Toy Story 1 & 2 in 3D

Disney had a problem - they wanted to make some money. It was in the middle of a financial crisis and they wanted a bit more moolah to make sure the Cinderella Castle wasn't repossessed by a fleet of helicopters piloted by a crew of burly ex-cons inevitably called Bubba, T-Bone, Spike and Gerald.

Usually in this situation, a studio would rip out a sequel or two to supplement their release schedule of remakes, reinventions and re-imaginings, but they already had all of their franchises in production on a further instalment. The solution? Talk the VP of Pixar (John Lasseter) into reviving a property he himself had once directed - there would be a Toy Story 3!

This first problem having swiftly been dealt to, Disney now faced another; Shrek 4 was releasing at the same time!

Pixar and Disney HATE Shrek (and DreamWorks Animation) for winning the very first Oscar for best animated feature and now they had this release date problem. And it really is a problem for them - The Shrek films have made bucketloads more money at the box office than Toy Story and is also the more current franchise having released it's latest instalment in 2007, eight years after Toy Story 2. How would they get cinemas to play it in a crowded market and how would they beat out Shrek and claim the hearts and wallets of cinema-goers?

What they've done is very clever (and exactly what they should have) - they're releasing Toy Story 1 & 2 into the marketplace to help and re-build brand awareness. They couldn't release them as individual films - there simply wasn't room in the release schedules or time before they had to be on screen with number three - so they've packed them into one feature. One giant-arse feature. And as a further gimmick, they've updated them, retrospectively cutting them in 3D as the third will be.

So there's some history for you. The whys and wherefores. Now we come to the film itself. (or films depending on your perspective)

It was really nice to see Woody and Buzz up on the big screen again. They're great characters and stories that have really stood the test of time. What has not stood the test of time is the animation. With the advances in animation techniques and technology over the past 11-15 years, the original Toy Story films have been left for dust. The texturing, the movement, perspective, it's all looking a little tired to be frank.

Yes yes yes... I hear you. Of course it looks dated - it was always going to. You're right, but I was surprised at how sub-par it now looked. This was of course coupled with the 3D aspect of the film which was terrible. They have not done justice to the two films and the end result looks like they've spent next to nothing retrofitting the next dimension. Reds and blues are particularly garish but the whole thing left me disappointed.

This is one of the longer review pieces I've written for this site, but it is nothing compared to the length of the Toy Story double feature. They've done the smart thing and broken the films with a 10 minute intermission, but with the trivia that runs between them, it's still a damned long watch and I walked out three hours later exhausted! [I'm currently researching the validity of a claim that War and Peace was written, edited and hand-copied in a shorter space of time.]

My advice - if you want to watch the first two films to recapture the magic, do it on DVD - the 2D version will be so much more enjoyable!

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No rating on this one, loved the films, just not this version of them.