Toy Story 2: The Definition of a Film Sequel -

Back in 1999, my Dad took me to see a film, this film was the second film I would ever see in a theater and it was the sequel to one of my favorite animated films of all time, Toy Story. I remember Toy Story 2 having a huge impact on me and that the visual imagery would be stuck in my head to this very day, I even had the bonus of listening to Randy Newman’s score on cassette tapes and it being the first film score that I would remember very well. I didn’t pay attention to the sequel aspects of it until I saw a short review of the film by Doug Walker a couple of years ago, that would open my eyes to what I had seen in the past and I would then fully realize that this film was one of the rare instances where a sequel was done right and I mean really right.

Toy Story 2 was a film that did what a sequel film should do, expand the story, develop the characters further, and tell a new impactful story that is not a retread of the first film. Released on November 24, 1999, almost every voice actor returns including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, John Ratzenburger as Hamm, Wallace Shawn as Rex, the late Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, Annie Potts as Bo Peep, and joining them in Toy Story 2 are Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head, Joan Cusack as Jessie, Kelsey Grammar as The Prospector, Wayne Knight as Al McWiggin, and Jodi Benson as Barbie.

Here’s a brief synopsis, a couple of years after 1, Toy Story 2 sees Woody and the gang as they are preparing for when Andy is going to take Woody with him to cowboy camp, leaving Buzz in charge. Just before they leave, Andy decides to play a little bit with his toys and while handling Buzz and Woody, accidentally tears Woody’s arm and is forced to leave without him with his Mom putting Woody on a shelf.

Being put on the shelf is considered by the toys to be very nerve-wracking as most toys on the shelf are at a high chance of being sold or thrown away. While on the shelf, Woody finds a squeaking penguin toy named Wheezy, who Woody thought was supposed to have been fixed months ago due to a broken squeaker. While talking to Wheezy, Woody discovers that Mom is having a yard sale outside and assembles everybody to make sure that none of Andy’s favorite toys have been taken. Suddenly, Mom comes into Andy’s room and starts looking for toys to sell and while none of the toy gang are taken, Wheezy is taken.

Woody, with the help of the family dog, Buster, goes outside to successfully rescue Wheezy but is accidentally left behind in the yard sale and is later stolen by a toy collector who has a keen interest on Woody.

Buzz, while trying to rescue Woody, fails but does manage to get the license plate numbers on the thief’s car and uses it to identify him as Al McWhiggin, owner of Al’s Toy Barn in Downtown Tri-County.

Woody is taken to Al’s apartment and there he meets a toy cowgirl named Jessie, a toy horse known as Bullseye, and a toy Prospector simply known as The Prospector (whose real name is Stinky Pete). The new toys somehow know Woody and to much of Woody’s surprise, reveal that he is a very rare collector’s toy that is part of a toy set known as Woody’s Roundup Gang, based on a once very popular TV show during a time when westerns ruled American entertainment.

Buzz along with Potato Head, Hamm, Slinky, and Rex, go on a rescue mission to find Woody, but unbeknownst to them, they are all in a race against time because Woody and the Roundup Gang will soon be taken by Al and sold to a toy museum in Japan and Woody is starting to have thoughts on actually going there.

I said before that Toy Story 2 is a sequel that does everything right and one of those points that I said was it expands the overall story arc of the series. Through the plot, we learn that Woody is starting to fear of being abandoned by Andy as he will eventually grow up. It doesn’t help that his arm was accidentally torn by Andy as he soon has a nightmare of being thrown away (a nightmare that haunted me as a child). But after hearing about a tragic story from Jessie that parallels the situation he’s in with Andy, Woody sees an opportunity of being loved by children everywhere if he goes with Jessie and the Roundup Gang to the museum, but at the cost of losing Andy and never being played with again. Woody comes very close to leaving with the roundup gang but after he is found by Buzz and the gang, is reminded that Andy still loves him and that he should enjoy the time he has with him until the day finally comes that he is grown up (which does inevitably happen in Toy Story 3). So, in summary, Toy Story 2 greatly expands on the overall story-arc through Woody’s conflicting thoughts, future outcomes told through some of these new characters, and a resolution of enjoying the time they have and to be ready to face the inevitable together.

Another point that I mentioned makes Toy Story 2 a great sequel is further developing the characters. I already talked about Woody in the last point, so I’ll talk about some of the other characters such as Buzz Lightyear.

Buzz in this film has switched roles with Woody and has become a great co-leader, he’s confident in what he does and risks everything to rescue his best friend. Internally, Buzz is more mature than he ever was in Toy Story 1 and has goes through some hilarious obstacles to get to Woody, mainly dealing with another Buzz Lightyear action figure that acts exactly what Buzz originally was in Toy Story 1 (thinking he’s a real Space Ranger) and it makes for some hilarious scenes brought to us by Tim Allen’s brilliant dual voice performances.

Other things that are expanded with Buzz’s character are the world he was branded from and it’s all done through the entire opening sequence. That sequence shows us Buzz’s archenemy, The Evil Emperor Zurg who was only mentioned by name in Toy Story 1 and boy does he make a great first impression as he is shown initially “killing” Buzz (it’s at that point where it’s revealed that the opening sequence took place in a Buzz Lightyear video game that Rex was playing and has been trying to beat for some time). When I first saw that as a five year old, I instantly became frightened of Zurg and was even more frightened when an Emperor Zurg action figure was brought into the story at some point. Emperor Zurg is an obvious spoof of Darth Vader, and it comes full circle during a scene with the other Buzz that leads to some awesome scenes with the character. Really all of these elements further sharpen my love for Buzz Lightyear as an awesome character.

