Tin Toy

With "Tin Toy", Lasseter pushes the boundaries further than he did with "Luxo Jr.". The character of Tinny has truly believable facial expressions including joy, fear and puzzlement. I especially like the part when Tinny first comes out of the box and sees the baby put another toy in his mouth. The horrified look on Tinny's face is a priceless comic moment. True, the baby doesn't look quite right (at least it sounds cute), but I think Lasseter did the best he could with the technology of the time. I still felt bad for the baby when he fell down. After all, ugly or not, he is just a baby!

Although some of their features/short films are better than others, anything by Pixar by my standards is worth watching. Tin Toy is one of their early efforts, and while not one of their best short films like Geri's Game or Presto it is definitely worth watching. The animation is not terrible, but their more later efforts had a more sophisticated look. There are some nice colours, and Tinny is beautifully done with dead-on facial expressions, but fluidity is lacking at times and the baby is more scary than cute. The music is beautiful though, there are a few amusing moments amidst the more compassionate tone and the characters are engaging with Tinny being one of the Pixar title characters I identify most with. Overall, definitely worthwhile, but Pixar have done better in my view. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Prequel or spiritual Predecessor to Toy Story.

Seriously, it's all right there. The nightmare fuel baby, first time the very dated CG in one of these early Pixar shorts feels completely appropriate to what tone they're going for, could easily be Sid as a toddler, with how much he terrifies the living toys.

This is the first of these in chronological order that actually got a chuckle out of me. The idea that the titular character literally struggles to move without playing his instruments, which attracts the unwanted attention of the monstrous, drooling, destructive creature, is genuinely funny. I appreciate a shot near the end of this that greatly increases the scope, without adding an inhumane load to the animator's work. This is found on Disney Plus for no additional fee after subscription payment.

I recommend this to completists. 7/10.

"Tin Toy" is a simple short with only two main characters. A little tin toy band member that walks around and plays the symbols is the protagonist, and the destructive little baby is the antagonist. It's a simple story that follows the very childlike statement that "You don't want something unless someone else does." and vice versa.

A little tin toy is lonely. A baby crawls into the room and the tin toy can't wait for the baby to play with it. Soon it finds out this baby is a destructive force, tearing apart and drooling on everything it sees. The tin toy has several changes of heart which end in a bit of a twist ending.

This is one of Pixar's earliest shorts, and the animation is far from perfect. It doesn't have the fluidity seen in their later productions, but you can't blame them, this was '80s computer animation. One thing that Pixar has kept over the years it's their perfect way of portraying emotion. Just through little movements of the face, they give great emotion, which is what this short relies on, as there is no dialogue. It's a good and sweet natured short.

My rating: *** out of ****. 5 mins.

Lasseter as director, anthropomorphic toys and a nightmarishly destructive baby. Yes, Tin Toy was what Disney desired after it won Pixar's first Oscar and acted as the primary inspiration for the much beloved 'Toy Story'. Again, much like with 'Red's Dream', there are several aspects which are admirable and others that proved too challenging at the time. The star of the short, Tinny the one-man band player, is the crowning glory. Beautifully rendered with fluid computer animation where a layer of gloss acts as a reflective surface, allowing another level of aesthetic detail. The environmental scenery, that of a lounge, is full of texture and vibrancy (given the limitations of technology back in 1988). The story is short, sharp and sweet, profoundly more optimistic and fun in comparison to the melancholic 'Red's Dream'. The difficult challenge was animating a human baby, relying on several facial muscle movements to express emotion. Alas, it's aged incredibly badly. The body movement was jagged and unnatural, the skin looked plastic and overall is enough to give anyone nightmares. Indicating that technology and time were factors that became a detriment to this particular model. And as always, these shorts are nearly instantly forgettable, acting as a proof of concept as opposed to an endearing narrative. However, Tin Toy established computer animation as a legitimate art, and so for that I am thankful for Lasseter and his team of animators.