Toy Story 3 (G, 2010)
common sense media says
Smart, funny "threequel" is scarier than the first two.
parents & educators say
- 68% say violence is an issue
- 51% say there are positive messages
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that while the third movie in Pixar's flagship Toy Story franchise is bound to please moviegoers of all ages, it is scarier and more intense than the first two (which is why we've rated this "threequel" at a higher age than Toy Story and Toy Story 2). Overall, the latest adventure shared by Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and the rest of Andy's favorite toys is kid-friendly -- but there's a fairly long scene of the toys in serious peril toward the end of the movie that many 3- to 5-year-olds could find quite upsetting. There are also a few new toys that act a bit mean and creepy (particularly a Big Baby doll and a cymbal-clapping Monkey) and scenes in which favorite characters are trapped by cruel authority figures. But there are also wonderful, touching messages about friendship, loyalty, and imagination. Note: The 3-D version of the movie may make certain parts feel more immediate/lifelike, but the movie's intense scenes have a strong impact no matter which version you see.
Educational value:
Kids may learn the value of appreciating and taking good care of their favorite toys.
Positive role models:
Andy's toys are all brave and willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. Woody is one of the most loyal characters in movie history -- his dedication to Andy above all else is admirable (if sometimes hard for his friends to understand). The rest of the toys are also quite brave and helpful, and they don't quit on Buzz when he's not acting like himself. Even the alien "kids" are quite willing to do anything and everything to save their "parents" Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and friends from danger. Toy Story 3 introduces some new characters who aren't as admirable as Andy's crew, but they face the consequences of their behavior in the end -- and some even get a fresh start.
Violence & scariness:
Spoiler alert: In one particularly harrowing/scary sequence set in a junkyard, Andy's toys narrowly escape death several times; at one point they look like they're about to fall into a very fiery incinerator. It's a tense scene, and some kids will find it upsetting. A few of the Sunnyside toys are creepy -- especially the Big Baby doll and the screeching Monkey. A few scenes meant to suggest prison culture/abuse show toys being tied up or thrown in a sandbox as "punishment" -- or, in the case of Buzz, "reset." Some bullying and harsh talk between toys; a few perilous scenes. The opening sequence includes spaceship attacks and a train falling/crashing, but it ends up being the product of Andy's imagination.
Sexy stuff:
Flirting between toy characters like Ken and Barbie (it's love at first sight!) and Buzz Lightyear and Jessie. Some innuendoes (as when Baribe tells Ken that she likes his "ascot").
Language:
Mild insults like "shut up" and "junk."
Consumerism:
Several of the Toy Story characters are recognizable brands (like Barbie, Ken, and Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head). And beyond that, the Toy Story franchise has the potential for the most merchandising tie-ins of any kid-targeted movie series. Toys, action figures, books, party supplies, plush dolls, you name it -- Disney's Toy Story characters are everywhere, especially kid favorites Woody and Buzz Lightyear.
Drinking, drugs, & smoking:
Not applicable.
More on Toy Story 3
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Review It
Based on 265 parent & educator reviews:
- 68% say violence is an issue
- 51% say there are positive messages
- 38% say there are positive role models
Most useful reviews by all members
Full-time Parent
parent of 6 and 9 year old
parent of 6 and 9 year old
Due to a schedule snafu, I happened to see this movie tonight with another adult. There is NO WAY that I will bring my kids to see it. The entire movie is emotionally draining. It is a great film, but definitely not a happy film. Just becuase it's animated does not mean that it is appropriate for kids. Especially kids who are thoughtful, sensitive, empathetic, etc. The movie has a very sad undertone. Not to mention the horrifying scene at the end where the toys are going to be incinerated. I have two boys (5 and 8) and they would be extremely sad during the film and would, I'm sure, have a really tough time going to sleep because parts of it were so scary.
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cascadesmom
parent of 6 year old
parent of 6 year old
Left my 5-yr-old sobbing!
