Tin Toy

Voices of: N/A
Directed by: John Lasseter
Rating: G
Genre: Short, Animation
Length: 5 minutes
1988

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A toy musician tries to avoid a baby.

Review:

Tim: Tin Toy is a landmark animated short, one whose story behind it is more interesting than the story of the film. The film itself is good- it really was more of a showcase for what computer animation can do than anything else. A one-man band toy tries to avoid a destructive baby, before ultimately sacrificing himself for the good of the child. It's a cute story and fairly straight forward. I'm not sure if I have a whole lot to say about the film's story. I will say that while the animation was shockingly vivid for 1988, it's a bit hard to watch today. You can see how far computer graphics have come. Especially jarring is the depiction of the baby. At the time, that was the biggest selling point and the most realistic human ever created through computer animation. It's pretty creepy, though. I didn't care for that aspect of the film.

The story behind this film is fascinating, though. The short was a big risk for Pixar, who was struggling financially. It featured cutting edge computer animation, especially the baby. The film showed how incredible computer animation could be. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short, the first CGI film to ever win an Oscar. It was also the first Academy Award for Pixar. Because of this short, Disney recognized the potential of Pixar and made an agreement to collaborate on Toy Story. The rest, they say, is history. I found that story just incredible. This movie itself good, but it would directly inspire Toy Story, which is one of the all-time great animated series. You can see the influence of this film in that later movie. That's incredible.

It's been fun to watch the early Pixar short films. Each one demonstrates clear progression in the field of computer animation. This one was released a year after Red's Dream and the improvement is obvious.

Tin Toy is definitely an important film. For that reason, it is absolutely worth tracking down.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- N/A



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Red's Dream, Toy Story