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| Newman |
Toy Story 3: (Randy Newman/Various) Years of studio
upheaval delayed the third film in the
Toy Story franchise until
Walt Disney Studios bought Pixar in 2006, finally opening the door for
the production to commence fully. Instead of keeping the plot of the new
film rooted in the era of the original story, the heads of Disney and
Pixar decided to age the characters in the lengthy time that had elapsed
since
Toy Story 2 debuted in 1999. Thus, the plot is one of
relative melancholy, depicting a grown up Andy ready to move out to
college and his famed toys with an uncertain future. Instead of going to
the attic for storage, they accidentally end up in a daycare named
Sunnyside and run by a tyrannical toy bear. It's a place of torture for
old toys, essentially, and Woody and Buzz Lightyear have to find a way
out of Sunnyside and back to Andy house. The majority of the plot
consists of one long chase for redemption and love, though the appeal of
Toy Story 3 is its incredibly sentimental conclusion. Despite
some pushback from critics on the tear-jerking conclusion, the film
enjoyed overwhelmingly positive reviews and nearly earned back its $190
million budget in just a week of theatrical distribution. A familiar
cast and crew graces
Toy Story 3, including Randy Newman as the
irreplaceable musical voice of the franchise. It was
Toy Story
that really launched Newman into a notable place in animation history,
his many subsequent scores for Disney and Pixar lending his unique touch
of jazz and orchestral mayhem to the genre. Although he still
occasionally writes music for animated movies, Newman has arguably past
his time of prime exposure in this arena. Still, there is no doubt that
continuity is an invaluable asset to any franchise, even one without a
constant thematic tapestry as this one. The music that Newman has
written for the concept, outside of the favorite song "You've Got a
Friend in Me" from the original, has always been appropriate but
anonymous, failing to really establish a strong narrative flow or
maintain readily identifiable motifs for characters and concepts. It is
because of this failure to nurture an identity in the music outside of
its general instrumental style that the
Toy Story scores have
always been average listening experiences at best on album. That trend
is sadly reinforced by
Toy Story 3, regardless of the fact that
the score won a Grammy Award. The style of the score for
Toy
Story was a hyper-active combination of Carl Stalling music for
Warner Brothers cartoons, vintage jazz, and a touch of ragtime. The
second film built upon that foundation and added throwback
science-fiction and Western mannerisms.
For
Toy Story 3, Newman (with three co-writers)
loses the sci-fi, jazz, and ragtime elements and merges the slapstick
cartoon material and Western homages with a dose of slight bayou blues,
Mediterranean mafia stereotypes, electric guitar rock, vague Parisian
romance, and Latin rhythms and acoustic guitar flourishes. Most notably,
though,
Toy Story 3 is defined by its plentitude of rowdy action
sequences of straight orchestral bombast (albeit the somewhat
light-handed sort that Newman creates to emulate the Stalling sound).
Listeners who enjoyed Newman's take on that classic cartoon sound in the
previous scores will appreciate the 20+ minutes of similar material
here. It seems frightfully generic, however, and only in the final two
cues does the score truly exhibit the heart that occasionally stole the
spotlight in the franchise's previous soundtracks. The tender piano and
string performances in "So Long" are as subdued and introspective as
Newman can seemingly be in this context, yielding a surprisingly lovely
and engaging moment. Unfortunately,
Toy Story 3 continues to
suffer from thematic ambiguity all the way to the end. The sleazy
half-blues/half-Mediterranean material for the villain of the daycare
clearly occupies the mid-section of the score, and the sentimental theme
at the end is unmistakable. But as with the other two scores, the
franchise's primary identity, "You've Got a Friend in Me," is all but
forgotten. Slight references, such as the brief optimism at the outset
of "Going Home," are simply not enough. Thankfully, unlike
Toy Story
2, Newman does provide a new song with his own voice, though the
melody of the rather bland, vintage, rock-influenced "We Belong
Together" does not convincingly anchor the score. Also a nagging
difficulty with these scores is the collection of references to
mannerisms of other composers, whether it be Ennio Morricone and Marc
Shaiman's Western styles or James Horner's solemn piano work.
Ultimately,
Toy Story 3 is an effective score but by no means
memorable. Don't expect it to conclude with a positively rousing, upbeat
send-off to infinity and beyond. It's nice to hear this franchise reach
its conclusion with Newman's music, but these scores were never that
cohesive to begin with. Disney opted initially not to press a song and
score album on CD (the two songs, Newman's "We Belong Together" and a
Spanish rendition of "You've Got a Friend in Me" by Gipsy Kings, were
put on a six-song CD with the other films' songs, sans the original
"You've Got a Friend in Me," a stunningly irritating marketing ploy),
instead offering over 50 minutes of it for download. As with
Up,
however, Intrada Records pressed a CD of identical contents a few years
later. Both products are simply too long of a presentation for this
harmlessly generic score, regardless of Newman's stature and the affable
nature of the music.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Randy Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.1
(in 22,920 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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There exists no formal packaging for the 2010 release. The insert of the 2012
Intrada album includes notes from the director and composer, a list of performers, and
outstanding photography from the recording sessions.