Our diehard fan was so excited to see TS3, but he got nervous when the daycare center characters became menacing. Then came the sinister screeching monkey, straight out of a Stephen King novel. The junkyard incinerator was the final straw. He's ok with the intense scenes from the first two movies but the dark & scary stuff is just relentless in this one; it went on and on. Several children in our theater were crying. We're thankful we didn't see it in 3-D!
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WaterNymph
adult
adult
Parents: Please Read
First of all, those of you who are saying this movie was "intense" and "too scary", I have no idea what you're talking about. There was nothing scary about this movie. Secondly, this movie was not intended for tiny children anyway. I'm 18 years old. Toy Story 1 and 2 came out when I was a little kid, and they purposely came out with 3 when people who grew up with Toy Story were older and could relate to Andy and the changes he is going through. I loved it, it was very meaningful, had a great message, and was extremely touching for us 90s kids who grew up with Andy and Buzz. Love Pixar!
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MeredithR
parent of 1 and 4 year old
parent of 1 and 4 year old
My three year old and her three year old friend saw this together in the theater, and they both loved it! They weren't scared during the intense "near death" scenes, maybe because we talked about how this movie was just pretend beforehand, or maybe it was just because they are only three and don't understand the concept of death yet. The monkey and the big baby were creepy even to me, but the kids didn't seem bothered and those characters didn't come up in conversation later.
I think the movie was a little too violent for small children. There were several scenes containing slapping and hitting and general throwing around of others. Little kids won't understand why some of the characters are nice in some scenes and mean and physically violent in others. It makes it hard to tell who the bad guys are.
Also, I said there was too much sexy stuff, but that was just because of the the Barbie/Ken scenes. There are also inferences to Ken being gay because of his love of clothes and his personal grooming. But I think all of this went over our kids heads.
Overall, this was a highly entertaining movie that really did appeal to the wide variety of ages in the theater in which we saw it.
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To Blathe
parent of and 4 , 6 , 8 year old
parent of and 4 , 6 , 8 year old
This one has an emotionally dark side that may be too intense for sensitive children
The violence is not a problem, but this movie does contain some emotionally mature situations that can be disturbing to a more sensitive audience. The reviews neglect to mention a very dark scene in which a clown explains why the teddy bear and other toys turned bad. It was an unexpected turn for a comedy, and had both the adults and children raising eyebrows, and my sensitive 6 year old was in tears.
I also didn't like the message of the bad bear staying bad in the end - there was no reforming him.
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inel
parent of 10 and 13 year old
parent of 10 and 13 year old
This is not at all appropriate for children.
Violence, nastiness, creepiness, sadness, separation anxiety,sadism,
gambling, .... i could go on. No reason to expose children to this movie which is obviously more concerned about impressing adults. Please think carefully and perhaps choose another film to take children to.
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timmycuddlebea ...
kid, 12 years old
kid, 12 years old
pretty violent for a g rated movie!!!!!!!!1
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StepMomSterToo
parent
parent
Perfect Little Movie, but very emotional
We have four kids, the youngest is under two, so going to the movies can be a bit harry. I find that children under two aren't so worried about movies being scary, but once you hit the latter part of two up into three, children start relating things to their own lives, i.e. making connections. This movie was a bit emotional and intense, and for the most part younger kids (five and younger) will either not understand the emotional intensity or quickly forget the scary parts once the happily ever after happens. I personally loved this movie. It had everything the first two did and more. I thought it was sweet and sad, and it ended perfectly. I thought this movie was by far the best movie Pixar has produced. I can see the concerns for kids finding this movie too emotional. I think the best thing is to know your kids. For example, my three year old loves Monsters, Inc, but for awhile she didn't want her closet door open at night. So, just know your kids' limits. This movie is great for everyone, but just know it has a lot more drama and sadness in it than most kids movies. In the end the movie has great messages and characters your kids will love for years.
