Top 5 Toy Story Scenes with Griffin Newman | Archive

27:19And this moment in Toy Story 2 when the cleaner comes to repair Woody. is just sort of this obsessive sort of, I don't know, tribute to their detail-oriented nature at Pixar. Woody's arm has fallen off after being ripped little by little by Andy and then getting damaged further in transit. He finally ends up at Al's apartment where he's been kidnapped. And when Al pulls him out of the case, his arm falls clean off. So they have to call an expert in the cleaner played by Roddy McDowell, who is an old man. They reuse from one of their short films, Jerry's Game, because they didn't have the budget to design a new character.

28:01So they literally just copy pasted the character over into this movie. But you just have this wordless sequence with this really excellent piece of score from Randy Newman. That is this is, you know, an area that the films otherwise don't cover. someone whose job is to just preserve toys for historical purposes, for collectible purposes, as it were. And you just watch an expert work as he shines his boots and he polishes his eyes and restitches his arm. And it ends with him applying a coat of paint to the bottom of the foot, covering up Andy on Woody's boot, which I remember seeing that for the first time in the audience gasping.

28:41And I love when something that is that innocuous can get that visceral response from an audience just because of the emotional weight that the film has put upon it.

28:50Adam Kempenaar:Right. It's a tiny and significant act. You know, it's a man applying a coat of paint to a little doll. But it means a lot at this moment. And I feel like this moment is also Pixar really both challenging themselves and showing off how hard they can commit to the details of this world. Yeah, it's such a great choice. and such a standout sequence. And it occurs to me while you're describing it that as I'm remembering it, I'm not sure we really get a sense ever of any pleasure that the cleaner is taking. He maybe hints a little bit, right? But for the most part, he's pretty stoic while doing it.

29:24He says you can't rush art. That's it, right? Al's coming in and keeping him on the clock and he sort of pushes everything away and this is just this methodical task for him. You know, it's like he's a locksmith or a plumber or anything.

29:37Adam Kempenaar:But in doing that, it ties back to this idea of of being of service, too. Right. And almost like the same way these toys are appreciated in a much rougher way. The way that they are shown their love and appreciation by their kids is by roughhousing and goofing around and getting banged up and dirty. But in his own way, the cleaner is doing the exact same thing. You could argue he's showing his appreciation by treating them with the reverence and the care that they that they require and deserve. So completely. I mean, you get the sense that the cleaner respects Woody more than Al does, even if neither of them know that he has a working brain.

30:15For sure.

30:16Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. My number three is from Toy Story. And we talked a little bit about Sid during our review of Toy Story 4. It's the moment when Sid's mutant toys actually help out Buzz and Woody. And it's all set up first by this great point of view sequence where they're coming home from Pizza Planet and Buzz and Woody are in the bag. And we see everything from their perspective within that bag as they enter Sid's house. And we see him fighting with his sister. And we touched on this, that when you do rewatch and reconsider Toy Story and Sid, you recognize his imagination and his ingenuity and that he's probably just a little bit misguided and misunderstood.

30:54Adam Kempenaar:As you said, the Pixar people regard regard him as is probably an artist and that may be who he becomes. But it just speaks to our attachment, right, to these toys that the way they see it gets all about that perspective and point of view. The way they see Sid is how we see Sid. And he just seems like the devil incarnate. Right. And in this religious world that, you know, some of us think this movie inhabits, maybe that's supposed to be appropriate. But the the moment I'm talking about is all set up first by this kind of traditional horror sequence the night before where Sid does the brain transplant on his sister's doll and combines it with a pterodactyl.

31:32Adam Kempenaar:And Woody freaks out seeing all the toy parts and he makes a break for it. And we see one of the toy pieces kind of ominously just roll out. And then that shadow that flashes behind him. and we hear some sounds from underneath the bed first and then the mechanical spider baby emerges that he's so terrified by. But Woody sees just part of his face first. He just sees the baby's face and assumes he's friendly. But then when he sees the eye missing and the body, the spider body, that's when he gets scared. And other things you think about, like the Jack in the Box and the other mutant toys coming out, fairly innocuous.

