Woody and his friends flip nostalgia switch

0 Comments | Express & Echo; Exeter (UK), Jul 23, 2010

THE third, and reportedly final, instalment in the Toy Story franchise is showing in cinemas from this weekend — and it threatens to hit a nerve, reports Shereen Low WATCHING 17-year-old Andy head off to college, leaving his toys — including Buzz Lightyear — behind for the final time, has had grown men choking into their hankies.

“It has had that effect on some men,” says director Lee Unkrich, unable to resist a grin. “The film deals with themes of childhood moving to adulthood, and I think that’s a hot button for a lot of people,” says Unkrich.

“We all look back on our childhoods with a degree of nostalgia…

so I think that aspect is making people very emotional.”

As Andy (voiced by John Morris) gets ready to leave home, he packs up his toys — except for Woody (Tom Hanks), who will join him for campus life — and prepares to store them, including Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), in the attic.

Fans have been waiting a long time to see this film.

“We didn’t mean for it to take 11 years,” the director explains. “We actually wanted to make another Toy Story after we made the second one and we had some ideas, but there were a lot of legal wranglings between Disney and Pixar which prevented us from making the film for a long time.

“Finally, four years ago, in 2006 — when Disney bought Pixar — those problems went away and freed us up to make Toy Story 3.”

Even the film’s leading men, Hanks and Allen, got impatient. “They really wanted to make a third film for a long time. Tim Allen called us constantly saying: ‘When are you going to make Toy Story 3?’ “So it was great to let them know it was finally go. They are very proud to be a part of creating Woody and Buzz Lightyear and they love playing them, so it was really a joy for them to be in the recording studio again.”

Unkrich, who co-directed the second outing with John Lasseter and Ash Brannon, counts the long wait as “a blessing in disguise”.

He explains: “We had this new distance from the characters.

So when we started to think up ideas, we very quickly came to the idea of having Andy grown up and heading off to college — it really felt like that many years had actually passed since we made the last film
toy watch