Parts One and Two, for anyone who missed them.
Woody is now fully aware of his situation. The longer he sticks around Al’s apartment, the greater the chances that Al will ship him off to Tokyo where he’ll never see Andy again. All he wants right now is to get back home to Andy. But for the purposes of the story, he can’t leave yet. So what’s stopping him?
Enter Al, who will inadvertently provide Woody with a very good reason to stick around. While moving Woody out of his protective display case, Al accidentally pulls the seam from Woody’s shoulder, causing his arm to fall off completely. It doesn’t feel contrived because Woody’s arm was already damaged. No one in the audience is going to think “Now how did that happen?” or “Well isn’t that convenient.” Losing his arm gives Woody a plausible reason to stay that has nothing to do with his emotional attachment to the Roundup Gang or a change in attitude regarding the museum. That will comes later. For now, Woody still just wants to get back to Andy. But he can’t go home without his arm. Woody already missed cowboy camp because of the rip in his shoulder, causing him to worry that Andy would throw him out. How might Andy react if he got home and found Woody missing his whole arm? So until he can retrieve his missing arm, Woody is stuck at Al’s.
There are a number of reasons why the Prospector works well as a surprise reveal villain. The gimmick can easily fall flat and I’ve seen movies where it does. One thing the film does right is to provide sufficient distraction from the Prospector so we aren’t more suspicious of what he’s up to. Al is already serving as the movie’s villain, so we aren’t necessarily looking for another one the way we would be were there no obvious villain. Jessie is never an actual villain, but her temperamental relationship with Woody provides another distraction from the Prospector’s subtle manipulations. The Prospector wants the exact same thing as the rest of the Roundup Gang: he wants Woody to stay. That’s as true when we first meet him as it is when his darker side comes out. The reveal isn’t about a previously hidden motivation; it’s about how far the Prospector will go to get what he wants. On top of all this, the Prospector rarely says anything that is completely untrue, so it doesn’t feel like manipulation at the time. His line to Jessie, who claims not to care whether Woody leaves, about how one-armed Woody would never make it in the big, dangerous, toy-unfriendly world in his condition is certainly not a lie. As we follow Buzz’s team on their quest to find Woody, we’re seeing just how dangerous the outside world can be for a toy. While it may not cause him any physical pain, Woody’s missing arm is a handicap that makes getting around that much more difficult, even in a relatively safe place like Al’s apartment. And even if we suspect that the Prospector might also be trying to convince Woody to stay so that he’ll eventually decide to go to the museum, that doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know already and it doesn’t make him a villain. The depths to which he’s willing to sink to realize his goal do.
Until the two stories cross paths again, most of the action scenes in the film will be centered on Buzz and Andy’s other toys, not Woody. Woody is stuck in an apartment and most of personal narrative will be centered on him getting from one place to another emotionally rather than physically. But Woody does get one action sequence, in which he tries to get his arm back from the sleeping Al. This scene focuses mainly on stealth. Woody must cross a minefield of loud, crunchy cheese snacks, climb up onto Al, and remove his arm from Al’s pocket, all without waking Al. The end of the scene increases the animosity between Jessie and Woody, who is tricked into thinking that Jessie turned on the television to wake up Al and foil Woody’s attempt to get his arm back. But its main purpose is to further explore Bullseye’s personality and his relationship with Woody.
In contrast to Jessie’s sudden sourness towards Woody, Bullseye’s attitude hasn’t changed a bit. He only wants to help, regardless of what Woody’s goal is. There is no indication of whether Bullseye understands that Woody’s departure will land him back in storage, how he feels about that, or if he even knows that Woody wants to get his arm back so he can leave. Though he is smart enough to understand some rather vague commands, Bullseye’s intelligence seems right on the level of a big, friendly dog, eager to be included and too immersed in licking the cheese dust from Al’s fingers to immediately hear Woody telling him to stop. Whatever Bullseye went through before coming into Al’s possession has done nothing to diminish his trusting nature. He is as loyal as Slinky and the first serious emotional connection that Woody makes with the Roundup Gang. Bullseye’s hurt look an quivering upper lip when Woody angrily announces that he’s leaving as soon as his arm is fixed is Woody’s first indication that leaving Al’s apartment and the Roundup Gang will not be so easy for him. Bullseye may not understand the consequences of Woody’s departure, but he clearly does not want Woody to leave.