32:08Adam Kempenaar:But to Woody in that moment, it just amplifies the horror. And we get that sense because of the angles and because of the lighting and the way we see Woody respond. Again, we just assume that everything Sid touches must be evil like he is. And that is all shattered completely right during the escape the next day. The attempted escape from Sid's house when Woody's got Buzz's arm and those mutant toys grab the body back and they grab the arm and they seemingly attack. Woody says, back, you cannibals. And we then watch in this frenzy at them repairing his arm. And Woody even says, but they're cannibals.

32:49Adam Kempenaar:We saw them eat those other toys. No, it was it was them helping to rebuild the other toys. And it's that moment where Woody and of course, then through him, we as viewers just completely misjudge them. And one of the things I was thinking about in relation to this scene and this film is that kids movies, typically even the very good ones, are almost always offering some kind of message. They're providing some kind of neat life lesson. And here, really quite subtly, I think, right, Toy Story shows this idea of the folly of rushing to judgment, especially judging anything based solely on appearance and of not allowing for empathy and for seeing who these toys really are.

33:29Adam Kempenaar:and thinking about what their needs are, instead just immediately viewing them as a threat to you, only through that prism of what they seem to be to you. And again, we talked about how the series is dominated by religious themes and analogies. This is a small moment, but I found it really moving because it was as if the toys that he was so scared of were also just looking for a friend. And of course, they then look, they turn out to be helpful and they show mercy to Woody and Buzz. and then they show that in return. There's something powerful in maybe what could be in the overall arc of the series, kind of a throwaway moment.

34:06Adam Kempenaar:There was something powerful, I thought, in the redemption of those toys. Oh, totally. I mean, Woody learns empathy through these mutant toys. I mean, because as you said, to a toy, Sid looks like Satan. I mean, he looks like someone who is just gleefully torturing toys for his own enjoyment. And so it's easy for Woody to jump to the conclusion that these must be demons, you know, his minions, uh, or, or completely corrupted by him in some way when in fact they are, uh, victims. And I think what he fears them because he fears becoming them. Uh, but he holds that against them personally. And, and the moment that really pays it off for me is after buzz has been taken outside, but the rocket, when he has to make the direct plea to them, when he really has to come to them and ask for them, their help and apologize for misjudging them.

34:53But it is kind of incredible. I mean, you think in 1995, it is pretty nuts how scary this sequence is. For sure. In terms of the design of the characters and the use of shadow and camera angles and all these things, they really play it as a full suspense sequence, which is, you know, you think about the climate of animated films at this point in time, it's one of the reasons why Pixar made such an impact because this is the kind of scene that a Disney movie would never have. You know, they're capable of going dark, but this is a far more complex type of dark than we had seen up until this point in time.

35:25Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Your number two. My number two is the incinerator at the end of Toy Story 3. It's a moment I cannot deny and I'm going to focus in on a really specific moment because that's what this list is and not the scenes as much. It is the moment and it's the moment that gets me where I start crying and my crying continues for the next 20 minutes. It is when they realize Woody's sort of scrambling, trying to find anything to hold on to, how he can get out of it. And the hand reaches out. Buzz reaches out his hand and Woody realizes that there is in fact nothing he can do. That for the first time, there is not a solution.

36:04The Toy Story movies are really defined by things going wrong over and over and over again. You know, they almost escape and then something goes wrong at the last second. They almost get out of the claw machine and then the aliens pull them back in, whatever it is. And so there's always some last saving grace. And this is the first time that he's really tested up until the last moment that maybe there's no way out of this. And the moment that destroys me is the grace of them realizing that they have each other and that they have to accept death. And if they're going to do it, they're going to do it as a group.

36:37You know, it's one of the reasons I am a little sad that four largely shafts the rest of the original toys, because I think a lot of this franchise is about what these characters mean to each other. You know, the solidarity in sort of their helplessness in this larger world. You know, even if they're all ultimately trying to serve the kid, along the way, they realize what they mean to each other and, you know, put their own lives on the line in order to help each other. And so this moment of all of them just sort of holding hands and accepting death is another bizarrely profound thing to put into a PG kids film.

37:19Yeah. You rarely see characters except that maybe death isn't the worst thing that could possibly happen to them and make some sort of peace with it. And so the fact that they're saved at the end doesn't negate it, because what is profound is that in that moment they're ready to stop fighting. But of course, the aliens and the clock come back to save them at the last moment.

