#battlesaur

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

I was kind of thinking of something, randomly, concerning TOY STORY 5. Perhaps the most questionable upcoming Pixar film, and animated sequel period.

And this kinda ties in with the whole news swirl about Disney execs mandating Pixar to tone down all the directors' personal quirks in upcoming features...

I think about how Pixar is sometimes presented, aesthetically. That star ball that first appeared in their debut project, the 1986 short film LUXO JR., seems to dominate their name. Red, yellow, blue, loud primary colors.

Almost synonymous, and not so much the individual aesthetics of the films themselves. I feel I see this in the parks, social media stuff, etc. As if a Pixar film is a genre: Kooky "What if?" premises, tearjerker moments, cuddly characters, "relatable" for "all". That new live-action/hybrid movie IF seems to strive to be "like" a "Pixar film", and I've seen plenty of other animated films try to do this too. It's like how "Disney animated movie" is sometimes pigeonholed as "fairy tale princess musical/once upon a time".

Someone on twitter also put it best, when describing why a film like TURNING RED was a welcome change of pace... Pixar was, for the longest time, films for dads, by dads. And yeah, that tracks. John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, Brad Bird... The directors whose original films are often considered the "true" Pixar films, the foundational films at that... They're dads, and their lives as dads absolutely informs many of those pictures.

And you look at TOY STORY 3 and TOY STORY 4 in comparison to their relatively looser, even somewhat '90s edgier predecessors...

... They reflect Lasseter/Stanton/Docter/Unkrich in their near-middle age. Those films are visually a lot more vibrant, warmer, and while still very humorous throughout, they have a cozier vibe that's absolutely SMOTHERED in emotion, big damn goodbyes, sauteed in those signature Pixar cry juices. "When She Loved Me", but the whole damn movie. The young and edgy energy of those guys in their 20s and 30s vs. a more mature adult phase. I feel you can see this in their other films made during the 2010s, like INSIDE OUT.

And the 11-year gap between TOY STORY 2 and TOY STORY 3 really cements that, for good reason. Time passing and real life essentially informed the story, and it was the just-right mixture that really hit it with audiences. The story wisely played up that cozy nostalgia, the weepies one would get when the baby birds finally leave the nest... and the filmmakers gave the gang the proper send-off. But because of how it wore its heart on its sleeve, for some, TOY STORY 3 seemed like the perfect ending even though it definitely left things open for future adventures with Woody and Buzz and Bonnie's toys.

And for a little while, some short films and TV specials filled that gap quite nicely. Short little adventures, and the characters being fun and funny for a little while. TOY STORY OF TERROR! is the best of those, in my opinion. Felt much more '90s TOY STORY, a straightforward story that didn't have a mini-goodbye in it or some massive emotional moment. Halloween aesthetics, nighttime motel setting, horror movie homages. Good stuff! TOY STORY THAT TIME FORGOT, by contrast, kinda goes for that at the end when the Battlesaurs are being played with. Which makes sense, really, it was a Christmas special.

TOY STORY 4 arrived nine years after TOY STORY 3, and is much similar in tone and quite similar visually. It's still pretty, vibrant, and sunny, and it still reflects that "we're much older now" vibe. More sentimental, packed with those big emotional moments and an ending that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen reportedly couldn't bring themselves to record their voices for. A big goodbye, but this time, for Woody. I think for some people, that felt like overkill after how emotionally heavy Part Tre was... when TOY STORY 4 could've just been a feature-length TOY STORY OF TERROR!-type adventure... Which, funnily enough, it was going to be at one point... Upon its announcement in 2014... One iteration was a peculiarly weird story about one of Bonnie's cousins swapping the heads of Woody and Buzz. Sounded very experimental and different, a complete 180 from the tone of TOY STORY 3. This is probably what was being worked on for a 2017 release, but after a lot of writer changes and delays, it became TOY STORY 3 Redux with Woody saying goodbye to his lifelong friends and going off with Bo Peep. I personally quite like the film, myself, so this is more an observation than a knock. It ended Pixar's 2010s the way TOY STORY 3 started them.

So with that, I feel a lot of the reactions to TOY STORY 5's announcement a year ago (in addition to reminders that it's in the works) stem from the thought that we're going to get - 7 years after TOY STORY 4 - yet another movie like this. How many more goodbyes can there be? How many more losses? How many more hyper-emotional adventures? The ongoing "we say goodbye to our kids"/"softer middle age" era of the old Pixar guard, many of which are off doing other things now. It's really only Docter and, to a lesser extent, Stanton, nowadays. The last two of "Team TOY STORY", as I like to call them - because Brad Bird came to Pixar after the fact, and was the only outsider for a while who got to direct features.

But what if... What if TOY STORY 5 wasn't that? And it theoretically goes back to the core essence of the original? You look at the original TOY STORY, released in 1995 and its 1999 sequel, and you compare them to 3 & 4... What if TOY STORY 5 circled back to that kind of simpler buddy comedy adventure? With less of that cozy vibe and more '90s in presentation? With all the clever wordplay and character stuff? That doesn't have to be a bad thing. The original TOY STORY may not have the goodbyes and "feels" of TS3/4, but it launched everything for a reason: It's still a rock-solid, sharply-written buddy comedy in the vein of the films that inspired it, like THE ODD COUPLE and MIDNIGHT RUN. That's what helped it stick out in a sea of Disney musicals and the imitators. Maybe just that, TOY STORY as it is on the tin, works out? It'd be like their ABBEY ROAD, in a way. No tricks or gimmicks, it's just straight up TOY STORY. Could be a fresh new way to revisit those characters and not have to "top" the endings of 3 & 4. Maybe it could even be a midquel set in between 1 & 2, or 2 & 3, or 3 & 4. How Woody and Buzz are back together remains to be seen, unless the movie follows two plots and they never meet up. Or do very briefly. I dunno, Bonnie and her family go on vacation and they cross paths for a moment and have a brief "old pals" hug? Again, we'll see...

