It has taken a hundred years, but Pixar has released Toy Story 3 into the world.  I guess they wanted to finish their good movies before going back to the well to dredge up more of the same thing.

This movie was a cross between ‘a predictable boring story’ and ‘a waste of time.’  Pixar made no secret that the film was about what happens to toys when you go off to college.  They are stuffed in the attic, the garbage, or the goodwill box.  Sure it’s sad and nostalgic to dispose of all your old trash and I’m sure if you were an atomic living toy it would be even more depressing.  Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying “I can’t enjoy Futurama because one of the main characters is a cyclops” and I’m also not saying “I can’t enjoy Toy Story because Toys are inanimate objects.”  I can and will buy into the world that any film maker wants to force feed me. (That might be a lie)

The problem is the progression of the film is crystal clear.  You know exactly where the film will be taking you five minutes from now.  Then it takes ten minutes getting there.  The closest thing to an unforeseen event was when the pizza planet aliens came down with the claw.  Is that really hard to imagine happening?

After producing the film the three little pigs in 1933, Walt Disney was pressured to make a sequel due to the success of it.  Walt new that you wouldn’t be able to impress the public to the same level with the same thing.  To quote him on the topic, “You can’t top pigs with pigs.”

That’s exactly what Pixar is trying to do here.

Clearly I should be writing my reviews closer to when I actually watch the movie in question.  I was much more upset at the movie when it was fresh in my mind.

It was cool to see the Totoro in the film.

After a push from John Lasseter to get back to traditional animation, Disney has now released a new movie done in the traditional cell animation style.  Sure the studio used computers, but rather than being modeled and rendered in 3D software this movie has the traditional organic animation style to it.  If you haven’t seen this movie yet, then go.  It would be a good idea to bring a date.  She will love it.

The story goes mostly to the style of the classic princess fairytale storyline.  Not the fairytale of ‘The Frog Prince’ it does steer away and add some cool twists to that fable.  The classic princess and prince formula that was once the key to movies from Disney studios.

The girl who is called the princess actually isn’t a princess, but rather a hardworking girl from a poorer section of New Orleans.  The movie takes place in roughly the 20′s when people still liked jazz music.  Her main objective throughout the movie is to open a restaurant and make her dad proud.  So in order to do this she saves pennies, nickels, dimes, and dollar bills in jars.

Over the period of about 10 years she has just as many jars filled.  This is while working double shifts and not spending time or money on anything.  Why she didn’t convert her coins to cash is beyond me.  A couple of dollar bills stacked up would have taken a lot less space in her sock drawer.

When she gets closer to making her dream come true she gets transmogified into a frog.  Ouch!  There goes that dream!  But she doesn’t let her lack of humanity stand in the way, as she skips through the swamp collecting characters like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.

The animation on this movie is great.  It looks terrific.  The multiplane camera work was there.  The movements were believable.  This movie could have come out in the 40′s or 50′s when Disney was at it’s princess movie peak and it would fit right in.  I don’t claim to know anything about possible effects of the racial tensions of the time, so I am speaking solely of the look and style of the movie’s animation.  That and how clean and seamless the animation is would simply blow minds away.

Back to the story, one thing that is noteworthy is that the villian didn’t actually have any powers.  Spooky voodoo had powers and he could control them somewhat, but it put him in serious debt to the underworld.  The shadowman was a pupet, even if he didn’t believe it himself.  He was controlled by the man.  Then again, who isn’t?

There were quite a few references to the days of disney gone by.  My personal favorite was “The Firefly Five Plus Lou.’  Back in the heyday of Disney animation, a number of Walt’s 12 old men (his key animators) had a jazz group called “The Firehouse Five Plus Two.’  I was watching this movie and thinking about how much Walt would have liked it and how well it was made, but when that omage showed up, tears actually started down my face.  What a great way to honor these men.

Of course that was the big happy grand fanalie, so crying at that point made me look very out of touch with reality.  Just a few minutes before there was a really emotional part of the movie where an important character is on his deathbead.  Everyone else in the theater is sad and mopey, but I’m sitting there munching on popcorn.

With that, see this movie.  It is a princess movie.  It is a cartoon.  It is beautifuly.  Find an excuse to go see it.  Tell your friends you’re going to see Avatar again.  Then go see this movie.