37:40Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And I don't know if I should even go down this path because I have not given this any thought until you just brought up this scene. But I remember my reaction in the theater and I'm comparing it to something like the stunned feeling when they resign themselves and it feeling so different from any other kind of suspense or action movie where you are always expecting some kind of rescue. And the path I'm not sure I want to go down is I'm thinking about something like Avengers, you know, where we've got the Thanos snap moment that took everybody by surprise. And I get it. But at the same time, in the back of our minds, we all knew, well, there are more movies.

38:19Adam Kempenaar:Right. But we didn't know there were going to be more movies with Toy Story 3. In fact, I feel like most of us probably felt like there probably weren't. And I remember in that moment feeling like this is kind of a brutal way to go. But you know what? Them all looking at each other and accepting that in that moment also kind of felt appropriate. And I thought this could truly be it. And that that's so did stun and move me in the theater. And of course, then it only for me got better with the actual coda of the film. But that incinerator sequence is amazing. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more. And it's also, you know, there's an 11 year gap between two and three and a nine year gap between three and four.

38:56And the sort of jumps you see them make in terms of the actual technology are incredible. And that incinerator scene is just a visual marvel. You know, as terrifying as it is, it's weirdly beautiful. It is. Them all being lit by this fire.

39:15Adam Kempenaar:Even the glow of the incinerator, right? That they're moving towards. They're moving towards their demise. And yet there's something almost gorgeous about it. Absolutely. In that scene. I mean, it's like they're being, you know, torn in between heaven and hell. That's it. And the orange glow of the incinerator is replaced by the white glow of the claw. Yeah. And they get pulled up into heaven and given a new life. That's it. So somehow I didn't go with the Andy giving his toys to Bonnie scene from the end of Toy Story 3 here or the incinerator sequence. I'm not sure how I managed to do that and not go that way.

39:49Adam Kempenaar:But your pick is a perfect complement to my number two from Toy Story 3, which is the opening scene, the train robbery. and looking at it today really closely, it really finally occurred to me, probably should have been obvious before, that it makes sense probably that what is basically a genre movie, this film in a lot of ways is a prison escape movie, it begins with this big genre set piece, right? It's a robbery that we've seen a million times before. The potato heads trying to rob the train and being thwarted hopefully by Woody and Jesse shows up as well and we get Buzz in the mix too And just like in the road crossing, my number four, we get this great escalation of danger, right?

40:32Adam Kempenaar:The train is headed for a bridge. It's bad enough the train is headed for a bridge with TNT on it. And then, oh, no, the orphans. And we see that the boxcar is loaded with trolls. And that's a great moment. And then the whole escalation of the action, Woody going over the cliff but being rescued by Buzz and the aliens show up in Barbie's car. I think it's Barbie's car. They're probably driving. Dr. Evil Porkchop comes into the mix and his giant contraption, his ship and the space monkeys and the reveal. All that's there. The reveal finally is that it's what we know that this, of course, is all in Andy's imagination, that Dr.

41:08Adam Kempenaar:Evil Porkchop's flying machine is really just a cardboard box. It's being held together by string. And this is nothing that really jumped out at me today. Rewatching this clip that it's a perfect bookend to the entire film. Everything you just talked about with the incinerator sequence actually plays out in the opening of the film because it puts the toys in an impossible scenario. It looks like they've finally met their demise. The monkeys have them pinned down. Dr. Evil Porkshop is about to fire this giant laser. Surely this is the end of our beloved toys, except just like in the actual end of the film, we get a deus ex machina.

41:47Adam Kempenaar:Andy, as God, divinely intervenes in this moment, right? And gives Woody the plan to shoot Buzz's laser at Woody's badge, and it destroys the ship, and they all miraculously live to play another day. So it's a thrilling opening. The craft of it is great, but it completely prepares us for the type of movie Toy Story 3 is. And it foreshadows that ending, that ending that we just talked about and how great that is. In this whole sequence, for me, we get to see the toys as themselves, but they're fantasy versions of themselves, which is what imagination is all about, right? It's always about bending reality and trying to escape reality in some ways.