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FilmDaddy
parent of 5 and 7 year old
parent of 5 and 7 year old
Wait for rental when you can fast forward through some very scary scenes
What was Disney thinking? This is Toy Story meets Star Wars (toys being dragged into firey pit) meets Boogey Nights (Ken doll scenes - enough said). My 4 year old actually wanted to leave because he was so scared. Yes it's entertaining for Tweens and up, but this franchise was geared toward the preschool set. The fact that it got a G rating is further proof the rating system needs a compete overall. For those with young children -- I know there will be pressure to take your kids to see this, but if at all possible try to wait for video when your kid will be 6 months older and you can forward through some of the scary parts that really serve no purpose to the story. This just doesn't meet the age expectations for viewers that the previous two movies set.
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lovedisney
adult
adult
NOT good for sensitive kids who still 'believe' things are 'real'. VERY INTENSE for small children.
Just an fyi that we feel that kids should be 6 and up for the new Toy Story movie.
Of course, It's just our experience with our twin 5 year old girls and 8 year old son, but our 2 girls found several parts of Toy Story 3 too intense and scary. And even 3 days later, one of them is saying that it was too scary and she never, ever, ever, wants to see that movie again. They are now skeptical of all of those toys shown in the movie.
(Spoiler info below)
Basically, the good toys get involved with some 'bad' toys at a day care center who not only 'punish' the good toys by locking them up in cages (crates) and putting them 'in the box (sandbox)' for trying to escape, but the climax involves a very intense scene of all the good toys (Woody, Buzz, etc) heading towards extermination in a landfill incinerator. (reminded us of the fiery last scene in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith). And the meanest toy is heartless and cruel throughout and even with many chances to 'change and do the right thing', he keeps choosing to be bitter and a villian.
If you have a young child who still 'believes' in things, then this might not be the best choice. We didn't even see it in 3D and the effect would have been even more intense.
We loved the other two Toy Story movies and still watch them all the time, but we were disappointed in the story line for this long-awaited movie. It's as though they made scary moments longer and more dramatic than necessary for 'effect'. Beginning is fine, end is fine, but the middle had our girls crying and screaming. Many little ones all around the theatre were jumping into their parents laps and we were all trying to explain that is wasn't real....but it took almost 20 minutes for 'everything to be okay' and that was frustrating.
The movie is a good Pixar family movie, but we feel that people with young kids 5 and under may want to not see it on the big screen.
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BigThom1208
adult
adult
Another great Pixar movie that has a lot to say but G is too low a rating.
While Toy Story is a movie made for kids it has some very perilous and infecting scenes that made even me, a 21 YO kid who loves dark dramas a little uneasy. This movie introduces some new characters(Lotso, Big Baby ETC) and they're all very dark characters, especially lotso. These characters are portrayed gambling and laughing at the pain of the "new" toys at Sunnyside Day Care and none of the antagonizing characters find redemption. The oppressive new toys forcce characters like Buzz and Jesse to be in the "toddler Room" because they are seen as having no value. Lotso and his "crew" use terrorizing techniques to intimidate the new toys and force them to do what they want. It's not a good message to be sending to children. Scare people and they'll do what you want them to. Also the Scene with the incinerator at the landfill is outright heartbreaking. The toys accept their fate and wait to be killed in each others hand embrace. This scene brought back memories of Schindler's List for me and is far too deep a concept for young children to understand. It's not like in other movies where i character is heroic and does something risky to save their friends. It's just them accepting death for no reason. It was a powerful scene but for someone who can understand that.
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Singleview
parent of 3 and 4 year old
parent of 3 and 4 year old
Too intense for a 3 year old!
Here I go. I JUST CAME BACK from watching a very well done movie. It was a work of art. BUT this movie is NOT for your 3 year old. My son has watched Toy Story 1 and 2 several times on DVD. He has also been to Disney world where he has watched several short movies (this was a year ago). So although this was his first movie outing, he was (I thought) ready for it.
Well, the truth is, he would have been ready for it had it been Toy Story 1 and/or 2. Toy Story 3 is a different kind of a 'toy story'. The themes in the movie are a lot DEEPER.... MUCH TOO DEEP for a 3, 4 or even a 5 year old. I'd think 6 year old may start to be ABLE to comprehend some of these DARK themes.
