Toy Story 3 Review

I know I promised to put this up earlier, but here it is, finally.  My review of Toy Story 3.

If you are reading this, and you haven't already seen it, then go out to the theater or your local video store (not in stores as of the date of this post, but you know... you could be from the future).  See this movie, one way or another, (legally though please, no illegal downloading). I will keep this short and spoiler free.

Story

The story of Toy Story 3 takes place about 10 years after the last one.  So far, as we can all remember from the first movies, Buzz and Woody are best friends and share being Andy's favorite toy,  Woody has saved many of the toys from being sold or thrown out, or even stolen, and they all lived happily ever after.  Or did they?  After about 10 years, Andy is ready to go to college, and they are never getting played with anymore.  Their attempts to get played with are futile and depressing.  They worry that Andy will just throw them out, or store them for years in the attic.  However, through a series of mishaps, they end up in a donation box heading to Sunnyside Daycare, where the promise of being played with for the rest of their days is before them.  However, not everything at Sunnyside is all flowers and rainbows, and the gang find themselves in a heap or trouble, with only Woody to rescue them.  Buzz is reset to his standard setting, but this time, in Spanish mode!

My opinion on this is very high.  Not only did they address the issue people were wondering from the first movie, what happens to the toys when they are no longer played with, but also adds a new side to the story, and we get to see things from Andy's point of view a little better.  We also get a whole new cast of characters, humans and toys, each well portrayed.

This story gets far more intense than the previous ones.  While in the past, the greatest danger they had to face was being lost, in Toy Story 3, they have greater dangers and concerns that start off right at the beginning of the movie.  The ending will really get to you, as you realize how far they are taking this film, and just how intense it really gets.  Some children might be too young for this one folks.

Graphics

The graphics in this movie are amazing.  The characters are better rendered than the previous movies (I never thought that they could improve on it but they did), the humans are far far better (I'm sure Ratatouille and Wall-E helped with that), the lighting and special effects are perfect, and the animation itself is flawless.  Once again, they showed that not only can they master the animation, but also the story, and all other aspects of making an animated film.

The character designs are great too.  There are a lot of fun new toys, many recognizable toys, and others reminiscent of existing characters (I swear to you I saw Aqua Teen Hunger Force in there).

 The Good

There are a lot of good things about this movie.  For one, the story is spectacular!  Not only did it pull me right in, but it also kept my interest, and made me really feel for these characters.  My favorite part of this movie is the very beginning, where they visually show young Andy's imagination, as he plays with his toys.  It has everything from One-eyed Bart, to their force-field dog, and even the T-Rex, summoned by Jessie's yodel, that eats force-field dogs.  (These are all lines straight out of the first movies).  It was hilarious, and a lot of fun, and a great way of getting the audience into the movie by showing how the toys were played with and how much Andy loved them.

The Bad

There were a few minor things that I wasn't crazy about in this movie.  For one, the new cast of toys included a new cast of voice actors.  Now granted, they want to focus on the characters we already know and love, and not on these new characters that will only play second fiddle to the main cast, but I felt that many of these actors and actresses did not have enough lines.  Many famous names give these characters life, but often they only have 2 lines in the movie.  While this is not a bad thing, for the sake of the main characters and the story itself, it does leave you wondering why get such big names if they are only going to be lending a few lines to the movie?

Further, it does seem as though the humans are even more oblivious to the toys' actions in this movie.  You'd think adults in charge of a daycare would try to avoid letting the youngest kids play with toys that are for the older kids.  However, this again is a minor issue, easily overlooked, and not really distracting at all.  In short, all the bad things were for the benefit of the movie, and I think were done properly, and do not distract from the story, in fact they seem to help the story.

In Short

See this movie.  This is the best ending possible of one of the greatest franchises ever made.  The graphics are amazing, the characters really get attached to you, and there is something in this movie for everyone.  Little kids will love the toys.  Adults will remember their own childhood toys, and perhaps think of their children playing with them.  And that younger crowd, well Andy is about that age, and seeing his struggle to decide, and moving on to go to college, will really ring with them.

Now that last question I have is which is the cuter couple?  Buzz and Jessie, or Barbie and Ken?

I give this a full 5 of 5 stars, they could not have made a better ending to Toy Story than this.

SCAD review

Hi all.
Sorry for the delay in posting.  Today, I will be giving a brief review of my trip to the Atlanta campus of SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design).
(I will be adding a few pictures shortly, since they are still stored on a different computer).

SCAD is a full accredited college, with 4 locations, one in Savannah, one in Atlanta, one in France, and one in Hong Kong.  They also have online offerings for several eLearning courses.  There are lots of opportunities to go between campuses if you wish.  Because their acceptance is for the entire school, if you accepted to one location, you can go to any location you want.  So if you wish to take some courses through eLearning, you can chose to take them while attending other classes without any trouble.

The Atlanta campus is located in the heart of Atlanta, where they have taken residence in a variety of buildings across the city.  They occupy several buildings, but I took a tour of 3 of them.  The most impressive thing about these buildings is that they either refurbish existing buildings, or they build very green buildings.  Their goal is to be as environmentally friendly as they can, while integrating themselves into the community.  The buildings I had the opportunity to tour included the Main building, the Digital Multimedia building, and the student housing.

The main building was once a government building, that was later owned by a "dot com" company that went under shortly after spending millions to refurbish the building.  It is a very large building, with several floors dedicated to separate areas of study, and a large cafeteria, where students and mingle with each other and meet people in other areas of study.  There is a large library, several galleries, including student work in hallways, and professional galleries for inspiration to students.  The main building even has a student store, where the students can sell their work to guests.  Some of their more interesting and impressive points include traditional presses for printing press classes, large dark rooms for traditional film processing, a large fashion department using a variety of industry standard devices, and a very impressive sequential art department.

The Digital Multimedia building is the most interesting and exciting building there.  This building was made in 2009, using very green methods, and designed to function with green technologies.  The building uses recycled materials throughout the structure, water that is naturally cooled to regulate the temperature within the building, and natural lighting whenever it is possible.  The building includes a real, working film studio, where they can broadcast and film, including green screen technologies,  and motion capture.  They include Wacom Cintique monitors in all the classrooms for students to use.  The facilities are very impressive, and are located close to the main building, with regular transportation provided.

The student housing building is actually a refurbished hotel.  This building has a pool, community areas, and security.  The rooms are hotel room sizes, with 2 beds, which can be bunked, and fully furnished from Ikea.  The best part of this building is that it has a secure walking path to the main school building, and is less than a 5 minute walk away.

All of the buildings are open 24 hours, with full security.  There are a variety of other building that I did not get to tour.  One of them is a large mansion, but I did not have the opportunity to look at it.

I will go more into this at a later date.  I will update this post with pictures from the tour, and any updated information as well.
I will be posting some movie reviews soon too, so Stay Tooned!