Some fans believe Buzz Lightyear is in denial that he is a toy. This would explain why he claims to not be a toy, yet knows to freeze when humans are around. Others believe that he freezes just to fit in with the "planet's" culture, as exemplified when he calls Andy "[their] chief".
Many fans don't think that Sid is necessarily evil. He's just a kid who is wildly creative and inventive. Though he may have a destructive streak, he isn't just out to blow up toys for the fun of destruction; he wants to see what makes them tick, and how to make them cool and different. Some have gone on to say that the Mutant Toys are, in fact, art pieces with very deep meanings. Plus, Sid had no idea the toys were alive, and his parents don't seem to pay much attention to him and Hannah, so he's also probably acting out for attention. In fact, aside from the cruel but darkly hilarious prank he plays on his sister, Sid doesn't do anything wrong. His destruction of toys comes out of both creativity and Parental Neglect. Also, he seems to love his dog, and as of Toy Story 3he grows up to be a productive member of society as a garbage collector, who even rescues toys from the dump. Given how many toy collectors love to customize their toys in various ways including dismantling and modifying them, Sid was just ahead of the curve.
When Etch A Sketch drew a hangman's noose which Woody saw before Andy took him to Pizza Planet, did Etch did it because he believed like most toys that Woody had intentionally knocked Buzz off the window or because Mr. Potato Head forced him to do it? The fact that he is one of the toys who doesn't speak precludes the viewers from visualizing his feelings.
When Woody reveals to him the true nature of toys, Sid is traumatized because of what he's been doing. He's rambunctious but not sadistic, as evidenced by his love for his dog, so when he realizes that everything he's done was happening to living things he understands his actions and completely freaks out (assuming he wasn't freaking out over the realisation that he was about to get his comeuppance).
Sid also has multiple locks on his door and the one scene where a parent is shown, his dad could be seen as being drunk or hung over. Victims of abuse often lash out at others, and Sid's disturbed "play activities" with his toys could be his way of taking out his feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, especially since he is always the one "in control" of his imagined scenario.
The creators were fully aware of this and like to joke that Sid is "the kind of kid who would grow up to be an animator." They give an adult Sid a brief cameo in Toy Story 3, where we see him working as a garbageman. Though he comes off as something of a metalhead, there's no indication that he grew up to be anything other than a normal, well-balanced adult.
Why is Mr. Potato Head at his surliest in the first movie? It could be chalked up to him not having a significant other until the very end or him getting sick of being mishandled by Molly. However, eight years before the movie was made Hasbro removed the pipe from the real toy's play set. Perhaps his giving the other toys and especially Woody an attitude was an effect of Going Cold Turkey.
Mr. Potato Head responding to Buzz giving his backstory with "I'm from PlaySkool" - an example of Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, or did Potato Head just have his Sarcasm Mode turned on?
When Potato Head gestures to Slinky Dog, then removes his own lips and presses them against his butt, is he calling Slinky a "kiss-ass" due to Slinky defending Woody, or is he saying that Slinky can kiss his ass because of Slinky telling him to lay off Woody.
Mr. Potato Head is shown giving Hamm his nose after Hamm sinks one of his vessels while the two are playing Battleship. Was this based on a wager the two made, or were they playing "Strip Battleship"?
"Snub" might be too strong a word to describe Toy Story's Oscar success considering it did win a Special Achievement award and was nominated for three more including Original Screenplay. Nevertheless, it didn't receive a Best Picture nomination despite it being one of the most —if not the most—acclaimed films of 1995, and is today considered one of the greatest animated films ever made, if not films in general.
A retro-example. Randy Newman won a Best Song Oscar for Toy Story 3's "We Belong Together" instead of winning for the arguably more iconic "You've Got a Friend in Me" for this film.
The film was nominated for Favorite Movie in the 1996 Kids' Choice Awards, but it lost to Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.
The film lost the Golden Globe for Best Picture: Comedy/Musical to Babe. And while the latter film is certainly a classic in it's own right, it's never garnered the same status that Toy Story has.
Awesome Music: Randy Newman has had plenty of music to his name, but this is the movie that put him on the map. Amongst his biggest hits:
"You've Got a Friend In Me" is the most iconic song of The Power of Friendship, and the defining theme of all the Toy Story series for years to come.
"Strange Things", a haunting but yet powerful rock ballad about Woody slowly losing everything he has to Buzz.