The movie was too loud, the characters were too intense, and although the ending was happy and - yes I admit - broke me down in tears.... I think my 3 year old may have been affected a bit by the intensity of it all.
Look, it was a VERY well done movie - - and I really enjoyed it. But this is supposed to be TOY STORY, not "Leaving Las Vegas".
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pokemonlover234
kid, 13 years old
kid, 13 years old
I saw Toy Story 3 with my parents yesterday. After the movie, we all came to one conclusion: It was the worst of the trilogy, and too scary. It was almost a very bad movie.
The beginning was okay, and there was nothing bad there. In fact, the beginning and the very VERY end were the only good parts of the movie. The middle had a LOT of fighting and violence. At one point they are carried off in a dump truck, and Buzz Lightyear glows (because he can glow in the dark) with an eerie green light. My mother says, "It looked like a horror movie. It also reminded me of a horror movie." In the eerie light they desperately climb over the pieces of dirty glass, plastic, and paper, which is a scene that could look creepy. What shocked me the most (and scared me!) was the scene where all of the toys are holding hands with their eyes closed, waiting for a very painful death. They are sliding down into a big, fiery pit, which is an incinerator. It was very sad, and it really shocked me. I am especially afraid of fire, so this is NOT a movie I want to see again. Just because of that scene. You can also see some of the plastic toys' 'skin' starting to blacken.
"Lotso" the bear who is the antagonist in this movie, is stuck to what he thinks is right. And this is what he thinks is right: "If your kid replaces you, or donates you, or sells you, or anything along those lines, they do not love you at all and never will." He is very brutal, and causes the fire scene. He will attack any toy that wants to go home, back to their kid. If they toy loves the kid, the toy should try and give the kid a 'second chance.' Lotso never realizes this along the course of the movie, and never softens. He stays just as cold and doesn't change, and that is not a good message. Lotso forces Woody and the other new toys to stay in the Caterpillar Room, where they abused and thrown around by young toddlers. At the end of the movie, a guy who is taking care of the trash and taking trash from trashcans back to the dump truck, finds Lotso. "I had me one of these when I was a kid!" He exclaims, and tapes Lotso to the front of the garbage truck. There are other toys there who have been 'abused' and 'worn out' from being tapes to the front of a truck for many days. They could have inserted a message there that said "Even if I'm not a kid anymore, I can't treat this thing like trash." Though the movie ends well, and Andy expresses his good feelings toward his toys, it is sad that Disney Pixar would make such a scary movie. In my opinion, some of Pixar's PG movies were milder than this, but that is just my family's opinion. This should have been given a PG rating at the least.
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mmuse
parent of 5 year old
parent of 5 year old
Maybe for 6+
I read this review before taking my 4 1/2 yr old to see the movie. I had talked with my son about the scary scene that was mentioned here. But, within 15 minutes of the movie, and every few minutes after, I thought, "this must be the scary scene." Most of the movie was intense. My child isn't very sensitive to this, so he was fine. He did say that the monkey with the cymbals was really scary. I loved the first two Toy Story movies; I may have to watch this one again to love it.
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tomdryan
parent of and 4 , 5 , 9 year old
parent of and 4 , 5 , 9 year old
Toy Story Meets "Cool Hand Luke"
This movie should have been rated PG, no question. It has some very intense scenarios, including the middle third of the movie when the main characters are locked in a "prison" under the control of a sadistic character and his cronies. Pixar was trying to be cute by alluding to stereotype characters and situations from adult movies, but it just comes off as creepy. There are also age inappropriate gambling and sexual references.
Toward the end of the movie, there is another intense scene where the main characters are heading for certain death -- it looks right out of a movie about the Holocaust.