Now we come to our first big set piece with Team Buzz. We know that this has been a very long and tiring journey for them, but up to this point, he haven’t seen the toys in any serious danger. Now their destination is within sight, but there’s a four land road between them and the toy store where they believe Woody is being held. How does the film communicate how dangerous crossing this street will be? Not just with cars whizzing by. A soda can is first spun around by a passing buzz, then crushed by a car and thrown from the road to land at Mr. Potato Head’s feet, leaving no doubt as to what the toys are up against.
The tension as the toys cross the road is heightened by the fact that the traffic cones prevent them from seeing what’s going on around them. They can only drop the cones down was Buzz says to do so and hope that the cars swerve to avoid the cones as planned. While Rex and Hamm look nervous as they work their way across the street, Potato Head is almost casual about the whole experience. He’s also the one who is in the most peril, going back to retrieve one of his feet from a wad of gum as a cement cylinder breaks free from the back of a truck and threatens to crush him. The scene is not really intended as edge-of-your-seat tension. We can probably guess that all of the toys will make it across without being run over. But the scene provides enough excitement to inject a little action and drama into the narrative, a narrative that will mainly focus on a toy stuck in a single room making a decision about his future.
I really don’t want to repeat too much information from the fantastic audio commentary on the “Ultimate Toy Box” edition of this film (which you should definitely check out if you haven’t already), but I think this story does bear retelling. Early drafts of the film had Al restoring Woody himself. But as time went on and Al’s character began to develop, Pixar’s story team realized that Al wasn’t the sort of person who would know how to do that. Al is a big, lazy, slug who insists on filming his latest commercial in one take and gripes about having to drive across the street to go to work. He certainly wouldn’t have the patience necessary to carefully repair a valuable antique toy. He would bring in a professional. Trouble was, there wasn’t really time to build a CG model of a new human character. So Pixar brought in Geri, the title character from the short Geri’s Game, to fill the role. Problem solved. Plus, since Geri’s Game had played in front of the theatrical release of A Bug’s Life, his appearance in Toy Story 2 would be an “in-joke” that even young kids could get. As and added nod to Geri’s past, one of the drawers in his box of supplies is filled with chess pieces.
Gerri’s time in this film alternates between mild creepiness and gentle whimsy. The Prospector refers to him as “the cleaner,” conjuring up images of someone like Harvey Keitel’s character from Pulp Fiction. Geri’s first line is a sinister sounding “Is the specimen ready for cleaning?” and he set Woody in something that initially looks like it could be a vise. But any worries we have quickly subside as the “vise” is revealed to be sort of a toy-sized barber chair, complete with a paper bib for Woody and a rack for his hat. The restoration scene has a few unsettling moments that are quickly countered by the charming nature of the process. The enormous tip of a cotton swab coming directly at the scene is momentarily disconcerting, but it’s only being used to shine up Woody’s eyes. Geri’s trembling hands as he threads his needle and holds Woody’s detached arm back up to his shoulder makes us worry that he just might botch the job and damage Woody further. But there’s a lightly comic release as Geri sews Woody back together with quick, confident stitches.
The one moment in this scene that is truly upsetting is when Geri paints over the “Andy” written on the bottom of Woody’s boot. This brings back the film’s central dilemma, which Woody will have to face head on in just a little while. With the help of someone like Geri, Woody could in theory be restored again and again to like-new condition. Minimal, gentle handling could keep him from getting damaged again. Despite what Andy’s mom said, Woody could possibly last forever. But at what price?
Buzz and the other toys have finally made it to Al’s Toy Barn and begin their search for Woody. Exploring on his own, Buzz encounters something he has previously only seen on TV: an entire aisle of Buzz Lightyears. In this first movie, this would have likely blown his mind. But since Buzz now knows he’s a toy, his only concern is whether he should pick up one of the utility belts that the latest Buzz Lightyears come with. Buzz’s first encounter with the new Buzz is an obvious callback to Woody discovering Buzz on the bed: same music, same camera move, same pose on the deluded Buzz. It clues the audience to the return of the deluded Buzz they knew from the first film and also subtly bring back the theme of toys being replaced. Though Buzz does not share Woody’s fears about losing his status as Andy’s favorite toy, he has been “replaced” in a way by this new batch of Buzz Lightyears and is literally replaced when the deluded Buzz mistakes him for a mutinous space ranger, ties him up in an empty Buzz Lightyear box, and meets up with Andy’s other toys.
