The 30-Year Journey of Toy Story: How Pixar’s First Feature Redefined Animation

22 November 2025

Toy story, Disney

November 22, 2025 marks three decades since Toy Story first brought office toys to life in a vibrant computer-animated world and changed the animation industry forever. The film opened at a time when CGI was still a novelty and carried the weight of being the very first fully computer-animated feature.

Behind the scenes, the story of Toy Story is as compelling as the film itself. Voice actor John Morris who played young Andy recalls that for his audition a seven-year-old Morris brought two dozen X-Men action figures, signalling how imagination and play shaped his performance long before the microphones were on.

Originally, the movie had wildly different characters: a ventriloquist’s dummy and a wind-up toy named “Tinny.” It took studio feedback and rewrites to distil the story into what we recognise today: Woody the cowboy and Buzz Lightyear the spaceman, rivals turned friends in Andy’s room.

At its core, Toy Story grounded its technical innovations in human themes: friendship, identity, change. Animation professor Paul Van Opdenbosch describes how the film found success by combining new technology with a buddy-comedy structure, where two very different characters learn to rely on one another mirroring films like Lethal Weapon, but with toys.

The film’s release proved pivotal: not only was it a commercial hit, grossing hundreds of millions worldwide, but it also legitimised computer animation as a mainstream art form. If the film had failed, the trajectory for Pixar and CGI features might have been very different.

Its cultural impact has endured across generations. Children who first watched it with their parents decades ago now take their own children to see it, often for the first time themselves. The emotional weight of the story works on multiple levels: for kids it is the thrill of toys in motion, for adults it is the bittersweet transition of growing up and letting go.

As the franchise expanded through Toy Story 2, 3, and 4, each film deepened themes and technical artistry. The upcoming Toy Story 5, slated for release in mid-2026, promises to explore how toys respond to an increasingly digital world bringing back familiar voices and pairing them with new ideas of play and purpose.

Reflecting on the legacy, it becomes clear that Toy Story didn’t just entertain: it inspired. Animators and filmmakers who grew up watching it credit the film for sparking interest in the medium; educators point to its blend of craft and story as a model for what animation can achieve.

Looking back also reminds us how far the technology has come. Pixar’s early animators were navigating uncharted territory; they created virtual cameras that mimicked real filmmaking, used design constraints to bring organic shapes into CGI and relied on story to support the novelty of the medium. Without that foundation, later advances would lack the grounding that made Toy Story memorable.

As we mark the anniversary, the film remains relevant not because it was technically first but because it stayed emotionally clear. The cleverness of Buzz believing he is a real space ranger, Woody’s bitter jealousy, the ensemble of toys led by their cowboy it all works because the characters feel alive. Morris states that he still gets goosebumps when he hears Woody’s first lines in theatres.

In many ways the film also anticipated broader cultural shifts. The idea of play, of objects gaining life when humans aren’t watching, is now mirrored in digital avatars, AI assistants and virtual reality. The fact that a film about toys still resonates in 2025 shows how its themes are not locked to childhood but speak to change, relevancy and belonging.

So for anyone revisiting Toy Story this week, consider how much the landscape has changed or how little the core remains the same. The technology has advanced, yet the fundamental story beats are every bit as powerful. The movies to come may explore new territory, but this one set the course.