42:27Adam Kempenaar:So that aspect of this scene is always something that's really spoken to me. But again, seeing how it perfectly sets up the end of the film is another stroke of brilliance, I think, by Pixar. Yeah, it's a great pick. I mean, I think it's a fascinating scene because it's the only time in any of the films that you see the kids' imagination as they're playing. We have multiple scenes of Bonnie playing with the toys or Andy playing with the toys, but they're always from the perspective of what it would really look like if you were in that room. Yes. And you're seeing in this scene the fantasy, which also really sells why Woody is fighting so hard to try to get back to Andy this whole movie because you see how much fun this must be for him.

43:10You know how exciting this must be for him. It's not just these statues that are being wiggled around like we usually have with the Kulichev effect. It's like, wow, this is a really rich interior life that Andy is giving them that they can't get without him. And the mirroring that you talk about, I mean, that's this thing. I feel like sometimes people criticize these movies that they do repeat themselves. But I think often it is a very deliberate sort of echoing. So not only will a thing echo itself twice in one film, like the beginning and the end of this, but this opening is also an echo of the opening of Toy Story 2.

43:40Right. Where we open with Buzz Lightyear's Adventure. And it turns out to be a video game. It's not Andy playing. It's Rex playing. But you're seeing sort of what the fantasy version of these characters are. which is an interesting thing in these films is that all of these characters are products that are based off of something, you know?

43:57Adam Kempenaar:Yes. They're not one of a kind and they have this sort of – they're wrestling with their identity in terms of who they feel like they are and who they are sort of literally meant to be. That's it. You know? Buzz thinks he's a real spaceman. Woody owns that he is a toy. But they even have characters like Rex who are designed to be a scary dinosaur but feel insecure. and this is the scene where everyone is kind of living their best life. That's it. And it's nice that it's all these callbacks from 1 and 2, Evil Dr. Porkchop and the badge reflection happens when Andy plays with them in 2 and Slinky as the force field dog and Rex is the dinosaur that eats force field dogs.

44:35I mean at this point in the theater I'm losing my mind because they're getting all the details right and it's all really nice callbacks. But it also is, as you said, it's a pretty thrilling epic action sequence.

44:47Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And it's worth noting, you mentioned this there, that as much as I think Toy Story 3 is the film with the most overtly religious overtones, that this whole theme we've been talking about, this whole concept played out throughout these films, this existential crisis, you see it initially in Buzz. And I think that it's something that Josh actually in his book, Movies Are Prayers, writes about. He focuses on Toy Story and that moment when Buzz finally accepts his position in the world. He understands what he really is and how he should be used and how that is counter to everything up to that point.

45:23Adam Kempenaar:He has believed about himself and it does completely mirror what we see play out with Forky right at the very beginning of Toy Story 4 and the other characters throughout the series in different ways. But really, I think there's a mirroring in those characters where they know for certain what they are and are determined to exist only in that realm and have to come to the awakening and have to come to terms with know what this is what you really are. Yeah, and a lot of children's films are about the sort of idea that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. And the Pixar films, I think at whole, but specifically, especially within this franchise, these four films are about people kind of learning to embrace their limitations.

46:07You know, it's characters learning to accept who they actually are rather than who they would like to be, which is pretty unusual territory for animated films. You know, I also feel like there's such a seismic cultural change between 1999 and 2010 when Toy Story 3 comes out that to some degree I remember seeing three in the theater and with this big action sequence thinking, oh, Pixar kind of has to argue to a new generation of kids why toys are important. Because by the time Toy Story 3 comes out and even more so Toy Story 4 comes out, I don't know that toys have the same cultural relationship to children.

46:45Adam Kempenaar:No, you're absolutely right. In a very digital world. Yes. You know? Yes. So I feel like they needed a sequence that wasn't just a kid wagging dolls around his floor, but a sequence that made it seem like the most exciting Western adventure in the world to sell you on why this matters. So you're saying my number two pick is pandering to the younger crowd? No, no, no, no. No, it's a bridge. You're building a bridge between generations. There you go. OK, so we've shared eight pretty fantastic scenes from this series, but we have two more to go. You're number one. You're locked into a lot of things you can't change.

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47:48Adam Kempenaar:Because nobody plans anything, bro. Good thing the Rogue's ready like that. For real. Rain, dirt, whatever. Available all-wheel drive. Five modes. We still outside. And they got some kick, too. That turbo? Torque is crazy. The most in its class. It moves, moves. Rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space. Merch on merch. Gear. Mikes. All of it fits. Load up. We out. 2026 Nissan Rogue. Built for all of it. Auto Pacific Segmentation, 2026 Rogue vs. Latest in-market competitors in the ex-SUV mainstream mid-sites class, excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites. Hello, hello, this is Malcolm Glabal from Smart Talks with IBM.

