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'Toy Story' Voted Best Pixar Movie By Internet

'Toy Story' Voted Best Pixar Movie By Internet

It may be 18 years old now, but Pixar's Toy Story changed the face of animation forever. Here's how.

James Dawson

James Dawson

If you're ever feeling a little too good about yourself, just remember that Toy Story is 18 years old now and that should swiftly bring you down a peg or two.

Yes, if it were a human being, it would be old enough to get served by even the most scrupulous of bar staff, but in its lifetime, Pixar's first feature film has achieved more than most human children its age could ever dream of.

Credit: Disney Pixar

Now, as if you weren't already aware of what a ground-breaking piece of cinema it was (I know that sounds ridiculous, but really, it was), Toy Story has been voted the best Pixar film of all time. And when you consider that the animation studio is behind such classics as Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and Up, that is not an accolade to be taken lightly.

The pivotal feature-length animation scored top spot on Ranker, a website where people of the internet can cast votes with no time limit, changing the results of lists in real time.

Credit: Disney Pixar

It's no wonder the title is all the way up there as voted by internet users across the globe. After all, it might have just been a kid's film, but it completely revolutionised animation and cinema in one fell swoop.

In the late 80s, Pixar's chief creative officer, John Lasseter, then a young animator, devoted most of his time to producing short animated films to demonstrate the power of the company's Pixar image Computer, using pioneering animation techniques.

"They were insane ideas at the time," Lasseter told Entertainment Weekly during a 2011 interview. "Digital nonlinear film editing, digital sound editing, digital optical printing, and 3-D computer animation.

"They were crazy, nutty ideas, and of course, that's [now] the way everything is made across the world."

After being blown away by its 1988 short film Tin Toy, which is told from the point of view of a toy, Disney approached the then fledgling studio to create a feature film.

Having had several ideas thrown out by Disney, the two companies eventually settled on creating a film based around the idea that toys are desperate for children to play with them and that it is a desire which drives everything they do.

Credit: Disney Pixar

Pixar then set to work creating the film with a relatively small team of employees.

Of course, Toy Story was an absolute smash hit. The animation was ground-breaking, the story-telling was completely immersive and the characters managed to be both relatable and likeable, despite being a bunch of plastic toys.

However, even Lasseter realised that, although the animation was cutting edge, there were still certain limitations.

"One of the things from the beginning that we recognised is that these are just tools," Lasseter told the Guardian. "That the technology never entertains an audience by itself. And for us, since we invented much of computer animation, we have a pretty good sense of what our tools can do.

Credit: Disney Pixar

"Like Toy Story - we couldn't do humans very well, so we kept them in the background, you just see feet and hands and stuff like that. But we could do plastic well, so making a film where the main characters were made of plastic was perfect."

Since Toy Story was made almost two decades ago (it never gets any easier, hearing that) animation has come on leaps and bounds - it's difficult to think of a kids' film these days that isn't, at least in part, animated.

Credit: Disney Pixar

However, it was this film, Pixar's first feature film that really got the bowl rolling. Sure, if Buzz, Woody and the gang had never existed, somebody else probably would've done similar, but honestly, we're glad it worked out the way it did.

Credit: Paddy Maddison

Featured Image Credit: Disney

Topics: Film, Entertainment, TV and Film, Pixar, Toy Story