No film in the past two decades has had such a profound, irreversible impact on cinema than Toy Story. The most influential animated film this side of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, it totally changed how Hollywood approached family films, with its effect still felt obliquely to this day. The biggest, most lauded part of this was the presentation. It was, after all, the first feature-length computer animated film ever made, and its unprecedented success prompted rival studios to dip their toes in the CG waters, to the point where traditional 2D cell animation is now a niche form. But one thing all these imitators missed, and even the better ones are only just beginning to understand twenty years later, was that the real genius of Toy Story wasn't in its computer wizardry, but its creativity. From the taking of the notion of toys coming to life when kids aren't around and giving them their own, human-mimicking community to the wryly-observed script, everything about Toy Story on a creative level is perfect. Watch the film in a crude storyboard form, stripped of the visual whizz-bang and it's still the same exhilarating and emotional experience. Many of the traits that would go on to define Pixar - from the emotional moments to the reference-stuffed backgrounds - are present here in a totally refined, completed form, meaning that even though the technology has made leaps and bounds since (although there is a charm to the plastic-y humans), it doesn't feel antiquated amongst what followed.