Another character that has great development is Jessie. When Jessie is first introduced, she’s initially a huge bundle of joy that is excited to finally be with Woody. On the outside, she’s full of positive energy, but on the inside, she fears of being put back into storage and often has panic attacks whenever she must go back into her box.

She becomes disgusted by Woody’s love for Andy and throughout the film she fights with him when he tries to escape the apartment. All of that eventually reveals her back-story, which I said helps Woody develop more as a character and it’s done through a wonderful flashback sequence. I’d like to add that Jessie’s backstory is one of the saddest moments in all of cinema, told through the song “When She Loved Me,” written by Randy Newman and sung by Sarah McLachlan (Yes, the singer from those ASPCA commercials). This song emotionally gets me every time as it reveals that Jessie had an owner that grew up and abandoned her to be donated, where she was put into storage for a very long time. As a child, I didn’t know what was going on as I didn’t know any better at age five, but as an adult, it hurts me on the inside as it makes me remember friends and family that I lost throughout my life through departure or death. Really, it makes Jessie such a good character as she can be both emotional but still have a spunky attitude.

The last character that has standout development is The Prospector and there’s one thing to note about this character, he’s a toy who’s still inside his box that has never been opened. When he is introduced, he shows great signs of happiness and seems to be the voice of reason whenever Woody has conflicts about Andy, but when Woody tries to leave with Buzz and offers the Roundup Gang to come with him to be played with by Andy, The Prospector shockingly comes out of his box and reveals his true colors as Stinky Pete. Being stuck in a box and never experiencing being played with by a child has turned him into a sympathetic antagonist that does anything to go to the museum such as preventing Woody from escaping the apartment at night (while making it to where Woody puts the blame on Jessie), violently threatening to tear up Woody with his Pick-Axe, and doing everything he can to stop Buzz and the gang from rescuing Woody while they are in the airport.

What I love about The Prospector is not just Kelsey Grammar voicing him, but at how relatable he is and that he has a motive for why he does villainous things, it’s really all because he was never played with by a child and has the chance to finally valued at the museum. His villainous motives can be summed up in one quote that he says in the film, “Fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair: Spending a lifetime on a dime-store shelf watching every other toy be sold. Well, finally my waiting has paid off, and no hand-me-down cowboy doll is gonna mess it up for me now!” At the time, The Prospector was a better villain than Sid Phillips in Toy Story 1, mainly because with Sid, you can understand that he’s really not much of a villain, he’s a kid who loves to play with his toys like Andy, but handles them very violently and is therefore considered villainous by the toys. Really, The Prospector is the one of the better relatable villains who has reasonable intentions and he still holds up as a reasonable character since he does foreshadow events that occur in 3, but again, I don’t think he’s completely evil. I think the most villainous of the Toy Story antagonists is Lotso who I’ll talk about more in my review for Toy Story 3.

Lastly, the final point that makes Toy Story 2 one of the best sequels is that it’s not a retread of the original film. The story tells something new by not having the toys become lost like in the first film, but instead having them venture out to rescue Woody which makes for a huge opportunity to give the other toys things to do. Buzz, like I said before is the confident leader, but Potato Head, Hamm, Rex, and Slinky Dog all get to have more things to do than they ever did in Toy Story 1 and it makes for some very hilarious scenes involving them throughout the film. There are so many scenes I can remember with Buzz and the gang like the traffic cone crossing scene, the Al’s Toy Barn scene where they run into other Buzz and even Barbie dolls all hilariously voiced by Jodi Benson (seriously, I think she was the perfect choice to voice Barbie), but the standout scene that involves Buzz and the gang is when they have to chase Woody to the airport by using a Pizza Planet truck and that makes for some great involvement and very hilarious dialogue from the gang, you really just have to watch the scene and see what I mean. I loved that this film shows us more locations in Tri-county, and they are not just copying what was seen before in the first film, really the best way to explain this point is watch The Empire Strikes Back and see how they go to new places. Finally, the film brings up new ideas I said before that expand the overall story-arc. Woody thinking about the future with Andy, running into other toys that reveal what it’s like to be either abandoned by or to not have an owner, and learning to love the best parts of life as they are not going to last forever.

Copyright Disney/PIXAR Animation Studios, 1999.

In conclusion, Toy Story 2 like Aliens and The Empire Strikes Back, took the Toy Story franchise into new heights and it also proved that Pixar could do great sequel films with the right crew. I really don’t have any problems with the film other than the animation being dated and really, I don’t care for finding problems because this is still a film I enjoy almost every time I see it. Most fans will say 3 is their favorite Toy Story movie, but I say 2 is the better sequel and my favorite Toy Story movie as it took risks, it raised the stakes, it did something new, and it ramped up the levels of emotion, it is the definition of how a sequel should be done. I will always have a soft spot for Toy Story 1 as it’s my second favorite in the series, but this is a rare instance where the sequel was a little bit better than the original in my opinion. It’s taken me over twenty years for me to realize that Toy Story 2 is my favorite of the series and most of it is thanks to friends, influences from other critics, and multiple rewatches of the film. Toy Story 2 was a great example of catching lighting in a bottle once again, and this time, the lightning was bigger and better. It was thought back then to have ended the series on an emotional note until capped by Toy Story 3 (and now Toy Story 4 as of writing this) which will be coming soon. I highly recommend anyone who hasn’t seen this in a while to watch it again, maybe you’ll see it like I do and maybe you won’t. I would also recommend seeing Doug Walker’s Disneycember review on Toy Story 2 as that helped me realize it as well. In fact i’ll attach it down below. Thank you guys for reading my reviews and look forward to the next one.

9.8 out of 10

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Toy Story 2: The Definition of a Film Sequel

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