How Pixar’s darkest scene was almost even darker: “It did come as a surprise”
Pixar has a long history of traumatising children. Finding Nemo starts with the brutal murder of Marlin’s wife and children. Bing Bong’s heroic sacrifice in Inside Out is impossible to get through without crying. And let’s not even get started on Up. However, when it comes to the really dark stuff, you could argue that there’s nothing better (or worse) than the incinerator scene from Toy Story 3.
After being betrayed by the evil, strawberry-scented Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear, Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang find themselves trapped in a massive furnace at a landfill site. After realising that there is no way out, the toys join hands, ready to face oblivion together until the little green aliens rescue them. That is weapons-grade horror and, quite frankly, has no place in a children’s film, but it’s an unbelievably moving scene that has entered movie folklore. And it could have been even worse.
Adrian Molina, who would later direct the equally heart-breaking Coco for Pixar, worked as a storyboard artist on Toy Story 3. In an interview with The Huffington Post, he revealed that there were plans to make the incinerator scene even bleaker than it ended up being. “The only reference that I remember about that was a version that editorial had cut together, where in an effort to make the film shorter, they just sent all the toys into the incinerator,” he said. “It did come as a surprise.”
Molina clarified that he was pretty sure this was a joke, but there’s nothing funny about sending several cherished characters to their fiery graves. The third film in the franchise came out in 2010, 11 years after the most recent instalment and 15 after the one that started it all. This means that the kids who grew up watching Toy Story were now teenagers or young adults, possibly with children of their own, so this scene was doubly damaging for all involved.
As horrifying as the scene is, Molina revealed that he was actually rather fond of it. “I think it’s one of those moments where it’s in the most dire of circumstances that you figure out what you’re made of,” he said. “That was really the moment those characters had to go through to realize what was important to them.”
He wasn’t the only one who was a fan. Quentin Tarantino listed the film as his favourite of 2010, beating out the likes of The Social Network and the Coen brothers’ True Grit remake. It became the first animated movie to gross over $1billion at the box office and it is still within the ten highest-grossing animated films ever. When awards season rolled around, it was nominated for five Oscars, including ‘Best Picture’, only the third animated movie to achieve such an honour. Whilst it didn’t win in that category, it did take home ‘Best Animated Feature’ and ‘Best Original Song’ for Randy Newman’s ‘We Belong Together’.
Though their movies are ostensibly aimed at kids, Pixar have never shied away from more mature subjects, which is one of the reasons why their films are so eternally popular. They bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood, delivering important parables disguised as brightly-coloured adventures. As the audience of the original Toy Story grew up, so did the movies, which allowed number three to deliver one of the most chilling scenes in animation history.
