8 Startling Early Versions Of Your Favourite Pixar Films
2. Woody Was A Nasty Piece Of Work - Toy Story
The pivotal moment in Toy Story is when Woody knocks Buzz out of the window. It's the characters most deplorable action in the movie and to keep the audience involved you need to be able to forgive him; Buzz is still half an hour off snapping out of his fantasy and for that time we need to really like Woody.
Originally that wasn't the case. Rather than an attempt to get Andy's attention gone wrong, in an earlier draft of the film he premeditatedly knocked Buzz out of the house. This is emblematic of the initial Woody character; he was a self entitled leader who had an ego rivalled in size only by his pure hate of Buzz. A nasty, borderline bully, this early Woody was so deplorable that Disney almost pulled the plug on the whole project; there was no in for the audience, so the protagonist came across as just unlikable, rather than humanly misguided. Tom Hanks even reportedly called Woody a jerk while recording his lines.
This wasn't Pixar's fault however; it was a result of Jeffrey Katzenberg's insistence the characters be less wholesome than they originally were. He realised the errors of his ways when a test screening left the whole Disney exec with a foul taste in their mouths and gave John Lasseter a chance to fix the problems. Which, as we know, they did with gusto.