Growing up with Toy Story: Toy Story 1: Choose friends wisely - KS3/4

Resources

• Three readers
• Toy Story toys will be very helpful as props
• Music suggestion: download the theme for the film, ‘You've got a friend in me' by Randy Newman
•  PowerPoint presentation provided (PP)

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Engagement

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Leader: In 1995, film history was made. The very first all Computer Generated Images (CGI, or CG) animation was released to an excited film-going public. ‘Toy Story' was the first film by Pixar, a revolutionary new film studio in Hollywood, and the film world was never the same again.

Reader 1 (Buzz): Buzz Lightyear to the rescue! (Makes flying noise and swoops the toy around)

Reader 2: Gee, I never knew that toys came like that before.

Reader 3 (Woody): Come on folks - he thinks he's real! We all know that we're just toys.

Reader 1: I'm no toy - I'm Buzz Lightyear, international space ranger, flying out to rescue those in distress, but needing to find my space ship so I can return home...

Leader: And so we have the opening plotline for this ingenious film, which is now recognised world wide, as well as being selected into the American National Film Registry as being of cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.

The film is action packed, full of humour that is aimed at both children and the adults accompanying them to the cinema. Some of the praise given at its release complimented the cleverness of the script, which drew the viewer into the world of the toys - something that deep down, many of us believed in when we were little - and the reality of the family life that we see around them.

Later on in the film, we see Buzz provoking enormous insecurity in Woody, that Buzz will replace Woody as Andy's favourite toy. This leads to both Buzz and Woody falling out of the car on a trip to the ‘Pizza Palace'.

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Here, the toys are joined by some space alien toys, who as some of you will know play a key role in the third Toy Story film. Found by Sid, the boy next door, Woody and Buzz face certain death, or rebirth as a horrible conglomeration of several toys by the evil Sid. They realise that they have to work together if they are to survive.

How they survive and find Andy and his family at their new home is so funny that in 1995 many left the cinema with tears still running down their cheeks.

Reflection

Leader: I am assuming that most of you here have seen Toy Story. The first two Toy Story films were shown on TV shortly before the release of Toy Story 3 in 2010, and the DVD sales were huge.

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It is a story with meaning on two levels: the relationship between Andy and his games, and the relationship between the two main toys - Buzz and Woody. It raises questions about how we relate to our ‘best friend', and how we cope if the other person seems to have moved on, as well as making us think about who we choose to be friends with, and how we accommodate new friends into established groups.

Think about the scenario of a stranger coming into an established group that we are shown at the beginning of the film. At first, Buzz captivates the other toys with his confident swagger, good looks and various special effects- ‘to infinity and beyond!' Woody feels pushed out as the toys crowd round Buzz, and then when it seems as if Andy also prefers Buzz, Woody feels completely ousted. Woody can't see beyond his own feelings of insecurity to the advantages of being friends with Buzz, and trusting that the old relationship that he has with Andy is secure, and will remain.

It is only when the two toys are lost, and their very existence is threatened, that they realise that together they are far greater than the sum of their parts. Together they manage to escape from Sid, but not before challenging Sid to change his ways, and stop torturing his, as well as his sister's, toys. Together they work out how to get home, to that great place of safety, and realise that there is enough room in Andy's heart for both of them.

Response

Leader: Choosing, making and maintaining friendships is always difficult. Think about your own ‘best friend' or group of friends. How often do you have a falling out, even if it is over something quite insignificant?

How often do you feel pushed out when ‘Three's a crowd'?

And how often do you have to admit that maybe you were wrong in your first judgment of a new person arriving in your area or class? That actually, you like this person a lot more than you thought you would, and maybe you could even be good friends with them?

Woody and Buzz travel a long way together in Toy Story - physically and emotionally, too. Perhaps that journey resonates with you and a friendship or relationship that you have? If not, then I'm pretty certain that at some point in your life, you will recognise that you too have had to change your mind abut whether you want to be friends with someone, and the benefit of that change is enormously good.

You might like to use these words as a prayer:

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We think today of the enormous creativity that was present in the group who made Toy Story,
And we give thanks for the truths contained within the film.
We reflect on the value of our own toys in our childhood.

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Today, may I be a true friend
Constant and secure.
May I always be able to join in the refrain
‘You've got a friend in me'
Amen

Ronni Lamont