48:32Adam Kempenaar:Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari HP. Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari. I'm still working on rolling my R's. But what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age. Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team. You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history. And now you're interacting in a kind of digital space.

49:16Adam Kempenaar:I'm curious how you balance those two traditions. When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans. To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit ibm.com slash Ferrari.

50:03Adam Kempenaar:or contact your travel advisor. Applications, where your story starts. Yeah, so you gave me your list, what you were thinking about, and your number one is, you know, I think what most people would jump to as the obvious moment, and I probably would have picked it if you hadn't, but this one is right up there for me, and it's the moment that really, I mean, crystallizes the whole thing for me, and it's when Buzz and Woody finally fly at the end of Toy Story 1. Yeah. Um, it's sort of this beautiful payoff to this incredible extended action sequence. Um, that is sort of the best, um, sort of example of the Toy Story movies, Rube Goldberg plotting, where you put all these elements in play and nothing is without meaning.

50:47Everything pays off at some later point and the chain of actions and missed opportunities and lucky breaks, everything just barely happens. So even down to, you know, Sid placing the match in Woody's holster. So he has it there when they need to light the rocket. But then, of course, it goes out. So they have to call back the use of the refraction of the sunlight and Buzz's helmet, which he only learned because he was tortured by Sid in the magnifying glass. I mean, all these things are so perfectly set up to this sort of a static moment that is, I think what the Toy Story films exemplify is this sort of belief in storytelling that the ending, what you want to be driving towards is the thing that feels surprising but inevitable.

51:33It has not been foreshadowed so heavy-handedly that it's a matter of sort of formality to get to that ending. But when it happens, you realize, of course, that's the only thing that could have happened. Everything's been building to this as the only outcome. Right. So this final payoff moment where they're able to somehow get up into the sky, drop RC into the truck and land into Andy's car and save the day and everything works out perfectly. You know, it crescendos with this beautiful moment of catharsis where Buzz and this is another echoing thing. At the beginning of the film, you have Buzz adamant that he can fly, which what he knows is not true.

52:11and somehow through literal blind luck, I mean, he closes his eyes and happens to do everything right so that he believes and it appears to all the other toys in the room that he is flying, which Woody says, no, that's falling with style. Then there's the second scene in the movie, which you invoked, the I will go sailing no more when Buzz tries to fly, the Josh Larson memorial scene and it has to accept his limitations that he cannot, that he is broken, that he is a toy, that he doesn't have any power. And the third and final moment is when he knows he's a toy, but he realizes what he can do as a toy.

52:46And yeah, I mean, the beautiful sort of like, it's the final Rube Goldberg payoff of the wings releasing the rocket and them continuing to soar. And Woody's saying, oh my God, Buzz, you're flying. And Buzz saying, this isn't flying, it's falling with style. It's a beautiful callback and it's a funny line, but it also is, it's kind of the completion of Buzz's arc, where once again, he has learned to embrace what he is. You know, he is able to save the day because he knows that he is a toy, that he can pull this off, not because he's magical, but because the aerodynamics of it makes sense.

53:20Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, yeah, I love it. And you raise such a good point about how these films are so carefully plotted and structured and meticulous in kind of just the basics of the storytelling. And yet you still get caught by surprise with moments like that. They're set up perfectly. and we get some of the bookends, the different things we've talked about, those payoffs, and yet somehow with these films, you don't really see them coming. Right, I mean, what you were talking about with the train sequence at the beginning of three, the exact same thing happens with the video game sequence at the beginning of two, where when they're in the air ducts trying to get to Alice's apartment, every single beat from the opening of the video game sequence happens again.

53:59You know what all the outcomes are gonna be. You know when they're gonna fall, when they're gonna succeed, and when Zerg's gonna show up. but it's surprising but inevitable.

