Saturday, May 30, 2009

Toy Story 3

I haven’t seen Up yet, but I did just watch the trailer for Toy Story 3.  Obviously, there’s a lot of potential there. The first two films in the Toy Story franchise were truly amazing.  Plus, trilogies are always great.  Things just seem to go nicely when the go in threes. 

 

However, trilogies can often be dangerous, and I hope Pixar Disney doesn’t botch it up.  Seriously, a number of famous franchises would have been better if they had just stopped.  For example, Spider Man 3 was so bad it not only ruined two hours of my life but also caused me to retrospectively doubt my love of Spider Man 2.  Return of the Jedi, while rounding out the Star Wars story, is fairly hollow when held up to The Empire Strikes Back.  And lets not forget the godfather of all botched trilogies, The Godfather Part 3.  Why didn’t Coppola just end it with Part 2?  How did anyone think that following up one of the most highly esteemed films of all time with mediocrity and boredom was a good idea?  How did they think following it up at all was a good idea?  As it is, the whole series is forever remembered by its high points and its low points. 

 

Given Pixar’s record, its unlikely that there will be as wide a disparity between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 as there is in the Spider Man or Godfather franchises.  On the other hand, even if Toy Story is only as good as, say, Cars, it will still be a huge let down.  Lets hope that Pixar isn’t just in this one for the money and that the curse of the third sequel doesn’t follow them as it has with so many others.   

4 comments:

  1. You liked the Empire Strikes Back better than Return of the Jedi?! Explanation please!

    ReplyDelete
  2. John, first, Empire Strikes Back is critically more esteemed. Check rottentomatoes.com to confirm this (b/c I didn't), but I'm pretty sure it is. Of course, that's not to say that means anything, but to me Empire really just cuts out all the extraneous stuff and gets to a compelling story. Its about relationships and character growth.

    In Jedi there's some good moments (the fight on the death star is cool), but the story seems get lost with the ewoks and what-not. The action is split all over the place and certain parts are definitely less cool than others. Also, the main character change in Jedi is Vader's but we haven't been set up for that like we were in Empire.

    Honestly, I need to go back and re-watch them though. Its literally been years. I remember liking Jedi more as a kid, but the only time I watched these movies as an adult I found myself gravitating toward Empire and am really going off that (mostly visceral) response and the reviews. I guess I'll have a topic for a new blog post once I've rewatched them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I need to rewatch them too - yeah, one summer my neighbor Lance and I watched the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Back to the Future trilogies over and over. We ate a lot of freezer pizza and drank a lot of Dr. Pepper, and when it got hot we'd go swim in the big irrigation ditch behind my house.

    I love watching any of those movies because it brings back all of those memories. I definitely favored Jedi as a kid, but yeah, I haven't seen Jedi or Empire lately at all. I'll have to rewatch them too.

    Although right now I'm really really into the original Star Trek series - it's free on Hulu. It is, wait for it, wait for it....... lightyears ahead of the original movies. I really am blown away at the philosophical nature of the original TV series, plus their uniforms are pretty much in style again, and they talk about sex a lot, so I'm fascinated.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I didn't know it was free on Hulu! There goes my thesis...

    But overall, I'm a fan of Star Trek over Star Wars mostly for that reason: that its based more on ideas than action. Star Wars is cool because its all about classic stories and archetypes and all that, but there's nothing as direct in it as there is in Star Trek. Like, I remember once seeing an episode when I was a kid (of the original series) about these two aliens who were half black and half white, and they hated each other. Even as a little kid I realized it was about racism and it blew my mind.

    ReplyDelete