Toy Story 10th Anniversary Edition

Click to Buy	Ratings Summary (Scored out of a maximum of five)
	Audio		Video
	Goodies		Interface
	Value

The Movie

My two older boys and I absolutely love Toy Story, and I cannot believe
that it has already been 10 years since it was released in the theaters.
What has also surprised me is how well this movie still plays in repeated
viewings, and believe me, with two young boys, I have watched it a lot
over the last almost five years since it was originally released on DVD.
Given all the DVDs in my library Toy Story and Toy Story 2
are still the most frequently requested discs.

© Disney.

I’m sure most of you are probably fairly familiar with the plot of Toy
Story, so rather than reiterate it for those that are not familiar
or have not watched it in years, I am going to refer you to my previous
review of the original three disc collector’s from November 2000 (link).
All you really need to know, though, is that this wonderful movie has
a simple, solid story with fun and memorable characters, and if you have
not seen this, you should do yourself a favor and see it.

The Goodies

So, how does Pixar attempt to best “The Ultimate Toy Box” from
a few years ago (link)?
Well, it appears that you split the old three disc set into two 2-disc
sets, one for Toy Story and one for Toy Story 2 (coming
in December). Each 2-disc set has one disc mostly dedicated to a spiffed
up version of the movie and another disc containing a slew of bonus material.

Owners of “The Ultimate Toy Box” are probably wondering, as
was I, how much of the bonus material is redundant. Well, here’s a quick
list of some of the major goodies that have been carried over to this
new set:

• Filmmaker Commentary with John Lasseter (Co-Writer/Director), Andrew
  Stanton (Co-Writer), Pete Docter (Supervising Animator), Ralph Eggleston
  (Art Director), Bill Reeves (Supervising Technical Director), Ralph Guggenheim
  (Producer), Bonnie Arnold (Producer)
• Randy Newman song demos
• Sound design featurette
• Design galleries (artwork has been put in new slideshows rather than
  static screens)
• Production featurettes (production/animation tours, layout, multi-language
  reel)
• Story featurettes (“Green Army Men” pitch, storyreels)
• Publicity featurettes (trailers, TV spots)

Now, there are probably a lot of you that either did not have a DVD player
about three years ago when the Toy Story DVDs were put “back
in the Disney Vault” or did not buy the collector’s editions back
then, so all of this great stuff is new. To get the rundown on the goodies
I just listed, though, please check out my review of the Ultimate Toy
Box. It’s all good.

With the additional disc capacity of two whole discs, there are a few
really cool new additions that will please first-time set owners as well
as those of you that already own the old Toy Box. The first of them is
an updated “Making Toy Story” featurette that includes some
new behind-the-scenes footage as well as some of the older footage. It
is a fun and interesting overview to the production of Toy Story,
and it is a great place to start if you are not familiar with the behind-the-scenes
aspects of this movie. Then there is a neat featurette with Art Director
Ralph Eggleston and his team reflecting on the challenges they endured
to create the amazing Toy Story world and characters.

There is also an interesting featurette on the legacy of Toy Story
that includes recent interviews with John Lasseter, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen,
George Lucas, Peter Jackson and others. Each of the interviewees relay
their memories and perspectives on the impact that Toy Story has
made on storytelling, computer animation, and a number of other interesting
topics. I always hope that something like this is included on an anniversary
edition DVD, and I am happy to report that this one perfectly hits the
spot.

On a more personal and rather sad note, one of my absolute favorite bonus
items is the “Filmmakers Reflect” featurette. This seemingly
all-too-short segment features John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor—and
Joe Ranft, who was recently and tragically killed in a car accident. I
was absolutely absorbed by these four friends discussing the ups and downs
they experienced from filling shopping carts at Toys R Us with the company
credit card to the day Disney shut down the production. It is a fascinating
perspective, and it really makes you appreciate the genius and drive behind
this movie.

While the tone of the entire discussion is very loose and fun, I still
find it a bit sad to watch and listen to the lively stories from Joe Ranft
knowing that his wonderful talents have been lost but definitely not forgotten.
One other touching clip on the DVD highlighting Joe in action is the “Green
Army Man” story pitch, which shows Joe making the exuberant storyboard
pitch to the production team. He was a key player not only behind the
scenes with the stories, but familiar characters Heimlich, Wheezy, Jacques,
and others. While Pixar and these characters will never be quite the same
without him, he has left a legacy that we can all enjoy for years to come.

The Video, Audio, and Interface

As I stated in my review from five years ago, the audio and video transfers
for the first DVD were phenomenal, and I could not really imagine them
getting better. With this 10th anniversary edition, both the video and
audio have been spruced up with remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS
5.1 ES audio tracks, and the video transfer has been encoded with the
highest bit rate ever used on a Disney/Pixar film. The latter feature
basically means that more disc space is dedicated to ensuring the image
quality is the best.

I will admit, as I always have, that I have a rather modest home theater,
and it is by no means high-end. I don’t have a widescreen HDTV, matched
surround speakers, or even a component video connection from my DVD player.
If you have a family like mine, though, you probably would not want to
invest too much in your home theater setup until your children are old
enough to stop poking their fingers in your speaker cones or dropping
Legos in your surround speaker ports.

© Disney.

However, it is good enough for me to discern between poor, marginal,
and very good audio and video transfers. Given the aforementioned sprucing
up, I was very interested to see if I could tell the difference between
my old copy of the Ultimate Toy Box and this new 10th anniversary edition.
I played a couple of scenes back to back and examined them very carefully,
and I have to say that I did not see any obvious differences between the
two video transfers. For smaller TVs or computers, the difference is even
more difficult to resolve. Also, the audio on the new set seemed to have
a bit more active surrounds, but I did not detect any major differences.

While I am sure that there have been technical improvements to both the
video and audio transfers on this new set, it may be that my lack of higher-end
equipment is limiting my ability to observe the improvements relative
to the old set. For example, the anamorphic widescreen video has to undergo
some on-the-fly processing to make it fit in my standard 4:3 ratio TV,
and that process alone could compromise the subtle video differences enough
that I could not differentiate the two transfers. For most of you with
typical family home theaters, though, you can rest assured that the 10th
anniversary edition will provide a spectacular presentation of the movie,
but if you already have the old DVD set and a less-than-reference home
theater, you should not expect this new set to provide much more than
what you already have. However, if you have the latest and greatest home
theater, then this new set may have that extra oomph that will max out
your system. [Don’t tell my wife, but I think I need to go get a better,
bigger, wider TV in the name of home theater research. Think she’ll buy
it?]

As for the interface, it is simply perfect. The menus on both discs feature
plentiful animation and audio, and they are all well laid out and easy
to navigate. There should not be any problem for anyone in the family
to find their way around to their favorite scene or goodie.

The Final Evaluation

If you do not already own Toy Story, then you definitely need
to go pick this set up, as you will not regret it. The presentation is
top notch, and there are plenty of goodies for everyone in the family.
If you already have the Ultimate Toy Box from several years ago, then
the decision becomes a tad more muddy. If you are interested in getting
the ultimate video and audio transfer, then this new set is a must, but
if you are satisfied with the Toy Box and do not have a widescreen TV,
then you should at the very least rent the new set just to check out the
new goodies. Regardless, this is a wonderful set of discs for a wonderful
movie, and it should be in just about every family’s DVD library.