54:08Adam Kempenaar:Yes, that's it. Well, speaking of inevitable, my number one, right? It's what you said was obvious and sometimes here with Top 5s I try to eschew the obvious but I feel like other times you really need to embrace it. And this is one of those times. Toy Story 2, When She Loved Me. Now, you said that that sequence, the incinerator, just makes you break down and you can barely finish it. I would at least still throw out there to people whether or not there is truly an equivalent scene or sequence emotionally in the entire series. The ending, the very ending of Toy Story 3 with Andy and Bonnie, for me, probably comes the closest and also the incinerator and that kind of moment of resigning themselves.

54:51Adam Kempenaar:But this still eclipses those. And I really can't think of anything in the series prior. You know, again, we were through one and a half films at this point, but I can't think Think of a moment or a montage that would have really set us up for just how devastating the sequence is. I mean, before I say more, is there anything like it you can think of? No, no. I think this is the moment the series clicks on to another level because they're sort of finally addressing the elephant in the room, which is that kids grow up. Something that is totally avoided in the first one and is the fundamental tragedy of these creatures lives.

55:26Yes. And to have it done in this very sort of restrained, wordless sequence, to have the whole movie sort of stop and the entire rhythm of the film to change in order to give you the backstory to this character. It's another backstory that's, you know, surprising but inevitable. Yes. You assume that Jesse had to have had an owner at some point. Some trauma, yeah. But having to watch it really makes it impossible not to root for this character and connect with her and feel for her and to cry.

55:56Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, and what you just articulated about what this sequence does and what two does that one doesn't, that for me is why, as good as Toy Story 1 is, I don't understand why anyone would rate it just ahead of two on their list. That's the complexity and those kind of layers that I spoke to earlier. This is, of course, the Randy Newman song, but Sarah McLachlan singing and really telling us through the lyrics and through the visuals on screen, Jesse's backstory. When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful. Every hour spent together lives within my heart. And when she was sad, I was sad. And again, this beautiful yellow sun, the imagery coming through the windows of this memory, this nostalgic glow.

56:50Adam Kempenaar:and that great shot we get of the horse wallpaper, all these horses kind of thundering along and we get Emily's hand that's just coming up into the frame and moving Jesse along as she's galloping with them. And then as she comes back across the screen, one of these great just little subtle Pixar visual moments, her movement becomes a wipe that takes us to the next scene where now it's no longer daytime, but it's at night and they're playing together under the covers And the whole way through this scene, they use point of view and the way they elide time is so fascinating because we see when she falls behind the bed and she kind of crawls out under the bed to see what Emily's doing.

57:34Adam Kempenaar:And only from her point of view do we see that Emily's doing her nails, I think, with a friend. And then the next shot is one from Jesse's point of view of the dresser and the horses we see change into makeup. And she turns her head once more and now another point of view shot. And instead of more horse items and Jesse, it's a record player. And it's these other grown up objects as if this whole transition of the nails and the makeup and the record player all just kind of happened within seconds, which to Jesse, it probably felt that way. And then seeing Emily again on the telephone and it's only her arm and the phone from Jesse's perspective under the bed.

58:14Adam Kempenaar:As I've said, these point of view shots are so prevalent in the series, but it just aligns us with these toys so that we're always understanding the distance of play. Sometimes that's physical distance here. It's mostly emotional distance. And that moment then when we see the junk collecting under the bed and it seems like Jesse's just going to be forgotten forever. And this glorious moment of Emily reconsidering and taking her to the same spot they used to play in. You're just set up for a happy ending here. You're hoping it's going to be. But she just drops her off and just sets her in a box to go.

58:49Adam Kempenaar:And two more great shots. Another point of view shot looking out the hole. Jessie, her perspective looking out the hole as the car drives away, and then they cut to showing the box from the front pulling backwards as if from the point of view of the car. Again, it's kind of giving us this sense of distance pulling away. And I think this whole sequence, too, gets back to the idea of empathy. We've talked about it a lot. It's so central and important to this entire series. This is the moment where we, through kind of Woody's eyes almost, You know, by by taking in this story, we see exactly what Jesse went through and the change of heart that he has about staying.

59:28Adam Kempenaar:I mean, that whole third act, really, of Toy Story 2 is driven by this sequence working the way it does. And it absolutely does work. It's just so devastating and yet beautiful to watch. And somehow the song, which is incredible in its own right, lost to You'll Be In My Heart from Tarzan at the Oscars. I mean, a historic mistake in the Academy Awards up there with Green Book winning best picture. But I do think, you know, a beautiful thing at the end of that moment is that Jesse also for the first time expresses empathy for Woody because she's always been so dismissive anytime he brings up Andy.

