and figurative Deux ex Machina. Besides, wouldn’t the aliens toys just have just sat underneath it waiting to be lifted up?
And this bugged me in TS2 also: in TS1, it was truly tragic that they could be “Lost Toys!” and that struck me as a legitimate plight for a toy, but then in the sequels they’re able to drive home from the airport and make their way home from a dump. A little too easy (even with trash truck showing up on cue).
Speaking of the dump and the trash truck, wow, very intense, very dark. Great stuff.
Thank you for pointing out Sid to me. I was wishing, post viewing, he had made a cameo, and I wish it had been a little more clear; they could have ramped that up a little and gotten a better comedic payoff. Plus, Sid was a lot more clever than his destiny of becoming a trash collector: he could have at least gotten a job working in TV.
Still, excellent movie. Kudos to you Pixar folks. Bravo!
The incinerator kind of creeped me out, to be honest. I kind of thought they might ACTUALLY get melted down and the recycled plastic would go to make new toys that new people would play with, made up of a little bit of each one.
Then again, I don’t think that would really work for a kid’s movie.
I loved it. I cried several times. I took the kids’ growing up and outgrowing the toys as a metaphor for how children eventually don’t need their parents any more. Like some day, my beautiful little kid who thinks I am the most awesome thing ever, is just going to be too old, go off to college. Hopefully I won’t be locked in a box in the attic, but I think the metaphor comes through.
The movie was about how there are huge changes in life, expected or not, and the capacity to cope with those changes. Andy bringing Woody to college wasn’t too much for me to swallow, as I can understand wanting to have something familiar and comforting and kinda cool. But Andy saw the girl, saw his future and he saw he was an adult and embraced it, not bringing Woody and passing the torch. Lotsa Hugs couldn’t cope with not being Daisy’s favorite and went lotsa nuts. Woody could have fallen apart with Bo, but he remained true to Andy.
One of the things I loved most was the very first shot of the very first scene of TS1 was the clouds on blue sky wallpaper. The very last shot of the very last scene of TS3 was white clouds on a blue sky. I liked it being bookends and it gave it a nice visual closure.
When Lotsa Hugs, Big Baby, and Chuckles were hop ons, did anyone else notice they were riding on the bumper of the Pizza Planet truck?
I loved when the toys were in the yard and Big Baby heard them and they hid and Big Baby peered over the wall, very reminiscent of the Nazgul in LOTR: FOTR.
There were so many little things like that I’m sure I missed. Like I didn’t register the Emperor/Vader aspect of the dumpster scene.
I spend a lot of time around preschool kids and watching them come in and tear through those toys? I was dying laughing. That is how they can act. And you really felt what it was like from the toys’ perspective. Toddlers are scary!
Although this was a sequel, I think it could have stood on its own as a movie, or close to it.
I won’t go see it again in theaters, but I can’t wait for it to come out on various disc formats and watch it again for those little subtleties that I’m sure I missed.
Saw it today and loved it! Had to wipe away tears a few different times. The garbage incinerator scene was quite dark and disturbing. Yikes what a scary place to get trapped in. I marveled at the quality of some of the animation, especially Lotso’s fur when it started to rain. The short film “Day & Night” that played before the feature was excellent as well.
I love that they had a Totoro doll! I have one of those on my desk right now! I wonder if they added that as a homage to Miyazaki.
The baby and that monkey. *That monkey will haunt me. *
And I thought the movie was very dark but fun. Lotsa was just so softly evil that I loved it. Thought there might have been a big fight scene, but not in a kids movie, I guess. Everything with Ken made me laugh.
I was surprised that there weren’t “outtakes” at the end, though.
And the “Night and Day” short was AMAZING, in some ways more amazing than the film. Maybe a little heavy-handed, but amazing.
Spanish Buzz dancing reminded me of Jack Black.
The bad toys were great, especially the cymbal monkey and the perfectly addled-looking big baby with one half-open eye. Classic.
I went with my twin 7 y.o. girls. By the end both were on my lap and one was sobbing, starting at when Andy’s mother said goodbye when he left for college. I think they’ll think more charitably of it later, but they said they didn’t like it, I think mainly because of the end.
I don’t really know the other two very well. This one I saw in theater in 3D glory and the others I caught bits and pieces of over the years.
I thought the incinerator scene was great when Buzz, who always had an idea to get out of a jam had that “I don’t have anything else” look and just held hands with the rest.
Very original and clever. And a great use of 3D without being gimicky.
Loved the movie. Might be my favorite of the 3. The tortilla was genius. Spanish Buzz was hilarious. And the opening sequence fantastic. I cried like a baby from the incinerator on.
Other than failure to press the button at the end, I’m not sure Lotso was that villainous. After all the Caterpillar room needs toys, and there doesn’t seem to be a fair way to do it. Start at the bottom and, (if you survive), get a transfer seems as good a way as any.
Yeah, but the compromise and sharing approach they chose under the Barbie and Ken leadership was denied them under Lotso. It was democracy versus dictatorship.
I hope you sat through the credits sequence to catch that development.
Feel like spoilering this for those of us that didn’t sit through the credits?
Did you stay through the credits? There was a whole little mini-movie during it.
And I agree about Night and Day. That was really neat!
The toys get a letter from the day care. It is on pink paper in crayon in frilly writing saying everything is going well, the place has reformed with Barbie and Ken in charge. You see footage of life at the day care. The toys now take short turns in the caterpillar room, actually tagging out when they can’t take anymore. Repair and maintenance are provided for everyone now, and the sandbox has become an R&R facility. You see after hour parties, including a fun disco scene. Cut back to the main toys who comment on how nice it was to hear from Barbie, when one of the point out the signature is Ken with little hearts all over the place
Nothing big happened, it was just brief follow-up clips of the toys’ new lives with Bonnie, and those at the Daycare (now with Barbie and Ken in charge) while a Randy Newman song played.
Yup, they thanked him in the credits.
So, I just saw it today and loved every minute of it. The initial action-flashback was loads of fun and from then on the pace gradually picked up and up until the super-emotional ending that made me get a lot of something in my eye. I saw it with my parents, and as I am about to move out of the house soon, she was crying during the scene between Andy and his mother in his desolate-looking room. Andy and Bonnie having a play together as a way of passing the torch also really tugged the 'ol heartstrings, and of course the incinerator scene has been mentioned so many times already… Did anyone else think of Dante or Gehenna?
As for the ending being a way of merely prolonging the inevitable trip to the dump for the toys, I don’t think that is entirely true. According to Wikipedia, Woody is a toy from Andy’s family, probably his father. Andy passes the toys on to Bonnie. It’s quite possible that one of Andy or Bonnie’s children will get the toys next, and so on so forth. While Omniscient’s post calling the trilogy a Greek tragedy was great, the trilogy also has aspects of Comedy as well. One thing I think everyone can agree on is that it’s very existential. I also don’t think it’s fair to call this a kid’s movie, although I’m glad some of us found it somewhat tolerable…
Anyway, other various things I liked:
Buzz’s budding romance with Jessie, along with his Spanish Mode
Cymbal-Monkey as security guard
Pricklepants asking Woody if he’s classically trained
Mr. Tortilla Head
The toys gambling with a Speak-N-Spell
The bookworm thinking Ken wore high heels.
The Vader/Palpatine homage, although I totally missed this in the theater.