"I Will Go Sailing No More", a tragic look as Buzz undergoes Sanity Slippage upon learning he's really a toy.
"To Infinity and Beyond", a triumphant moment that cements Woody and Buzz surviving a narrow brush with death and flying—er, falling with style to return to Andy as Fire-Forged Friends.
And let's not forget the score used for the Green Army Men's recon mission, "Code Red", which makes the scene even more memorable while Sarge and his troops sneak downstairs to see what Andy's getting for his birthday.
Sid Phillips. Depending on whom you ask, his Creepy Child tendencies either make him one of the best or worst Pixar villains.
Mr. Potato Head. He's the defining character for Don Rickles, but does his cynical and snarky attitude in making fun of Woody (even if some of his criticisms were spot on) make him entertaining to watch, or hard to root for when he turns the other toys against Woody?
Broken Base: Did the film reinvent feature animation, or did it kill traditional animation films and open the floodgates to all the bad CGI ones?
Common Knowledge: Many fans and critics tend to claim Andy bought Buzz Lightyear. However, Andy didn't buy Buzz at all, it was a birthday gift given to him by his mom, meaning she is the one who bought Buzz, not Andy himself (who would be too young to buy his own things, given that he was only 10). This misconception is particularly bizarre given that the first few minutes of the film take place on Andy’s birthday and make it abundantly clear that Buzz was a birthday gift.
Crosses the Line Twice: Woody using Buzz's dismembered arm to convince the other toys that they've become friends. Also, he uses the arm to hit Buzz in the head to make him come to his senses. It's disturbing the more you think about it, but not any less hilarious.
Dancing Bear: The biggest selling point was that it was the first entirely CGI feature-length film. Albeit the story and characters were certainly more instrumental in the critical acclaim, and help make the film endure as the technological novelty wore off.
Designated Villain: Although Sid is presented as a budding sociopath, he can't be faulted for how he treats his toys since he doesn't know they are alive. Another thing he knowingly does is bully his sister Hannah. Ironically, many Pixar employees said that they too used to mess with their toys and call Andy a "freak" for treating his toys so nicely.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Legs, the fishing rod with a pair of Barbie legs, is perhaps the most popular of the mutant toys created by Sid. A popular meme surrounding the character is how she's supposedly a pun off of the word "hooker".
Fanfic Fuel: The origins of Sid's mutant toys. What did the toys that make up their mis-matched bodies used to look like before they were dismantled? What kind of "games" were Sid playing whilst taking each toy apart?
When Woody asks Sid's toys for help saving Buzz, Babyface (the erector set spider with the baby doll head) taps a morse code on the leg of Sid's bed, which translates out to "RR COME OUT."
During his drunken Mrs. Nesbitt rant, Buzz calls the two headless dolls seated at the tea party with him "Marie Antoinette and her little sister". Marie Antoinette and her "little sister" Élisabeth of France were sisters-in-law through King Louis XVI, and both women were beheaded in the French Revolution.
Genre Turning Point: This most notably applies in that the film marked the beginning of the shift from hand-drawn to CG animation for most theatrically-released animated films, but it applies in many other aspects as well:
The overwhelming majority of Disney's prior animated canon — and a decent majority of animated films in general — took place in fantasy worlds, often based in medieval times. This film's contemporary American setting would become more the norm in the decades ahead, though there have still been plenty of films with fantasy settings (albeit usually done in a more self-aware manner, thanks to the success of the Shrek films).
In prior Disney films, as well as those which tried to copy their formula, the musical numbers generally took up around a third to a half of the runtime. This was especially true in the early 1990s, where these films often tried to emulate Broadway musicals. Toy Story heavily scaled it back and went with a more dialog-focused approach, with only a couple of musical numbers, something which became much more standard for animated films starting in the following decade.
The songs in Toy Story are not sung by the characters themselves, but by Randy Newman narrating the characters' thoughts. This would greatly influence how songs would be handled in the next decade's animated films; Tarzan (Phil Collins) and Over the Hedge (Ben Folds) are notable examples of this format, while Shrek would evolve this further into the more common variant of using pre-existing songs by different artists. It wouldn't be until 2009's The Princess and the Frog — coincidentally also a Randy Newman score — that Disney would revive the "Broadway musical" format popular during the early '90s.
