Pixar marks Toy Story’s 30th anniversary with Madrid event and fresh glimpse of the fifth film ahead of its June 17 release
Pete Docter and Lindsey Collins reflect on the franchise that pioneered computer animation as Toy Story 5 prepares to hit theaters on Wednesday.
Madrid anniversary event and the road to Toy Story 5
Pete Docter, Pixar’s chief creative officer, and producer Lindsey Collins led a 30th-anniversary celebration at the Academia de Cine in Madrid on Thursday, 12 June. The event, presented by Spanish animator Raúl García, offered two preview clips of the upcoming fifth instalment, directed by Andrew Stanton (WALL·E, Finding Nemo), which arrives in cinemas on Wednesday 17 June. Docter, who joined Pixar as its third animator in 1990 and helped shape the first Toy Story’s story, recalled the studio’s scrappy origins.
When we started, we couldn’t find anyone who had done computer animation. Barely two or three people. So we had to train people and even set up computers with new programmes. Everything was held together as if by pins.
Building a computer-animated first
Docter described constant, last-minute changes that defined the 1995 original. The final sequence, in which Woody and Buzz cling to a rocket, originally had Buzz answer Woody’s shout of joy with “No, I’m gliding.” In the final edit, the line became “I’m not flying, I’m falling with style,” a rewrite that Docter said captured the essential arc of the space-ranger toy. “Those kinds of changes happened constantly,” he added. Collins, then a Disney staffer working on Pocahontas and Hercules, recalled seeing Toy Story for the first time.
For the first ten minutes I kept asking, ‘What am I watching?’ I’d never seen anything like it. Woody and Buzz felt like real people. They made jokes and did things a real person could do. I quit my job at Disney and within a couple of weeks I was at Pixar.
Living through time
Collins said the franchise persists because it “embraces the passage of time.” The toys do not age, but they watch Andy grow up, move to college, and hand them to Bonnie, while each sequel marks a new chapter. Andrew Stanton, she said, calls them “little vampires.” The production team avoids jokes or references that would date the films too quickly.
We don’t freeze them; they are living the passage of time with us. You don’t want to make films that are too ephemeral because they will feel outdated in three seconds. We want the kind of films that grandparents pull off the shelf to show their grandchildren, like the old Disney films.
Pressure, legacy and a founder’s exit
Even after three decades, Docter admitted the burden of expectation on a new Toy Story picture remains severe. “The pressure for each sequel is enormous,” he said. The franchise’s history also carries a more complicated chapter: John Lasseter, who directed the first two films and was a founding force at Pixar, left the studio in 2018 after multiple employees accused him of sexual harassment. The current team, led by Docter and Stanton, is now steering the saga into its next era.
