# Why The First Toy Story Still Beats Every Pixar Sequel, Even After Three Decades

> Released in 1995, the original Toy Story remains the sharpest, scariest and most subversive film in the franchise, blending bold new technology with quippy dialogue, real fear and genuine heart.

**Type:** article · **Category:** Hollywood · **Published:** 2026-06-17 · **Source:** TrendKia
**Canonical:** https://trendkia.com/en/hollywood/tina-dashaka-bada-bhi-pahali-toy-story-hi-kyon-hai-puri-siriza-ki-sabase-damadar-1257 · **Language:** English
**Tags:** Toy Story, Pixar, Woody and Buzz, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Disney+, animated film, John Lasseter

## A bold claim about a beloved franchise
For a series stacked with sequels that get called 'masterpieces', it almost sounds like a provocation to argue that the very first _Toy Story_ is still the best of them all. The sweeping scale of _Toy Story 2_ and the heart-shattering moments of _Toy Story 3_ (I still haven't recovered from that furnace sequence) loom so large that people tend to forget just how sharp, witty, emotional and genuinely subversive that original _Pixar_ adventure really was.

## Seeing it through eight-year-old eyes
When _Toy Story_ came out in 1995, I was an eight-year-old boy obsessed with exactly two things, movies and toys. At that moment I was hooked on my Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which, much like Buzz Lightyear, came with blinking laser lights, sound effects and impressive wingspans. So it's fair to say I was the ideal audience for this particular film. Its central idea, dreamed up by _Pixar_ co-founder John Lasseter, was beautifully simple and instantly relatable to almost any child: what exactly do your toys get up to the moment you leave the room?

## Gambling on brand new technology
Even as a kid, I sensed that _Toy Story_ was a big deal, simply because it looked unlike any other animated film. This was the dawn of 3D computer animation. _Pixar_ had already won an Academy Award for their computer animated short _Tin Toy_ in 1989, yet animating an entire feature in this style felt like a huge risk, especially when the 'renaissance'-era Disney films of the early '90s, all rendered gorgeously in classic 2D, were dominating the box office. By today's standards the computer animation in _Toy Story_ has aged a little, particularly the human characters, who look like they've wandered out of a PlayStation cutscene, but that look was essential to this story. It would never have worked if it had looked like _The Lion King_ or _Aladdin_. This was a world of man-made plastic toys. It needed to feel artificial and yet tangible.

## The opening that said it all
The opening sequence proves the point perfectly, introducing us to Andy and his toys, all of them familiar real-world products, a slinky, an Etch-a-Sketch, a piggy bank, a Mr. Potato Head. We watch a recognisable scene from a classic western, in which a criminal stages a 'stick-up' at a city bank, except it is acted out by inanimate toys that a human child controls and voices. We are not inside a magical storybook fairytale like _Beauty And The Beast_, but in a tangible, three-dimensional world. Here we can see the shine on the plastic action figures, the lens flare from the sun pouring through Andy's window, and the reflections on Buzz Lightyear's retractable helmet. Unlike Aladdin and Jasmine on their magic carpet, Buzz doesn't fly. He simply falls with style, bouncing and crashing into the everyday objects around Andy's room. There is a realism sitting beneath the magic.

## A hero who wasn't really heroic
_Toy Story_ wasn't only a gamble because of its new, experimental technology. It was risky because of its buddy comedy structure built around two distinctly unconventional leads, a deluded toy who believes he is a genuine space ranger, and a bitter, jealous cowboy desperate to get rid of him. Woody and Buzz Lightyear are not your typical Disney heroes. While Woody mellows across the sequels, in the original he is honestly pretty mean, fuelled by bitterness, jealousy, cynicism and a craving to be in charge. The script, co-written by Joss Whedon, the king of quippy, cynical, self-aware dialogue, is loaded with sharp buddy-movie put-downs ("_The word you're looking for is space ranger._" "_The word I'm looking for I can't say, because there's pre-school toys present!_"). Early drafts made Woody even nastier before Disney advised _Pixar_ to soften his edges. Even then, there is something unsettling about watching our hero gleefully steer a remote-control car at his rival, intending to knock him off a ledge and out of the picture. Of course, it helps enormously that Woody is voiced by the most likeable man in Hollywood. Tom Hanks brings warmth and magic to Woody, even when he is angrily screaming "_YOU ARE A TOY!_" at a blissfully oblivious Buzz Lightyear.

## The darkest, scariest film in the series
The film's subversive streak hits its peak when Woody and Buzz get trapped in the bedroom of Sid, the terrifying, psychopathic kid next door who likes to torture toys. As a budding horror obsessive, it is no surprise I adored _Toy Story_ as a child. It is still the darkest and scariest entry in the franchise. Even that furnace sequence in _3_ or the eerie antique store sequence in _4_ can't match the genuine dread of Sid's room, where mutilated toys, stitched and Frankenstein-ed back together, crawl out of the darkness towards our heroes like something straight out of _The Conjuring_.

## Hidden nods to horror cinema
In fact, the film is packed with references to horror cinema. The carpet in Sid's house matches the carpet in Stanley Kubrick's _The Shining_, and it surely can't be a coincidence that 1988's _Child's Play_, the original Chucky, made seven years earlier, follows a boy named Andy whose best friend is a talking toy.

## This is just as much Buzz's story
There is psychological horror woven in too, when Buzz leaps from the top of Sid's stairs trying to fly, only to crash to Earth both physically and mentally, losing an arm and spiralling into an existential crisis. This is the finest Buzz Lightyear film in the series, charting his journey from confident spaceman to total breakdown ("I am Mrs. Nesbitt!") and finally to accepting his own self-worth, played with real pathos by Tim Allen. While Buzz is somewhat reduced to a comedic sidekick in the sequels, this story belongs to him just as much as it belongs to Woody.

## A friendship story, with a little darkness
After a breathless climax, in which Woody and Buzz break free of Sid's grip and 'fall with style' back into Andy's car, they finally settle their differences and accept both each other and themselves. Woody realises this town really is big enough for the two of them, and Buzz discovers that being a child's favourite toy might be even more fulfilling than being a space ranger. Ultimately, as Randy Newman's iconic theme 'You've Got A Friend In Me' suggests, _Toy Story_ is a story about friendship, told with nuance, maturity and even a little darkness.

## A gamble that paid off
The risks taken in its storytelling, characters and technology all paid off. _Toy Story_ was a juggernaut success that established _Pixar_'s signature talent for tackling bold, difficult subject matter in a smart and accessible way for kids and adults alike. Without that enormous success, we would never have had unique, strange, boundary-pushing animated gems like _Up_, _Inside Out_ and indeed the _Toy Story_ sequels. Thanks to _Toy Story_, there are no limits to where mainstream animated storytelling can go. To infinity and beyond.

## What this means for you
- **For fans:** If you love animation or Pixar, this is a reminder that the first Toy Story remains the sharpest and scariest entry, well worth a rewatch.
- **For viewers:** The original Toy Story is streaming now on Disney+, so you can watch it at home whenever you like.

## Questions & Answers

### 1. When was Toy Story released?
The original Toy Story was released in 1995.

### 2. Who voices Woody and Buzz Lightyear?
Woody is voiced by Tom Hanks and Buzz Lightyear by Tim Allen.

### 3. Who came up with the story and wrote the script?
The central idea came from Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, and the script was co-written by Joss Whedon.

### 4. Where can I watch Toy Story now?
Toy Story is streaming now on Disney+.

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