While The Lion King had been an earlier example of an animated film where most of the main characters were played by Celebrity Voice Actors who were more well-known for their live action work, while full-time voice actors were largely relegated to voicing minor characters, this was the film that cemented it as the standard approach for the industry.
When the toys are watching Andy's party guests arrive presents in hand, Hamm says they're "next month's garage sale fodder for sure." Come the second movie, Ms. Davis does hold a yard sale and the toys are naturally panicked by the possibility of being sold. None of Andy's (sentient) toys are taken to the sale except for Wheezy and Woody's rescue of him is what results in him being stolen by Al and kicking off the plot.
Try listening to Mr. Potato Head’s line “I hope Sid rips your voice box out” after watching Toy Story 4.
Woody twice misnames Buzz as "Lightbeer" and "Lightsnack." In Toy Story 2, when Stinky Pete calls him "Buzz Lightweight," Woody is quick to angrily correct him.
During Woody's bout of jealousy, Bo Peep tells him that, even though Andy's playing with Buzz more, he'll always have a special place for Woody. Come Toy Story 3, we see that Andy has the hardest time letting go of Woody.
Woody and Bo Peep having hints of romantic moments especially towards the end of the film becomes a lot more heartwarming when in Toy Story 4, they eventually do unite together for good after Bo's absence in Toy Story 3.
Mr. Potato Head correcting Woody calling him just "Potato Head" is much funnier after 2021, when Hasbro officially renamed the toy as such.
As a young boy who made a game out of torturing beings he thought couldn't feel pain or suffer just for fun, only to learn to his horror that they're real and alive, in retrospect, Sid looks like a prototype for Ken Ichijouji.
Jerkass Woobie: Woody. Despite how selfish and somewhat rude he can be, Woody is still a much more likable and sympathetic character than he was in the infamous Black Friday reel. Woody is now motivated not by malice, but by the misguided belief that Buzz is gonna replace him, and that Andy won't love him anymore, and even then did not intend to resort to the villainous extremes he is accused of doing by the other toys.
Honestly, Sid. He's horrible to Hannah, and to his toys (which, admittedly, he doesn't know they are sentient), but as he has multiple locks on his door, and his dog, Scud (who also could qualify) is terrified of Sid's sleeping dad, it's almost certain that Sid's personality is the result of some kind of abuse or neglect.
Misaimed Fandom: A harmless example: It's pretty obvious to an adult that Buzz is supposed to be a cheesy parody of the space hero archetype, who is completely deluded about himself, and rather buffoonish and obnoxious in his behavior. This hasn't stopped many kids from completely eating up the character at face value and finding him exactly as cool as the children in-universe do, almost ignoring the fact that his space adventure prowess isn't real in-universe. It's probably this kind of fandom that allowed Buzz's actual space adventure cartoonand movie to be made.
Once Original, Now Common: To the point where this film's relationship with the medium it pioneered is almost exactly the same as that ofSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the medium it pioneered 58 years earlier. For 1995, the CGI in the film was jaws-dropping when the film was unleashed in cinemas, and arguably holds up better than most CGI released back then. But for some people today, for example, new fans who watched Toy Story 3 first and worked backwards, the differences in animation can be hugely jarring. The outside scenes with a lack of....air (especially, if you look far enough into the corner of the screen, at certain angles, you can see where the environment cuts off into digital blue limbo), the plastic looking "humans", the rubbery texture (Scud the dog looks very dodgy compared to Buster in the sequels) and the somewhat 'basic' looking settings (the bit where Andy and his Mom pull into Dinoco service station looks incredibly dated). Though the Pizza Planet scenery still looks impressive.
The first film, among other popular toys promoted, dramatically boosted interest in generic old sets of plastic army men, a group of characters who only have one really notable scene early on (but it's a damn cool one).
Plus the shark who briefly steals Woody's hat. "Howdy, howdy, howdy!"
Out of the Ghetto: One of the biggest defiers in the realm of animation. In fact, one of the creators said that he knew that they had "made it" when he heard a group of adults at a party howling with laughter as they quoted this film. The all-star cast that only parents would be familiar with may have helped.
Paranoia Fuel: The first movie made kids suspicious of their toys for years to come.
The Green Army Men scaling down the stairs in Andy's House for their recon mission.
Woody meeting Buzz for the first time remains an iconic point for showing how these two characters first met.
