Ah, how do you rate a classic?

The animation-dazzling, all except for organic things. Since most of the stuff was plastic anyway, it didn't really look that bad. The story was so original it isn't even funny. It was fun, funny, and the voice acting was near perfect. Pixar had done it...for the first time. The very first full length CGI animated movie - brilliant.

I've always enjoyed this movie. The storyline was great, the characters had depth, and the graphics, at the time, were amazing.

The story was strong and had a good moral. The main characters had depth and even some of the secondary characters too. The voice actors did an excellent job and fit their roles.
The score was nice and different from the normal disney film. The songs that were in it, weren't sung by any of the characters too, which was nice.
The graphics, at the time, were amazing. The first animated film to be animated entirely by computer. Even now it still looks great.

Overall it's a really great film, and definitely worth owning.

It's amazing how far technology has come concerning computer animated movies. Technology-wise, today's computer animated movies have more calculations per second, more layers, and more miniscule details than Toy Story. Watching Toy Story on the Disney Channel, I almost had to rub my eyes to make sure the shiny, sparkly graphics I remembered them to be hadn't lost its lustre. And yet for all the advancements, computer animation still can't replicate the feeling of mass and fluidity of motion that expertly wrought hand drawn animation can in movies like Bambi. Everything computer animated just feels too much like plastic. Which is why Toy Story might be considered leagues above all other computer generated movies simply for the fact that toys make the perfect things to bring to life inside a computer. They're already plastic. It also didn't hurt that this movie had such great characters and personalities. Toy Story is Pixar's least cliched movie, except for the presence of "I'm gothic and mean just to fill a spot" Sid. I must admit that even considering Toy Story, I have never seen a computer generated human that didn't trigger a "that's just positively wrong and hideous" flag in my brain. The flying segment of Buzz is an obvious copout, but that's a minor quibble. Toy Story isn't as funny as I remembered it, but therein lies the rub of the film. It doesn't try to push "hipness" as hard as their subsequent movies or other CGI films but instead concentrates on the interactions and relationships of the characters. That should be commended more nowadays.

(edited grade to 3.5: May 08)

As was probably the case with so many people, this was the film which changed my mind about CGI. Perhaps it helped that the characters were toys, who had predominantly hard, non-organic surfaces which didn't suffer from the artificial feel of CGI - but 'Toy Story' had so much more going for it than that.

The characters - all of them - are just great. The funny ones still have depth - there are no gratuitous comic sidekicks - and the serious ones are funny! The jealousy and competition between Woody and Buzz is wonderfully done Woody's feelings of uselessness and rejection are genuinely moving without being cloying or pathetic, and (this might even be a first) for once the hero (and I'm assuming Woody is the hero) isn't a down and out, kind-hearted loser. In fact he's inclined at times to be spiteful, sarcastic and smart-arsed. The fact that most of it goes over Buzz's head just makes it even better. With 'Toy Story', Pixar present us with a quite unusual and multi-faceted hero, who is all the more believable and sympathetic because of it. Rather than a big-hearted sap who just can't help being good, we have a hero who teeters at times on the brink of arrogance. His battle to find his better qualities is a real achievement for this movie.

Similarly, Buzz's sudden reality check when he realises Woody was right about him all along: that he's just one of a half million factory produced toys, not an actual superman, has genuine pathos. No mean feat, either. See what I mean about characters being multi-faceted?

Happily the list of achievements don't stop there. The plot, the action, the pacing and timing, the humour, it's all first-rate And most memorably perhaps, the poignancy of the loss of innocence, of the toys as metaphors, perhaps, for what gets left behind when childhood ends it's powerful stuff. Compare this with the typical 'coming of age' story, where the teenage hero simply overcomes some psychological or physical obstacle and becomes a man/woman/goat/submarine/whatever.

Not only was 'Toy Story' a landmark film - the first to really put the scarers on the traditional animation studios- it's also a considerable artistic triumph, with deeper resonances which only grow over the years with reflection and repeated viewings.

And if that wasn't enough, they turned around and made a sequel which was even better.

You may have noticed I don't give out the four stars very often. Take a picture.

I'll admit I'm a "tech junkie" and when I first went to see Toy Story it was mostly because it was "the first entirely computer generated movie." I was expecting to be dazzled by this next leap in computer animation but only moments into the film I found myself completely caught up in the story. The characters have an amazing amount of depth whether it's Woody feeling lonely and leftout after Andy finds a new favourite toy or Buzz's identity crisis when he realizes he's not really a galactic hero. There is also some absolutely hilarious scenes like the little green aliens and the toys getting back at Sid. Sure, the animation is impressive but it's the story that makes this movie.