15 years after the first Toy Story film, Pixar return to the series that started it all, capping the series off with an emotional and fun ride for the kids of today, but especially so for the kids that grew up in the early 90's whom have grown up with the films.
Andy has grown up and is about to leave home to go to college. The toys don't get played with much these days, but at least they've stayed together. All this is threatened when the toys find themselves at the mercy of the aggressive play at the local day care centre - if they don't make a timely escape, they'll face certain death. But escape may prove difficult under the watch of the bad toys at Sunnyside day care.
Toy Story 3 is a heartwarming capper to a series which has grown in stature and become even more beloved as time has gone by. With fly-by-night films filling toy store shelves and then disappearing just as fast, there are very few film series that can sustain the interest of the public for 15 years, but Toy Story has done just that. I'd always wanted a Woody and Buzz toy for my own, and a few months did just that...but ended up buying the whole collection. That kind of dedication doesn't happen for every film.
Video
Toy Story 3 3D is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (its original aspect ratio), encoded with MVC compression.
3D fans might be slightly disappointed by the presentation of Toy Story 3 3D, but it's nothing to do with the technical qualities of the disc. The truth is, the film has some of the most subtle 3D effects yet seen for a 3D film, so those looking to be poked in the eye by a toy should go and play with a toddler. Roger Ebert even advocated to audiences to skip seeing the film in 3D and go straight to the 2D presentation for a brighter image. Ultimately on Blu-ray you have the choice between the 3D and 2D presentation, and truthfully I will probably opt for the 2D version in most cases. The irony is of course that Toy Story 3 is the only film in the series to be natively produced in 3D, yet is also the least impressive.
Despite this, the 2D presentation is simply amazing, with great colours and a razor sharp presentation (as one would expect). The jump in animation quality between the 3 Toy Story entries is really a sight to behold, to the point where it's almost jarring - but it's responsible for its emotional edge over its predecessors.
Overall, another impeccable result from Disney.
Audio
The main audio track is encoded with DTS HD Master Audio 7.1 at 24 bits.
The same amazing mix is featured on both the 3D and 2D versions, and either way they are extremely aggressive and involving mixes. It's hard to imagine but every animated film needs to have an audio mix built from the ground up. Whilst this gives the audio designers leverage to do whatever they want, there is still a sense of reality that must be injected to not completely isolate an audience.
An amazing track that is sure to be a family friendly, demo-worthy track.
Extras
Unfortunately, for this 3D re-release of Toy Story 3, Disney have dropped the 2nd Blu-ray disc of extra features which was included on the previous 2D Blu-ray release which means that fans will want to hold on to the original release to retain all the features. The following features are found on the 2D disc.
Day and Night harkens back to the days of cinema being used to exhibit short films, and this is one of Pixar's latest, but completely separate from any existing franchise or characters. It's cute, but I found out it wore out its welcome relatively quickly.
The Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs is a very short featurette which explains the concept of space travel to the littlies.
The Toys featurtette briefly discusses the introduction of some of the new characters and locations featured in Toy Story 3.
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