8 Things You Might Not Know About Toy Story

In the mid-1990s, Toy Story emerged not only to take Pixar out of its semi-anonymity, but also to provoke a cartoon revolution. In addition to giving rise to one of the most lucrative franchises in film history, the first Toy Story has also elevated computer-based animations of technological curiosities to one of the premier cinematic paradigms - sometimes even exploited.

However, unlike the box office figures of Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, the misadventures of Andy, Woody, Buzz, Jesse, and Cia have not been successful without a good deal of course deviations - some of them emerging as waist games, to avoid the low initial budget and even internal sabotage.

Without further ado, check out 8 Toy Story trivia you may not know about. Even if they don't make eye drops, like the final scene in Toy Story 3, it is certain that there can be quite surprising things there.

1 - Woody could have been a sidekick ...

Originally, Pixar did not intend Woody to be the protagonist of Toy Story. In fact, the idea was for the cowboy to take the sidekick position of Tin Toy's celebrated hero, one of the studio's previous animations.

2 - ... Or a ventriloquist doll

But the initial plans also differed regarding the nature of the doll. As some of the early sketches for the feature show, Woody has almost become a ventriloquist figure. When Buzz Lightyear was included, however, the team decided that Woody should be the opposite end of a high-tech space toy, becoming a cowboy made of fabric and upholstery.

3 - No budget for trendy actors

Originally, Pixar intended to put Paul Newman to voice Woody. Buzz Lightyear would also gain a famous voice, that of comedian Jim Carrey. The problem was that money was insufficient, as the studio was still relatively small at the time.

The team also sought out Billy Crystal, who declined the offer - only to realize the huge opportunity they had missed as soon as Toy Story hit theaters. Later, the actor would gain a new chance with the studio by lending his voice to Mike Osawski, the friendly green acorn of "Monsters SA".

4 - Generic Barbie

In the early scripts of Toy Story, the idea was for Woody to get romantically involved with a Barbie. However, the problem of lack of money arose again, so Pixar was unable to reach a license agreement with Mattel. In fact, the manufacturer believed the animation would be a huge failure, and really had no intention of associating its brand.

Given the colossal success of the first film, however, Mattel revised its decision, and the sequences now boasted dozens of Barbies and Kens. Another curiosity concerns Barbie's voice. It is the gogo of Jodi Benson, voice actor of Ariel in "The Little Mermaid".

5 - Toy Story 2 has almost been deleted

As Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull said in the book Creativity Inc., Toy Story 2 was a troublesome title right out of the box: creative blocks, delayed development, director John Lasseter's exhaustion (not yet recovered from the first movie marathon) etc. .

But things got worse: One day in 1998, an undisclosed employee added the command line “/ bin / rm -r -f *” to the drives where the movie files were stored.

The code basically provides information that content must be removed quickly and efficiently from a given location - ultimately sending into space scenarios, character models, and entire sequences of the movie. To help, the system backup failed, and the team even believed that all was really lost.

Providentially, however, one of Pixar's directors at the time, even though she was on maternity leave, chose to take the contents of the animation home to work in the home office . Although it did not have all the deleted content, what it can replace meant that the damage was “significantly reduced”.

6 - Sequences go to DVD and VHS, right?

Considering the initial stumbling blocks of Toy Story 2 - despite the success of the original Toy Story - it may not sound strange that even the studio was not very confident in the sequel. So much so that the launch plans were far less glamorous. The original idea was that Toy Story 2 would win only DVD and VHS versions, following the formula that would normally apply to animation-based movie sequencing.

Once the work was done, however, Disney and Pixar realized that they had something special in their hands and opted to put the feature film in theaters - eventually earning $ 246 million in box office, plus another $ 415 million raised in Toy Story 3. Certainly a good choice.

7 - Toy “Insect Life” Story

Did the initial scene with Buzz Lightyear's flight in Toy Story 2 seem familiar? Not? Well, be aware that the beautiful alien universe shown there is actually one of the scenarios of the properly reshuffled and recycled "Bug's Life" animation.

However, by lowering the ground level to make the mountains of the alien planet higher than the original hills, some graphic programmer forgot to lower the rocks, which floated on the surface. It turns out that Pixar directors saw it, loved it, and the mistake was kept - although some rotation was put in the rocks to make it even more extraterrestrial.

8 - A double traumatized bear

Although Lotso appears only in Toy Story 3, the malevolent bear had been conceived several years earlier during the development of the first film. The creators wanted a teddy bear-style character, Teddy Ruxpin, who was properly gifted with speech skills (a K7 tape and such).

However, at the time, given the technical limitations, the animations created for Lotso's fur and textures simply did not convince, causing him to be shelved. Yeah. A traumatized bear on and off screen.