Tin Toy (1988)

Directed by: John Lasseter | 5 minutes | animation, short film

‘Tin Toy’ came two years after Pixar’s first animated film ‘Luxo Jr.’, and demonstrates both a studio strength and a weakness of digital animation technology, at least at the time when computer animation was still in its infancy. was standing. ‘Tin Toy’ was the first Pixar film to win an Oscar, and is a clear precursor to ‘Toy Story’. Also in this film, the tense relationship between children and their toys is central, and it is the simple but wonderful creation of the toys’ personalities intimidated by the child that makes the most impression. The weak point is the animation of the child, but this partly works to the advantage of the film.

The tin toy of the title is a one-man band confronted by a baby crawling inside and about which he experiences various emotions during the five minutes that the film lasts, including cheerfulness, surprise, fear, pity, and anger. When the baby comes in, the toy is full of excitement to be able to play with him, or rather, to let the baby play with him. Because, as we know from ‘Toy Story’, there is no greater pleasure for a toy to please its owner and to occupy an important place in the life of the child in question. But soon the gaiety of the tin toy turns to surprise and then fear as the baby begins to drool and frantically shakes his beaded chain, causing the giant beads for the toy to fly close to the male’s ears. So he runs as fast as he can – beating his drum and playing his accordion as he walks – while the baby is after him.

As mentioned, the animation of the child here is not your thing. Human animation has been the main problem in all of Pixar’s films, although it has gotten a bit better, but thankfully, except for the more recent ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Ratatouille’, the emphasis – probably for exactly this reason – has been almost exclusively. based on non-human characters. In this very early Pixar film, too, humans are the weakest link when it comes to animation. However, this baby’s behavior and appearance – wooden, unnatural and old – works in part in the film’s favor here, as the baby has to come across as something huge and monstrous from the toy’s point of view. Now, perhaps it would have been even better if Pixar could have just made the baby normal and cute and still managed to make it look intimidating on the side – after all, the intent of the movie would have come across perfectly in the final product – but the current appearance of the child is fortunately not insurmountable. In addition, the behavior of the child is realistic enough and the sounds he makes are typically cute baby babbling, not entirely incomparable with the language of toddler Boo from ‘Monsters Inc.’.

The funniest moment takes place halfway through the film, when the toy has moved to safety under the bed and here, after having just exhausted and recovered from the shock, suddenly notices that a large group of toys is shaking and looking at him with big grins. fearful eyes, afraid of what is to come. The simple but effectively communicated emotions of these objects and the humor that emerges from the well-found situations again prove to be strong points of director Lasseter and his Pixar Studio.