1:00:08And it always feels like in kind of a bratty way. But she's really showing her hand, which is I totally get it. I just have been through the other end of this and you don't know what's about to happen. Yes. And that this is inevitable and it's unavoidable. And that's the moment I think the whole franchise drops into another level, you know, with them having to embrace the inevitability of their meaningless, their meaninglessness, rather. I love that so much of the story of Emily's growth, you only see her feet or you're seeing which other objects are joining Jesse under the bed, which phases are moving past.

1:00:48You really only see her hands and her feet for most of this number. And there's the beautiful shot when she's got Jesse sitting next to her in the car while they're driving. And Jesse totally believes that she's about to be played with on the same hill with the tire swing. Yes. And Jesse, I guess because Emily isn't looking at her, feels free to drop out of statue mode and just sort of take a breath and sort of lean her head against her and just enjoy the moment.

1:01:15Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And it reminded me of a moment in Toy Story 4, right, where Woody finally gets embraced by Bonnie on the bed by accident. and we see a similar reaction. Yeah, where they need that affection so badly. I mean, I think it is objectively the best moment and I congratulate you on getting the opportunity to place it as your number one. See, that's really why I shared my picks with you. I just wanted to stake my claim first. Now you know my secrets. You have squatter's rights. Squatter's rights, right? Home court advantage, as it were, here on FilmSpotting. But I like for once being told that I'm objectively right about something.

1:01:48Adam Kempenaar:That's something I would never hear ever from Josh and probably never will. So I'll say it again. You won the top five this week, Adam. Beautiful. Those are our top five Toy Story scenes. We have covered a lot of ground over this show. We have touched on not only these 10 choices that made our list, but snuck in a lot of others here and there. So did we leave anything out? Is there something else that you just got to get to as an honorable mention? I was saying there was another moment in Toy Story 2 that is sort of detail obsessed, which is the reveal of all the merchandise from Woody's Roundup, which is another kind of beautiful piece of visual storytelling where you understand the entire history of this character, the arc of his cultural prominence as a children's television figure.

1:02:37And I think once again that picture eye for detail every single item is so deliberately rendered where you understand Okay, this is kind of a chintzier product. This is a higher-end thing. This came in a cereal box. This was bought at a store It's all sort of well done The other two buzz flying moments which I mentioned are right up there and Yeah, and then we talked about the moment where where Woody and Bo are reunited in for and and the montage of Forky trying to throw himself out over and over again and for my other favorite moments in that film.

1:03:11Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, for sure. You know, you bring up Buzz and Woody again, and it makes me think about one of the things I did love about this series, really stuck out to me on rewatch, is the way they mirror each other, right? Their trajectories really mirror each other, especially through those first two films. And you see it in that sequence you just mentioned, the look back or the revelation that Woody is this old toy and that he was super famous and we had all these other elements to the show and stuff, because in some ways, Buzz has always been kind of this ego driven character. Right. And Woody never has.

1:03:44Adam Kempenaar:And yet in that moment, he kind of succumbs to the rush of being this well-loved character. Right. And I feel like that's absolutely why he one of the reasons why he's initially like, OK, maybe I'll go along, because he kind of gets his ego stroked a little bit in the same way that we recognize in Buzz. There's the great moment where he's going through all the merchandise and testing it out and bragging about all of it. And it's sort of this victory lap for a character who hasn't felt cool in so long. That's it. And it's beautiful because he does need to be humbled by hearing Jesse's story. Woody, you're not a collector's item.

1:04:19Adam Kempenaar:You're a child's plaything. You are a toy. For how much longer? One more ripping it, he's done with me. Having had the pleasure of been on Blank Check a couple of times, it was great to return the favor and have Griffin on Film Spotting. Definitely need to do that again soon. My thanks to Griffin for joining me for such a fun top five. Access to the Film Spotting Archive and access to top fives like that and reviews like our Toy Story 4 review. That's just one of the benefits of being a Film Spotting Family member. There are many more benefits, and you can learn about those at filmspottingfamily.com.

1:04:57Adam Kempenaar:Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

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