[editor's note: I literally haven't written anything longer than a Facebook status in probably half a year, so excuse any typos or mistakes that may arise]

The moments in which the movie going experience changes irreversibly are few and far between. Just rattling off the top of my head, you can point to the silent-movie to sound conversion, the introduction of color, and the advent of special effects and the summer blockbuster as all changing how movies were made and what we came to expect from the movie experience. One only needs to look at the number of computer generated movies released every year to know that Toy Story belongs somewhere on that list.

No one knew it at the time, but what we were witnessing with Toy Story's release was not only the birth of the computer generated animation movie, but the coming out party of a once in a generation creative force known as Pixar. George Harrison once remarked that he felt the creative "energy" that existed in the Beatles flowed to Monty Python. I like to think this energy now exists in Pixar Studios in Northern, California.

From Toy Story's release on, it's been nothing but home-runs. But not all homeruns are created equal. Don't get me wrong, all homeruns are exciting, but some can seem mundane when compared to other towering and unexpected shots. Pixar's A Bug's Life and Monsters Inc fit into these categories.

And some home-runs are barely home-runs at all. Either they barely clear the fence or they're an "inside the park" home-run. I'd put Cars into this category. Yeah, it was exciting and it got the job done, but if that outfielder hadn't bobbled the ball, it would have been a triple.

But what makes Pixar so incredible is that the rest of their movies (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Wall-E, Up, and Finding Nemo) have not only been home-runs, they've been towering, epic grand-slams of entertainment. Each one so unique and so special, it's hard to not go overboard when describing them.

To take the strained baseball analogy one final step, the Toy Story movies are the Babe Ruth of the Pixar filmography. They're the ones you're used to, the ones you come comfortably home to again and again, and the ones that, because they kind of came first, all subsequent films will be compared to.

Some people think that Pixar has a perfect hitting streak of movies. I'd take that a step further. I think they have a perfect BEAT streak going on. Every single thing that they really attempt in their movies just works at an astonishing level. I might exclude "Cars" from this on some level, but EVERYTHING WORKS... every joke, every emotion they mean to invoke, every song, every voice actor, every bit of scenery created, etc. In fact, the only thing Pixar DOESN'T do well is cut exciting trailers. That's why after every Pixar trailer is released, people start predicting this to be the movie that finally fails.

I remember how giddy I was after I saw Toy Story way back in 1995. It had an energy and look unlike anything I had ever seen before. Each joke worked. Each gag worked. Each story beat worked. We take it for granted now, but the level of wit and good energy that Toy Story exuded was special. My brother and I would not stop talking about it. We had that urge to drag everyone we knew to see it instantly.

Toy Story 2 (how great is it that they just use a 2 or 3 at the end of these titles and don't resort to forced puns or gimmicks?) is about as perfect a sequel as you're ever going to see. I remember people on message boards comparing Toy Story 2 to the short list of sequels that actually managed to best the original. So it was common to see the titles The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather 2 in discussions people were having about Toy Story 2. While you can't quite compare The Godfather 2 and Toy Story 2 as movies, in terms of "trilogy" and "follow ups that were better than the original, I think the shoe more than fits.

But I think the Toy Story and Godfather trilogies share more in common than just being trilogies in which the second part is the strongest individual part. I think they're also distant cousins in how their trilogies are structured. The Toy Story trilogy is not a "single quest" trilogy. There is no, "by the third movie, this ring needs to be in a Mordor lava pit" or "the Empire needs to be defeated" arc that has to take place.

Like the Godfather trilogy, the Toy Story trilogy is about the theme that binds each movie together like glue. Yeah, there's talk in the first two movies about Andy getting older and them ending up in the dump, but the characters don't spend the whole trilogy trying to avoid these fates. The trilogy instead relies on themes of friendship and family, abandonment and anxiety.

And just like Godfather 2 could have logically been the final movie of that saga, Toy Story 2 could also have been the final piece of that saga. We didn't have to see Toy Story 3 to feel like the story's resolved. You couldn't have ended the LOTR movies with The Two Towers and had people feel like they'd seen all they needed to see. That trilogy *had* to end to get a story resolution.

But as resolute as the Godfather 2 was, there's also a big part of the movie going audience that wanted to see what exactly happens to Michael Corleone when taken a step further. They wanted to see how the themes of family anxieties and control played out for their favorite characters.

But where The Godfather 3 is kind of a mixed bag of success and lowercase "f" fail, Toy Story 3 is largely a mixed bag of success and epic WIN.

Toy Story 3 (and all third parters) have kind of a built in advantage of not needing to introduce us to the characters once again. While they structured the movie in a way that a newbie would have enjoyed it, it really just picks up logically where the second movie ended. But that set-up can also be a disadvantage, too. A lot of third parters suffer from a case of tire-spinning and "further adventures" syndrome. Because we already know and love these characters, you don't have to take the time to introduce the characters and can basically start the movie running. I think that's often why trilogies feel so tired in the third parts. But what's most amazing about Toy Story 3 is that our affection for these characters is so strong, it's not only survived the 11 years between movies, it's grown stronger.

The first time you see Woody and Buzz (and the whole gang), I was almost instantly reminded of all the good and great things these characters had already gone through.

Like every single trilogy in which a single theme or quest takes place, things finally come to a head and to a conclusion. The themes that had been discussed and marched towards (or avoided) have finally come to a head. The success of a trilogy will be depend directly on how these final moments resolve themselves. Will the answers to the questions we asked earlier in the trilogy pay off in a way that satisfies the audience or will it kind of fizzle out?

I'll tackle this more in my actual review of the movie, but the answers and payoffs in Toy Story 3 are significant and emotionally rewarding. The ultimate success of a trilogy depends on the combination of a strong second movie and an emotionally (or intellectually) satisfying final chapter. In this way, the Toy Story trilogy belongs side by side with all the great cinematic trilogies.

If I'm judging each part individually, I think the second movie is the strongest individual piece, followed by the third movie (I think, this may change after subsequent viewings), with the first movie coming in a close third. But the great thing about great trilogies is that the better the trilogy, the less important individual pieces become. Yeah, one may like LOTR: The Two Towers the most of that trilogy, but you really can't do wrong with any of those movies. You can't say the same for the Matrix movies. That's a relatively weak trailer, so the individual parts become more important.

That's all for now, folks. I'll hopefully have my actual review of Toy Story 3 up sometime really soon!

Matthew