Woody and Buzz's confrontation in the gas station, especially for the famous "You! Are! A! Toy!" line.
The scene of Buzz and Woody soaring through the air in the climax is the most triumphant moment of the film, and the most likely scene from the original film to show up in animation or film-related montages.
There is one shot in the film where they forgot to turn on the motion blur in the animation (the shot where Sid goes off to get pop tarts and Woody screams due to his forehead getting burned by a magnifying glass) and the animation is noticeably more jerky in the scene as a result. And in the same shot, if you watch carefully (or still frame it), Woody's leg actually clips through the camera as he runs offscreen! However, the original print did have the motion blur, so this may be the case of digital file transfer error.
The Blu-ray and 4K releases of the film bump up the resolution so much higher than previous releases note The original files were output at a sub-HD resolution for original film and video prints, and it wasn't remastered into a 2K format until the 2009 3D rereleasethat it reveals many of the shortcuts Pixar made just to get the film finished, such as very low resolution textures on certain objects like Sid's jeans, Mr. Potato Head's foot being detached from his body in his introduction and his hand clipping through his mouth as he grabs it in the "butt-kissing" gag, the backgrounds in certain outdoor scenes showing nothing but a blue void beyond the boundaries of the buildings, etc.
Foliage is another area where it's obvious that the team were butting up against the technological limitations of the time, with most of it being very lacking in any detail or texture. Notably, the trees in the yards next to Sid's would barely even pass muster in a PlayStation 1 game.
Strawman Has a Point: From Mr. Potato Head's viewpoint, he's completely correct. So far as he knows, Woody has become dangerous. He may not be giving Woody much of a chance to explain himself, but the fact still stands.
The humans in the film look almost as plastic as the toys do due to the CGI limitations of the time, this is most noticeable during outside scenes where humans are featured (the scene where Sid blows up Combat Carl is a notable example). This is the specific reason why a story about toys, with very limited human interaction, was used—their shiny, "plastic" appearance was easy to render on the computer.
Even more noticeable when you find out that Woody had the most complex model in the movie, according to the producers. There's something clearly wrong when the toys look more realistic than the humans!
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Sid really isn't as evil from a human perspective as he is from a toy perspective. He's definitely a brat, especially to his sister, and he does take sadistic pleasure in destroying his toys, but he has no idea that these toys are alive. The "operations" he does on his toys are actually fairly creative. With that in mind, it's easy to feel bad for him at the end, when the toys speak to him and threaten him, which is implied to be deeply traumatizing.
Values Dissonance: No matter how darkly comedic it really was, Etch-A-Sketch drawing a noose to threaten Woody would not be acceptable in a family film nowadays.
Visual Effects of Awesome: It's easy to take it for granted now, but Toy Story's CGI animation was absolutely groundbreaking for its time, to the point where it became an overnight game changer for the entire medium of animation—CGI up till then was still a technique in its infancy that had only shown glimmers of potential, and there just weren't CGI films as well animated, lit, or designed at the time, much less any that kept it up at feature length. The CGI was so advanced that it pushed the limits of what Pixar's then state of the art computers could do at the time—it took the whole array of Pixar's desktops and an insane amount of time to render even one of over 100,000 frames of the film's animation. The sheen may have worn off due to just how far CG tech has come since, but its a technical milestone regardless. And from an entertainment standpoint, the appealing cartoon art has helped take the burden off the aging CGI. And even today, video game fans are still using the film as a template for what real time video game graphics should strive to achieve (although its safe to say that the Toy Story level in Kingdom Hearts III has caught up with and even surpassed the film in technical quality).
It's hard not to feel sorry for Buzz when he learns the truth about the nature of his existence.
The downright miserable life Sid's toys live. Broken, mutilated and turned into Frankenstein's Monster-like abominations.
Hannah, who is bullied relentlessly by her older brother (who destroys her dolls). That is, until she gets revenge on him by scaring him with her own doll, after he's traumatized by the toys in the yard!
Slinky. Loyalty might as well be this dog's middle name, and he keeps it up to Woody, until he is met with "undeniable" evidence that Woody is guilty, which causes him to sadly walk away. Once he founds out the real truth, he goes to undeniable lengths to save Woody and Buzz.