I’ve completely lost count of which new character Tour Guide Barbie is. And while she is technically a new character, I’m a little hesitant to count her as much more than a cameo. Ostensibly, he purpose in the story is to lead the other toys to Al, or at least Al’s office. But we never actually see he doing that. She drives them around and gives them a quick tour of the store, but by the time the toys are actually searching Al’s office, she is nowhere to be seen. Still, it does make sense for the toys to run across the Barbie Aisle in a toy store. And she and the rest of her plastic pals are pretty funny, with their stiff poses, generally blankly happy expressions, and relentlessly cheery voices – all provided by Jodi Benson, who voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Plus, the Barbie aisle sets us up for the other Barbies who will show up later.
Why does deluded Buzz accompany Andy’s toys on their quest. He may believe that he is a hero, but he doesn’t know yet that they’re looking for their kidnapped friend. And Andy’s toys, mistaking him for “their” Buzz, have no reason to give him information they believe he already has. This is where Rex’s obsession with the Buzz Lightyear video game starts to pay off. Just after entering the toy store, Rex discovered a strategy guide for the game, which gives him a reason to be talking about it again. But he later lost it underneath a shelf of toys, meaning that there’s no way deluded Buzz could discover that Rex is actually talking about a video game unless Rex says something to reveal that. And Rex doesn’t think he has to, since Andy’s Buzz would know exactly what he was talking about. So Rex is talking excitedly about how he now knows how to defeat Zurg and deluded Buzz, desperate for this vital information, goes along for the ride.
Back to the apartment. Al now has his photographs of Woody and the rest of the toys and is on hs way to work to fax them to the owner of the toy museum. Woody’s reprieve has ended, but so has his reason for staying. He has his arm back. Better yet, it’s been reattached. Better still, Woody has been completely restored and is likely in better shape than Andy has ever seen him in. With two working arms, he should have no trouble getting out of Al’s apartment and making the trek back to Andy. Needless to say, Woody is ecstatic, far too caught up in his own happiness to really care about Jessie’s attitude. What does make him hesitate, remind him that his departure will have consequences beyond making Jessie angry? Bullseye, who gently nudges Woody and looks up at him with a mournful expression. Since Bullseye can’t talk, we still don’t know exactly what he wants. Is he as invested as going to the museum as Jessie and the Prospector are? Does he just not like that Woody and Jessie are fighting, even if he doesn’t know why? Does he simply wish that Woody wouldn’t leave? In this case, the specifics don’t really matter; the look on Bullseye’s face communicates “Don’t go” as plainly as words could.
More misdirection with the prospector. In hindsight, it’s obvious that he wants Woody to stay and either knows or hopes that if he talks to Jessie, she’ll reveal her past and give him the ammunition he needs to convince Woody that staying is the right choice for him. But watching it for the first time, he seems perfectly credible as the calm voice of reason. Was he the one who actually stopped Woody from leaving? No, that was Bullseye. And is his asking Woody to make amends with Jessie before he goes unreasonable? No. Even if we understand why she and Woody are fighting and sympathize more with Woody’s need to return to Andy right now, we do also understand Jessie’s fear of returning to the darkness of storage. We like the Roundup Gang and we want to see them get their happy ending too. The Prospector’s request that Woody try to patch things up with Jessie before he goes seems like a good first step towards making that happen. And Woody agrees to see what he can do, even if he’s not optimistic. Because Woody is, and always has been, a good person.
Jessie is sitting up on the windowsill getting, as she says, a last look at the sun before she goes back into storage. She’s turned away from Woody and the camera and we can only barely make out her face and expressions reflected in the window. Woody is genuinely sorry that he can’t stay and help her get what she seems to want. He tries to explain about Andy and why he has to go back and Jessie interrupts with a tone that initially sounds like more snark and sarcasm. But as she starts to describe the specifics of the relationship between a toy and a child, her voice softens and Woody starts to realize that she knows more about the concept than he had previously thought.
So Jessie starts to tell her story, about how she once belonged to a little girl named Emily, and….wait a minute. Is that a song?
