By Fred Topel | Image property of respective holders
Toy Story
These are the Blu Rays I’ve been waiting for. After seeing how awesome the Pixar movies look, old as Bug’s Life or new as Wall-E, you know the Pixar would do their originals right.
Toy Story Movies on Blu-Ray
Even the very first Toy Story has the same digital clarity as the latest Oscar winners. Most striking is the shine. Real plastic doesn’t shine like that but these magical creations do. Of course the colors are the brightest you’ve ever seen. Different times of day show beautiful different takes on location establishing shots.
Textures like the baby’s hair, the cowboy or space blankets, the old wood on the door to Andy’s room, car seats, scuffs as Buzz takes damage in his journey, the Pizza Planet truck and more shows that they were putting detail into the little scenery from the beginning.
A few years later on Toy Story 2, they just take it to the next level. The opening Buzz Lightyear sequence shows a planetscape that compares to <B>Avatar</B>. The enemy robots have so much texture. The subtle reflections on the space helmets add so much life to the scene.
The lighting in Andy’s room looks more direct and the characters are all sharper. Rex, for example, has crisper scales. Outdoor locations offer even more color and texture, like the adventure across the street. New locations like Al’s apartment and the toy store are just excuses to fill in distinct details in the scene, probably because they started from scratch.
These movies look amazing. It always looked like Pixar put their best material out there each time, but now they can go back and bring out more detail, even in their first movie. I guess some day we’ll see the shorts looking all Blu Ray’d up too.