The video game of the original movie
Broken Base: Between the SNES, Genesis and PC versions, there's a bit of contention over which is better:
The SNES version has the best graphics of the three and slightly longer levels than the Genesis version. However, it's missing both a main level ("Day-toy-na") and the Genesis version's bonus stagenote which, to be fair, are largely considered to be weak levels by those who have played them, so their absence may not necessarily be a problem for everybody. It has a few cutscene images removed. It has slightly inferior play control to the Genesis version, and it is missing a couple songs (namely the iconic "You've Got A Friend In Me", which plays during the other two versions' cutscenes, as well as the "Game Over" jingle of the other versions).
The Genesis version is missing no levels, and it has the best play control of the three. However, it also has the weakest graphics and sound.
The PC version has more detailed graphics than the Genesis, and it easily has the best soundtrack of the three versions. However, like the SNES version, it is missing both a main level (the fan favorite "Really Inside The Claw") and the bonus stage. The lack of 3D hardware support means that the game must be played in windowed mode for the graphics to not look too chunky and pixelated. It's missing some of the 3D effects from the console versions. And, while the game plays decently enough on a keyboard, a game controller really helps with the more precise jumps and grappling hooks required for a lot of the later levels.
Disappointing Last Level: Once you get out of Sid's house, the game takes a pretty major difficulty drop. First there's Day-Toy-Na, which has a nice aesthetic but wears its welcome really quick when it essentially feels like a lame Pole Position clone, and almost no fear of death because recharges are so frequent. Then comes Light My Fire, which brings back the widely-hated top-down RC segment except it's even easier this time and even more straightforward because the recharges are, again, extremely frequent which makes death a rarity. Then finally comes the last level, which is an Auto-Scrolling Level where all you really have to do is dodge traffic that isn't particularly hard to maneuver around. You may blow a life on it, but generally most people are able to easily make it through on their first try as long as they're careful not to go anywhere near the trees or cars.
The fact that a Game Boy port exists often catches people by surprise...and not for good reason. Obviously the graphics take a pretty huge hit, but the game itself is also agonizingly slow and the control is awful. That's not even getting into the fact that the game had to be so ridiculously stripped-down that it's pretty much a shell of its old self, with all the non-platforming levels and the bosses all completely axed from the game. Oh, and the sound design will make your ears bleed.
A bootlegged NES port exists, and it is even messier than the Game Boy version:
There's a hilariously Off-Model Woody on the title screen.
The in-game graphics are grungier than the official Game Boy version.
The music and sound effects are annoying (especially the ear-explodingly terrible title screen track) when they aren't being stolen from other places (several sound effects are from Adventure Island and the level complete music is the unmistakable Contra level complete theme).
There's Engrish everywhere (the gas pumps at the gas station have "Toy Sotry" written on them) and several of the level descriptions don't match the levels they are attached to.
There are only 5 levels, (the final level being the fight with Buzz at the gas station) and the game ends in a really goofy (albeit unsatisfying) A Winner Is You way:
Scrappy Mechanic: The RC is an absolute nightmare to control, with his levels being nearly universally hated.
Surprise Difficulty: Hooo boy. It's a Toy Story game...how hard can it be? The answer: Enough to give a lot of Nintendo Hard games a run for their money. Despite the target demographic, the game manages to put up a pretty good fight all the way through. The biggest issue is Woody's giant hitbox, made worse by the fact that it's hard to see what is coming up. Health refills and lives are very scarce too, so there is very little room allowed for messing up.
That One Level: Sid's Workbench is brutal, with annoying flaming projectiles coming up every which-way and almost no room to mess up. Oh, and there's an extra life at one checkpoint that requires you to take a big leap of faith to get...but you'll probably want to get it because you're going to die at that section a lot. A lot.
The Problem with Licensed Games / No Problem with Licensed Games: Overall, the game is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has very impressive visuals especially for the Genesisnote the SNES already had games like Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct by this time, but prerendered graphics were something completely new for the graphically inferior Genesis, a lot of level variety and a solid soundtrack. On the other hand, it also has slippery (though still functional) play control, problematic collision detection and cheap difficulty in parts.
Visual Effects of Awesome: This game boasts some pretty impressive graphical effects for a Genesis/SNES-era game. The digitized sprites already look quite nice, but there are also the 3D effects of all the scenery that give everything a Depth of Field look to it. Plus we have a Doom-esque level and Day-Toy-Na which has also has a 3D look of its own.
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