my favorite thing about the toy story franchise is how, by the third movie, they got really good at designing fictional toy products.
in the first two movies, aside from real toys like slinky and the potato heads, most of the characters are kinda just a story book idea for what a child’s toy would be: cowboy dolls, sci-fi action figures, piggy bank, dinosaur, etc.
Then we get to the third movie (11 years later), and suddenly there’s all these toys that look like they came from real toylines. like the rock dude with the flippable face, and the bug dude that looks like a he-man character. they look like they belong in real toy franchises!
The Christmas special gave us the Battlesaurs, which look like they could occupy a whole aisle of a real-life toy store (and they probably did, since disney made real versions of em)
Small Fry had the abandoned happy meal toys and each of them come from a different series. they look like actual toys that would be sold at fast food restaurants.
My favorite would have to be the halloween special, where they had Transitron, a bunch of cars that can combine into a robot, and Combat Carl and Combat Carl Jr., which are two toys of the same character, but one is smaller cause he’s from the playset.
For comparison, here’s what Combat Carl looked like in the first movie:
i was thinking about this cause i saw the new toy story 4 tv spot and they introduced keanu reeves’ character, which looks like a real toy that you would find at your uncle’s basement somewhere.
you can tell how much research was put into these characters, like what materials they’d be made of, how they are painted, where their screws and points of articulation, and which parts would be removable, etc.
now, obviously, the reason for this bump in quality is because they realized the great merchandising opportunities of making real versions of these toys, but i still find it really cool how much thought and creativity was put in these designs.
dededos
vaporwave
kaledo-art
snowghoul
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