The only consolation of this film is that many children may not fully understand its negative implications because they have not seen the "reference films" to which the scenes and scenarios refer. Thus, the movie could actually be slightly more intense for adults than for the children because we understand those references and can't believe that we are sitting in a movie letting our kids be exposed to these negative images. The kids are scared, but not to the degree that they would be if they fully understood those references. Even if they don't understand everything they are seeing, it does desensitize them to brutality and violence.
I feel like this movie is Hollywood preparing our youngsters for even more sadistic and violent movies as they get older. Can't we just let kids be kids and let them enjoy the relatively boring and sweet G rated movies of years gone by? Does Hollywood always need to "crank it up a notch" movie after movie? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the age-based ratings system?
All that being said, the end of the movie (last 5 minutes) was clever, touching and emotional for kids of all ages. I wish the entire movie could have been a little more in that vein.
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NYU Dad
parent of 8 and 10 year old
parent of 8 and 10 year old
Beware of the scary toys
Don't underestimate how scary the baby and monkey are. They really scared my 6 year old son and are not appropriate for a G rated movie.
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Chris V.
adult
adult
There's something that the latter parents need to understand.
Well to clarify I say this movie at the Harkins theatre in Chino Hills Ca. on the midnight screening. The theater was PACKED! Surprisingly though not with children as most people would expect from a Pixar movie. The thing that needs to be clarified is that this movie was NOT made for children. As visible by the age group filling the theater, this movie was made for those young adults in their late teens, early twenties. That's why I loved this movie. I first saw TS1 when I was 5 in 1996. I even remember getting a Buzz doll on my 6th birthday. Pixar making a movie for the people who originally saw the movie 15 years ago is absolute genius. Not one movie studio would ever be loyal enough to their customers to do this. There is some dark humor and a lot of macabre as other reviewers were pointing out. I went with my girlfriend (19) and she cried silent tears next to me in the trash incinerating scene as everyone gasped in horror and just as they where saved the humor in the scene rejuvenated the crowd the way no other movie could. If you fit in this category you will absolutely LOVE this movie, just understand that most likely this will be a date movie and not a movie you take your little sibling on. What a lot of overprotective parents don't understand is that every age category will take this movie in a different perspective. A (4-6 y.o.) child (one of 4 in the whole theater) in the seat below me was clapping his hand in excitement to the last scene while I was grabbing onto the edge of my seat. Aside from that there are a lot of social jokes thrown in (such as Barbie pulling out a quote about under-controlled governments) that will make adults laugh out loud while their child will laugh along and not understand, which is completely OKAY, it's what makes this movie so great for a general audience. This movie in general was made for my age group but CAN be enjoyed by a whole family. I do advise though that if you have a child that is oversensitive to wait until they are mature enough to understand this film critically (usually 13 maybe 16 for the overprotected bunch). For those that can take this action filled style they will get a moral lesson in loyalty, trust, and learning that righteousness or doing the right thing is always correct. This movie is packed with positive messages it just might be a little mature for some.
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437746
adult
adult
freaked out my kids
Hated it. It's tense enough to present the concept that kids will eventually outgrow their toys. This move goes step further into outright abandonment and the that a toy that gets abandoned will turn evil and hurt other toys. Yeah I know it's just a movie but between this issue and the very intense scenes both my kids were freaked out completely. My 7 year old had nightmares and my 4 year old starting crying the following day about the abandonment issues that were brought up.
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joshua martinez
adult
adult
toy story 3 is a perfect family movie for your young kids the only issue is that there's a little bit of cartoon toy violence the educational value is good Kids may learn the value of appreciating and taking good care of their favorite toys the message is good it's all about friendship, loyalty, teamwork and collaboration, Sharing, teamwork, and ingenuity are all celebrated the role model is that Andy's toys are all brave and willing to sacrifice themselves for each other.
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hrobbins70
parent of 7 year old
parent of 7 year old
Good movie but no 3D activity
Loved it, but I think the 3D is a waste of money. There wasn't anything 3D about it. I don't understand why they even offered it it 3D nothing came out at you, NOTHING! It was a great storyline though.
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