Toy Story was not a musical in the traditional sense and Toy Story 2 is even less of one. If it were a musical, it would be breaking one of the cardinal rules by not having a song early on to establish the idea that this is a movie with songs. Yes, we can sort of be counted on to remember that the first Toy Story has a few songs in it. And there was one song in the movie prior to this one. But that song was the theme to “Woody’s Roundup” and only played when there was clearly at TV with the show on in the scene. This is a song in the manner of the first Toy Story, a voice that expresses thoughts that the character can’t or won’t communicate directly. “The voice” in this case is Sarah McLachlan rather than songwriter Randy Newman, likely to solidify the idea that these are Jessie’s thoughts and feelings we’re hearing about. It’s a bit of a risk to bring in this kind of song so late in the film, but it’s a case of a song doing what songs are good at. It highlights a crucial emotional moment in the movie and gives unity to a montage. And it gives voice to feelings that Jessie can’t quite voice herself. The whole reason she didn’t just tell Woody earlier that she knew what it was like to be really loved by a kid, but she has also seen how that story ends, is that it’s just too painful for her.
Jessie’s memories are cast in golden yellows and browns, very much like the lighting on the “Woody’s Roundup” memorabilia. The color is provided in part by the bright sunshine that lights much of the sequence. Patches of light are soft at the edges, adding to the feeling of treasured but long-past days.
Even without Jessie’s dialogue or the songs lyrics, we would know from the very first shot in this sequence that Jessie was a much loved toy. The chair and the headboard of the bed in Emily’s yellow room both have hearts carved into them. There are horseshoes on the wall, a boot-shaped “Woody’s Roundup” lamp on the bedside table, and a kid-sized cowgirl hat identical to Jessie’s. Jessie herself sits on the bed, leaning against the pillow, in the very spot that Woody could claim as Andy’s favorite toy in the first Toy Story. There is absolutely no doubt that Jessie was Emily’s favorite toy. In fact, there aren’t any other toys in this shot (though we later see Emily having Jessie ride a realistic toy horse.) Why would there be? Even if Emily did have other toys, these are Jessie’s memories. She has already said that Emily was her whole world. So in her mind, there is no one and almost nothing else. Only Emily mattered.
Emily loved Jessie and Jessie adored Emily. We see scenes of Emily playing with Jessie, who is just as much the center of Emily’s play as Woody is the center of Andy’s. Just like Andy with Woody, Emily sees Jessie as a toy, not a living creature, and loves her as a toy. There’s only one moment in these memories of the good times where Jessie moves on her own. While she and Emily are riding in the car and Emily is presumably looking elsewhere, Jessie smiles and slowly closes her eyes in an expression of pure joy. Unlike the Jessie of this time, we know that it is a joy that will not last.
Since Jessie’s spot on the bed represents the same thing that Woody’s did, it’s no surprise that she falls off the bed in almost the same way Woody did. But Jessie isn’t being replaced by the latest and greatest new toy. From underneath the bed, Jessie watches as Emily and one of her girl pals try out painting their nails and giggle happily. Before Jessie’s eyes and ours, the room is invaded by makeup and music posters in the fluorescent hues of the 1960s, the trappings of a teenager. Jessie remains under the bed and is joined there by the other items from Emily’s cowgirl phase that were moved aside to make way for her new interests, everything else that she doesn’t need anymore.
Jessie is only discovered again when one of Emily’s makeup items rolls under the bed. We don’t see that much of Emily’s face in general and we don’t see it at all after Jessie falls off the bed. Through the whole sequence, we see events through Jessie’s eyes. But the line in the song is “She smiled at me and held me, just like she used to do.” So even though Emily’s face isn’t visible, I imagine her finding Jessie and smiling at the memory of how much she used to love playing with the doll. Unfortunately, the operative words here are “used to,” though Jessie doesn’t realize it. From the way she once again slowly closes her eyes in happiness while leaning against Emily out of the top of her purse, it’s clear that she is anticipating a return to the life she used to know as a beloved toy. That makes it all the more heartbreaking when finds herself placed alongside Emily’s other old things in a box labeled “Donations,” with a logo of a heart above two outstretched hands. The camera pulls back as Jessie looks through a hole punched in the side of the box and watches her beloved Emily drive past the tree with the tire swing where they once played together and out of Jessie’s life forever.
