With Toy Story 5 set to release on June 19 this year,
movie conversations among film lovers
often reveal very different tastes and preferences

But when it comes to the Toy Story series,
opinions tend to converge
with a surprisingly high probability
on one conclusion:
that it’s a masterpiece

I love movies a lot,
but strangely enough,
my memory of Toy Story is pretty thin,
mostly just
“I’ve seen the first one”

If I try to think about why,
when Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 were released
in 1995, 1999, and 2010,
I was a kid who preferred
running around outside,
so I wasn’t really interested in movies at all
(a kid who liked dirt more than movie theaters)

That’s how little I knew about Toy Story
I didn’t even realize
that Woody was voiced by Tom Hanks
until I saw the end credits after watching it
which honestly shocked me

So, to fully enjoy Toy Story 5
which is set to be released this June,

I’ve decided to rewatch the entire Toy Story series
starting from the very beginning

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<About the Film>

Released in 1995, Toy Story is
a truly historic film,

one that deserves to be marked
as a clear turning point
on the timeline of cinema

The reason is simple

Toy Story was
the very first fully 3D animated feature film

At the time,
CG technology did exist,

but it was only used sparingly,
in small portions throughout films

There had never been a precedent
for creating an entire movie in 3D

And Toy Story completely broke that boundary

At the time,
rendering just a single frame
took around 10 to 15 hours

That means 1 second = 24 frames

So for a single second of footage,
you’re looking at
240 to 360 hours of rendering

It’s honestly hard to even imagine, isn’t it?

That’s why they relied on something called a render farm

Thousands of computers split the workload
each one calculating different frames in parallel

Conceptually,
it’s similar to how supercomputers
or modern AI servers operate

A cluster system
where multiple machines
are linked together
and function as a single system

The purpose may be different,
but in a way,
render farms can be seen as
the ancestors of today’s large-scale computing clusters

In the film,
humans appear only briefly
or are shown as just feet or partial figures,
yet it never feels awkward

Rather than exposing technical limitations,
Pixar chose to avoid them deliberately

By selectively framing what to show and what not to show,
they were able to keep the storytelling smooth and immersive

It was a strategic decision
one that turned limitation into strength

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<Review>

Even though this film is over 30 years old,
it truly feels like a timeless masterpiece

Much like The Godfather or Studio Ghibli films,
it made me think again about why classics
are still talked about and still resonate today

Especially across things that were once grouped under the word philosophy—
paintings, books, and ideas—
the value of classics continues to hold up

(I know philosophy includes a wide range of disciplines,
and I don’t pretend to understand all of them haha)

Film is no different

Among the many great works being made in our time,
some will eventually earn the title of
classic or masterpiece as time passes

So beyond its technical achievement
as the first full 3D animated feature,

why is Toy Story still so enjoyable today

Wrapped in the creative idea and world
of toys coming to life,
the core message feels like this

“Am I still needed?”

Lately, I’ve been asking myself the same question

As we move through life,
within our families, workplaces, relationships, and environments,
our sense of usefulness keeps changing

At one point, we’re at the center of everything

At another, we become someone’s support

Sometimes we’re the captain of our own ship,
and other times we feel completely unnecessary

I’ve spent a long time thinking about
how I should exist in this world

The answer I arrived at was
“in a way that makes me happy”

But when I actually tried to be happy,
I realized I didn’t really know how

I kept searching for what I liked,
without being sure what that even was

After watching Toy Story this time,
I naturally found myself thinking

“When do I feel like I’m needed?”
“When was the last time I felt truly happy?”

For me, it was when I helped someone

Doing something that wasn’t difficult for me,
or even if it was,
using that effort to draw out someone else’s warmth and affection

Woody gives Andy joy during his childhood

Thanks to Woody,
Andy lives his days filled with happiness

When Buzz appears as a new presence,
Woody begins to feel anxious

He worries that his identity and usefulness
might disappear

And that anxiety doesn’t feel any different from ours

Buzz also represents every new anxiety
that appears in front of us

Living life, I’ve come to feel that
“stability,” much like “happiness,”
is fleeting

It doesn’t feel right to chase it as a permanent state

As we go about our days,
new “Buzzes” keep showing up in front of us

Through this film,
thinking about how to live
while coexisting with anxiety
felt deeply meaningful

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