Pixar’s second 30-minute television special, Toy Story That Time Forgot, is set to premiere on December 2 and features many of your favorite friends from the Toy Story gang – along with a slew of new characters. The special finds Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Rex, Trixie, Mr. Pricklepants, Mr. Potato Head, and the new, Angel Kitty, battling to find sanity among the Battlesaurs. The Battlesaurs are a band of delusional dinosaur toys who are so new they’ve yet to figure out that they’re toys (similar to how Buzz was delusional upon first arriving at Andy’s).
The special kicks off with Bonnie being invited to a friend’s house for a post-Christmas play-date, where she (of course) brings along some of her toys. Bonnie quickly gets distracted by her friend’s new gaming system upon arriving at the house, leaving her toys to fend for themselves among the Battlesaurs. So we don’t spoil anything ahead of time, that’s all we’ll say about the story specifics at this point – but be sure to head back the day after the short airs as we’ll post our complete and detailed review, complete with hidden items like the Pizza Planet Truck and Luxo Jr. Ball.
We immediately fell in love with the new characters – Angel Kitty’s adorable nature and soft-spoken voice endears you to her immediately and the Battlesaurs are so brilliantly designed that you cannot help but love them right away. The animation of the characters, specifically Reptillus Maximus is stunning – the way he moves when being introduced into the short is genius. His movements (as seen in the sneak peek from IGN below) showcase his confident and suave nature without coming across as arrogant.
Our personal favorite character is the Cleric – the wise elder of the Battlesaurs. His character design, vocal work (provided by the director, Steve Purcell), and shaky plastic-like movements are so great. You can tell the Pixar team put an enormous amount of effort into getting the Battleasurs “just right” – heck, they even have their own theme song which is in the special as well!
As we often talk about with Pixar’s work, the lighting is amazing and really gives you a desert grittiness and warmth that you’d expect to see in a gladiator-type setting. Steve Purcell’s brilliant direction and work with the layout team really shines in this special as well. The shot selections and camera angles really added to the suspense and paired perfectly against the music composition by Michael Giacchino. Sadly, there are no plans to release a soundtrack for Toy Story That Time Forgot, which was released for Toy Story of TERROR!, but the music is nonetheless fantastic. The score is dark and brooding in times of battle yet completely subtle and tasteful in the quiet moments of the special.
Overall, we can’t recommend Toy Story That Time Forgot enough – be sure to watch the special on December 2 at 8:00 PM local time (additional air dates and channels listed below) and then head back to our site on December 3 (10:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM PST) to chat about the special on our Live On-Air Google Hangout.
We can’t wait to hear your thoughts – you can watch & chat along when we go live directly on this page (in the embedded video below), on YouTube, or directly on Google+. Also, you can start tweeting in your thoughts and questions in the comments section below, chat about it in the Pixar Post Forum (readers are already listing some of the hidden Easter Eggs), or tweet using the hashtag #TSTTF (short for Toy Story That Time Forgot) and we’ll summarize the best comments and questions.
AIR DATES – DECEMBER, 2014
- Dec 2 – ABC – 8:00 PM (Premiere date)
- Dec 7 – ABC Family – 8:00 & 10:30 PM
- Dec 12 – Disney Channel – 8:30 PM
- Dec 13 – Disney Channel – 7:30 PM
- Dec 17 – Disney Junior – 7:30 PM
- Dec 18 – Disney Junior – 6:00 PM
- Dec 19 – Disney Channel – 8:30 PM
- Dec 20 – Disney Channel – 7:30 PM
- Dec 22 – ABC Family – 8:00 & 10:30 PM
- Dec 24 – Disney Junior – 7:30 PM
- Dec 25 – Disney Junior – 7:00 PM
I'm glad you mentioned the \”desert grittiness,\” the color palette of this short looks amazing.
The colors are great for sure! I'm glad you liked the phrase we used – we actually talked about it for a while to try and come up with a way to adequately describe the look that we were feeling when watching the battle scenes!