Especially compared with her earlier outbursts, it’s amazing how quiet Jessie is when we return to her and Woody on the shelf. Her grief is no less deeply felt than her joy or anger, but her expression of it is extreme quiet rather than high energy and high volume. Woody understands now that Jessie is not so much jaded as deeply wounded. She isn’t someone who dismisses Woody’s relationship with Andy because she had never experienced anything like it. That, we will learn later on, is the story of another character. She has come to believe that being owned by a child isn’t worth it because she has been through the whole cycle and experienced the pain of the relationship ending.
This is where Woody real problem, the central issue of the whole film, becomes clear. Previously, Woody believed that he had two major problems. One was the fact that Al kidnapped him, the physical distance between Woody and Andy. The other was that he was a broken toy and, as demonstrated by Wheezy’s plight, broken toys get thrown out or sold or given away. Now he latter problem has been solved and the former is about to be. Geri has restored Woody to the point where a kid like Andy who doesn’t purposefully try to break his toys would have a tough time doing so. And with two good arms, Woody should have little trouble removing the ventilation grate and making his escape. But now, he’s faced with a harsh new realization. Jessie was a toy who was loved as much as Woody is. She wasn’t missing her hat or ripped or damaged in any way. Jessie was discarded because the little girl who loved her grew up and didn’t want her anymore. Woody’s understanding has gone from “broken toys get discarded” to “all toys eventually get discarded.” That’s the thought that Woody is wrestling with as he stands in front of the ventilation grate that leads to freedom and Andy.
The Prospector has his own agenda, even if we don’t know it yet, but he still isn’t saying anything entirely untrue. This isn’t a fantasy world where childhood lasts forever and toys are loved for all time. Andy is growing up and will someday go off to college (fairly soon, actually) and his honeymoon. The chances of Woody coming along for either seem pretty slim. The museum, a place where Woody could have a permanent home safe from injury, is starting to look pretty tempting. The Prospector never has to push Woody hard tog get the results he wants. He’s smart enough to know how to manipulate Woody with a gentle touch.
The genius of this scene- and the whole movie – is not just that it convincingly makes the museum into an appealing option for Woody, but that it does the same thing for the audience. Somewhere in the back of our heads, we know that the “right” thing for Woody to do is to go back to Andy. The whole first movie and much of this one have centered around the idea that toys love kids as much as the kids love them. Surely a film partially aimed at children would not conclude that toys are better off in museums than in the hands of kids? But at the same time, all the arguments in favor of Woody going to the museum are starting to sound really convincing. We’ve known and loved Woody since the first Toy Story. We don’t want to see him damaged beyond repair or thrown away when Andy outgrows him. We can’t rationalize our fears away. Toys being abandoned by kids who once loved them is a real thing. It happened to Jessie and the Prospector is making it very clear that it can and almost certainly will happen to Woody. We might even being thinking about our own experiences with someone leaving us: a friend who moved away, a romance that ended in tears, a child who grew up and had a new life where parents were no longer so central. Toy Story 2 brings up themes that are universal, but never loses sight of the reality of this situation: toys and the kids they love. The metaphor is there, but it doesn’t overwhelm the literal story.
What do we, the audience want? We want a happy ending. But what does a happy ending look like now? Woody has been Andy’s toy – his favorite since kindergarten – for as long as we have known him. We want to believe that Andy would be devastated if Woody simply vanished. But we’ve just been shown that Andy will almost certainly outgrown Woody one day. And the last thing we want is to see is Woody being put away in storage or sold at a yard sale or just plain thrown out. Plus, there’s the Roundup Gang to think of. If Woody leaves, they go back into storage until Al can find another complete Sheriff Woody doll, which could very well be never. We want them to get their happy ending too. We know now that Jessie has suffered incredible heartbreak. Bullseye is a sweet and loyal creature and the Prospector seems so kind and wise. A happy ending could never be truly happy if Woody went back to Andy and left them all behind.
Before Woody announces his decision, Bullseye comes over and Woody pets him. The Prospector may provide the logical reasons for Woody to do what he does, but Bullseye offers up the purely emotional nudges that help him get there. Woody and Jessie share a smile that offers hope that their relationship could again be what it was before Woody told her that he needed to return to Andy. Despite that nagging worry in the back of our heads and the knowledge that Andy’s toys are still looking for Woody, this appears to be a happy moment. The Roundup Gang gets the future they always dreamed of, while Woody will spend the rest of his days safe and whole with his new friends. Is this the happy ending we’ve been hoping for?
To be continued….
All images in this article are copyright Disney/Pixar.
Tags: computer animation, disney, pixar
