The original "Toy Story," from way back in 1995, was a fiendishly clever film. Its heartwarming story involved a good-natured but low-tech cowboy doll who was feeling all angsty about getting supplanted by a flashy, high-tech spaceman toy; quite a premise for one of the first animated films to be created entirely digitally, seeking to supplant the warm-and-fuzzy, human hand-drawn animation of decades past.
Filmgoers rarely register these sorts of ironies between content and means of production — just witness how many people swallowed the neo-tribal back-to-nature trip of "Avatar" whole, while somehow ignoring the fact that nearly the entire film was made inside a hard drive, not a forest.
"Toy Story 3" opens with a similarly ironic conception: A rollicking chase scene on a runaway stagecoach involving all the familiar toys — Sheriff Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Jessie, Rex and Slinky Dog — turns out to be all in the imagination of their owner Andy, making up the story as he plays contentedly with his plastic friends. It's the type of old-school creative play that's being supplanted by digital media and games — of which Pixar is a part — in which everything is created for you, and no imagination is required. A truer commitment to this notion would, no doubt, involve a filming style closer to the hands-on, puppet and figurine techniques employed by Henry Selick or Nick Park.