Here are the three stages of discovery of the Live Action Toy Story film on YouTube:
Stage 1: Confusion
I don't get it…like, a guy recreated his favorite scenes from Toy Story in real life?
Stage 2: Wonder
Wait. It's the WHOLE MOVIE? That's awesome!
Stage 3: Confusion
Wait, is it awesome? Or is it just kind of weird and time-consuming?
In 2010, two friends, Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta, started recreating, shot-by-shot, the entire 1995 animated Pixar classic Toy Story. Their version kept the original audio track, but used real people and real toys. It took two years to complete. The filmmakers, now 19 and 21, uploaded the final product to YouTube a couple days ago. People seem to love it.
"Amazing" reads one comment on the video.
"This is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen," another.
"Wow this is amazing!!!!!"
The amount of work that went into it is certainly mind-boggling. But how is it as a film?
It's a little chilling to see the toys, famously vibrant in the original, looking so blank-eyed and plastic and, well, like toys. A little terrifying to think that, if your toys actually sprung to life when you left the room, this is how they would move: rigidly, jerkily, unblinkingly.
It's not immersive or emotional. It's Toy Story as horror.
But the film is impressive in the same way that any labor of love, like, say, a 10' x 10' version of van Gogh's "Starry Night" rendered in jellybeans, is impressive.
"I can't believe someone took the time to do that."
"I wonder where they got all those jelly beans?"