Either that, or they could straight up SPIDER-VERSE/PUSS IN BOOTS 2-style reinvent the whole thing in a wild, dynamic new way... So that it doesn't feel like a stale chestnut, a moldy oldie anymore.

But we'll see. This is from big bad Disney after all, and that new interview seems to indicate one thing... And maybe at D23 in August, we'll hear something about its storyline. It is certainly one I'm keeping my eye on, though...

[magister-magolor]

This is either somewhat inconsistent, or it only applies to certain objects. The Battlesaurs in Toy Story That Time Forgot hadn't been played with yet, only unboxed, but they had sentience. The same likely goes for Buzz.

[ekoi-the-monkey]

Hey guys I've drew Reptillus Maximus again but in a much more dynamic pose. ^_^

[toywalker]

3rd edition Battlesaur, anno January 2015. I think only three of this colorway were made. Or were it even less? 🤔 Who has one? ________________________________ #cyborg #dinosaur #godzilla #battlesaur #mechagodzilla #waronprehis #customtoy #resintoy #goodlegtoys https://www.instagram.com/p/B5fUjMlKy5D/?igshid=uz685sq32bgm

[sarroora]

I LIVE for this dynamic of Woody and Buzz being joined-at-the-hip gossipy teenagers

[3starjammies]

[light-and-heartful]

Battlesaurs Opening

I kind of think that if there was a Battlesaurs cartoon, it would be about the dinosaurs competing in a high stakes Gladiatorial Fighting Tournament/Circuit with different species of anthropomorphic dinosaurs fighting eachother in combat with epic animation by Trigger, maybe have Rex and Trixie in it too, 

I don't know what do you think?

[k-m-k]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by KEVIN MCKIDD ONLINE (@kmckonline)

Reposted from @raretoystory - #KevinMcKidd voice of Reptillus Maximus singing the Battlesaurs theme! . . . . @therealkmckidd #toystory #toystorythattimeforgot #battlesaurs #battlesaurstheme #reptillusmaximus #toystoryspecial #toystorychristmas #toystorytvspecial https://www.instagram.com/p/B6KXB7zh5ON/?igshid=4a53nfthgrsn

[scienceninjaturtle]

Battlesaurs Opening by Studio Trigger

[azuzeldraws]

Battlesaur KakaYama, the AU no one asked for 😁 Primal inspired 💪

[lilycat0112]

I’M JUMPING ON THIS BANDWAGON

I’m like three levels deep on an amazon search and I feel like I’ve found something I shouldn’t be looking at directly

[faline-cat444]

Comparing Sox to Angel Kitty from that Toy Story Christmas special to see what similar and different design elements were at play

We also really need a variant of the ornament that IS flocked plastic(Since when the short did release she was given a figurine that was paired off with one of those Battlesaurs or whatever they were called)

[ekoi-the-monkey]

Just a quick painting of this sexy specimen. <3

[toywalker]

Just sealed this sucker. He's alright. And HUUUGE! WoP lives! #waronprehis #battlesaur #godzilla #cyborg #mechasaur #mechagodzilla #dinoriders #customtoys #atomicbomb #80stoys #knockofftoys #chitech #dormei #monstertoys #woplives #goodlegtoys https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxp_m7oCeRs/?igshid=70qi1k0ibau

[tredlocity]

my favorite thing about the toy story franchise is how, by the third movie, they got really good at designing fictional toy products.

in the first two movies, aside from real toys like slinky and the potato heads, most of the characters are kinda just a story book idea for what a child’s toy would be: cowboy dolls, sci-fi action figures, piggy bank, dinosaur, etc.

Then we get to the third movie (11 years later), and suddenly there’s all these toys that look like they came from real toylines. like the rock dude with the flippable face, and the bug dude that looks like a he-man character. they look like they belong in real toy franchises!

The Christmas special gave us the Battlesaurs, which look like they could occupy a whole aisle of a real-life toy store (and they probably did, since disney made real versions of em)

Small Fry had the abandoned happy meal toys and each of them come from a different series. they look like actual toys that would be sold at fast food restaurants.

My favorite would have to be the halloween special, where they had Transitron, a bunch of cars that can combine into a robot, and Combat Carl and Combat Carl Jr., which are two toys of the same character, but one is smaller cause he’s from the playset.

For comparison, here’s what Combat Carl looked like in the first movie:

i was thinking about this cause i saw the new toy story 4 tv spot and they introduced keanu reeves’ character, which looks like a real toy that you would find at your uncle’s basement somewhere.

you can tell how much research was put into these characters, like  what materials they’d be made of, how they are painted, where their screws and points of articulation, and which parts would be removable, etc.

now, obviously, the reason for this bump in quality is because they realized the great merchandising opportunities of making real versions of these toys, but i still find it really cool how much thought and creativity was put in these designs.