If you are a Toy Story fan and 2019 is too far away to wait for the release of the fourth installment, you can get your fix with an ambitious and charming 79-minute live-action remake of the first film.
Live Action Toy Story is available on YouTube. The shot-for-shot remake is a tribute to the first movie from 1995. Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta have mixed live-action filmmaking, puppetry and stop-motion to retell the animated classic. The film took two years to be made and was released online in 2013.
Directed by John Lasseter, Toy Story revolved around a group of anthropomorphic toys and their adventures living with their owner, six-year-old Andy (John Morris).
A critical and commercial success, Toy Story is the first computed-animated feature-length film as well as Pixar’s first feature-length production. The toys introduced in the film, such as the cowboy Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and the astronaut Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen), have gone on to become pop culture icons in America.
While recreating do-it-yourself tributes to films using action figures or toys is not new, Pauley and Perrota’s remake features actual dialogue from the film and the soundtrack by Randy Newman. The makers of Toy Story at Pixar were charmed by the tribute. With Pixar’s blessing, the makers were allowed to distribute DVDs of their film outside the Pixar studio in Emryville, California.